>> i would refer you to the white house counsel's office. >> in the president's own words he admits to having information that wasn't his. why did he smuggle it? >> i will let the statement of the present stand for itself or i just not going to go into a rabbit hole, down a rabbit hole with you. >> why did he not -- >> the u.n. envoy stated basically speedy we will be this program had to keep our commitment to congressional coverage. the u.s. senate about the gavel into session. no votes or schedule today. live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. the presiding officee

senate will come to order.

>> this was the most successful two years in decades. many people compare to the great society favorably are equally your son even new deal is about we get on climate. want to continue doing that and want to continue working in a bipartisan way wherever we can. that unfortunately right now house republicans at least with you seem to be headed have different ideas. on the very first day of votes,, they made their first order of business to make it easier for the ultra rich tax cheats to escape accountability. at the same time blowing $100 billion hole and the deficit. they say they don't care about the deficit but they seem to care more about making sure that those very, very wealthy people who use lawyers and accountants to go to all kinds of loopholes and pay at a lower percentage of

than the average american, that seems to be what they care about, as they actually create a hole in the deficit like preventing us from collecting money from those people. and that's what cbo said, not us. speaking of the deficit we are now witnessing the house gop recklessly with the fall. listen, it's clear, default would be a catastrophe for american working families. it's not an abstract issue. going to affect every american family severely and adversely, and brings brinksmanship, taking hostages, is being risky and not caring that average people. so let's look at some of it. if the maga gop stops paying our nation bills, americans pay the price. political brinksmanship would be a massive hit the local economies, american families, nothing less than an economic crisis. here's what would happen.

for instant interest rates would go way up. if you have a home loan the average person could pay tens of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage if they have variable rate mortgage. it would hurt social security dramatically, hurt medicare. the only people who will pay the price is partisan politics. home values will go down because when mortgage interest rates go up, home values go down. people have less money to buy home because they're putting a lot into the mortgage. and now, listen to this, house republicans, some of the house mag republicans asked their leadership, which are some house republicans from house republicans that the leadership has agreed to give gop radicals a vote on a 30% national sales tax across the board. 30% sales tax on everything. meaning right now with inflation beginning to drop republicans

are looking to make american families pay 30% more for every single thing they buy. the republican national sales tax is a disaster for american families. and you don't need to take it from me. grover norquist said the proposal is an assault on your retirement savings. he's hardly an ally of ours. steve forbes said it would raise house prices by $100,000 and raise american bills by thousands. there's nothing fair about this republican sales tax. so if republicans want to push this terrible proposal, they are welcome to make the case, make our day. similarly if republicans want to play brinksmanship with deficit and demanding cuts, they need to show us exactly what they want to cut. they attended when you put these bills on the floor, regular order and have votes. let's see what cuts the actual to make a let's see if they can pass any of them. i doubt it. i doubt it.

so to my gop colleagues, if you want to talk about all this stuff, then you have an obligation to show the american people precisely what kind of cuts you want to make. do you want to cut social security? you want to cut pay raises for our troops? do you want to cut medicare? do you want to cut police? do you want to cut help for the veterans? republicans all the american people answers, and at lunch senate democrats agree when ready and united to roll up our sleeves and deliver for the american people. senator durbin. >> thanks, chuck. the new maga majority in the house has promised this endless investigations, confrontations, impeachments and chaos. and also said they want to play games with our national debt. instead of paying our bills, which is our moral and legal obligation, they have decided to make a game of this.

the closest thing the new speakers come to suggesting an approach he might follow is to suggest he's going to eliminate wokeism, wokeism from the defense budget. does anyone have the definition for wokeism? anybody? anybody? of course not. this is maga gibberish which might make sense for those or catatonic watching fox tv but it does make sense to the american people and certainly doesn't address the responsibility which congress has to pay our debts and get it done quickly. we already suffering because of this suggested problem passing the debt ceiling. isn't it interesting, we did it three times during the trump administration with my partisan role calls, and now under the leadership of the current speaker of the house there's a question mark as to whether it will be done. while at the same time donald trump was creating more than 25% of our national debt in four years. 230 years of american history,

the national debt. trump added 25% to it in four years. so let's not post or holy pictures when he comes to budget balancing. let's do a constitutional responsibility and pass this. >> ms. stabenow. >> good afternoon. it's great to be back with all of you. senate republicans have a real choice to make now this year. they can work with us on behalf of the american people, or they can side with the house mag republicans and create chaos while working to benefit the wealthy and the well-connected. we know which choice is better for the american people. but as senator schumer said the first order of business by house republicans voting to protect wealthy tax cheats. think about that. people in my state, they willing to contribute to the strength of america but they think everybody ought to do that. everybody ought to pay their fair share. and, in fact, on top of

everything else are talking about there was a move that blew the deficit by $140 billion. of course the learning the deficit republicans specialty. almost 30% of the national debt, the national public debt that we have today, was done during four years of donald trump. and they were willing to raise debt ceiling not once, not twice, three times during the trump years to make sure that they were covering paying for huge tax cuts to the wealthy and the well-connected. now, fast forward to the biden administration. the deficit has fallen by $1.4 trillion under president biden, and we have the strongest job growth in a generation. there's a huge difference. so by working with us senate republicans have an opportunity to make life better for the american people. we can pass a bipartisan farm

bill that will support our farmers and our families. we can responsibly make sure our country pays its bills. we can continue to create good-paying jobs. strengthen our national security, support veterans,, ensure that seniors can retire with dignity. meanwhile, house mag republicans are creating chaos, playing chicken with america's checkbook, while proposing an agenda that will hurt american families and businesses from coast to coast. senate republicans have a choice. chaos or cooperation. we urge them on behalf of the american people to choose bipartisan cooperation so we can get things done. that's what the american people deserve. >> and welcome for the first time, for the first time ever at the microphone. >> not the first time here but we are. the senator from minnesota.

>> thank you, chuck, and thanks for your leadership i spent the last few weeks at home in minnesota, despite the vikings loss, we -- okay, to the giants who later went on. okay. it was a great game. it was a great game. all right? i spent the last two weeks at home in the middle of a lot of snow and ice but i visited 23 counties for 2023. i was on the canadian border. i was down in rochester and i could tell you based on that red counties, blue counties, talking to people in long-term care what they want is to make sure that they can move forward and they need workforce. they need childcare. they need to make things more affordable. what they don't need is chaos. over and over again they said that to me. think about the american people. we have been in hundreds of millions of sciences because of the pin connector where now come together. we are gathering together moving businesses forward. the last thing they want to do is go backwards. they don't want to go backwards

to january 6 and what happened right in this building, if you don't want to go backward to what they just saw in the house of representatives for the three days of hell. you want to move forward, and that means the international pressure over to yesterday means making things more affordable picky means being common sense. image working across the aisle which the senate has shown they can do time and time again with the bill that senator schumer led on semiconductor chips, with the work that we did together when he came to the infrastructure built him with the work the democrats did on allowing for prescription drug as well as investing for the first time ever in a big way when it comes to climate change. people want to move forward. they do want to see the chaos. it's as simple as that and that's why in america we pay our bills and we do the right thing. >> just underscoring this point. you look at the other side its total chaos. on our side there's unity. i'll be going to the white house with our leadership team and

with leader jeffries to continue to speak in one unified voice. yes? [inaudible question] >> well, the bottom line is the debt ceiling has been done three times under donald trump, once under biden, all in a bipartisan way with no brinksmanship or hostagetaking. that's what it's got to be. yes. [inaudible question] >> and look, senator sinema is an excellent congress member and senate member, and she has done a lot of good things here but it's much too early to make a decision. yes. [inaudible question] >> look, it is a huge difference between how the president handled it and how president,

former president trump handled it. one cooperative forward with the authorities. the other stonewalled for over a year. and the bottom line is simple. there are prosecutors in both cases. that ought to be able to proceed unimpeded without anyone pressuring them. yes. >> 2019 before president trump's 2023 election, help negotiate a two-year budget deal breaking the debt ceiling including $320 billion and discretion spending. would you be open to negotiating with the public and? >> i'm not going to negotiate in public. obviously again we want to make sure we negotiate a budget that's good for the average working family. we did that in the omnibus bill. we were very pleased with the outcome there. and hopefully it can be done again without brinksmanship. one when you get into specifics. last one. >> given to report about mike pence having this document, is it not income upon the senate to investigate and have some sort of oversight to ensure a nation

secrets are not being leaked out? >> senator peters is looking a bipartisan legislation in terms of classified documents. i support his efforts. in the meantime on the specific cases, to place the appropriate thing to do is have special prosecutor and that's what is happening here thank you, everyone.

[inaudible] >> so can't speak to that, if the chinese government is aware that or not. were closely monitoring the situation as adjusted earlier as we've been since the war started, and will continue to communicate to china the implications of providing material support to russia's war against ukraine. don't have anything specific on what they know or not note. we are certainly always communicate with them. >> yesterday -- sweden should not expect -- [inaudible] sweden to join nato. how to respond to these

with then vice president joe biden, the budget control act in conjunction with raising the debt ceiling. it actually worked. it reduced government spending two years in a row for the first time since right after the korean war. however, over the years most of us on our side felt it was squeezing defense unrealistically. democrats felt the same on the domestic side, and we gradually pulled away from us. but if you were generally interested in cutting spending, it actually worked. at that time the federal

deficit, the federal debt was about 12 trillion. it's now 31 trillion. in the course of the last congress the democrats without a single republican vote racked up another $2.7 trillion on top of what happened during the pandemic. so here's where i think we are. i can't imagine any kind of debt ceiling measure that could pass the senate would also pass the house. so even though the debt ceiling could originate in either the house or the senate, in this current situation the debt ceiling has to be dealt with, will have to come out of the

house. so i think it's entirely reasonable for the new speaker and his team to put spending reductions on the table. i wish him well in talking to the president. that's where a solution allies. again, at the risk of repeating myself i can't imagine any debt ceiling provision passed out of the senate with 60 votes could actually pass this particular house. so i think the final solution to this particular episode lies between speaker mccarthy and the president. >> last friday marked two years since president biden was sworn into office, and i think without question one of the biggest failures in his first two years in office is the absolute disaster we have at our southern

border. as you look at the data, statistics, the numbers tell the story. december was the largest month, single month, largest number of people who were apprehended trying to, or i should say who attempted illegal border crossings, that was over 250,000 people. the number of the got a ways is now 1.2 million people, and the last three months is average 70,000 per month. so the numbers continue to just get worse the president finally, finally took a trip to the southern border and obviously what we are anxious to see how is what he looked on his trip and is he actually going to do something. because talking about it is one thing but actually doing something to address this crisis is i think with the american people looking for, that's a solution. there are lots of things he could do. i'm inserting with just enforcing the law.

