ukraine? >> guest: latest numbers is about 70% are in support. unfortunately we have a growing strain of i called isolationism. i don't know if there's a better term for it but it doesn't work for america. it's not america first to be isolationist. it's american worst policy. we have an opportunity to help ukraine beat a bully who is murdering innocent people and if we don't prevail here, the baltics will likely be next. they are nato countries and then -- >> we will leave "washington journal" at this time to take your life to the senate as part of her more than 40-year commitment to covering congress but you can finish washing after watching on the c-span now video app. the senate is about to gavel back in for more work on judicial and executive nominations. you are watching live coverage on c-span2.

the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. mr. hoeven: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: i scut that -- i ask unanimous consent that we proceed with the vote. the presiding officer: without objection, the the clerk will report $clerk report the motion to invoke chlorofluorocarbon. -- to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 1184, kelley brings bonn

hodge of pennsylvania to be united states district judge for the eastern district of pennsylvania, signed by 18 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waive add. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of kelley brisbon hodge shall be brought to a ecclesiastes. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 52. the nays are 43. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: the judiciary, kelley brisbon hodge of pennsylvania to be united states district judge for the eastern district of pennsylvania.

senate lawmakers working on judicial nominations, continuing to negotiate funding the federal government . in the house members are considering two immigration bills, one measure aims to expedite the naturalization process for non-us citizens serving in the military and the other bill, per country on employment-based immigrant visas. the house and senate plan to take the 2023 defense programs and policy legislation. you are watching live coverage of the senate on c-span2.

a >> mr. president. thank you, mister president. i want to talk a few minutes about inflation, but not just the problem. i want to talk about the solution as well and congress's roll. i don't need to tell the american people or my colleagues, the inflation we are experiencing today is the highest since 1982. it is ravishing the american people. depending which experts we

believe inflation rate is 8%, most americans will tell you they feel tired every time they go to the grocery store, they feel prices have gone up. i don't want to debate or discuss the causes too much. there are two types of inflation. there is demand inflation and cost push inflation. inflation is just basically too much money chasing too few goods. review restrict the supply of the goods, that is cost push inflation. if you keep the supply of the goods constant and raise demand for the goods that is called demand for inflation and the truth is our current inflation is a direct product of cost push and demand pool.

i do think, i know that the united states congress than we would have liked to deal with the pandemic but i also believe that once the pandemic was over and the economy was recovering, we kept on spending. and all of that spending was stimulative and all of that spending did add to inflation. once again too much money chasing too few goods. since the 1950's, mr. president, we have had roughly ten periods of inflation, some very high inflation, some more moderate. but ten inflationary periods, if you will. in which government decided we need to reduce the rising prices. we need to reduce inflation. most people remember the

inflationary period of the 1980's. i know you do, mr. president. but there have been ten ininflationary -- ten inflationary periods. normally what we do to deal with inflation, we talk about the federal reserve. we know the federal reserve to get prices down raises interest rates. why does the federal reserve do that? it does that to slow the eco economy. well, what does that mean? how do you measure slowing the economy? well, here's the dirty little secret that we all don't talk about much. when the federal reserve raises interest rates to slow the economy, i'll tell you how they measure it. they measure it in jobs. and they measure it in the unemployment rate. and in effect -- i'm not being

critical of them. the federal reserve is doing its job. but what the federal reserve does when it raises interest rates to slow the economy, they're trying to throw people out of work. they're trying to throw people out of work. now, i made a few note. right now the unemployment rate is about 3.7%. and if you go back in these ten periods of inflation, since the 1950's and look at how many people the federal reserve had to put out of work thord to -- out of work in order to get the inflation down, here's what you see. on average during those ten periods to get inflation down 2%, we had to see a rise in unemployment of 3.6%. now what does that mean?

today unemployment is about 3.7%. inflation is -- let's call it 8%. historically. i'm not saying it will be the case this time but historically that would mean that the federal reserve in order to reduce inflation by 2% would have to raise unemployment to 7.3%. and those aren't just a bunch of sterile statistics on a page. that's six million jobs that will be lost, people out of work. we have some really smart economists who looked at this problem. jason furman, for example, larry summers. they both happen to be smart economists who served president obama. they are suggesting that in order to get this high inflation

down, if we just depend on the federal reserve alone, that we will have to have an unemployment rate of between 7.5% and 10% for a pretty long period of time. that's anywhere from eight to ten million americans out of work. and that's a lot of pain. now, what can congress do to help? if you look at the worst of those ten periods of inflation, most people, i do, think of the 1980's. and most people consider paul pl volcker to be a hero because the then-federal chairman got inflation down. a lot of people think that the chair of the federal reserve then did it all by himself by raising interest rates so high

