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the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. sovereign lord, we trust you to guide our nation and world. permit us to feel your nearness and to know the inspiration of your presence. may our closeness to you help us to choose truth over falsehood, love over hate and good over evil. move among our lawmakers,

instructing, lifting, and guiding them, so that whatever they do in word or deed, they will glorify you. show our senators what needs to be changed and give them the courage and wisdom to do your will. we pray in your glorious name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the president pro tempore: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business, with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each.

>> a very good wednesday morning. you can start calling in now from the pages of the "wall street journal" this is the scene inside the white house the president and the vice president kamala harris and top democratic leaders in congress strategize for the physical battle of the 118th congress. it was just after that meeting senate majority leader chuck schumer spoke to reporters outside the white house. >> the bottom line is we set our unity is our strength, that the president, the house, the senate are going to be on the same page talking about what we should do. one of the things we want to do on the debt ceiling, say to the

republicans, show us your plan. they passed rules and they make commitments to put bills on the floor by regular order. well, let's see what their plan is. let's see what the plan is on the debt ceiling. did he want to cut social security? did he want to cut medicare? did you want to cut veterans benefits? do you want to cut police? did he want to cut food for needy kids? what your plan? we don't know if they can even put one together. we are unified in saying we're going to stand together and help working families, and not do the things that they want to do about the wealthy. the first thing they put on the floor was to tell the very wealthy people, the ultrarich, who use lawyers and accountants and everyone else to take advantage of tax loopholes, they said we want to let you keep doing that. if we would just close that loophole we wouldn't have debt ceiling crisis for many more,

much more time in the future. but that's just one example of where we are at. majority leader chuck schumer yesterday. meanwhile back on hill yesterday house speaker kevin mccarthy was asked about his plan and about the debt ceiling. this is what he had to say. >> have you had any conversations about settling -- [inaudible] you have been pretty clear in what you believe republicans need. >> it's very disappointed about the white house. think for one moment i don't think anybody in america would do it this way, that they would reach the limit on a credit card and you just extend the limit and not look about where their spending. no state can do this, no family can do this, know city, no county can do this. this isn't even the behavior of past joe biden. when joe biden was vice president, the biden talks, he precis idea of negotiation together the adult anybody in

congress believes this as well. i mean look, i think we have to be sensible and responsible. we have to have a responsible debt ceiling. i'm not saying never. i'm just saying you hit $31 trillion, 120% of gdp. your party has been in power for four years. you increased discretionary spending by 30%, $400 billion. what to look the present in the eye and tell me, there's not one dollar of wasteful spending and government? who believes that? the american public doesn't believe that. our whole government is designed to have compromise. but here's the leader of the free world pounding on a table being a responsible saying no, no, no, just raise a limit, make us spend more. no. that's not how adult act. that's not how elected officials, that's not how the

american public believes their elected officials act. so what i have asked for is you sit down, let's find common ground and let's eliminate the wasteful spending to protect the hard-working taxpayers and protect the future of america the greatest threat to america, it is a if you sit before a 4-star general, they will tell you the debt is the greatest threat to this nation. and for the president to say he wouldn't even negotiate, that's irresponsible. >> host: kevin mccarthy yesterday on capitol hill. we're asking in the first ever of the "washington journal" your message to washington on the debt limit and federal spending. will be talking about this for most of our program today. several members of congress will be joining us from capitol hill to offer their thoughts in the first two hours of the "washington journal." and the house in at 10 a.m. oor n

america's european allies, including germany, to do more to equip ukraine with long-ed -- i consistently callen the biden administration to be more proactive and to deliver lethal aid like the long-range weapons with a greater sense of urgency. i was happy to learn yesterday and this morning that, indeed, both the white house and their counterparts in germany are finally moving forward with these overdue steps. germany has announced it will supply ukraine with an initial 14 leopard 2 tanks and the biden administration is expected to

send 30a-1 tanks as well. now that berlin is taking a step, i hope that other european countries with tanks in their inventory will move expeditiously to send them to ukraine. modern main tanks will provide highly maneuverable firearm to keep pressure on the russian aggressors. but as i said repeatedly time is ofs essence. of course, as we rush these long overdue capabilities to ukraine, the west's work is far from over. these drawdowns of western arsenals must also prompt serious work to expand the capacity of our defense industrial bases. the biden administration's efforts on this front are overdue, but important, and i hope more of our allies will

follow suit by moving quickly to put critical munitions and weapons systems under contract and expanding each of their industrial capacities. now, on another matter, here are just a few scenes from across our country in the last few weeks -- 30 people's were shot in chicago this past weekend alone. that's up from 21 the weekend before. in philadelphia police are investigating a carjacking spree that's reportedly being carried out by armed juveniles, quote, they put a gun to my head, they took the van, and i haven't found it back again. out in san francisco, just one neighborhood has seen a beating, an attempted robbery, a 2-year-old suffering fentanyl poisoning after playing in the park, and 17 car windows

smashed, all on one street, all on one night. streets, neighborhoods, and cities across our country are being swamped, literally swamped, by a level of crime that is unsafe, uncivilized, and totally unacceptable. my hometown of louisville, kentucky, saw ten homicides in just the first ten days of 2023, and already five more since then. the latest edition to the -- addition to the list of 500-plus homicides we've seen since the start of this violent crime wave three years ago. as louisville's mayor said a few weeks ago, these are not just numbers, these are people. many of the individuals are cite young, just starting out their careers and families. far too many were children, including a 14-year-old boy we

lost just ten days ago. of course, for every victim who lost their life to violent crime, there are even more who have been injured or traumatized or literally forced to live in fear. as one resident said, i got to lock my doors all the time, i'm worried about my children going outside, it's not fair, it's not fair. of course, he's absolutely right. it's not fair that once-safe neighborhoods have become war zones. not fair that children are being murdered. or look at what's happening right here in the nation's capital. right here in washington, law and order have been in a free-fall.