i would be a a very simple ple to start. he could reinstate rubbermaid in mexico policy. he could quit trying to do with the title 42 policy that is given our border patrol agents at least some wherewithal to stop people come illegally. he could end catch and release and he could finish building the wall. there are a whole series of solutions, many of which are obvious to i think a lot of people that the president and his administration so far at least seven unwilling to entertain. but this this is a disaste. it is a humanitarian disaster. it is a law enforcement disaster. it is a national security crisis if you look at the number of people not only the number of the types of people who are now coming across our southern border. it's a solution which cries out, or problem which cries out for a solution, and this administration as a said before has been entirely missing in action and it is high time they engaged and try to fix this

problem and those are a number of solutions which i think those will work. >> yesterday the president had his secretary of low energy jennifer granholm make an announcement and a veto threat from the podium at the white house. has to do with legislation of the house is about to pass that has to do with our emergency energy supply, the strategic petroleum reserve. it says if we withdraw more we need a plan for exploration of energy and the united states to refill that. i've introduced similar legislation in the senate. the reason this is so important is because our emergency supplies are now at a 40 year low. and we have gotten to that point because president biden in the run-up to the election with good from our strategic reserve 1 million barrels of oil each and every day for six months, 180 days. 180 million barrels of oil. he started doing it when energy

prices, gasoline was at five dollars a gallon. people were feeling the pain at the pump. it's nice to see the president finally admits that there is a relationship between supply and demand and the cost of energy and gasoline at the pump. yet the president continues to respond to the climate crazies who call the tune at the white house which is why they kill the keystone excel pipeline and why he continues to hammer on oil and gas exploration in america while the price of gasoline is going up again. the american people know what they want. they want energy that is affordable, available, and reliable. a what if a toll. they don't want us going to iran or saudi arabia or venezuela for oil and energy. but yet this war on energy by president biden has hurt our energy grid and it is hurt our energy security. you don't have to think back

very far to see. what would happen happened at christmas time with a cold snap that hit the country. people across the country were told to lower the thermostat, turn off their christmas lights, and don't plug in your electric vehicle because it was going to lead to brownouts or blackouts. and i'm not sure the president or his sidekick sector energy even knows the fact that vladimir putin continues to subsidize the climate crazy group of lobbyists and others who represent organizations that continue to lobby in this country against american energy. putin has been lots of money over a decade on this pic is of the people who argue against pipelines, gets energy infrastructure, against but i guess expiration meantime, my home state of wyoming, energy breadbasket of america, is told that to keep our affordable available and reliable energy in the ground.

the president daschle what is a friend say once to do? he heard the administration talk about banning gas stoves and the president made a promise to the united nations, he said $11 billion each and every year to the u.n. for climate reparations. i am going to absolutely everything i can as the ranking of the energy committee in the senate to make sure that the united states never ever delivers on joe biden's promises. >> well, it is great to be here and our new congress and we did have a couple new leaders with us as a comment for today. i want to welcome my friend shelley moore capital as our vice chair, and we have senator steve daines as well joining us as the chair of the interesse. so exciting times. a lot of changes coming forward. but folks, , the last three wees i've had some great quality time in the state of iowa, and i have

continued on visiting my counties. i was able to visit 33 different counties doing roundtables with farmers and those engaged in agriculture as we prepare for the upcoming 2023 farm bill reauthorization. i was able to meet with school groups and he did a number of open public town halls, hearing from iowans about all different topics. and what i find that is consistent with all of those meetings, all of those discussions, iowans are really concerned about what's going on with this administration. the things that i heardde floor today to talk about need for more american energy. we're approaching the end of january. winter storms have been covering the country. colorado to connecticut. we're seeing it everywhere, temperatures drop, energy prices go up.

in a typical year cold actually kills more americans than extreme heat. this winter millions of families are in danger of being left out in the cold because of the cost of energy. you know that more than 20 million households in america right now have fallen behind on their ability to pay their energy bills. record high inflation has robbed the american people of more than $10,000 for each and every family since joe biden has become president. just look at what people were paying for things before he came to office and what they're paying today. as a result, people are able to save less. they're having the pay more. we know that about two out of three american howrldz -- households are living paycheck to paycheck. savings in this country are now at a record low. household debt a record high. and people are having to borrow

more money, put things on the credit card at higher and higher interest rates. at the same time energy prices are dramatically higher than they were the day joe biden took office. the cost of heating oil is up by two-thirds. natural gas is higher now than for a long time. electricity is up by 20 cents on the dollar. as a result, there is actually the risk of people having their energy and their electricity shut off this winter. some are doing it voluntarily because they don't want the big bill that's going to come. it's hard to believe that it's happening here in the wealthy -- wealthiest country in the world. we have enough energy to keep every american warm this winter. some of it they won't let us get out of the ground, but we have it. so it's an absolute disgrace with the energy resources we have in this country that americans are facing brownouts

and blackouts from an energy standpoint because of the biden administration's radical climate policies. millions and millions of americans are living with financial fear and with massive frustration at this administration and ignoring the needs of the people. so what are the democrats doing about it? nothing. joe biden actually sold some of our emergency petroleum reserve, the strategic petroleum reserve, sold some of it to china. you wouldn't believe that, but yet it happened. our petroleum reserve is for america. it's for emergencies. it's for natural disasters. it's for war. it's not for china. this week i'm introducing legislation to make sure this never happens again. the house has already passed this legislation. the vote was completely

bipartisan, more than 100 democrats voted for it in the house. there's no reason it shouldn't be bipartisan here in the senate as well, mr. president. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in this effort. the strategic petroleum reserve is for us. it's not for our enemies. joe biden has promised to use our tax dollars -- it's astonishing. he went to the united nations. he said he was going to send $11 billion a year to give to the united nations for climate reparations, for energy we've used. giving away american dollars when americans can't afford to pay for energy costs here at home. why is he doing it? if you listen to his speech, because he wants to say his sorry. that's what we have, a president who wants to apologize

once again for america. he wants us to feel guilty about the fact that we built the strongest economy in the world using oil, gas, coal, all of the energy sources we have in this country. the american people have nothing to apologize for. joe biden is wrong. shouldn't apologize for being an energy super power. we shouldn't apologize for using our energy resources. if he wants to apologize, he ought to be apologizing to the people of the united states for the policies he's put in place that have driven up costs and caused pain for families all across america. he ought to apologize for raising taxes on american energy. he should apologize for wasting tax dollars. the secretary of energy, his secretary of energy has given more than $200 million in loans to companies in china. the secretary of the treasury going to china soon. she met with china's vice

premier recently in switzerland. according to the treasury department, she agreed to, quote, enhance cooperation with china on climate finance as well as support for developing countries in their clean energy transitions. in other words, more american taxpayer dollars for other people in other countries. again, the excuse for all of this? climate. democrats in washington are utterly obsessed with the green dreams of the coastal elites who run the democrat party, who call the tune. again and again the democrats side with the climate elites over the common folks. i hear it in yievment. i hear -- i hear it in wyoming, no matter where i travel in the country. democrats are offering working families nothing more than higher taxes and higher prices, and they continue to raise taxes democrats just threaten to ban natural gas stoves.

nearly half of the homes in america use natural gas. the administration, a nominee by the president, that's what he said. he didn't say it once. ep said it repeatedly. the democrats also just raised taxes on colby more than $1 billion. so what happens with all these new taxes? they get handed on to working families in wyoming and across america. what happens with higher taxes? it means higher prices and higher energy costs. yet janet yellen is flying around the world offering more of our tax dollars to these other countries. last week there was a large democrat political rally held in switzerland, a place called davos. and the masters of the universe flew to switzerland for the world economic forum. the television reports and the news reports, much of the conversation was about climate.

the president's energy's climate czar, john kerry, was there. he gave a speech. you talk about somebody with smug superiority, he just thinks he knows better than anybody else. here's what he said. he said, quote, -- this is john kerry -- it's extraordinary that we a select group of human beings are able to talk about saving the planet. thank you, john kerry. you're going to save us all. can hardly wait. he added, if you say that to most people, they'd think you're just a crazy, tree-hugging, lefty, liberal do-gooder, but that's where we are. well, john kerry, you're right. most people, certainly anybody in wyoming who would listen to you would say you are just a crazy, tree-hugging lefty, liberal do-gooder. that's what we got from the

president of the united states doing his climate bidding in switzerland. this is exactly what people think about john kerry and the climate crisis and the positions of this administration. and as if one failed presidential nominee and candidate wasn't embarrassing enough, then we had a real vice president who came to speak, a former vice president named al gore. anyone watching al gore speak would say that basically he descended into an unhinged rant. about what? well, climate of course. that's all he ever rants about. the former democrat senator and vice president said we are, he said we're boiling the oceans. that's what we're doing apparently. he said if we don't obey his energy policies. i'm sure he and john kerry have great times together. boiling the oceans. he even said we're creating what he called rain bombs.

he wants to save the planet as well, and i'd say what planet is he on. that's what we're seeing coming out of this administration as their voice on the world stage. when it comes to energy, what are the democrats offering? a fairy tale, a fantasy, and a fraud. that's what we hear from the democrats. the democrats' green dreams are causing nightmares for working families who have to pay for all of this. the only green thing about democrats' energy agenda is how much green costs american families. john kerry said it himself. he said how do we get there? and he said money, money, money. that's his answer. american money, american dollars.

and he's going to save the planet. europe already tried its own green new deal. it's been a disaster for working people in those countries. can't let that happen here, just cannot. the international energy agency projects record-high demand for oil later this year. this is a time when joe biden is making us keep it in the ground. wyoming is the energy breadbasket of the nation. we have it. it's affordable, available, it's reliable. not good enough for joe biden. no, he wants to go to iran, go to afghanistan, go to iran, go to venezuela, go to saudi arabia, hat in hand, begging them to produce more and sending it here. and it's interesting listening to the climate elites as they are fixated on renewable energy regardless of the costs and regardless of the consequences. the democrats need to stop this science fiction. it's long past time for america to unleash our energy and stop

this foolishness coming from the administration that has us buying energy from our enemies instead of selling it to our friends. we have an abundance of american energy. democrats want to keep it buried in the ground. for every american family who is struggling to make ends meet and falling further behind because of the inflation caused by the democrats pofl spending, it's time to unleash american energy right now. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

welcome to our first little meeting in the session and thank you all for joining me and we have a new leadership team. the leadership because she's senate pro tem although she comes to our meat because she so great. we have to be quick because we are headed to the white house but before i go i want to tell you about the lunch we had and

what we laid out for the few weeks ahead. we want to continue successes in the last congress and deliver for the american people. this was the most successful two years and decades, many people equally and some new deal because of what we did on private and we want to continue working in a bipartisan way wherever we can but unfortunately right now house republicans, at least where they seem to be headed have different ideas. on the first day of vote they made their first order of business make it easier for the ultrarich to escape accountability. at the same time blowing 100 billion-dollar hole in the deficit, they say about the deficit but they seem to care more about making sure those

very wealthy people use lawyers and accountants to go through loopholes and pay lower percentage than the average american and it seems to be with the care about but they created a hole in the deficit preventing us from collecting money from those people and that's what they said, not us. speaking of the deficit we are witnessing the house gop recklessly flirt with this. it's clear fault would be a catastrophe for american working families. it's not an abstract issue, it will affect every american family and laying friendship, taking hostages being risky and not caring about average people. let's look at some of it. if the maga gop stops paying our nations bills, americans pay the price. a massive hit to local

economies, american families nothing less than economic crisis. here's what would happen. interest rates would go up, if you have a home loan, the average patient can pay tens of thousands more on their mortgage if they have variable rate mortgage. it would hurt social security dramatically, her medicare. the only people who will pay the price partisan politics, home values will go down because when mortgage interest rates go up, home values are down and people have less money to buy a home because they put in the mortgage. now listen to this, house republicans have asked the leadership, we hear some house republicans their leadership to give gop radicals vote on 30% national sales tax across the board. 30% sales tax on everything

meaning right now as inflation begins to drop, republicans are looking to make american families pay 30% for every single thing they buy. republican national sales tax is a disaster for american families and no need to take it from me, the proposal is in the time it stick. house prices would be raised by 100,000 and american bills raised by thousands. there's nothing there about this republican sales tax. if republicans want to push this terrible proposal there welcome to make the case to make our day. if republicans want to play friendship with deficit and demanding cuts, they need to show us exactly what they want to cut. they said they will put the bills on the floor, regular order and have vote let's see

what because they want to make. my gop colleagues, if you want to talk about all of this, you have an obligation to show the american people precisely what kind of cuts you want to make if you want to should cut social security, medicare, police? you want to cut health care to veterans? at lunch we agreed senate democrats are ready and united to roll up our sleeves and deliver for the american people. >> the new majority in the house in this investigation and chaos. they said they want to play games with the national debt. instead of paying our bills

which is there moral and legal obligation they've decided making. the closest thing to suggest an approach he might follow, to suggest is going to eliminate wokeism from the defense budget. we have a definition of wokeism? anybody x of course not. this is gibberish which might make sense to those who are catatonic watching fox tv but it doesn't make sense to the american people and doesn't address the responsibility to pay our debt and get it done quickly. we are suffering because of this problem passing the debt ceiling. we did it three times during the trump administration with the bipartisan locals and now under the leadership of the current speaker of the house as to whether it will be done while at the same time donald trump was creating more than 25% of our

national debt in four years. 230 years american history the national debt trump and 25% in four years. let's do our responsibility and pass this. >> good afternoon, it's great to be back with all of you. senate republicans have a real choice to make this year, they can work with us on behalf of the american people or side with the maga republicans and create chaos while working to benefit the wealthy and well-connected. we know which choice is better for the american people but as senator schumer said, first order of business tells republicans voting to protect wealthy tax sheets. they are willing to contribute to the strength of america but

they think everybody ought to do that, everybody ought to pay their fair share. on top of everything they are talking about it was a move to blend the deficit by 140 billion. the deficit is a republican specialty. almost 30% of the national debt in, national public debt we have today was done during four years of donald trump and they were willing to raise the debt ceiling three times during the trump years to make sure they were covering paying for huge tax cuts to the wealthy and well-connected. fast-forward to the biden administration. the deficit has fallen by one point $1.4 trillion and we have the strongest job growth in a generation. a huge difference.