causing unemployment to go up so high causing a lot of pain, he didn't do it alone. congress helped him. when the reagan administration came in, the first thing it did, it cut taxes which was ininflationary -- inflationary. no question. but then the reagan administration and the united states congress worked with the fed-- worked with the federal reserve whereby the federal reserve would raise interest rates but congress tried to slow the growth in spending, not cut spending in the sense of our budget this year will be less than last year, just slowing the growth in spending and slowing debt accumulation. and that's how we conquered, other than now, the worst inflationary period in the united states.

it wasn't just the federal reserve. congress did its part. we have to slow the rate of growth in our budget, and we have to slow the accumulation of debt. now, you say -- not you literally, mr. president, but one might say, well, congress doesn't have to do anything, kennedy. the united states senate can do what it wants, and that's true. that's true. but if we don't, if we don't slow the rate of growth in our spending, if we don't slow the accumulation of debt, that is going to cause the federal reserve to raise interest rates even higher to slow the economy, to raise the unemployment rate,

to throw people out of work. and all i'm saying, mr. president, we all hate inflation, nobody wants this inflation, and we can debate till the cows come home about what caused it. okay? was it supply chains? is it ukraine? is it putin? i happen to think a big part of it is demand pull inflation, and we just spent too much money once the pandemic was over. but i know many of my democratic friends disagree with me. but they shouldn't disagree with me on this -- we need to do our part. to help our federal reserve. because the federal reserve is not raising interest rates just to raise rates. it's raising interest rates, which is its job, to throw people out of work. and if this has to raise interest rates to 10% or 12% and keep them there, we're going to have 10-plus million americans

out of work. you know what's work than not having enough money to pay for what you need? not having any money, losing your job. congress can help, but it's going to require help from both sides, both democrats and republicans. we're going to have to agree to spend less money. we just are. and i know we have needs, and i'm not saying cut the budget in half. but we have got to reduce the rate of growth in our spending, and we have got to reduce the rate of accumulation in our debt. and even then, we won't be able to avoid all the pain of inflation, but we'll be able to save, i predict, millions and millions of jobs we'd otherwise lose to these high interest rates. and i know not all my colleagues agree with me. they don't. i've got republican colleagues. i know that some of my democratic friends, but i've got republican colleagues, some

republican colleagues who think that how much we spend makes no difference. they think it makes absolutely no difference. and with all the respect i can muster, they are wrong. and all you have to do is look at history. and the only way we conquered inflation the last time it was this bad, in the 1980's, was through cooperation of the federal reserve, doing its job on the monetary side, but also this congress doing its job on the fiscal side. with that, mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

while we wait for senator come to the floor to speak, today senate lawmakers working on judicial nominations, off the floor senators continuing to negotiate funding the federal government passed december 16th. in the house members are considering two immigration bills, one measure aims to expedite the naturalization process for non-us citizens serving in the military and the other bill phases out the per country on employment-based immigrant visas, the house and senate plan to take up 2,023 defense programs and policy legislation. you are watching on c-span2. >> i love being on c-span.

good morning to your viewers. >> what would you like to see in a final budget package? >> got to get this defense bill passed and spending bill appropriation this done. those are the top two things before we go into christmas break. we have china as a front, russia conducting this barbaric invasion of ukraine, threats in the least. it is important we get a defense bill to keep building the new bombers, new icbms, training, that is the priority right now. >> you probably heard kevin mccarthy say wait until next year when republicans have more leverage. what do you think of that argument? >> we will have more leverage but important to get a defense bill now. it passed quite a good bill, overwhelmingly bipartisan with a huge majority. i agree with kevin mccarthy we

need to look at the vaccine mandate. we are the minority and we will tackle this in the majority but i hate to put our icbms on hold, farmers on hold, training on hold, continuing resolution cost the military $3 billion a month. they can't get back. ultimately it hurts our national security by doing a continuing resolution. >> when you brought up the vaccine mandates, what case would you make for its removal as part of the package? >> we will lose 60,000 people. that's what i'm being told, we have a hard time recruiting, people having a hard time retaining individuals. our recruitment is down. one of the big factors is the mandate. some people won't sign-up that otherwise would sign up for the military. in nebraska, we lose 15% of the people in many of their units. this will have a profound impact