last weekend, in broad daylight, a ride share driver had his car stolen by a group of men brandishing rifles. citywide, washington is averaging a carjacking every day. homicides this year are up 17%. just yesterday two 18-year-olds, fresh off a carjacking spree in a nearby county, came right here to the capital, ran into two separate capitol police vehicles, then tried to flee on foot. fortunately, the capitol police brought them into custody. yet, the d.c. city council is so completely captured by the woke far left, they have responded to the crime wave with a new criminal code that -- listen to this -- reduces penalties even further. that's the response of the d.c.

city council. just last week the council overrode the mayor's street roe and pushed through a -- veto and pushed through a measure that shreds the maximum penalty for gun crimes, eliminating almost all minimum sentences, will clog up the court system with new jury trials for misdemeanors. well, the good news on this front is that the united states congress gets to have the final word over reckless local policies from the d.c. government. senate republicans will have a lot more to say on this subject. stay tuned. the american people know crime is getting worse, and they know it hasn't happened by accident. from los angeles to philadelphia to chicago, the democratic party has backed radical district

attorneys who tried to unilaterally take parts of the local criminal code offline. they simply declined to prosecute serious crimes, from drug possession to criminal threats, as a matter of principle. in some cases, these woke prosecutors are seeking early release for felons convicted of violent crimes. many other democrats have spent years fanning the dangerous flames of the far left's anti-police rhetoric. of course, studies have proven that public hostility to the police leads drealt to more crime -- leads directly to more crime, including more homicides. in the at-risk communities that need law and order the most. furthermore, the biden administration and senate democrats have spent two years working to stack the federal

judiciary with former public defenders and others whose sympathies lie more with criminal defendants than with innocent victims. the latest argument is that criminal -- nobody is arguing that they should never become judges, but this has been a dramatic, deliberate transformation project that's skewed overwhelmingly in one direction. even "the new york times" has admitted it's been, quote, a sea change in the world of judicial nominations. the biden administration never misses an opportunity to make crime even worse. deaths from cocaine have quintupled over the last decade, but just a few weeks ago this president and his attorney general took the raked cale and- took the radical and borderline step of reducing the penalties for dealing crack.

these liberals respond to soaring overdose fatalities by going even softer on drugs. the democrats are struggling with the basics. actually, this shouldn't be that hard. drugs belongs off the streets. career criminals belong behind bars. and far-left politicians who put innocent citizens last belong far away from the levers of power. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, before i get into my remarks, just some business, floor business. i understand that there are four measures at the desk due for a second reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the leader is correct. the clerk will read the titles of the bill for the second time en bloc. the clerk: h.r. 23, an act to rescind certain balances made available to the internal receive niew service. h.r. 26, an act to amend title 18 united states code to prohibit health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion. s.j. res. 4, a 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. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority lead every. mr. schumer: first i believe this is the first time our new senator from vermont is sitting in the chair. congratulations. there will be many more opportunities just like this. okay. now -- i'm sorry. going back to -- in order to place the measures on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to the further proceeding en bloc. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the measures will be placed on the calendar. mr. schumer: okay, mr. president. as the debate over raising the debt ceiling continues, leader mcconnell said something yesterday that i think is right on the mark. he said that when it comes to moving a debt ceiling proposal

through congress, the house should go first. he is correct. and not only should the house go first, but they must quickly show the american people what their plan actually is for avoiding a first ever default on the national debt. so far we haven't heard anything beyond vague and troubling talking points about the need to cut federal spending. that's not going to fly when you're in the majority, as speaker mccarthy of course is. the substance and details make all the difference. the debt ceiling is not some political game. and speaker mccarthy has an obligation to level with the american people on what precisely the new house plans to do in order to avoid a default. now, president biden and the speaker have reportedly agreed to sit down in the near future on this topic. and the speaker is apparently heralding this development as some sort of big win or

concession. but look, speaker mccarthy sitting down without a clear plan is no win. sitting down to talk about the debt ceiling without a plan is like coming to the table with no cards. president biden meanwhile has a plan. he has cards. he's been clear that there must be no brinksmanship and no default on the debt ceiling. speaker mccarthy, what about you? the house gop is threatening spending cuts. well, what are they? why the evasion? why is your conference hiding from the american people? house republicans, where are your cards? again, i want to be clear that the debt ceiling is a subject of the highest consequence and using it as a bargaining chip, using it as brinksmanship, as hostage taking, as republicans are trying to do is exceedingly dangerous. because if the house of

representatives continues on their current course and allows the united states to default on its debt obligations, every single american is going to pay a terrible and expensive price. the consequences of default are not some theoretical abstraction. if default happens, americans will see the consequences in their daily lives. interest rates will go soaring on everything from credit cards and student loans to cars, mortgages, and more. that thousands of dollars for each american going right out the door will happen. and through no fault of their own. retirement plans like 401(k)'s would lose their value robbing people of their hard-earned livelihoods. for millions of americans who one daydream of owning a home, their own piece of the rock, a default would be -- would add $130,000 to the lifetime cost of a new home loan. imagine spending years of

putting a little bit of your paycheck aside every month in order to buy a house only to find out that suddenly that dream is entirely out of reach because radical politicians in washington bumbled their way into a financial catastrophe. that's precisely the danger we approach thanks to the house's gop's reckless approach to the debt ceiling. none of this need be inevitable or even likely if only house republicans quit their radical posturing and work with democrats in a serious way to raise the debt ceiling together. and we should do it soon, not months from now when america finds itself staring straight into the abyss of financial catastrophe. and i'd remind my republican colleagues, they did it before when trump was president three times, no democratic obstruction or hostage taking. we did it once together when biden was president. and much of this debt comes from spending when trump was

president, voted on by a republican house and a republican senate. so it's a bit of hypocrisy now to say that they can't do it again. and are holding it hostage and are playing a dangerous form of brinksmanship. it shouldn't matter who is president. it's still bills we already incurred that must be paid for the good of all americans. now, on the republican national sales tax. the house republicans keep churning this stuff out. it's unbelievable. in the 118th congress it's already a tale of two parties. democrats united on one side. republicans in chaos on the other. while democrats are laser focused on making life better for everyday families, republicans are making it clear they want to help the very, very wealthy, the all extra rich. while democrats want to embrace collaboration and bipartisanship wherever possible, republicans seem to be trapped by maga

extremism. that's the contrast in a nutshell. democratic unity versus republican chaos. democratic unity versus republican chaos. yesterday i joined with president biden, the vice president, leader jeffries, and democratic colleagues from both chambers to talk about how we democrats can maintain our unity and turn it into action in order to help the american people. later today i will join with leader jeffries to further highlight the contrast between democrats' people first agenda and republicans' radical plans, radical plans for a national sales tax. multiple extreme right republicans say that speaker mccarthy has promised them a vote on their national sales tax bill which they guilely refer to as the fair tax act. nothing could be less fair to the american people. in a universe of bad ideas, a republican national sales tax reins supreme.