working with us senate republicans have an opportunity to make life better for the american people. we can pass a bipartisan farm bill that would support farmers and families and responsibly make sure our country pays bills and continue to create good paying jobs and strengthening national security and support veterans, and short seniors can retire with dignity. house maga republicans are creating chaos, playing chicken with america's checkbooks while proposing an agenda that will hurt american families and businesses coast-to-coast. chaos or cooperation? we urge them on behalf of the american people to choose bipartisan cooperation so we can get things done. that's what the american people deserve. >> welcome for the first time --

>> thanks for your leadership so i spent the last few weeks at home in minnesota despite vikings lost, to the giant who went on, it was a great game. i spent the last few weeks at home in the middle of snow and ice but i visited 23 counties for 2023 and i was on the canadian border down in rochester and i could tell you based on that read counties, blue counties talking to people in long-term care what they want is to make sure they can move forward and they need workforce, childcare, they need to make things more affordable. what they don't need is chaos. over and over again they said that to me. about the american people. we been in hundreds of millions of silos because of the pandemic and we are coming together

gathering together, moving businesses forward. you don't want to go backwards to january 6 and what happened in this building and they don't want to go back to what they saw in the house of representatives and it's three days in the house and they want to move forward that means the international side of a chaos making things more affordable, it means being common sense and working across the aisle which the senate has shown it can do time and time again with bill senator schumer led on semiconductor with the work we did together when it came to the infrastructure but. the work the democrats did on allowing prescription drug meds and negotiation as well as investing for the first time ever in a big way when it comes to climate change. people want to move forward, they don't want to see the chaos, simple as that and that's why in america we pay our bills and do the right thing. >> you look at the other side

this total chaos, unity and are we going to the white house? our leadership team and leader jeffries to continue to speak in one unified voice. [inaudible] >> the bottom line is the debt ceiling has been done three times under donald trump, 100 biden all in a bipartisan way no brinksmanship or hostagetaking and experts got to be yes? [inaudible] >> senator sinema is an excellent congress member andid senate member and she has done a lot of good things. that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, president biden, on june 3, 2021, last year, issued a

memorandum on establishing the fight against corruption as a core u.s. national security interest. i want to quote from the president when he issued that memorandum. president biden said, corruption threatens united states national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself. by effectively preventing and countering corruption, and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the united states and other democracies. corruption is a national security core interest. corruption is the source of mr. putin's resources that he uses for his international activities, including the war in ukraine and to try to bring down democratic states. today the atlantic council is

releasing a report, the report titled why kleptocrats still win, a strategy for the unand -- for the united states and europe to address weaponnized corruption. the rosht points out -- the report points out how the kleptocrats hide their wealth in western countries, because they believe it's safer in western countries to hide their wealth. and the report points out the need for us to coordinate efforts between the united states and europe. so, mr. president, today, i'm filing legislation, the combatting global corruption act. i'm joined by my friend, senator todd young of indiana, bipartisan legislation, to deal with the united states' leadership in fighting global corruption. it will give the state department and the united states an important tool. it will give the united states

leadership in showing the international community the steps that need to be taken in order to counter corruption. it would require the state department to publish a list of countries in three tiers -- the highest tier being those countries taking the steps necessary to fight corruption, the bottom tier would be those countries not making the required effort to deal with corruption in their country. the state department will be using internationally established standards for fighting corruption, that the international community has already signed off on as being the proper way to fight corruption in your particular state. for example, it references the interamerican convention against corruption, or the organization of american states, the oas, passed in 1996, acknowledged procedures in our hemisphere to

deal with corruption. it references the convention of combatting bribery of foreign public officials, international business transactions of the organization of economic cooperation and development, the oecd, which was adopted in 1997. it references the united nations convention against transnational organized crime, that was agreed to in 2000. and the united nations convention against corruption, which was agreed to in 2003. these guidelines already exist and allow the united states to use those guidelines that have already been established by the global community to judge how every state is meeting their commitment to fight corruption. countries that are not meeting their commitment, we put a spotlight on them. that spotlight encourages them to do more. it points out ways in which they can take action to fight

corruption in their own country. now, this is not a new strategy that we just came up with, that we start giving a report on all countries on how well they're doing in fighting corruption. that's not a new concept. we've done that successfully in several other areas. one we should take great pride in this institution, because we were the ones that established this, was the trafficking in persons requirements. today, the united states files a report on every country as to how well they're meeting their international responsibilities to protect the modern victims of slavery, trafficking in persons. it's been bipartisan. it's been very effective. secretary of state clinton said, in releasing the report of this year, on july 19, 2022, he said today, we're releasing the 2022 trafficking in persons report. it assesses how 188 countries

and territories, including the united states, are performing in terms of preventing trafficking, protecting victims, prosecuting traffickers. that makes this one of the most comprehensive sources of information anywhere on anti-trafficking efforts by government. what works, what doesn't, and how we can continue to do better. we do that in preventing trafficking, we can do that in stopping corruption. we have a country report on human rights. again, i'll quote from secretary of state blinken, when he released this report on april 2, 2022, this is a report that judges all countries on how well they're dealing with human rights. secretary blinken said, in releasing that report, on april 2 last year, for nearly five decades, the united states has issued the country reports on human rights practices. we strive to provide a factual

and objective record on the status of human rights worldwide. in 2021, covering 198 countries and territories. the information contained in these reports could not be more vital or urgent, given ongoing human rights abuses and violations in many countries, continued democratic backsliding on several continents, and creeping authoritarianism that threatens both human rights and democracy, most notably with russia's unprovoked attack in ukraine. using resources like country reports on human rights practices, we can come closer to building a world which respects for human rights is truly universal. that human rights report works, putting a spotlight on what countries need to do brings about change. it promotes a core value of the united states, respect for human rights and good governance. we do that here in the united states to show global leadership. i want to mention one other

report that's issued by our state department, one on international religious freedom. again, this was bipartisan. so, on june 2 of last year, secretary blinken said, when he reese leased -- released the international religious freedom report, this report offers a thorough, fact-based review of the state of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries and territories around the world. we've produced this document every year since 1998. now more than two decades later, we have more than 35 governments and multilateral organizations that have created offices that are dedicated to this goal. this year's report includes several countries where we see notable progress, thanks to the work of government, civil society organizations, and citizens. for example, last year, the kingdom of morocco launched an initiative to renovate jewish heritage sites like synagogues and cemeteries, and to include jewish history in the moroccan public school curriculum.

this report is about spreading that kind of progress to more parts of the world. unfortunately, the report also shows that we have more work to do. mr. president, there's value in what we do in showing the international community what works, what doesn't work, what countries are doing to make progress, whether on trafficking, human rights or religious freedom, and we need to do the same on fighting corruption. we have the model that works, and the legislation that senator young and i have introduced today allows us to provide such a report in fighting corruption. the legislation also gives the secretary of state some additional tools that could be helpful. the bill directs the secretary of state and treasury to evaluate whether there are foreign persons engaged in significant corruption for the purposes of potential imposition of sanctions under the global

mcknitsky human rights accountabilities act in the countries listed in tier 3, the lowest performing tier. i mentioned that because the sanctions have had a proud history in this chamber. we initiated the magnitsky sanctions originally against russia because of the torture and death of sergei magnitsky. we then made it global for those perpetrating gross violations of international human rights. i introduced the legislation, my partner, the late senator mccain, the two of us said we need to include corruption as one of the basic human rights violations eligible for individual sanctions, and we did. in the last congress, we made the global magnitsky sanctions permanent. i was proud we were able to do that in the national defense authorization act. what's unique about these sanctions, that they're individual, they're not against the country.

they're personal to the individual who violates the basic rights. what does it do? it prevents them from getting a visa to come to america, because they like to visit their wealth that's here in our country. and it prevents them from using our banking system. it works. it was reportedly the first issue between mr. putin and president trump on their first it bilateral summit meeting. mr. putin was upset about these sanctions. good. i'm glad that he is. this legislation that senator young and i have introduced allows us to look at whether we should be using these individual sanctions, these magnitsky sanctions, against the perpetrators of corruption that have not been held accountable in their own country. there's a lot to be said about why this legislation is so important. so i would like just to conclude by pointing out the bill that we

introduced today is nearly identical to the bill we introduced in the last congress. it was reported out on a bipartisan basis by the senate foreign relations committee. i want to thank senator menendez for his help, and senator risch for his help. this is not a partisan bill. this is a bipartisan bill to promote an american value and a national security concern. and that is making sure that america leads in fighting corruption so we do not have the resources going in to a country like russia are mr. putin uses it to try to bring down our system of government. i urge any colleagues to join me and senator young in this effort. i hope that we're able to pass this bill quickly in the united states senate. we came close to doing it in the last congress. we can get it passed by the house and signed by the president because i think we'll

look back at that day when that report comes out and say that we were able to accomplish concrete improvements in making this world a better place and promoting american values, that this report will make a difference. and with that, mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

welcome back, everyone. i know the question on your mind is the notification by the treasury, the need to raise the debt ceiling, the beginning of discussion. encouraged to ask leading to some decision and you are

probably wondering what role the senate will play in this and some of you recall i've been through a some of these situations and the one is the most is in 2011 when i negotiated with them vice president joe biden the budget control act conjunction with raising the debt ceiling. it worked, reduced government spending two years in a row since right after the korean war. however, over the years, most of us on our side felt it was squeezing defense unrealistically, democrats felt the same on the domestic side and we gradually pulled away but if you are generally interested spending it works. at that time the federal

deficit, the federal debt was about 12 trillion and is now 31 trillion. in the course of last congress, the democrats not a single republican vote act of another $2.7 trillion on top of what happened during the pandemic. here's where i think we are. i can't imagine any kind of debt ceiling measure that could pass the senate would also passed the house so even though the debt ceiling could originate house or senate in this current situation, the debt ceiling fix is there is one, it has to be

dealt with and will have to come out of the house so i think it is reasonable the new speaker to put spending reduction on the table. i wish him well and that's where a solution lies. again at risk of repeating myself, i can't imagine any debt ceiling provision out of the senate with 60 votes could pass the speaker of the house so i think the final solution to this particular episode lies between speaker mccarthy and the president. >> last marks two years since president biden was sworn into office. without question, one of the biggest failures in his first two years in office is the

disaster we have at the southern border. if you look at the data statistics, the numbers tell the story. december was the largest month, single month largest number of people apprehended trying -- attempted illegal border crossings over 250,000 people. the number of getaways, 1.2 million people and the last three months averaged 70000 a month so the numbers continue to get worse. the president finally took a trip to the southern border and obviously will we are anxious to see now is he going to do something? talking about it is one thing but doing something to address the crisis is what people are looking for. there are a lot of things you

could do starting with enforcing the law, that would be a simple place to start. he could reinstate remain in mexico, do away with title 42 policy giving agents some wherewithal for people who come illegally. he could connect catch and release and building the wall, a series of solutions, many of which are very obvious the president and his administration so far has been unwilling to do. it's a disaster, humanitarian disaster, law enforcement disaster, national security crisis if you look at the number of people, the people now coming across our southern border, a solution that cries out for solution in this administration has been missing in action been engaged and trying to fix this

problem. >> yesterday the president had his secretary of low energy jennifer granholm make an announcement and threats from the podium at the white house has to do with legislation the house is about to pass and has to do with emergency energy supply, strategic petroleum reserve. it says if we withdraw more, we need a plan for exploration of energy in the united states to refill that. i've introduced similar legislation in the senate. the reason this is so important is because our emergency supplies are now at a 40 year low so we got in there because president biden in the run-up to the election withdrew from strategic reserve 1 million barrels of oil each day for six months, 180 days. 180 million barrels of oil.