on recruitment and retention and for what? i took the vaccine, got the booster, i recommend it but you still can get covid, you can still pass it on even with the vaccine. the payoff for getting it is not worth the cost of losing all these people. i don't think it is a wise policy. i think it is a foolish policy that we are doing it. it is hurting national security. >> when it comes to funding for the pentagon some say they want to see an increase in social programs if the pentagon is to get that funding. could you meet them at that point? >> shouldn't be dollar for dollar. tying a defense spending to what we are doing on the non-defense spending. we should spend on defense what we need for deep offense, not a dollar more, not a dollar left, send on social spending what is needed but this -- arbitrarily

tying a dollar for dollar increase or decrease doesn't make sense. basically on the left they are holding the defense of national security hostage to their priorities when it comes to social spending so i don't agree with that. of $31 trillion deficit, also a military that deals with china, russia, iran, we still have al qaeda terrorists in the world. when it comes to percentage of gdp we are at a very low point per gdp so we are doing a good job on defense spending, looking at overall siphoning of the economy, it is approval. >> are guest with us until 9:00 when the house comes in. if you want to ask questions 202-748-eight thousand one. for republicans, 748 in thousand for democrats and independents, 202-seven forty eight-eight thousand two. you can text us contact us at 202-748-8000.

you served as brigadier general in the air force. there is an op-ed today from the editors of the wall street journal that talk about the need for the be 21 bomber. what is the bomber and why is it needed? >> our latest bomber before the be 21 is the the 2 stealth bomber -- much of the technology is outdated and the chinese and russians have perfected the radars so you can detect the b2 as well as the b-52 are the be one. we need to update the bombers when it is 30 years old. the be 20 one has the latest stealth technology better than the b2 and if you want to hold targets in china you need the be 20 one. we don't want to use the be 20 one against china but we want the deterrent. if china knows we can hit anywhere in china or russia those countries are more likely to peacefully work with us and

not take risks to us and take up, threatened war. the be 21 has the best capability we have right now we need to penetrate a highly capable defense system so we need it. >> this is brian, independent line, your thoughts? >> caller: i was curious, were you in congress when speaker ryan and by congress lady kathy noris rogers promoted doing away with the house, ethics, and moral quitting, where you are sitting congressman at the time? >> with paul ryan, kathy rogers is still on. i don't remember this topic or that coming up but my first day -- go ahead. >> it was the first thing you guys had on your agenda for the new congress. >> now i know what you are

talking about. >> to do away with the house ethics and morals committee and there was such an uproar with your constituents that you guys retracted it. you supported that yourself. >> it's not totally accurate what you are saying, you said the first day we had a rules meeting, for the ethics, and paul ryan did too. i don't know what kathy rogers did but there were folks getting allegations made against them and hard time defending themselves so it cost $100,000 in legal fees. and paul ryan recommended against it, should work with democrats to find something we mutually agreed to. based on his advice i voted against it but the majority of the republicans voted to modify

these rules, and modify the rules and there was an uproar the next day. it was donald trump who said first thing to do on the first day of the 115th congress. what we did was revised it back by the end of the day. but voting against the rules changes, he recommended against it. >> from the republican line in virginia, tom, good morning. >> thank you guys for taking my call, c-span, you are a national treasure. i served in the military since 1987. i am coming up on 30 years, had a break except for college. i'm a senior chief warrant officer. our retention right now is being devastated by all of the politicization of the military. i watched of thing at the reagan

institute yesterday talking about why is that? why is retention down? why are so many soldiers leaving the military? the reason is it is so politicized they no longer want to protect the government that we have right now. they are still loyal to the constitution but the political leaders don't feel -- i heard an earlier congressman say i talk to all these to all the soldiers and sailors and marines and they are like i am not hearing any of this that they have a problem with wokesm, that is why they are leaving. they are leaving because the military has become so politicized they no longer want to be part of it and the families that have for generations protected our country, a small number of families so you are now losing those families support as well. which leads me to january 6th.