this proposal pushed by the maga fringe that now controls the house republican conference would impose a 30% tax on every single purchase americans make, just as inflation is beginning to drop. this so-called fair tax is truly foul legislation for american families, young families who want to buy a home. well, the republican tax plan would add nearly $125,000 extra on top of the price you pay for your house, an impossible sum for many young people struggling to get their start in life. and what about americans out there thinking of buying a car? under the republican tax plan, the american -- average american would pay $10,000 more on that single purchase alone. what about seniors getting ready for retirement? a republican national sales tax means people's lifesavings would suddenly lose 30% of their value. imagine working your entire life, playing by the rules, paying your taxes, saving a

little of each paycheck only to have republicans swoop in and erase nearly a third, a third of what you saved up. and it doesn't end there, mr. president. under the republican tax plan, a mere trip to the grocery store would be torture. eggs are high enough right now at $4.25 a dozen. they'd be $5.50 under the republican plan. milk right now is $4.40. would cost $5.70 under the republican plan. and the same holds true for everything else. bread, produce, canned goods, cleaning supplies, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, diapers, you name it. all of it would go up by a third for millions of families, millions, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions it would be a devastating blow. but, mr. president, you know who wouldn't mind a republican national sales tax? the ultrarich. the ultrawealthy. the top 1% of our earners wouldn't know much change in

expenses. that's who would win under the republicans' proposal, the very, very rich because their taxes would be greatly reduced, even further, even worse than under the trump tax cuts. no wonder then that even grover norquist, no friend of democrats, calls this bill, quote, a terrible idea and, quote, an assault on your retirement savings. look, if republicans want to start their majority with a debate on their national sales tax bill, democrats would welcome it. let's -- let the american people see which party is fighting for everyday folks and which party is trying to rig the game in favor of the ultrarich. it's a debate the american people need to see. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> host: you can go it and start calling in now from the pages of the "wall street journal" this is the scene inside the white house that meeting with the president and the vice president kamala harris a top democratic leaders in congress strategize for the physical battle of the 118th congress. it was just after that meeting that senate majority leader chuck schumer spoke to reporters outside the white house. >> the bottom line is we set our unity is our strength, that the president, the house, the senate are going to be on the same page talking about what we should do. one of the things we want to do on the debt ceiling, say to the

republicans, show what your plan. they passed all rules, and they've made commitments to put bills on the bill by regular order. let's see with the plant is. let's see what the plan is on the debt ceiling. did he want to cut social security? did want to cut medicare? did he want to cut veterans benefits? did he want to cut police? did he want to cut food for needy kids? what's your plan? we don't know if they can even put one together, but we are unified in saying we're going to stand together and help working families, and not do the things that they want to do about the wealthy. the first thing you put on the floor was to tell the very wealthy people, the ultrarich, who use lawyers and accountants and that what else to takee of tax loopholes, they said we want to let you keep doing that. it we were just too close that loophole we wouldn't have debt

ceiling crisis for many more, much more time in the future. but that's just one example of where we're at. >> host: senator majority leader chuck schumer. house speaker kevin mccarthy was asked about his plan and about the debt ceiling. this is what he had to say. >> have you had conversations with the white house with regard to scheduling a potential meeting? the white house -- given particle and what you believe republicans need your. [inaudible] >> no. it's very disappointing about the white house. think for one moment i don't think anybody in america would live this way. that would reached their limit on a credit card and they just extend the limit and not look about where their spending. no state can do this. no family can do this. no city, no county can do this. this isn't even the behavior of past joe biden, when joe biden was vice president, they called the biden talks.

he praised the idea of negotiating together to helping anybody in congress believes this as well. i mean look, i think we have to be sensible and we have to be responsible. we have to have a responsible debt ceiling. i'm not saying never noted that seemed odd to say you hit $31 trillion, 120% of gdp. your party has been in power for four years. you increased discretionary spending by 30%, $400 billion. what to look the present in the eye and tell me, there's not one dollar of wasteful spending and government. who believes that? the american public doesn't believe that. our whole government is designed to have compromise. but here's the leader of the free world pounding on a cable being a responsible say no, no, no, just raise the limit, make us spend more. no. that's not how adult act. that's not how elected

officials, that's that have the american public believes their elected officials act. so what i've asked for is to sit down, let's find common ground and let's eliminate the wasteful spending to protect the hard-working taxpayers and protect the future of america. the greatest threat to america, it doesn't matter if you sit before a 4-star general, they will tell you the debt is the greatest threat to this nation. and for the president to say he wouldn't even negotiate, that's irresponsible. >> host: speaker kevin mccarthy yesterday on capitol hill. we're asking in the first segment of the "washington journal" which a message to washington on the debt limit and federal spending. we'll be talking about this for most of our program today. several members of congress will be joining us from capitol hill to offer their thoughts in these first two hours of the "washington journal." the house in at 10 a.m. today and we will of course take you there for life to gavel to gavel

coverage when they do. platy to discuss this morning but most of want to hear your message to washington on these issues that the debt limit and federal spending. democrats it's 202-748-8000. republicans 202-748-8001. independents 202-748-8002. we will look for your texts and tweets, facebook messages as well. crake is up first line for independent out of port orange florida. good morning. >> caller: good morning. >> host: your thoughts on these negotiations, the debt limits that is quickly approaching. >> caller: well, , my thought is that both republicans and democrats spent more money than what the united states can handle pics i think the government should shut down for a while so i can have a big reset. >> host: and what does a reset involved, craig? >> caller: reset years,