he started doing it with energy prices, gasoline at $5 a gallon and people were feeling the pain at the pump. it's nice to see the president finally admits there is a relationship between supply and demand and the cost of energy and gasoline at the pump. get the president continues to respond to the climate crazies attune at the white house which is why they killed the xl pipeline and continues to hammer on oil and gas exploration in america. the price of gas is going up again. the american people know what they want, they want energy that is affordable, available and reliable. they want it here at home, they want to go to iran or baking venezuela for oil and energy yet this war on energy by president biden hurt our energy grid and energy security you don't have to think far to see it, look at

christmas time the cold snap that hit the country, people were told to lower their thermoset, turn off their christmas lights and don't log in your electric vehicle because it would lead to brownouts or blackouts and i'm not sure if the president or his sidekick signature of energy even knows the fact that vladimir putin continues to subsidize the climate crazy group of lobbyists and others who represent organizations that continue to lobby in this country against american energy and spent lots of money over a decade on this. these are the people who argue against pipeline and energy and for structure and oil and gas exploration. in the meantime my home state of wyoming, energy breadbasket of america were told we have to keep affordable available and reliable energy in the ground. the president said he wants to

do? you heard the administration talking about banning gas stoves in the president made a promise to the united nations and said $11 billion each year to the un for climate reparations. i'm going to do everything i can for the ranking member of energy in the senate to make sure the united states never delivers on joe biden's promise. >> it is great to be here in congress and we do have a couple new leaders with us as we are coming forward today, i want to welcome my friend, shelley as our vice chair and we have senator steve daines as well joining us as the chair so exciting times, a lot of changes coming forward. the last three weeks i've had great quality time in the state of iowa and i have continued on

visiting my counties. i was able to visit 33 different counties doing roundtables with farmers and those engaged in agriculture as we prepare for the upcoming 2023 farmville reauthorization. as able to meet with school groups and i did a number of open public town halls hearing from islands about all different topics what i find that is consistent with all of those meetings and discussions, islands are really concerned about what's going on with this administration. the things i heard about, number one, economy and inflation and how it is hurting farmers and families and small businesses. i heard from students about their concerns with public education. i heard from those farmers as we did the roundtables about excessive government regulation,

things like the new biden era waters of the u.s. rule. islands are feeling the pressure from this administration and are very concerned about the direction this administration is going. my commitment to islands, i will continue to work hard for them and represent their voice here in washington d.c. as i make my way literally river to river in iowa or as we call it in iowa, coast to coast. mississippi to the missouri. anyway, it's good to be back in session but we need to encourage the democrats, get your act together, let's do right for the american people's. >> it's nice to be here part of the leadership team and i'm happy to be with all of you. i'm going to take you back on what our leader said on illegal immigration. we saw the number 250,000 came

through or were apprehended in december, the most ever there's another aspect of this, not just the human aspect and trafficking getaways, there's the drug, deadly drug and fentanyl streaming across our southern border and record amounts. not just coming through texas, it's coming through arizona and california in larger amounts we've ever seen, the number one killer of people in america from 18 to 45. i know personally in my state of west virginia and my small town, i know some of the folks who lost their lives, sons and daughters and their classmates. they lost their good friends of many years and it's a human tragedy because the administration has had two years to tighten the border and put

more controls and find out who's coming and how they are coming and where they are coming from, because we had to divert resources over, have all these folks interdicted coming across our border because there's no deterrence, all of these drugs are coming through killing our fellow citizens. we are in the cartel in mexico are heavily enriched by this, billions of dollars but not just mexican cartel, it's chinese cartel, worldwide crime units enriching themselves on the backs of folks here in this country subjected to the flow of fentanyl. i had a meeting with dea director, she's very concerned about this. she's trying to find different solutions but if we see what's going on at the border in terms of trying to disrupt human flow, it's not having -- it's having a

negative impact on our ability to interdict the flow of deadly fentanyl. mr. president, this past friday, tens of thousands of pro-life americans came to washington, d.c. to march for the 50th consecutive year to be a voice for the voiceless. they marched because the pro-life movement did not end with the overturning of roe v. wade last summer. they marched because the end of roe v. wade represents a new beginning. thanks to the supreme court's decision in mississippi's dobbs case, for the first time in 50 years the fate of the lives of millions of unborn children now rest not in the hands of unelected federal judges, but in the american people and their elected representatives. i am grateful for more than a dozen states that have answered the call, including my state of mississippi, where babies in the womb are now legally

protected even at their earliest and most vulnerable stages. but the fight for life also continues here in our nation's capital and here in the u.s. senate. that's why it makes sense that this year the march for life's route ended not at the u.s. supreme court as in years past, but here in congress. as the chairman of the senate pro-life caucus, i am committed to fight for compassionate legislation to protect unborn children and their mothers. we will be a fire wall against the radical abortion agenda of senate democrats and hold the biden administration accountable for its reckless and illegal pro-abortion policies. the contrast could not be clearer. last week the u.s. house of representatives passed legislation that would guarantee the same basic medical care to babies who are born alive after an attempted abortion as would be given to any other baby born in any other circumstance.

i am appalled that 210 house democrats voted against this humane legislation. apparently even infanticide is no longer a bridge too far. in addition, this month the biden administration's fda rubber stamped the reckless distribution of chemical abortion drugs by mail and telemedicine as well as retail pharmacies without ever seeing a doctor in person. this decision turns retail pharmacies and post offices into abortion clinics. the fda's action provides no safeguards to screen by ultrasound for dangerous ectopic pregnancies and abandons pregnant women to suffering alone. these can include potential serve cam intervention and even death. the fda's promotion of dangerous

do-it-yourself abortions is not only unsafe, it is illegal. specifically, the decision violates long-standing federal criminal laws that clearly prohibit the mailing of abortion drugs. this decision puts the profits and political agenda of the abortion industry over the science and clear evidence that abortion drugs present grave dangers to pregnant mothers and certainly their unborn babies. later this week i will introduce the save moms and babies act to reverse the fda's reckless and illegal action and at minimum restore the basic health and safety requirement for these dangerous abortion drugs which should never have been approved. the issue of abortion gets to the heart about what it means to be human. who counts as one of us? we can brutal -- why can brutally killing a baby before birth be justified simply

because the baby is inconvenient, imperfect, unwanted, unplanned and dependent on her mother, rather than answer the questions about humanity about the child in the womb, the child sucking her thumb, the child whose heart is beating and the child whose sonogram pictures are cherished as proof of life, the abortion industry wants you to look away from the baby. over the past year we have witnessed millions of dollars of political advertising spent to promote lies and fearmongering about the pro-life movement and pro-life laws, and they try to pit unborn children against their own mothers. as a mother, a woman, and a senator, i know we must refute these lies because each unborn child is not a threat but a blessing, a unique and unrepeatable individual created in the image of god. in addition, the pro-life

movement cares for both pregnant moms and their unborn babies. more than 2,700 pregnancy centers across the country provide critical medical and material support for women and families facing unplanned pregnancies. several of my colleagues have already introduced commonsense measures to support pregnant moms and families, including through pregnancy centers. as we move on from this year's march for life and into a postroe era, we will never rest and we will never stop fighting until yemp unborn child is protected under our laws from the lethal violence of abortion. i yield the floor.

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everyone. for the second time in recent days, california community has been devastated by a mass shooting and families are morning loved ones lost to a senseless act of gun violence. as some of the victims families have said, -- country. we're pausing to ask ourselves a question that, quite frankly, we've not really asked ourselves in a long time. when does life begin? it's not just philosophical, it's not just theological, it's not just scientific. it's personal as each person has to come to a decision when does life begin. and when the supreme court made the decision for the dobbs decision last summer, that actually put america back in the position that it had been in historically. our nation's 234 years old, and for 185 of those years each

state passed state laws to be able to determine the decision about this issue of when does life begin. so the dobbs decision was not a radical decision. it's the typical decision for americans, quite frankly. for 185 of our 234 years. but it doesn't settle the issue of abortion. abortion is still legal in america as much as there's all the noise around the country right now that abortion has somehow gone away, it certainly has not. abortion is still all over the country, but it's pushed americans and it's pushed americans specifically on this one issue -- when does life begin? quite frankly, i've had fascinating conversations with people over the past eight months that they never actually contemplated this issue. they never stopped to be able to think about it. they just said abortion is legal, it's a woman's choice and i don't want to think about it. but when the decision came down, a lot of people had to stop and say when does life

begin? is it at birth? is it after birth? is it ten minutes before birth? is it a month before birth? is it two months before birth? quite frankly, i've had this conversation with a lot of folks, and some folks have told me, it's viability. i said define viability for me, because viability in 1973, when the court was struggling with roe v. wade was very different than viability now. medical science has advanced tremendously. so is viability 26 weeks or is it at 21 weeks of gestation? and if it's at 21 weeks, what's the difference between 20 weeks and 19 weeks? what's the difference between 18 weeks? i look at these two pictures right here of this child. this one is out of the womb. this one is five months earlier. and i ask the simple

question -- what's the difference between these two pictures of this child? the only difference between that sonogram picture in the womb and that child outside of the womb is time. that's it. the same dna is in this child as in this child. the same parents, the same development. everything is the same. the only difference is time. i'm five months older than i was five months ago because i've aged five months. so did that child from that moment. so my question is very simple. when is a child a child? when does life begin? is this one not alive and this one is alive simply because he's five months older? when is a child a child? for 50 years there have been a

group of folks -- this year there were tens of thousands that gathered out on the mall just to be able to celebrate every single child. they've done it for now five decades, since the roe v. wade decision came down. they gathered on the mall and they just said we believe every child is valuable. every child. there aren't some children that are disposable and some children that are valuable. we think every child is valuable. that's not a radical concept. i had folks that yell and scream at me, quite frankly, and say a woman has the right to be able to choose, and i ask the very simple question of them, in great respect. has the right to choose, to be able to take the life of a child, at what age? because that child is valuable and so is that child. because it's the same child just

at a different age. i celebrate the folks that for five decades have gathered on the mall and have marched for life and have said, we will not forget the value of every single child because tens of millions of children have died in this country in the last 50 years after the roe v. wade decision. and while abortion is still available in america, everyone's having to pause and ask a simple question. what do i believe about life? not what's convenient. what do i believe about life? i've been very outspoken on this floor about my if frustration with the biden administration. they are the most pro-abortion presidency in american history. they actively work on increasing the number of abortions in america, and i find that not only appalling, i find that painful, that we, as a nation, have a policy of finding ways to

increase the death of children. that's not who we should be as a nation. we should be working to be table to protect light of of every single child. the most basic science that anyone will work through is if you look at this child in the womb, there is no difference in this child and this child outside the womb. that is the most basic of science. and if you want to look at science, look at science, but then ask yourself the personal question as well, when does life begin? the argument about abortion is not just a legal argument. everybody wants to take to a legal issue because this is a legal body. but the issue of abortion is not just a legal issue, and it's not just about making abortion illegal in this country. i will tell you i'm working to make abortion unthinkable in this country. because we look past the convenience and look to this child's face and to say, why

does that child not deserve life like every one of us? because at its most basic level, there is no difference between any one of us in this room and when we were at this stage right here in our mother's womb, except for time. so i ask this body a simple question. when does life begin? and are some children really disposable and some children are valuable? that's the question each of us need to decide. and i'm proud to stand with those who have marched for 50 years to say, children are valuable. all of them. all of them. with that, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. marshall: thank you, mr. president. last friday, during the annual march for life, it was once again encouraging to see tens of thousands young americans to travel to the national mall to show support for the right to life. this year we celebrate the 50th year that the march for life has taken place, marking a significant multigenerational milestone for the sanctity of life. the fact that this event in its 50th year is a testament do the truth -- to the truth and just of our -- justice of our mission. i thank everyone who kept this move alive for five decades and i thank all americans who made their voices heard as part of the march for life.