most people don't know this but the reason for january 6th, i wrote a report on amazon call inside the fbi optimistic terrorism strategy and you can find it on amazon. the reason for january 6th was very simple. a true faith and allegiance to the constitution is lacking in our political leadership. in addition to that, it started to affect our senior military leadership who are becoming woke themselves in order to keep their pensions. >> host: we will leave it there and let our guest respond. >> guest: i did 30 years in the air force myself, proud of defending our country, and the gentleman is accurate in this degree. when i go back home in nebraska i talked to so many families. time to retire for example, i served for 28 years, i loved my time in the air force but won't

let my kids serve, the military is too political. i am hearing that story over and over and that is why we are having a hard time with recruitment numbers. it has an impact on the retention. i get to the bases, the air force academy and i think the perception is worse than reality. i encourage our 4-star generals and secretary of defense to be clear that we are about fighting a war in the strongest toughest military in the world, defending the greatest country in the world the greatest country in the history of the world and when people hear that talk it inspires people to join. our leadership in the military has to do a better job communicating to the american people and the military itself. it is all about being the best military, strongest military, training because we have the greatest country in the world, but it inspires them and we are

not hearing that right now. >> what is your level of support for kevin mccarthy to be house speaker? >> caller: i am supporting him. the house voted 85% for him, 15% for andy biggs that ran against him. at that point you coalesce around the one who won especially with that huge majority. i asked the folks who are opposing him what is the alternative? they don't have one. it is time to come together as a team, teams when. when you have cowboys, they divide the team, we can the team that's unacceptable so i am one of the folks playing hardball, we are not going to be held hostage by a small number of people that will hurt the team so we will stand up to this so i support kevin mccarthy with 85%, we owe it to the team to come together and work as a team. >> host: you probably saw the story from the omaha world

herald about reaching across the aisle to find a more moderate person if kevin mccarthy can't get the votes. is that true? >> if we have multiple votes for leader mccarthy, we will support him. if at some .5 or 6 people will not be part of the team, we will not be held hostage by them and caved to their desire, 2% or 3% of the conference so -- call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: mr. president, when i gave my first speech on the senate floor 12 years ago or when i cast my first vote in the house 26 years ago, i had really no way to anticipate the challenges and opportunities that were ahead of us. i come to the floor today grateful to my colleagues on both sides is of the aisle and on both sides of the capitol. when we agree and when we don't, we're bound by the constitution

to seek a more perfect union. of course, i'm most grateful to missourians who have given me the chance to work for them as a county official, as missouri secretary of state and both the united states statehouse and united states senate. missouri is where the country comes together, the north meets the south, the east meets the west. no states have more states at its borders than us, and only one as many states as we have. we've been the population center of america for the last five decades, kind of moving down interstate 44 as the population has moved west and south. we set in the middle of the biggest piece of contiguous agricultural farmland in the world and the only one that has its own built-in transportation system, the mississippi river valley. st. louis is sometimes described as the western-most eastern city and kansas city really may be

more like denver and omaha than it is st. louis. springfield, where i live, kind of looks to the west and the south to tulsa and to fayetteville. the boothill of our state is the delta south in every way. the economy, the topography. what happens there is reflective of other places more than it is the rest of our state. i was in northern missouri quite a bit this summer. one of the people one day with me when i was secretary of state said, when we're up here, i always feel like we're on top of the world. i never go to northern missouri now unless i feel like i'm on top of the world. of course, every senator thinks their state is unique, and it is. a couple years ago i spent a few minutes each day trying to figure out for about a period of six months, wondering how the other 99 members got here. and with a couple of exceptions,

i was able to figure it out. there's still some question in my mind about a couple of our friends, but as i've looked at it, i figure outside somebody has unique people skills, other people have extraordinary political skills, maybe i.t. the ability to quick -- maybe it's the ability to quickly understand complicated things or the ability to explain complicated things so that other people understand them. most of the time, however, we just have an incredible amount of wasted talent. if you could take the collective talent of the 100 united states senators and make the most of it, there is no telling what might happen. part of that is because the senate isn't expected to work efficiently. we don't have many rules and what does get done usually gets done either by unanimous consent or total exhaustion. those are our two stopping points. our federal government was designed by people who didn't trust government and didn't want

too much of it. they made it hard to get things done. they opted for inefficiency and that inefficiency is really mind-boggling to people who are more familiar with the parliamentary system where if it doesn't get done -- if it isn't efficient, it fails. we certainly aren't built that way. we clearly found new levels of inefficiency in the past decade. one big bill at the end of the year to fund the government plus whatever the four leaders of the house and senate can agree to add to it. and once again we're at that year-ending process to cobble together some kind of result. now, the only thing worse than the way we do it would be not doing it. the only thing worse than the wait we do it, we just decide not get our work done and see what happens. so we're once again down to the next four weeks to get our work