meaning swiftest dock are wasteful spending just like the democrats did the past four years with wasteful spending on infrastructure bill, climate change, nothing has been done on those two bills mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican chip. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call. i ask that the quorum call be lifted. we need a fresh start. we cannot afford a repeat of the past two years. despite the fact that democrats controlled congress by the slimmest of margins in the last congress, democrats acted as if they had a mandate for radical far-left change. democrats shoved through partisan spending sprees, including the american rescue plan act, which kicked off our

current inflation crisis, and what they got through was mild compared to what they wanted to push through, from a federal takeover of elections to some of the extreme ition abortion legislation. ultimateultimately it did not mt through congress, but not for a lack of trying on the democrats' part. despite that they had nothing more than a technical majority, democrats their best to eliminate the voice of of the senate by busting the filibuster rule. some asked for packing. the democrats' rhetoric was often as extreme as their policies including an address the president gave a year ago this month in which he suggested half the country was racist. we had another election and

elected a republican house of representatives. they created a situation where both parties will have to work together to get anything done. i hope this will mark a new less partisan moment in congress. ip hope we can move on from the past two years and start afresh to face the challenges. there's a lot we can do together. despite the partisanship from the democrats, there were moments that reminded us that there are many areas where we can agree that are close enough to work together. i introduced a number of bipartisan bills in the last congress, and i'm looking forward to working with colleagues on both parties on a number of issues in the new congress. one major piece of legislation that we take up every few years is the farm bill, which has a strong bipartisan history. i have introduced farm bill legislation with democratic and republican colleagues, and i think working together we can

produce a bill this year that will meet the needs of our farmers and ranchers and strengthen u.s. agricultural production. another area for bipartisan cooperation is the federal aviation administration reauthorization that is coming due this year. and none too soon as recent air travel if i fiascoes made clear. the last f.a.a. bill was a bipartisan piece of legislation and this year's bill should be the same. another area where i think there's a lot of room for bipartisan cooperation is promoting transparency and accountability in big tech. president biden published an op-ed in "the wall street journal" calling for section 230 reform. i already have bipartisan legislation with senator schatz to increase transparency and due process for users around content moderation actions taken by big tech platforms. and i will work to advance that legislation in this congress. i also think there's a lot we

can do on a bipartisan basis to advance trade agreements to expand markets for american products and ■services around th world. the biden administration has been slow to take action on trade and i think there is a real interest from members of congress of both parties to accelerate our trade efforts and create new market access opportunities for american workers and producers. i also would like to think that we can agree on the need to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used efficiently and effectively. democrats forced through trillions of dollars of new spending and conducting oversight of how the money is spent is our responsibility as members of congress. i'm thinking particular the massive funding influence, $80 billion the democrats handed to the irs, especially given the irs's shaky record when it comes to handling taxpayer data. i hope we can agree rigorous

oversight of the irs is required. i hope that my democratic colleagues will work to extend tax relief for american businesses and families. americans and small businesses are going to face serious tax hikes if the tax relief and the tax cuts and jobs act is not made permanent. i would like to think members of both parties will work to extend the tax relief and the benefits it provides americans. another thing i hope will happen in this congress, mr. president is a return to regular order when it comes to appropriation bills and other legislation. omnibus appropriation bills are not an adeal way to fund the government. they're an invitation for waste and all of the problems that come with hastily thrown together legislation. and we need to do everything we can to make sure that individual appropriation bills go through the committee process and are individually debated on the floor. i'm very encouraged that the

incoming democratic chair of the appropriations committee has joined senator collins to announce her desire to pass appropriation bills through regular order. and i really hope that that will be a bipartisan priority this year. for similar reasons, we need to put a greater emphasis on making sure nonappropriation bills, especially the biggest bills that we consider go through regular order in committee where they can be publicly debated and amended and receive input from all committee members. i hope that we can move forward a more collaborative and transparent process, which is the kind of process that best serves the american people. mr. president, getting anything done an in a divided government requires a genuine attitude of compromise with both sides conceding things rather than the my way or the highway approach we have seen from democrats over

the past two years. but if we can get there, and i think -- and i think we can achieve a lot together in this new congress and i'm eager to work with my colleagues to address the challenges facing our country. and for the good of the american people, i hope we will build a record of bipartisan accomplishment over the next two years. mr. president, i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: >> generally interested in cutting spending, it actually works. 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 had happened during the pandemic. here's where i think we are. .. the house. so even though the debt ceiling could originate either the house or the senate, in the current situation the debt ceiling fixed, if there is one, how it is to be dealt with will have to come out of the house. so i think it is entirely reasonable for the new speaker and his team to put spending reduction on the table. i wish him well and talking to the president, that is where a solution lies.

>> host: a lot of focus in the headlines on that last statement on where negotiations should come from. this is the story from nbc news, macconnell puts the onus on mccarthy to negotiate a debt limit solution, plenty of other headlines to the same effect today. the same discussion on your message to washington on the debt limit and federal spending, you can join the conversation by calling in, 202-748-8,000, republicans 202-748-8,000 one, independents 202-748-8002. taking up a lot of space on capitol hill, the only story claiming more to talk about, one other story getting a lot of attention, mike pence discovers classified documents at his home. a handful of classified documents found at the former

vice president's home in indiana, the fbi retrieved them according to a representative, mike pence in a letter to the national archives, pence's lawyer characterize the document as a small number of documents with classified markings that were transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration, found on january 16th, placed in a secure space until they could be returned to the proper authority, the front page story on usa today, the latest in a series of discoveries involving classified documents. the most recent ones coming from the president himself after his time as vice president in the obama administration and donald trump as well. the letter from pence's lawyer notes the former president was on -- unaware of the existence of the documents, he understands the importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate with the

national archives in an appropriate inquiry. attorney general merrick garland appointed two special prosecutors to oversee the biden and trump document cases. that's the latest on the classified document front although here is one op-ed from the pages of usa today from jason rosen, former correspondent who oversees correspondence, has also worked in the classified area when it comes to various issues, he says the document cases dramatize what experts of every political stripe have known for decades, too many government records are being classified. too many secret or confidential documents to protect. the story goes on to note a major flaw in the classification system is it creates -- created in pre-internet era when

information was much less fungible in addition to frustrating journalists, the over classification we see, extended retention of government records, academic research which policymakers depend on to make informed decisions. a call to rethink how we classify documents in this country. we will keep you updated if more documents emerge wherever they come from but that's the latest on that front, back to your message to washington on the debt limit and on the federal spending issue. from clarksburg, west virginia, line for democrats, thanks for waiting. >> caller: i'm going to ask the question. often democrats want the republicans to do is lay there plan down beside the democrats plan and let the people make the choice. what is your plan? show me a plan. he did not show them a plan.