for half a century, americans have come to washington to halt abortions. abortion is not a political issue to me, it's a human rights issue. and this is not a political battle that we fight, but rather the tip of the spear in a spiritual battle for the heart and soul of this nation. this year's moment momentous mar life is a celebration as our supreme court freed us from the undemocratic decision forced on the american people in 1973. my pray is that will heal physical wounds ripped across this nation by this ruling. as we celebrate this victory for life, all of us should pause and thank god for giving us a majority of supreme court justices for the courage to overturn roe v. wade. this supreme court by an

overwhelming 6-3 ruling that in too many extreme cases overcame the threats on their lives. the court's majority stuck to constitutional principles and cast aside their pro-abortion status quo even in the face of threats by the current senate majority party and the majority leader. the way our justice stood up to the opposition represents true leadership in the very best of america. let us commend our republican senate leader and the senators who fought for the lives of the unborn, who, when we had the control of the white house and the senate, had the courage, the fortitude, the will pour and know how to -- will power and know how to go through the confirmation process and ascend to the highest court in the land. this would not have happened without mississippi attorney

general lynne finch and her team. they etched their place in history. the rights and lives of millions of american human beings are now protected as a result of the dobbs decision. as an obstetrician, i delivered over 5,000 babies, and i want all those who stood tall in the march for life last friday, just like i fought for those babies in the delivery room, i will show that congress values this precious life as well. at the federal level we have more work to do. we must ensure that taxpayer dollars do not fund abortions so millions of americans are not forced to violate our own beliefs. we must combat this administration's effort to remove conscientious protection for medical professionals, doctors, nurses, ultrasound

techs who object to participating in abortion. most urgently, we must reimplement safety reinstructions -- on the abortion bill. this will lead to thousands of women using it incorrectly, causing medical emergencies, possibly thoughts and fetal malformations. if you don't believe this could happen, spend some time in our emergency rooms where i and other doctors treat women suffering complications from the abortion pill. many are misdiagnosed or perhaps victims of a horrible guess of the jestational -- gestational age of the unborn baby. i think that we as a party and congress work to provide legislation to provide resources to homes and babies in need. this would be long-term access

to educational, nutritional support as well as health care. we should better encourage pregnant women who are contemplating abortion to choose life instead. we need to assist throughout and very importantly after the pregnancy. despite violent attacks and acts of vandalism directed at these centers, they continue to provide critically needed services to women all across the country. i'm also committed to dispelling the -- as someone who understands the science and frankly treated hundreds of women with ectopic pregnancies, i want to say i agree with the united states conference of catholic bishops, we always have and will support the treatment

of women who suffer from the life threatening condition of ectopic pregnancies. there are those misinformed. for a physician not to treat ectopic pregnancies would be unethical as well as below the standard of care for every community in america. let me close by saying once again, thanks to all of you, the tens of thousands of americans who participated in the 50th march for life for courageously and tireless fighting for life. each and every one of you earned my encourage yt. you give me the -- encouragement. you give me the strength -- to fight to protect the sanctity of life. you being here, praying together, marching side by side arm in arm, you strengthen my resolve. you can count on me to fight and

defend and secure the right to life for all human beings. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i rise to join my colleagues in a discussion about the right to life. and what happened last week in washington, d.c., when tens of thousands of americans of all ages, races, religious backgrounds traveled to our nation's capitol to march for life. this march for life was particularly special since it was the first march for life after the supreme court's dobbs decision, which made this march a special celebration recognizing the unborn life saved as a result of that decision. i was proud to see many north carolinaians represent our state in the march by participating and fighting for the young babies who do not have

a voice but for the voices expressed in the march for life they would be unheard. in january 1974, a brave group of committed pro-life leaders, led the first mar march for lifo advocate for the supreme court's judicial activism, in my opinion, in the roe v. wade case. this year the march for life was not only an event to advocate for the unborn, it was to celebrate the end of roe, and returning that to the state and to the congress. the dobbs decision is historic and affirms that all life is sacred. each state government and its newly elected representatives now make the determination about what types of law they wish to have in place. i continue to advocate for commonsense measure that's the majority of americans support,

like protecting life at crucial points of development and prohibiting horrendous procedures like partial birth abortion. while it is good to celebrate the dobbs decision, as senators, we must remember that the fight for life in the united states is far from finished. i worked to enact -- our work to enact pro-life policies must continue if we are to be a voice for the voiceless. i believe congress should viciously pursue ef -- vision russly pursue efforts to support right to life. just two weeks ago, i was thrilled to see the house pass the born alive protection act. this legislation would protect newborns that survive failed abortions born alive requiring the same degree of care as a newborn baby. i urge leader schumer to bring this commonsense bill to the

floor for a vote as soon as possible. last congress i cosponsored dozens of pro-life bills. this congress i've joined multiple bills to shape federal policies toward protecting life. this includes proposals that would prohibit the use of federal funds for abortion and pro prohibit planned parenthood for using taxpayer money for abortions. we have protected the unborn and it was supported by a i did verse -- diverse state of income, it is not a read state, or a blue state, it's a purple state. the majority of north carolinians supported it. i believe that the senate is best situated to set policies to support mothers and to protect life. that's why it's critical that

pro-life advocates contact their state legislatures and their governors to ensure that lifesaving protections are enacted to protect the unborn in their respective states. i'm committed to continuing the effort to support life. i'm a lifetime pro-life catholic. i make no apology for it, becaue we are the voice of that baby yet to be born and we have to continue to fight for them. i encourage my senate colleagues to join me in doing this. and, mr. president, i just want to say that i hope on this issue, like so many we tackled in the last congress, thorny issues that nobody thought we would get done, i hope that we can get people in a room and is recognize that we can come together on basic tenets, get rid of the voices that are keeping us from making progress

on this issue. the lives of the unborn, their lives, their opportunity is at stake. thank you, mr. president.

good afternoon, everyone. for the second time in as many days a second shooting took

family members from people. we are starting lunar new year broken. to read their stories is indeed heart breaking, stories like the 65-year-old who went to the dance studio in monterey park on the weekend because it's what she loved to do. tragically her family said that saturday was her last dance. we've read moving tributes for the former dance student who helped manage the studio from his fellow dancers and his teachers. a grandmother whose family described how hard she worked to give back to her community and cared for her loved ones died after being taken to the hospital in critical condition. we have more lives lost in mass shootings after mass shootings, the flags at the white house were already at half mass in honor of those murdered in monterey park when we learned about the shooting in half-moon bay. president biden like most

americans believes this is an urgent issue. too many of our neighbors, colleagues and kids are losing their lives to gun violence than active duty military we know how to address this, last night senator feinstein alongside murphy and thanks to president and senator feinstein and mass shooting and it's expired mass shooting and that's a fact.

and action to reduce gun violence in nearly 30 years. to take additional actions and american communities and school workplace. and the country and today we learn 38 states and unemployment and states from pennsylvania for

unemployment and the record 10.7 million jobs created in the last two years and annual inflation in the last six months. the economic -- the economy grew at 3.2% in the most recent gdp report and record 10.5 million small business applications were filed since the president took office. they were continuing to lower healthcare costs for americans and if inflation reduction or cap was imin the meantimed in 2020, 1.5 million senators across the country could have saved an average of $500 per year on insulin. the inflation reduction act health provision including permanent affordable care, act subsidies and medicare negotiations, medicare negotiating down prescription drugs and move more money into american's pockets and more breathing room for american

families. as the president said in a statement this morning and i "americans are seeing a strong economy where they live, they are seeing their neighbors back to work with higher wages, even accounting for inflation. they're seeing prices down at their pharmacies, they are seeing new businesses opening with the most americans applying to start small businesses at any time on record". finally i wanted to say hello and welcome to the park school of baltimore students. they are lined up to my left here who are here for their career exploration day and welcome students. i had a tonight to meet all of you and very impressive and i know high school can be a lot of fun but also very hard to stay focused. keep your passion and more.

and classification and are created with the independence and not interference and more. >> we say we're in constant

communication with ukraine and other allies and partners as it relates to what ukraine needs in the battlefield but what they're making at this time and not too privy for you today. >> okay. from yesterday, how does the president -- has the president invited the justice department to search the beach house? >> i'd lead you to the justice department about this matter. i don't have anything to share. >> does the white house believe that the justice department should appoint a special counsel to investigate pence's handling of the department? >> that's for the justice department to decide. >> seeing two of the presidents with classified documents in their private homes, does this suggest there's a larger problem within the government where classified documents are not where they're supposed to be?

do a lot of people have documents outside of where they're problemmerly supposed to be p? >> i'm not going to comment from here on that. i'm going to refer you to the white house customs and border g related to the classified documents from here. >> the issue of gun control, in terms of commitment to them to understand and [inaudible] how do i should say the limitations in congress, ie with the votes you have or don't have in congress. >> pushing forward these types of gun reforms we're seeing and what we saw with the awe salt st

weapons ban or signing the bipartisan piece of legislation he signed into law months ago >> that was the most significant piece of legislation that dealt with gun violence and let's not forget he's made this a priority for him in his presidency since day one with historic executive action. so i say all this this was a priority for the president when folks thought we wouldn't be able to get a bipartisan deal done with gun violence that was able to get done because of the president's leadership on this and because of the focus on that. looking for the teams and looking for ways to do and continue with gun -- to do executive actions with reducing gun violence but what we believe is that congress needs to act. put forward legislation that can go into law and deal with this

issue. we cannot continue to see communities be devastated by this. as a parent, we should not be waking up every morning worried that our child or our kids may have to deal with gun violence. if you're going to the grocery store, you should not have to worry about going to the grocery store and potentially having to deal with gun violence or going to the movies, watching a movie with your partner or with your kids and eating popcorn and potentially having to worry about gun violence. so the president has been very clear and this is not just the last two years. it's been in decades of his career and we'll continue those conversations with congress and continue to call on congress to take action.