done or, even better, the next three weeks. wouldn't be bad if we got it done in the next two weeks. but we're following a pattern here, in my view, we followed for too long. you know, i've seen the standard process of regular order work. in my first decade in the congress, it never worked perfectly, but it came pretty close to the standard that had been set for two centuries. there was -- there's good reason for how a bill becomes a law, whether you first saw it on a film strip, like i probably did, or schoolhouse rock, like my kids d you know how it's supposed to work. members of a committee and staff that know the most about an issue, they hold hearings, they mark up a bill, the bill s&l to be debated and -- the bill is to be debated and amended on both

the floor of the house and the senate before it goes to the president to be signed or vetoed. for 225 years, the topics of what to fund and how to pay for it dominated the congressional debate and we frankly need to get back to that, where people see what's going on and members feel bought into what's going on. but then and now, during that whole time, whether regular order was working or not, the rules of the senate really require finding someone on the other side to work with. there have never been more than 50 popularly elected republican senators and only a handful of times have there been 60 or more democrats. finding someone on the other side to work with produces the most lasting results. a couple of congresses ago there were 52 on my side and 48 on the other side. my staff decided it would be interesting, came to me one day

and said, we just thought it interesting to check and see how many of the 48 democrats you figured out how to be the principal sponsor of a bill with w and the answer was 44. i thought this was a pretty good number. my point then and now is, you don't have to agree obstruction of justice everything to work together. you -- you don't have to work together -- you don't have to agree on everything to work together. if you're particularly successful, both the members working together and their staffs think, gee, we could do that again. and health care research, senator murray and i along with chairman kohl on the house side and the ranking member and then chairman delauro worked together to change nih research. we've worked together on the travel economy and it's a big part of our economy. we worked to rewrite the

workplace harassment standards for the senate. we worked on adoption issues. senator brown and i passed a bill, advanced manufacturing. we'd known each other for years. once we figured out we could pass one bill together, we passed five. it has a good effect. senator stabenow and i have worked so hard on certified community behavioral health centers. we've worked on it for well over a decade now. we've made, i think, incredible progress. neither of us would have gotten that done by ourselves. senator capito and shaheen and portman and manchin all worked with me and our committee on opioid and dependents issues. -- and dependency issues. we were working real progress. i think the pandemic set that back. but it shouldn't stop us from moving forward. senator coons founded with me the law enforcement caucus. we've worked every time it came up to expand -- and the victims

of child abuse act, volunteer community efforts. the other retiring members i'd want to mention that i worked with as well. senator leahy and senator shelby, both on the appropriations committee and the rules committee. you know, on the appropriations committee, i got to see the last of senator inouye and senator cochran still at their best, barbara mikulski, people who didn't have to have a perfect result to have a result, and it was wonderful to get to watch them work. senator inhofe obviously totally focused on what it takes to defend the country. he was here for his remarks, his farewell speech, the other day, and pointed out that he'd found somebody that he didn't agree with on hardly anything -- barbara boxer -- and they came up with public works bill after public works bill. senator burr, who's leaving, has been my chairman in the

intelligence committee and so capable and so knowledge in that committee. he's been really incredibly helpful to me. senator portman and i have been at the leadership table in both the house and the senate. i've been in more meetings with rob portman than i've ever been with anybody that i've ever served on a committee with and it's been great. pat toomey, of course, brings incbp understanding of finance -- incredible understanding of finance issues and the economy. the longest relationships of course are with my house colleagues, senator thune, senator moran and i all came to the house at the same time, along with senator stabenow. senator moran, senator boozman and i all came to the senate together from the house. senator cardin, senator graham, senator cassidy, senator blackburn, senator brown, senator wicker and others have been part of my work life for a long, long time. together we faced big

challenges. after 9/11, we saw a new terrorist threat -- i was in the middle of that discussion of continuity of government, the sudden realization that our government could dramatically change and we hadn't thought about what might happen if it did change. dick gephardt and i came up with the structure for post-9/11 exception for victims that worked and unfortunately it's worked following now with a umin of tragedies, but it was something i was able to be there as we put it together. at the same time, president bush said we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies. and four presidents have now followed that standard. for me, legislative hietle would, of course, -- highlights would include what happens at

nih which has increased by 50% over eight years, the commitment we made to health care research. i mentioned senator stabenow earlier, but the mental health efforts, the changing we have all seen here in the past few years in how we talk about that issue and how we need to respond to that issue is something i'm particularly proud of. now, have a bill with senator heinrich, recovering america's wildlife act, that every conservation group in america is supportive of, maybe we can add that to the things i'll consider a great accomplishment before we leave here and it has to be in that big bill i talked about at the end. i had an incredible