he talked around it and his plan is i am 75 years old, his plan is if we save 5 since he couldn't give the rich a tax break, nobody will see money. president biden come in as president, helping the republicans and the democrats and is trying to hold them back. the mccarthy -- has to do is produce the paperwork. tell the american people what he is going to do and we will tell him what we are going to do and we compare and talk about it. that is all he is saying. >> host: we will talk to a couple republican members and to ask the question, what their plan is today. a camera is set up on capitol hill, we have four stopping by in the first 2 hours of

washington journal today including don bacon of nebraska, republican don boozer, the republican democrat bill foster of illinois, jan sharkansky of illinois also expected to stop by and chat with us about this issue about the debt limit and federal spending in these plans. as we do that we will mix in that conversation with your phone calls until 9:15 this morning on washington journal and after that we will talk about the issue of literacy in the united states. how we consume our news. that's the plan for washington journal. that will be the main focus. scott in pennsylvania, next. >> i just wanted to say these idiots in washington keep talking about social security is an entitlement. when reagan was president he

said on national tv it is not an entitlement, it comes from a different type of source. i am 60 years old. i've got my social security statement. i paid $47,000 in social security tax. my employer paid $48,000 in social security tax. my medicare tax i pay $12,000. my employer paid $12,000. if this is an entitlement, where is that money coming from? >> host: roberto in fairfax, virginia, republican, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i think there is a lot of blame going around before anything has been done. it's all in an attempt to hang what we all know has to happen which is a reduction in the

amount of spending in the federal government. consumers being responsible, even though he knows -- they are not going to negotiate in good faith. >> host: where should the cuts come in your mind? >> from everywhere. i am in the military. i would be open to having the military budget be scrutinized and cut back. we shouldn't spend money overseas if we can't spend here domestically. i would cut like one of the callers said earlier, go to a baseline budget where 0 is the starting point. instead of having a 4% or 5% increase built into the budget

automatically and claiming we will only increase 1% to represent the cut. and start their. but again, why was negotiation -- >> host: can we do that with the budget, the pentagon failed the audit for the fifth time to pass an audit for the fifth budget? >> there is so much money being spent, it is uncontrolled. there's no accounting system in the world that can capture the $800 billion that gets spent. there's an enormous amount of

waste and taken advantage of the military-industrial context. there is no alternative. where are we going to buy aircraft carriers? there's only one manufacturer. they can charge $12 billion for an aircraft carrier and they still have operable components. where is a native going to go other than newport news to build its aircraft carriers? >> host: it is more than $12 billion for an aircraft carrier, but your point is well taken. >> there's adult conversations that need to happen but this is politics. they are blaming each other.

mcconnell is throwing mccarthy under the bus figuratively speaking, trying to earn some political points but this all is a game to them. what i would do is say if there is no negotiated budget, no one in congress gets paid. they are the first ones that are going to miss a paycheck if they don't balance the budget, spend responsibly, and not raise taxes on the entire american people who are already suffering high inflation and not getting a value from the dollars they are spending as of today. >> host: comments from social media, dd rogers saying president biden is irresponsible for wanting to raise the debt ceiling, we have to live within

our means and cut discretionary spending on michelle obama trial and gender to associate studies and meeting habits. this is tony saying lifting the cap on payroll taxes might help with people acting like it would solve all the problems are misguided. it may help but the rich will simply take less compensation in their salaries to get around it. maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of social security completely. think how much more money we could send to ukraine. comments from social media, we will keep looking for those. we want to hear from you, 200-seven forty eight-eight thousand. for democrats 202-748-eight thousand one. for republicans, independents, 202-748-8002. the hoosier state, good morning. >> caller: this is mark. i'm calling in. i am 75 years old and i worked

my whole life, often double jobs, from age 58 to 75 i worked 80 hours a week driving trucks, i just retired. with the whole problem with this country, there is too many lazy people especially in the inner cities that aren't willing to work and they need to get out there, the problem is lack of morality in this country, so many young kids that do not have a father in the home, they instead run from woman to woman and we have to pay their children and secondly, thirdly, i believe no one should touch social security but they should decrease the spending so that the inflation doesn't continue to rise which causes more dollars from social security to be sent out.

if we get rid of the excess spending and foolishness in this country, then i think we will be able to survive financially. >> host: mark in indiana, it is 7:30 on the east coast. having this conversation about your message to washington on the debt limit and federal spending, also invited several members of congress to join us. the first is congressman don bacon from nebraska. good morning to you. >> things for having me back my love c-span. >> host: you know who comes often to talk about the middle ground on various issues, what is the middle ground on the debt limit site in federal spending? >> guest: we have a one seat minority in the senate, a democrat president, some demands can't be met. it is impossible. it is wrong for president biden to refuse to negotiate because

we have a divided government. the spending in the last two years was on partyline votes so as republicans we ran on fiscal responsibly, stopping the reckless spending, it leads to inflation. i think some good ideas are out there. i propose we keep spending in the coming two years, that will help right the ship or point us in the right direction. we need a commission, half republican, have democrat working on social security and medicare. we have to save these programs. if we do nothing they will go insolvent. if only one party tries to fix it, it's not a recipe for success. it will be demagogues and overturned. we need to work together to solve the medicare issue and social security problems to save them for our seniors. those are the ideas i have. >> host: a lot of viewers focus on social security and medicare

and potential cuts. to dig into that a little bit more. what could a commission like you are talking about, where could they find agreement on those programs that cause a lot of concern? >> guest: you have to blend some democrat proposals with some republican proposals and find out what combination works. we have social security caps on income at certain levels, people -- vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: mr. president, today i have the honor of recognizing a true montana hero, dr. daniel elman. dr. edelman is a veteran of the united states army who was seriously injured on a mission while deployed overseas as the noncommissioned officer in charge of security and intelligence of the first military intelligence battalion, first infantry division.