>> we'll continue to communicate to try that and provide support to russia's war against ukraine and we've talked about this many times that we will be very clear what it means to support russia's aggression against ukraine. as i've said many times and colleagues have said many times we'll continue to support ukraine and ukrainian people as long as needed. jot priorities for the administration and the president with the entire career, how does he feel in moments like that with frustration and helplessness and personally how does he deal with this continuing to be a major problem? >> i would say you've seen him out there sadly with many of these tragedies, mourning with the families, offering his

support to families and it is -- it continues -- you continue to but you see from him is certainly how he feel when is he sees these types of travesties. you saw that in uvalde sadly where children were gunned down and parented had to identify their children with dna. saw that in buffalo meeting with the ten members of the -- ten victims who were killed and him meeting with those families and dealing with their heart ache. this is what the president is feeling of what people are going through because he knows what loss means to families. you've seen the statements over the last several days sadly on what we've seen with gun violence across the country and

so you'll continue to see that and he will continue to speak about this in a way that lifts up the families or who are dealing with this loss. he'll continue to call on congress to take action. >> the white house shifting with the political public perception and [inaudible]. >> i'm not going to comment from here. joey. >> no plans at this time to preview about the presidential travel to california, you saw his statement and i just kind of read part of the statement and his heart goes out to the families of the victims of the

families and we will continue to fight to make sure we deal with this issue. deal with gun violence and we started with the executive action and historic executive action and the president was able to do with the first two years of his administration and able to get airship of bipartisan piece of legislation to deal with gun violence but we need to do more. we need to do a lot more and the president will continue to call for that. i don't have anything to preview. >> you kind of eluded to this but what is the strategy now that the whole weapons ban that was introduced and talking about a republican house now so how it

is a priority for the president and that's why he's taking executive action and why his teamworked with congress on this bipartisan legislation passed several months ago and he'll continue to do that. i think if you all remember and many of you reported this that how difficult it was going to be for the president to get any bipartisanship the first two years of an administration and he was able to get historic pieces of legislation done. the president says this all the time. he's optimistic and i think optimism is very important to the president. but at the same time he's going to continue to ask congress to act and he's going to continue to see what other executive action can be taken from here but at the end of the day, we need congress to act. we need legislation that can be signed into law to deal with a

matter that is really tearing apart communities. >> was the white house aware before this afternoon that classify documents were found at vice president pence's residence as well? >> i'll refer you to the white house counsel's office. >> does the white house believe that other high office holders should now go back and check their personal residence at of abundance of caution that make sure they're not holding onto classify documents as well? >> that's not something i can comment from here. i don't even know the, you know, the reasoning of what the news that we heard about pence so i'm just not going to comment from here. i'm not going to comment on any other former elected official, current elected official with this particular case, i refer you to the department of justice. anything that relates to this white house, i would refer you to the white house counsel's office. >> last week at the podium, john kirby said the ingram he thinks

operate and it require as lot of training. this white house still has the same concerns when it comes to providing aid to the ukrainians? >> as my colleague haves said very recently that again, nothing to preview from here. certainly don't have anything to share, but they never ruled out tanks. just want to make that very clear. what my colleagues at the dod have said in the past and very recently, there were all these challenges with tanks but not going to preview anything and i think i would refer you to dod comments on this. again, there's always been challenges and never been taken off the table, but as i just mentioned, i don't have anything to preview. >> those are the challenges, what's the benefit s? >> we've always said, again, nothing to preview. i want to be very clear here. we've always said that we are in constant communication with ukraine as they're trying to figure out what they need on the battlefield and we are always

looking for ways to offer security, security assistance for them. so again, not going to get ahead of any potential announcement, i don't have anything for you to preview but we're always in constant communication with ukraine and what it is that they need for their success. what is it that they need to really battle the aggression is that we've seen from russia this almost past year. >> sending tanks to ukraine and in any way reversal consideration of the u.s. government on abrams to ukraine as well? >> we've said this before, we believe it's up to each individual country. it is their own sovereign decisions on what they provide for ukraine. we've been very clear about that and we always appreciate what

our allies and partners are doing to make sure ukraine can defend itself. i'm not going beyond that and don't have anything to preview from here. >> on ticket master, there was a dissent and given the white house's concern that monopoly power, does the white house believe there's ticket master merger for today. with the executive competition --

>> okay, good afternoon.

welcome to our first -- our first little meeting on tuesdays in the new session and i want to thank you all for joining me and we have a new leadership team, senators durbin, stabenow, and klobuchar and senator murray is not in the leadership because she's the senate pro tem all though she comes to the meetings and we take her information because she's so great. i have to head to the white house in a bit. before i go, i want to tell you about the productive lunch we had and what we've laid out for the few weeks ahead. first we want to continue our successes in the last congress and continue delivering for the american people. this was the most successful two years in decades and many people compare to the great society favorably or equally. some even new deal because of what is in the climate. we want to continue doing that and we want to continue working in a bipartisan way wherever we

can. but unfortunately right now house republicans at least the ones heading have different ideas. on the very first day of votes, they made their first order of business to make it easier for ultra rich, tax cheats to escape accountability. at the same time blowing $100 billion hole in the deficit. they say they don't care about the deficit. but they seem to care more about making sure that those very, very wealthy people use lawyers and accountants to go through all kinds of loopholes and pay a lower percentage than the average person. that seems to be what they care about because they actually create add hole in the deficit by preventing us from collecting money from those people. that's what cvo said and not us. speaking of the deficits, we're witnessing the house gop recklessly flirt with default. it's clear. default would be a kansas city

chiefs toosh fio for american working -- catastrophe for american working families and not an ab tract issue but affecting every american family severely and proversely and taking hostaging is being risky and not caring about average people. so let's look at some of it. if the maga gop stops paying our nation's bills, americans pay the price. political brinksmanship would be a hit and nothing more than a economic crisis. what would happen, for instance, interest rates would go way up. if you have a home loan, the average person could pay 10s of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage if they have a variable rate mortgage. it would hurt social security dramatically and medicare. the only people that will pay the price is partisan politics. home values will go down because when mortgage interest rates go

up, home values go down. people have less money. money to buy a home because of how much they're putting into the mortgage. now, listen to this, house republicans, some of the house maga republicans have asked their leadership -- we hear that some house republicans from house to give gop radicals on a vote to 30% national sales tax on the board. 30% sales tax on everything. right now inflation finally begins to drop, republicans are looking to make american families pay 30% or more for every single digits thing they buy. the republican national sales tax is a disaster for american families and he'll need to take it from me. the proposal in the assault of retirement savings and ally of us.

raising prices by 100,000 and raise american bills by thousands and nothing fair about this republican sales tax. so if republicans want to push this tariff -- their terrible proposal and they're willing to make their case or make our day. similarly if republicans want to play brinksmanship with deficit and demanding cuts, they need to show exactly what they want to cut. they're going to put bills on the floor and regular order and have votes. talking to my colleagues and if you want to talk about all this stuff, you have an obligation to show the american people precisely what kind of cuts you want to make. if you want to cut social security, do you want to cut pay raises for our troops? cut medicare? do you want to cut police? do you want to cut health for the veterans.

republicans are the american people and in lunch we agree senate democrats are ready and united to roll up our sleeves and deliver for the american people. senator deer hunting bin. >> thanks, chuck. the new maga majority in the house promised endless investigation, impeachments and chaos and they also said they want to play game withs our national debt. instead of paying our bills that's moral and legal obligation, they've decided to make a game of this. the closest thing to suggest an approach to follow is suggest he's going to eliminate wokism from the defense budget. class, anyone have a definition of wokism here? of course this is maga gibberish

and might make sense to people watching tv and doesn't address the responsibility, which congress has to pay our debts and get it done quickly. we are already suffering because of this suggested problem of passing the debt ceiling. isn't it interesting, we did it three times durck the trump administration and it was bipartisan role call and the speaker of the house is a question mark as to whether it would be done while at the same time donald trump was created more than 25% of the national debt in four years, 230 years of american history and national debt and posing with the budget pictures. >> senate republicans have a real choice to make now this year they can work with us on

behalf of the american people or they can side with the house maga republicans creating chaos and benefit the wealthy and well connected. we know from the american people but as senator schumer said the first order of business by house republicans was voting to protect wealthy tax chiefs. people in my state, you know, they're willing to contribute to america but think everybody ought to do that and everybody ought to pay their fair share. in fact, on top of everything that they're talking about, it was a move that ballooned the deficit by $140 billion. of course blooming the deficit is the republican's specialty. almost 30% of the national debt, the national public debt that we have today was done during four years of donald trump.

not one or twice but three times during the trump years to make sure that they were covering paying for huge tax cuts to the wealthy and well connected. now fast forward to the biden administration and the deficit has fallen by $1.4 trillion. 1.4 trillion under president biden and the strongest job growth in a generation. there's a huge difference. so by working with us, senate republicans have a opportunity to make life better for the american people. we can pass a bipartisan farm bill that be support our farmers and families and we can responsible make sure our country pays the bills and continue to create good paying jobs and strengthening our national security, support veterans and ensure that seniors can retire with dignity. meanwhile they're playing

chicken with america's checkbook and an agenda that will hurt american families and businesses from coast-to-coast. senate republicans have a choice. chaos or cooperation. we urge them on behalf of the american people for bipartisan cooperation to get things done. that's what the american people deserve. >> welcome. >> first time at the microphone in five years. thank you, chuck and thank you for your leadership. i spent the last few weeks at home in minnesota or despite the vikings loss, we -- okay. to the giants who later went onto not do well. okay. it was a gate day. it was a great game. i spent the last two weeks at home in the middle of a lot of snow and ice, but i visited 23 counties for 2023 and wassen the

canadian boarder and rochester and on the red and blue counties talking to people in long term care what they want is to make sure they can move forward and make things more afford and will don't need chaos over and over again. they said that to me. think about the american people we've been in hundreds of millions of silos because of the pandemic. we're now coming together and gathering together, moving businesses -- ...

they don't want to see the chaos. it's as simple as that and that's why in america we pay our bills and we do the right thing. >> if you look at the other side in total chaos and our side there's unity. are we going to the white house with our leadership team and with leader jeffries to continue to speak in one unified voice? [inaudible] >> the bottom line is that debt ceiling has been done three times under donald trump in a bipartisan way, with no

brinksmanship. that's where it's got to be. [inaudible] >> sinema is an excellent congressperson and she's done a lot of good things here. [inaudible] >> look there's a huge difference between how the president handled it and how perth former president trump handled it. one cooperate fully with the authorities and the other stonewalled for over a year. the bottom line is simple there are prosecutors in both cases and that to be able to proceed unimpeded without anyone pressuring them.

[inaudible] >> i'm not going to negotiate in public. obviously we want to make sure we approach a budget that's good for the average person's family and we did that in the omnibus bill and we were very pleased with the outcome there and hopefully it can be done again without brinksmanship. i'm not going to get into specifics. [inaudible] >> senator peters peter sis looking at bipartisan legislation and the classified documents to support his efforts. in the meantime on the specific cases the appropriate thing to do is to have a special prosecutor and that is what is happening. thank you everyone.

[inaudible conversations] >> welcome back everyone. i know the big question on your mind is the notification of the secretary of the treasury and the need to raise the debt ceiling. this is the beginning of this discussion and i was encouraged in the past leading to some decision this summer. and you are probably wondering what role if any of the senate will play in this. as some of the recall i've been through a few of these debt ceiling situations. the one that seems to stand out

the most was in 2011 when i negotiated the with then vice president joe biden the budget control act in conjunction with raising the debt ceiling. it actually worked. a reduced government spending for two years in a row for the first time since after the war however over the years most of us on our side felt it was squeezing defense unrealistically and democrats felt the same way on the domestic side and we gradually pulled away from us but we were generally interested in spending and it actually works. at that time the federal deficit, the federal debt was about $12 billion it's now $31 trillion. in the course of the last

congress that democrats have a central republican vote and racked up another $2.7 trillion on top of what happened during a pandemic. so here is where i think we are. i can imagine any kind of debt ceiling measure that could pass the senate and but also passed the house. so even though that debt ceiling could originate in either the house or the senate in this current situation that debt ceiling, if there is one, has to be dealt with will have to come out of the house. i think it's entirely reasonable for the speaker and his team to put spending reductions on the table. i wish him well and that's where

the solution lies. again at the risk of repeating myself i can imagine any debt ceiling provision passed out of the senate with 60 votes that could actually pass this particular house. so i think the final solution in this particular episode lies between speaker mccarthy and the president. >> last friday marked two years since president biden was sworn into office and i think without question one of the biggest failures in his first two years in office is the absolute disaster we have on our southern border. if you look at the data and statistics the numbers tell the story. december was the largest month, single month largest over people