responsibility to be part of two inaugurations. 100 million people watch live. tens of millions of people around the world watch all or part of it after that. it is so important we get it right. in 2017, i decided our theme would be the peaceful transition of power. and i remember at both inaugurations, the only thing i repeated at those two inaugurations was president reagan who said in 1981, what we do here today is commonplace and miraculous. commonplace because we've done it every four years since 1789, miraculous because we've done it every four years since 1789. 2021, i said this time let's talk about our need to have a more perfect union. the founders didn't promise a

perfect union. that were in that place pretty reasonable of what we could do and what we could be, but they did promise a more perfect union and that's the effort we continue to be part of. to get all of that done so many other people have to make it possible. all of us appreciate every one of our families. i think we all appreciate each other's families because better than anybody else, we know what families mean and how important it is that your family's part of this. my mom and dad were dairy farmers, they never suggested there were any limits to what partner could do in america. no sense that you couldn't do everything you wanted to do. i'm most grateful to abbey, my wife. i wouldn't be in the senate and wouldn't have stayed as long in the house as i did if abbey hadn't been willing to work so

hard to make it easier for me what i love to do. we are full partners and i am grateful for that. all of my children, and even their children, were too often being asked to defend what i did or what i believed or more often what people assumed i believed, but they got to be part of history too. charlie blunt was flying on air force one with president bush on his second birthday. who gets to do that? i will admit, however, nobody in my family ever said i wish you would quit, but when i did announce -- i said i would leave two years ago, no one said are you sure except for abbey, who said, are you sure? i always said if you had one skill, that skill should be

hiring. what good luck that has been for me. stacey mcbraid has been responsible for that. and derek coats led a great team that did so much for our state and in helping people deal with the federal government. my deputy chief of staff here, richard, is here completing 26 years in congress and 26 years of working together. he managed the details of the whip office in the house and the details in our office for the senate. the rules committee staff takes responsibility for helping to manage the daily infrastructure of the senate. no issue is too small or too big from -- everything from security decisions for the presidential inauguration to a recent call to ask whether we could release someone's pet owl in the russell courtyard so that owl would have a home and we'd all appreciate

it. senator klobuchar and i quickly decided it wouldn't be good for the russell courtyard or the owl and so the owl was not released. the republican policy commit staff deals with every vote on the floor, every nomination, every issue there's a paper out there explaining all of those things, every bill that's been filed. every amendment, even to the dreaded vote-a-rama, that staff is getting an amendment ready so their vote. i have another thank you to missouri voters. you know, my view of the need to find a solution to a problem really took place and took shape in the green county courthouse. i've been in all 115 of our counties since i announced i wouldn't run again.

there was some question as to my judgment. and in a lot of those courthouses, i visited with county officials and i said there is nowhere in america where you will likely get a solution to a problem than the county courthouse. filled with government officials who would help you to get everything done that could possibly be done. and then to be the first secretary of state in 52 years when i won that office in 1984, i never thought my leading argument was once you vote for the first republican ever, i thought it was, if you vote for me, i'll do this job and you will be pleased that you did give me chance to do it. i'm so grateful to them and grateful to that experience. and then a story that senator

klobuchar's told more often than i have. when i became the chief deputy whip, on my way to becoming the whip of the house, in the first month of my second term in the congress, i moved from the cannon building to the capitol building, and i looked up on the top of the bookcase in my new office in the congress and there was this bust of a person up there. and i said to my staff, let's find out who that is. and so they come back a couple of weeks later and they've got these newspaper articles from the 1930's and 1960's and they say nobody knows who that is. it's obvious when you get that bust down and look at it that it's a cleric. so it was the unknown cleric and it's been with me ever since. it's in one of my offices here. the point of the unknown cleric -- this is a bust put in the capitol probably no earlier

than 1830, and by 1930, nobody had any idea who it was. it had lots of meetings with new freshmen members in the house when i was a whip and those who were around to listen to this, i said the point of this is someone who is famous enough to make a bust and put it in the capitol and forget who they are, the point is what we do here is more important than who we are. thanks for letting had me do part of it with you. and, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. hawley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the junior senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, if i could, just a brief word of thanks and commemoration for my friend, the senior senator from missouri, roy blunt. it has been an incredible privilege to get to serve with senator blunt for these last for me three and a half years. in a sense i don't know that i would be here in the united states senate were it not for senator blunt. i think senator blunt was one of, maybe the first person to urge me to consider running for the united states senate. and it has been a true privilege to get to serve alongside him.