despite his severe injuries, dr. edelman pursued and obtained bachelors, masters, and doctor rat degrees along with several professional certifications allowing him to have a long and distinguished career serving his fellow montanans. and while serving as chancellor at montana state university billings, dr. edelman championed many student causes with a particular focus on veterans disabilities, first generation underserved and native american students. he worked with the fbi and other agencies to provide educational opportunities for victims of human trafficking and also entered into an agreement for msub to partner with the university of north texas health science center to identify human

remains, particularly those of murdered native americans. additionally, he created a veterans success center at msub. dr. edelman also helped raise the final funds for a science building and student scholarships. outside of his work at msub, dr. edelman volunteers by serving on the board of horses spirit healing, a nonprofit that helps veterans with ptsd. after a career dedicated to serving montana and our nation, dr. edelman recently retired from msub due to a terminal condition connected to his time in the united states army. dr. edelman truly embodies the values and the spirit of a

montanan and i have no doubt his legacy of service will continue for many generations to come. it is my honor to recognize dr. edelman who is here in the chamber today in the gallery with his family. it's my honor to recognize dr. edelman for his service to our great state, our great nation, and for his education to improving the lives of his students and his fellow montana veterans. dr. edelman, you have made montana and our country very proud.

>> we can't demand the moon, but we can expect some cuts in spending.

i offer my proposals here, but the president has to meet us halfway to get republicans out of this. >> host: i know you have a lot of work and got to run. what will you be working on today? what should our viewers be watching for on capitol hill? >> we are having our first committee hearing in the armed services with one hundred 80 of congress. i enjoyed being on the armed services committee, served 30 years in the air force commanded 5 times. it is in my comfort zone. we have our first committee hearing there and i have a variety of caucuses i am a part of. i help the main st. republican congress. haven't got 80 members, part of this caucus, i am very proud of the efforts to get this going. not the chairman anymore but that is what we are doing. >> host: who are the mainstream republicans?

>> we are conservatives who want to find consensus areas with democrats, the only way congress works. the house and the senate and the president, separation of powers, got to work with your counterparts, to make things happen. we don't go against our values but got to find common values so we can provide solutions on the border, for example, support law enforcement, diversify our energy and things like that. >> host: no stranger to the washington journal, republican from nebraska, second district, appreciate your time. back to your phone calls as we ask your message to washington on the debt lummus, federal spending. phone line for democrats, republicans and independents, the sun is rising on capitol hill. this is scott in gladstone, illinois. good morning.

>> reporter: good morning. on the debt ceiling, it is going to get past. i don't think republicans will hold back too long on it. the voters will take care of that down the road. as a democrat we need to quit this spending. we need to get our house in order and one more thing to say about all these papers floating around. when we elect a president and they come into office they come in with no papers. when they walk out of the building their final day they walk out without any papers and the national archives can't get their libraries or those people what they think they can have, it is pretty simple. this country needs to get back to some simple fact, some simple truths. we are not going to live forever. it is time to wise up, america. good day.

>> host: this is susie, north carolina, republican, good morning. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i did not mean to call on the republican line but it was the only line i could get through on. >> host: we try to stick to the lines that best fit political ideology because it makes the show flow a little better and we rotate through the lines. how would you describe yourself? >> caller: independent. the reason i'm calling is about the debt ceiling. to get the debt ceiling under control is to stop all this pork spending. michelle obama, the walking trl. in georgia, nancy pelosi really need -- this is how we are going to get the spending under control. you don't buy what you cannot

afford. >> host: is there a west flat rock, north carolina? >> caller: just east flat rock and flat rock. east flat rock is on the far side of flat rock. hendersonville, north carolina. >> host: a call from the tar heel state. massachusetts, you are next. >> caller: good morning. how are you? there's a point i want to make. we need to start over. when republicans had the senate and pastor $1.9 trillion tax cut for corporations, it is not a republican, not a democrat thing and time hired people saying that. that is an american thing. let's get behind values. this country spends and spends. you never hear of section 8 in

the deficit, never hear of food stamps. always a surplus with these things. too much money going through people's hands. not enough americans working. i can tell you this from a couple folks, i'm not going to get personal with them but they don't work, only got food stamps, section 8, always have things, if they lose that section 8, let's get these people who want assistance, needs community centers. if you can't work some to spend your time with the community. as far as that goes, stay with $1.9 trillion tax cut. only $750 in taxes to this country. >> host: this is the theme, the photo from the wall street journal this morning, president biden eating with democratic leaders and vice president kamala harris at the white house to strategize about the issues

we are talking about, spending, the debt limits, and this was president biden speaking briefly to reporters yesterday at the front of that meeting. >> president biden: people are feeling the effects of the laws we passed that are only now going into affect. a situation where we promised folks on medicare there insulin wouldn't go for 400 a month, $35 a month. as of january 1st it is reality. paul are feeling the effects. so much more of that out there. and how we can continue to build the progress, lowering the cost for middle-class and working-class families. and we talked a lot about this around the table, i decided to

thank you all, i want to welcome you, they will do well. tired of trickle-down economics to build the economy from the bottom up. the middle-class does well in the wealthy never get hurt. we also want to talk about extreme republican economic plan. they are genuinely serious about cutting social security and medicare. i love their 30% sales tax. we will talk a lot about that. i have no intention of letting the republicans wreck our economy. >> host: president biden from the white house, asking for your message to washington. to president biden on debt limits and federal spending. independent in new york, good

morning. >> caller: it amazes me free time i watch your show most people are ignorant as far as politics are concerned, finances is concerned. what i am wondering these people did as far as going to school. the debt limit is already spent. it has to be paid. no getting around it. representative bacon is talking gibberish. most of these people don't get it. don't understand what these people are saying to them. why don't they go back to school, takes basic courses, economics, because i am a businessman and i had to do that myself. >> host: is there a time to talk about federal spending, reducing federal spending and when should that be? you don't think it should be