who were apprehended or i should say who attempted to cross the border and that was over 250,000 people. the number that got away is now 1.2 million people and in the last three months has averaged 70,000 per month. the numbers continue to get worse. the president finally took a trip to the southern border and obviously what we are anxious to see now is what he learned on this trip and is the actually going do something because talking about it is one thing. actually doing something to address the crisis is what people are looking for and as a solution. there are a lot of things we could do. he could reinstate a remain in mexico policy and quit doing away with the policy that gives

our border patrol agents some wherewithal for stopping people. he could and catch and release and he could finish building the wall. there are a whole series of solutions many of which are very obvious to a lot of people that the president and his administration are far have been unable -- unwilling to entertain. it's a disaster. it's a humanitarian and a law enforcement and national security crisis if you look at the numbers of people in the types of people who are now coming across our southern border. it's a problem that cries out for a solution in this administration as i said before he has been entirely missing in action and it's high time they engaged to try to fix this problem. there are a number of solutions i think would work. >> yesterday the president had his secretary of low energy jennifer granholm make an

announcement in a veto threat from the podium at the white house. it had to do with legislation that the house is that the houses about the past and it has to do with our emergency energy supply, the strategic petroleum reserve. he says that we would drop more we need a plan for exploration of energy in the united states to read told that. i've introduced similar legislation in the senate. the reason this is so important is because our emergency supplies are now at a 40 year low. we have gotten to that point because president biden in the run-up to the election withdrew from our strategic reserve a million barrels of oil each and every day for six months, 180 days, 180 million barrels of oil. he started doing it when energy prices and gasoline was up 5-dollar-gallon and people are feeling the pain at the pump. it's nice to see that the president finally admits that there is a relationship between supply and demand and the cost

of energy and gasoline at the pump. yet the president continues to respond to the climate who call the tune of the white house is which is why they killed the keystone pipeline where he continues to hammer on oil and gas exploration in america. the price of gasoline is grote -- going up again. the american people know what they want to they want to they won energy that's affordable available and reliable. they want it from here at home. they don't want us to go into vietnam or venezuela for oil and energy. yet this war on energy by president biden has hurt our energy grid and hurt our energy security. you don't have to think back very far to see it. look what happened at christmastime in the cold snap to hit the country. people across the country will told to lower their thermostats, turn off their christmas lights and don't plug in your electric

vehicle because it will lead to brownouts or blackouts. i'm not sure if the president or his sidekick secretary of energy even those the fact that vladimir putin continues to subsidize the climate group of lobbyists and others who represent organizations to continue to lobby in this country against american energy. the they lots of money over decade. these are the people that argue against pipelines against energy infrastructure against energy and oil exploration exploration. meantime my home state of wyoming, he energy breadbasket of america, is told we have to keep affordable available and reliable energy in the ground. the what does the president say he wants to do? you had heard the administration talk about banning gas does. the president made a promise to the united nations to send $11 billion each and every year to the u.n. for climate

reparations. i'm going to do everything i can as the ranking member of the energy committee to make sure that the united states never ever delivers on joe biden's promises. >> it is great to be here in congress and we do have a couple new leaders with us as we are coming forward today. i want to welcome my friend shelly moore capito as her vice chair and we have senator steve daines as well joining us as the chair of the nrc. a lot of changes are coming forward. the last three weeks i've had some great quality time in the state of iowa and i have continued on in my counties. i was able to visit 33 different counties for a roundtable with farmers and agriculture as we

prepare for the upcoming 2023 farm bill reauthorization. i was able to meet with school groups and i did a number of open public town halls hearing from iowans about all different topics and what i find that is consistent with all of those meetings and discussions iowans are really concerned about what's going on with this administration. the things that i heard about number one economy and inflation and how it's hurting our farmers, our families and our small businesses. i have heard from students about their concerns with public education. i've heard from those farmers that those roundtables about excessive government regulations, things like the new biden era waters of the u.s. rule. iowans are feeling the pressure from this administration.

they are very concerned about the direction that this administration is going. my commitment to those iowans, i will continue to work hard for them and represents their voices voices in washington d.c. as i make my way literally river to river in iowa or as we call it in iowa coast-to-coast. the mississippi to the missouri. anyway folks it's good to be back in session but we want to encourage the democrats to get your act together and let's do right for the american people. >> it's nice to be here as part of the leadership team and to be with all of you. i'm going to piggyback on what our leader whip said senator thune on illegal immigration. we saw number and 50,000 came back or were apprehended in the month of december, the most ever. there's a whole other aspect of this not just the human aspect in the human trafficking and to get away there's an deadly drug

fentanyl which is streaming across our southern border in record amounts. it's not just coming through texas, it's coming through arizona and california in larger amounts it than we have ever seen. as the number one for people in america from the ages of 18 to 45. i know personally in my state of west virginia and in my small town i know some of the folks who have lost their sons and daughters and who have lost family and very good friends for many years. it's a human tragedy. because the administration has had two years to tighten the border to find out who is coming in how they are coming in where they are coming from because we have had to divert resources to have all of these folks and are

ducted coming across our border because there has been no deterrence. all of them are coming through in killing our -- the cartel in mexico are being heavily enriched by this with billions of dollars but not just cartel. it's chinese cartel worldwide crime unit enriching themselves on the backs of our folks in this country who are subjected to the flow fentanyl. i just had a meeting with the dea director. she is very concerned about this. she's trying to find different solutions to this. if we see what's going on on the border in terms of disrupting human flow it's having a negative impact on our ability to interdict the flow of deadly fentanyl in this country. >> i'm glad to join the

leadership team for the stakeout. i want to speak for a few moments about senator capito's capito's -- why would a senator from montana talk about being a border state to a border state with canada? canada is a northern border state with a southern border crisis. it is on all destroying our communities and creating lawlessness and record levels of crime and record levels of death in montana and it's coming directly from the cartel. sadly the biden administration is not doing anything to control the southern border but it's a solvable problem is senator thune laid out and what we need to do going forward but the reality is in montana are

fentanyl deaths last year were up 1100% versus 2017. the leading cause of death for young people in our country and if you look at caesars, seizures of fentanyl by our law enforcement in montana more fentanyl essays by law enforcement in the first three-quarters of 2022 and we are still rating for the report from the prior four years combined. lastly when you take a look at who we saw come across the southern border that we know of in december are all-time record level up of 40% year-over-year there were 17 names on the terror watch list. the southern border is the humanitarian crisis and it's also a crime crisis and the deadly crisis in states like montana.

[inaudible] what should congress do specifically? with regard to help the justice department handles it they have to treat everybody the same who has misplaced classified documents and it seems so far is if the attorney general is making an effort to do that and be on treating everybody the same i don't really have any additional advice. [inaudible] speith do i think what? [inaudible] >> as i said earlier if this is

in a good time to talk about it, i don't know when that is. and the debt ceiling does provide an opportunity for discussion about what admirable -- admiral mullen said years ago. what was the biggest national security problem is that it's the debt and it's only gotten. during a pandemic there's broad agreement on a bipartisan basis that we have to do what we did. as the pandemic and it only began to go back to normal not a single republican supported either of the two reconciliation proposals last year that added $2.7 trillion to the spending spree. this is a good time to talk about it and try to get an outcome. the second part of what i said was i can imagine any debt ceiling agreement that would get

60 votes in the senate that would have any chance of passing the house so the solution to this problem needs to be negotiated between the speaker and the president >> do you think president biden's possession of classified documents could arrive at -- [inaudible] >> i don't have a hypothetical. i think the justice department seems to be willing to treat everybody the same and to try to retrieve the documents and obviously it's not a great idea to take classified documents away from the archives and we will see how they continue to handle it. >> some of the documents from president biden's home date back has the process for handling

classified documents changed? >> i never knew it was possible to take classified documents out of this gift. so most of us don't think there's any way of getting out of this gift less -- much less getting it out of your office and taking it home. [inaudible] >> look, senator sinema has been an important part of the united states senate. the most important thing she did was to save the institution itself by protecting the filibuster. she has also been a significant part of the bipartisan agreement reached by the senate as to whether that she chooses to run again is really her decision. and i think it's a big dilemma for the senate democratic majority to decide whether to support her or to support somebody running on the democratic ticket and i'm pretty

sure you were asking a bunch of questions along those lines before we came out here. i look forward to reading what answers if any you got.

joining us is international law professor at yale law school and pentagon special counsel here to

talk about the classification of government documents. professor hathaway thanks for giving us your time. >> what to be here. >> could you talk about your background and experience particularly at the pentagon when it comes to classified documents? >> yeah i work at the pentagon is a special general counsel and in that job i had top-secret special compartmented information clearance which is the highest level of clearance the u.s. government provides and in that role he had a chance to work with lots of classified documents at all levels at the secret level and a top secret level the state level. and thinking back to work in my regular job on the work that i had been doing in the classified documents that i have seen one of the most striking aspects of that was realizing so much of what i worked with in so much of

the classified material was just ordinary information published classified in the first place. >> you talked about the three levels of distinction when it comes to classification. can you describe exactly what they mean when you call something secret, top cop secret or competent? >> deserve valuations of the government does with national security before that information is released. there's unclassified information that's not going to do any damage to national security and confidential could sit down -- do some damage national security that goes to secret and then top-secret is the highest damage to u.s. national security. it reflects how important information is and how damaging it would be for that information to get out. in my experience reality doesn't always reflect that.

>> why is that? >> the way the documents are when you are making the decision in working with these materials if you have derivative classifications which are what i have. i can't classified information. if i'm writing a document i have to assess what level should be classified based on information including self i'm using information from another document and that document is is top-secret might document hosts also has to be classified top secret even if most of it is in classifieds and 99% has won documents the top-secret than the document has to be top-secret and if i'm not rigorous about paragraph marking documents. you're supposed to mark every single paragraph. truthfully in these jobs people generally don't do that. what happens is every client relying on the document is classified at a certain level they have to classified at that level. it has this magnifying effect

and more and more documents declassified at the highest level. it's also the fact that when you are sitting at your desk and making decisions, going to classified this document x. maybe it should be unclassified literally there are no consequences at least in the job that i was in for classifying something more highly than is absolutely necessary. if you classify something as unclassified or secret and it should have been top-secret that could be very damaging because you are potentially giving access to people who should have access and that could have severe consequences to your job. you could get fired and you could be criminally prosecuted so the dangers of getting it wrong on the downside are very few but the dangers are getting it wrong by classifying something more highly or very limited so that creates these incentives to classify things at a higher level.

>> because of those incentives what's your guess as far as how much classified material is classified on a yearly basis? >> i have a rough guess based on some facts. the last time the government tried its it estimated 50 million documents a year. 50 million classified documents a year. in 2017 i gave up because they don't have good records and agencies count things differently so it's probably gone up since then. i doubt that it's done much below that so we have millions and millions of documents every year and meanwhile in theory we should be declassifying documents at roughly the same pace. the declassification process is in keeping up with the classification process so we are creating 50 million new documents every single year in top of what we are to have so it's become this huge edifice of

classified information the government have to classified. >> or guesses here to answer questions about the process of classifying documents. you can call and ask her question 202-74-8800 server democrats, (202)748-8001 for independents. professor hathaway is something is classified what happens to it? >> what happens is there different rules for how you have to store those documents and whether and how you can transport those documents. if it's a top-secret document has to be kept in a special compartment at information facility referred to as a skiff and you work with those document and read those documents you have to be in a skiff to do it. secret documents have their own set of rules. they have to be kept in a secure location but they don't have

have to be kept in a skiff or read in a skiff. and confidential information. in fact when i worked at the pentagon we had three different computer systems on the same desk. if you're sitting at your desk you're switching between your different computer systems of the physical documents are kept physically in different storage facilities. these days everything is electronic and completely separate computer systems and completely separate storing systems for each of these classified systems. if you're working in a top-secret system you can only communicate with other top-secret systems. he can only communicate with other speakers at the same thing as unclassified on the system. self segregated and advanced carefully by the government. >> is an example if you have a document and i wanted to see at

what would i have to go through to see that document? >> you couldn't if it was classified unless you have clearance. to get clearance generally you have to go through the u.s. government. if there is a government employee or contractor that has the capacity to provide clearance based on former government employees and some who are able to get clearances private military contractors and so forth in government to do legal work or provide information to the u.s. government. a reporter and sorry to say won't get access to it. that person leaking that information to you could be criminally prosecuted and if you retain the information knowing that it's classified information you could be criminally prosecuted. there is that threat of criminal prosecution hanging over all of us.