during a discussion over the debt limits. >> caller: what you've got to do because reagan broke it, the magnificent tax breaks. if you want to fix it go back to that time and then it will be fixed but it will take hell to get back to that time. >> host: $350 million in county in our national debt. what do you think of that number? >> caller: it is astronomical but we are not going to get out of this in the next 20 or 30 years. it's impossible. here it is. you've got to go back to the beginning of where reagan messed it up and start taxing the rich and taxing them accordingly

because when you get rich people a golden parachute or $30 million, that is insane. it is insane and here it is. if you look at the cause of executives versus workers, it has been stagnant and they are moving up 400%, that is unimaginable. that is why we are in the predicament we are in. >> host: this is raul in miami. good morning. >> caller: thank you, i listen with interest to representative bacon's idea to put together a committee to figure this out. a bipartisan committee. i would like to remind him and your listeners and viewers is

that this is already done. i would encourage everybody to look up the simpson bowles plan on the internet, simpson bowles plan. this was a bipartisan report that came out in 2000 during the obama years and it was a bipartisan report prepared by congress with 6 steps in order to fix the us national debt. mind you we are going on 13 years now. if we had implemented this back in 2,010 we would be in a better situation than we are in now but unfortunately congress has a nasty habit of kicking the can down the road. the problem is there isn't a simple fix. you can't fix this enormous deficit we have, this enormous spending that we have simply by addressing a trail named after michelle obama or some other pork project. the fact of the matter is the biggest components of our budget

are social security, the metal terry - military, and medicare. -- military, and medicare. those segments dwarf everything else. there's not enough money in all of the pork project in the government, to basically tackle this problem in a serious fashion. you have to go after social security, you have to go after the military, and you have to go after medicare. that is one of the things the simpson bowles plan did. it was not easy. it was not fun, but it addressed the issue in a serious way. but of course it wasn't adopted. why? because it was politically difficult. imagine what it is like now, 13 years after this was presented. a bipartisan committee back in 2010 and the obama administration circular filed it. >> host: c-span was there when those two committee members

presented their findings, march 8, 2011, the national commission on fiscal responsibility giving their report to congress. you can watch it on our website, c-span.org. all our coverage of the simpson bowles commission, c-span.org. want to take viewers back to capitol hill. your message to congress on the debt limit and federal spending, a few members of congress joining us, stopping by on a busy day on capitol hill. republican from pennsylvania joins us now. good morning to you. what is your message to america on the debt limit and federal spending? >> guest: when i entered congress our federal debt was 19. $6 trillion. today it is 30 one. 4 and rising.

certainly during the covid years, a bipartisan spend took place. right or wrong it took place on a bipartisan basis, $4 trillion worth, the biden administration came in, they thought it was a wonderful idea to double down on that even though we were in economic recovery and we should spend another $5 trillion. that got us to $34 trillion so we have a huge spending problem. the good news is our revenues are way out. i am a former revenue secretary for pennsylvania. on normal growth rate for revenue is 2% to 3%. that is relatively healthy. it's in the neighborhood of 9%, 10%. nowhere near keeping up with the mandatory spending requirements for the discretionary spending that the democrats in the past congress thought was a great idea to raise by 12%. what we have now is a debt that

has been hit at 31.4 far earlier than predicted because of the excessive spending. many of us knew that. i knew that, 10 plus 10 doesn't equal 16. 80 wills quite a bit more than that. we knew we were going to hit this early. we had a credit card. it was fully utilized. not just maxed out but exceeded its limit by a lot. what we are simply stating, republicans and speaker mccarthy is the american people want to see some responsible actions taken here, we have a debt. democrats in the biden administration have spent a lot of taxpayers money, exceeding $34 trillion. those debts need to be paid. what republicans and speaker mccarthy and our leadership are asking for is simply state we

are not going to do it again. we are not going to exceed the credit card limit. we are going to put a hard limit on the credit card going into next year and that is what the american people want. the biden administration says we are not going to negotiate. that irresponsible. >> host: mary in new hampshire wrote in cutting spending and raising revenue should be on the table when discussing every budget, but putting the full faith and credit of the united states on the table when discussing raising the debt ceiling, paying the bills we already accumulated, that is irresponsible. >> guest: was if your teenage child exceeded the credit card limit by thousands and thousands of dollars? you would have to pay it but you would say we are not going to do that again. there should be a reasonable discussion on that. that is what are being asked here. the debts of the united states are going to be paid.

we are stating we are not going to do this again, we are not going to exceed the credit limit, the budgetary limit, the debt ceiling by god knows what will be exceeded by, one trillion extra dollars, and put our nation in a terrible crisis position. spending is the root of many evils. the spending at this point is the number one cause of inflation with increased interest rates which are crushing retirement accounts, increasing the cost of housing, causing workforce shortages because the amount of funding states have right now is going out so those who aren't eligible for such levels of unemployment and other entitlements, so it is wreaking havoc on our economy. how would the american people feel, taxpayers, when we are spending trillions of dollars, making things worse, not making

them better? that is hard to swallow and we will work on stopping it. >> host: you introduced a trio of measures, bring spending under control, what are they aimed at? >> host: >> guest: bringing a reality to the spending, because of the biden administration masterminding office spending inflation should be associated by the cbo to any budgetary initiatives. all i am stating in my bill is inflation be applied so the american people know what it is, what the actual cost is, then we need to apply the same inflationary number, making it real, not nominal, to add to the service on the debt. which is climbing rapidly, nearly $400 billion within the

mandatory spending. the american people need to understand that. $400 billion to service the debt, not bring the debt down, simply to pay the interest on that debt as part of our budget. that is on the rise. that can't get to 500 billion, $900 billion, that will be more than the defense budget. clearly we have an issue. republicans have the majority in the house. we are going to bring responsible fiscal restraint without putting our nation's debt at risk and we are going to do it this year. >> host: we only have a minute left but you are on the financial services committee in the 118th congress. what is it, the jurisdiction of the financial services committee, what do you think should be the focus of the committee in the next two years? >> chairman patrick mc henry laid out policies that i agree