>> i apologize to ask you to clarify where to stage were ultimately we will talk about this where classified documents are showing up at homes of various presidents and various legislators. i suppose in picking up information --. >> it depends. somebody like the vice president has access to everything. he's got a computer access on his computer and paper documents provided to him on a regular basis that are all levels. that material is going to be provided to him in paper form. he probably looks at things at different high-level government officials have different processes. what you are supposed to do if you take a secret document out of the skiff there's a specific process that needs to be

followed. it has to be sealed in a certain way and there has to be a chain of custody and you're not supposed to transport it out of the pentagon. i didn't have permission to take anything out of the building and i could take one document from one skiff together but it had to be sealed that and a bag and go directly from one office to the other. there are a lot of stringent rules for someone at our level which is at the low level compared to the present level. he's dealing with classified documents on a regular basis and evaluating what happened with president biden is whether, what are these documents. we don't know that much about what they contained and what level they were classified. classified documents removed by for president trump at mar-a-lago had imposing cover

sheets this a top-secret and you've seen the fbi photo and the material scattered on the ground and you could see they had big top-secret language on them. those are hard to miss. secret usually have aligned at the top from a that says secret. it's impossible to miss that although at my level that would be very responsible and nothing has ever left my office that was classified and at the confidential level that material tents to be less protected although it's governed by these many classification rules. without knowing whether it's a top-secret document or confidential or whether it was secret is harder to evaluate the secret in confidential documents. these you're seeing them get mixed in with unclassified documents. they are usually as a binder

that has a number of documents in it and one of the documents in there might be a confidential or secret document where someone posted a binder brings it home and didn't realize that it was a top-secret document. you can say it should have been looked at more closely what they should have done if that was the case is the binder should have a top-secret sticker on the front indicating it was secret or top secret or whatever the level was. truthfully when people are busy they don't follow it to rules that closely. on top of that it's hard to remember a lot of this information is pretty unremarkable. so it's not if someone says it's not that big of a deal. i'm putting a pilot document in thinking this this is a secret that needs to be protected because it's such an unusual information that i only have access to and very few people

have access to it. not knowing exactly what's in that document is hard to evaluate how problematic it is. it's not hard to imagine that someone is literally working all day long with these classified documents and it could get mixed in with unclassified documents. so we don't know enough to evaluate that. >> what they are from tom and fort myers florida with oona hathaway the pentagon special counsel. >> good morning pedro. enjoy the conversation this morning. when pat moynihan left a senate it was one of his last speeches before he left with about this idea that we classify way too much, way too many documents and he thought there should -- we should ease away from adding get away from that. i think there was truth to there was truth to that and then along came 9/11 i think probably more

than anything else and they took that document out after 9/11. that raised that issue and it moved on and now listening to this morning you seem to think your talk today is that we do weigh over classified things and that the law is hard to comply with. i think that was hillary clinton's problem with the server separating her personal from her government things and she even had conversations with former secretary of state colin powell about that issue having problems complying with the law. that's my question this morning is what is the exact law but we are talking about here that classifies these documents? i'm thinking it's a rather new

law puts together by press people and government types and everybody that wanted everything generated in the government to stay with the government so in the future they could come along along. >> got your point, tom. thank you for your question. ms. hathaway. >> it's a great question and you're right senator moynihan saw that way before anybody else and was a big advocate for trying to deal with this problem. this was before if things had spiraled out of control. even then he said we are classifying way too much and this is bad for government. it means that government can't tell people what it's doing and it handcuffs peopling government from talking to ordinary americans about the work that they are doing anything from getting information from outside of the government and it hamstrings the congress.

they might give briefings on things and they can't tell their constituents what they know because of its classified they can't share that information so it's not good for democracy and that was part of moynihan's point. you are absolutely right he was way ahead of his time. it's actually an executive order. it's not even a law passed by congress. an executive order is just an order issued by the president that says we have to keep this information classified and we have got to manage and keep this information from the public. those most recent ones presence has been issuing these beginning with fdr and more or less most present, biden has not issued one yet in trump did not issue one. the last time was barack obama. that's who says there are

different levels and here are the rules that governor -- governor minutes quite elaborate. it's backed up by laws held by congress that say and there are bunch of different laws. more or less what they say is if you release information it's damaging to national security intentionally or knowingly you could be held criminally liable for that. now the thing is that law was originally passed before the executive order's even existed so the court says well if the information is governed by executive order we will see him as the kind of thing congress had in mind with this information. the combination of the executive order that only president may rule only if the executive that has any say so backed up i congress starting in 1918 before

these rules even existed but that's another part of the system that does not make a whole lot of sense and part of the reason is long overdue for overhaul. senate blitzer from david in long island new york on the republican line. >> yeah good morning. i wanted to just say if the president has the power to declassify documents and the vice president doesn't or the secretary of state doesn't how come they have these in their possession and they are not being charged? >> that's a good question and of course there's an investigation underway right now with that as to what the information is that was released and was it removed knowingly? part of the rules are if you remove this information in a way that some knowing he may not

necessarily be criminally liable. i mentioned there's a quilts to these laws with different standards attached to them. if you remove the documents and share them with someone who might the international security that's one thing if you unintentionally do it it's another thing. what are they looking at is what are these documents and how damaging could they be was the removal him intentional and it happened? the was discovered the removal of the documents were intentional and i think it could become prosecuted and then it's up to, then it's up to the prosecutor to determine whether to exercise their prosecutorial prosecutorial -- there hasn't been criminal prosecution until general petraeus famously gave

his confidante significant classified information that she should not have had access to. he was led off with a slap on the wrist. the other people had single document and then severely punished but that's in cases where were shown they did it with intent. we still have a lot to learn about president biden back when he was vice president or former vice president and members of congress knowingly remove this information and they could be subject to prosecution for release to be investigated and there will be a determination is whether it's serious enough to warrant restitution. >> professor hathaway to clarify something the executive order that president obama signed. >> the president is the one who sits at the top of the whole thing and has the power to make decisions and to delegate down

some of the authority to delegate information pretty good delegated to the vice president. generally there's a process that even the president would go through. it's not liking government of president waves a magic wand and things are automatically declassify. there's a formal process that it will be declassified and there's a review by agencies that may have interest in the information and to make sure that information won't do damage to security. you may think in that one document that couldn't possibly do any damage but another agency with different kinds of equity might have concerns that get give another information is available could be damaging. normally it wouldn't be one person saying i'm going to declassify this. they would say i'm going to start the park at -- the process to consider declassification and then it would go through a

review and even the president ordinarily would go through that. there's a question with the trump materials. the president has claimed he could himself declassify information that would be highly irregular. it is and how things are done and it's a question of whether in fact the president can declare that something is declassified when it hasn't gone through this process. senate jim and connecticut on the independent line. >> hi how are you doing? >> i was in the navy 20 years ago and i handle classified information. you had a caller about a week ago or so and he wanted to know about the chain of custody. i have experience and the story on custody classified materials

are supposed to be kept in the safe that's really heavy that no two people could carry out of the building or off of a ship or something and the other thing is the way it's transmitted. by registered mail, signature required. and if you hear me sing something a shouldn't be please stop me. with these safeguards the markings on the document itself had a distribution list so anyone on the distribution list at the same classified material you did. there's a senior command on that list and the next time that senior command and specs are command he will have the open that safe and make sure to the classified materials are there

where they are supposed to be and there's no evidence that anything wrong has been going on. if you find classified material that should have been destroyed that something else too. >> okay. >> that's absolutely right and the military is extremely careful about management of classified documents especially those that are outside of the pentagon. if you're you are working in the pentagon it takes a lot to get into the building. everyone was in the building has to have parents and a security view pdf to wear your badge when you're when you're walking around so everyone knows you belonged there. but when you have classified information on the a big ship at a facility at a military facility outside of washington they have very stringent rules for managing those documents and ensuring people have access to

those are only people that are supposed to have access to them. that's appropriate because they are out there much more vulnerable. also the materials are classified on something like a ship and information is relevant for operations. that's especially sensitive information because of that information is released to an adversary and potentially they know information that could be damaging to u.s. national security as a result. so there is real care taken with those kinds of materials. >> or conversation is with oona hathaway of yellow school and international law professor and served as the pentagon special counsel talking about the classification of doubt -- government documents with real fear from christopher from oklahoma on the democrats line. >> hey good morning to you all. my question has to do with the wikileaks situation and julian

assange facing extradition to the united states for possessing and publishing unredacted cables which are the exact same cables that were published and still published on the web site as well as daniel fells guard with the pentagon papers and john young and daniel ellsberg being indicted along with julian assange but they are being evaluated. where they treated differently than julian assange? >> that's a great question. you all may remember those leaked documents on wikileaks and initially the government charged him only with cybersecurity violations, so violations of rules of hacking

but then in the trump administration they added a charge which charged him with an espionage act for gathering nationally classified information. that triggered a lot of people to be worried about how that law might be applied to journalists into public commentators and others because what julian assange was being prosecuted for was putting up these documents that he hadn't in most cases secured. he was putting them up on web sites for other people to read them. that's something that "new york times" does all the time and in fact "the new york times" wrote stories saying this is what we do as well and he shouldn't be charged. because a lot of worry among journalists that what julian assange that is more or less the

same things albeit on a different scale to the thousands and thousands of documents which they do on a regular basis and the fact the espionage act was being used against him this law that creates criminal liability for releasing classified information that was being used against him made them fearful it would be used against journalists and the truth is the way the laws written it does apply to journalists who publish information that has been leaked to them and the only reason it hasn't been generally used against journalists it is just then that the u.s. government had made the judgment that that's not good for the country and journalist shouldn't be prosecuted for releasing information. if they find out who leaked information that has to be prosecuted but the journalists aren't likely to be prosecuted. no one has been indicted

similarly sent. some of those fears might be slightly dampened that but it's opened the door to the possibility for journalists to be prosecuted in the future and so many people reacted in the way that you describe. >> miss hathaway there's a viewer on twitter makes a statement saying there's no question if that the president can unilaterally be classified documents to require submission to any executive authority would violate the constitution. >> the reason the president has the authority to issue this executive order is that the president of course is the one with the chief authority to make determinations about how it's going to be handled and managed and the only authority that it relies on this week presents on constitutional -- and he could in theory because he's the one whose authority is being instituted within executive order of president could effectively violate his own executive order and the only

person who has created that authority is his own constitutional authority. as a matter of practice the way in which presidents have done us in the way in which presidents have declassified information has not been to magically determine the information is less a fipug owes her process so being declassified won't do damage to security. this is a matter that's being litigated in one of the issues at issue in the trump case. we will see where that leads. >> in your opinion what is the distinction between president biden and where they found the said his reaction to it. it's a different direction or the document in question? >> we don't know much about the documents that president biden detained. hard to say.

the documents they were held at mar-a-lago were top-secret special compartmented information which is the most highly classified information that the u.s. government hasn't a particular it was very classified compartmented programs that generally are kept under extreme locking key and not taken out of secure facilities. es at the desk and ik for their first reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles of the measures for the first time. the clerk: s.j. res. 4, joint resolution removing the deadline for the ratification of the equal rights amendment. h.r. 22, an act to prohibit the secretary of energy from sending petroleum products from the strategic petroleum reserve to china and for other purposes. mr. warnock: i ask for a second reading and i object to my own

request en bloc. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the measure will be read for the second time on the next legislative day. mr. warnock: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointments at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. warnock: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on wednesday, january 25, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. mr. warnock: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand

adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.