with. very happy to began financial services committee, beneficial to the commonwealth of pennsylvania as well as my district. i'm also on the small business committee so i care about access to capital for small businesses, small businesses have only 19% of them say they have adequate access to capital. i'm focused on the unfair mandates. perhaps illegal mandates that are being put on financial institutions, small banks large and small, carbon emission mandates for investment, where there is no place for that, we are not basing it on outcomes of investments but ideology so that is wrong and outside the charter of such banking and investing. patrick mc henry is one of the most talented people in this

house. i will be working under him to do a number of things, capital formation, data privacy as well as a few other priorities he has set and i'm looking forward to it. oversight as well as the transactions that have taken place in china, to the cartels, terrorist organizations, this monetary policy, there's a good amount to do. >> host: we will let you get to today. call? the presiding officer: no. mr. durbin: thank you. mr. president, the state of illinois is my home and it holds an important place in the history of the american labor movement. all of us learned the name upton sinclair in our early days in school. the author of the 1906 novel "the jungle" which told the story of the horrendous working

conditions endured by largely immigrant workers in chicago's meatpacking plants and led to federal regulation. a. phillip randolph, one of america's first unions for african american workers, he is a civil rights champion and leader of the 1963 march on washington. there is also the story of mary harris, mother jones, an irish immigrant who survived the great famine in england, the yellow fever epidemic which took the lives of her husband and children can and after her own dress shop was destroyed in the great chicago fire of 1871, she went on to become a woman labor organizer and a fierce and beloved champion of coal miners. but she died she said she wanted to be buried in a place of honor among coal miners. she is buried in a town near my

home called mount only vive, chicago, the only union-owned cemetery in america. besides being legends of history, they had something else in common. they are members of the union hall of honor founded in 1969 to make sure that important figures in defining chapters in america's labor history are not forgotten. the societyst highest honor is to be named to its union hall of honor. last month a long-thyme friend of mine, john penn, was inducted into the illinois labor history society's union hall of honor after nearly 60 years of protecting workers' rights in illinois, the midwest, and our nation. john has certainly earned that honor. he he is one of 11 men and women who have that honor but to me john is one in a million. he got his first union card in

1965 when he was 16 years old, joined the labor international union of north america, local 362 in bloomington, illinois. he took a break by joining the united states air force serving in vietnam, korea, guam and returning back to floomgton and local 362. it was the same path taken a generation earlier by his father, paul penn, a world war ii veteran who rose to become president of the same local. but john's family connections didn't win him any special treatment. he had to rise through the ranks, and rise he did. from business manager of local 362 to business manager of the 36 county north central county north central illinois council, and in 2008, vice president and regional manager of the ten-state midwest region and a member of the international union's general executive board positions to which he's been

elected three different times. under john's leadership, lyona grew giving a voice to scores of workers who previously never benefited from union representation. some years ago in response to several tragic accidents, john made himself known to many by stopping all highway construction in mcclain county to force the state of illinois to improve protections for vulnerable construction workers and others on the state's roadways. that action culminated in the creation of the illinois state's work zone safety committee and implementation of numerous policies that saved lives. somehow john also found time to resurrect bloomington's labor day parade, to serve on boards including the united way of mcclain county, the christmas party for unemployed families, illinois special olympics and the advancement and economic development council. he was honored by his hometown

newspaper, the bloomington panograph as the 2003 person of the yeefer. he received a thousand points of light foundation award from then-president clinton in 1997 in recognition of his volunteer efforts and those of all bloomington normal business tradespeople whom he had recruited over the years to take part in these organizations. tomorrow john penn is retiring from his position with the labors union as he begins this new chapter, loretta and i wish john and mary, his wife of 55 years, good health, good times with their daughter sean, their children and grandchildren. john, you've made a real difference for so many people. you are truly a hall of famer, and thanks for all that you've done. mr. president, i ask that the following statement i'm about to make be placed in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. durbin --. mr. durbin: in the last two centuries federal support for scientific research helped to split the atom, defeat polio,

explore space, create the internet, map the human genome, develop vaccines and treatments for covid-19, and so much more. no nation made such significant investments in science and no nation's scientists have done more to improve the quality of life. but with the challenges we face today from devastating diseases to climate change there is more progress to be made. so america is at a turning point and unless we commit to providing strong and sustained increases for our nation's premer and scientific researchers, our position will be at risk. that is exactly why since 2014, i continued to introduce legislation to keep our nations on the cutting edge. this bill will provide our top medical agencies with 5% real funding growth every year.

that's steady, predictable growth, pegged above the rate of inflation. this money would support the national institutes of health, the centers for disease control and prevention, the department of defense health program and the veterans affairs medical and prosthetics research program. this investment would be game changers for the agencies. consider the national institutes of health. it is our nation's, if not the world's premier medical research agency. this pioneering work at this single agency saves lives and fuels our economy, supporting nearly 20,000 jobs just in my home state of illinois. today the nih budget is $47.5 billion, more than 95% of this funding is competitively awarded to scientists, research institutions, and small businesses in every state across the country. researchers supported by the nih make tens of thousands of new discoveries every year,

breakthroughs that could literally change the world. in recognition of these remarkable feats, congress on a bipartisan basis increased the nih annual budget by more than $17 billion since i first introduced the american cures act in 2014. this chart is an indication of that growth. it's gone from $30 billion to $48 billion in that period of time since 2014, a 58% increase. these increases would not have been possible without a bipartisan effort in the united states senate. i enlisted a willing participant and ally and really effective member of the senate, patty murray, to be part of this. former senators roy blunt of missouri, who when the republicans were in majority control of the senate, kept up this promise to increase the spending. and retired senator lamar alexander from tennessee who

shared our passion for medical research. luckily, we had a leader at the time, dr. francis collins, former director of the nih, who really did his part in enlisting support for these increases. nih is not the only federal medical research agency to see significant funding increases. we've also secured $2.4 billion in increased funding for the cdc over the last nine years. that's a 35% increase since fiscal year 2014. and while it's not reflected in the chart i just showed, both the cdc and nih also received billions in supplemental funding for covid rescue bills passed by the senate in 2020 and 2021. while this year's budget provided a 5.8% bump to the nih, a 2.5 billion dollar increase, i'm sorry to say we fell short of the 5% real growth target above inflation. if we had met this target, nih would have received $650

million, up to a level of more than $48 billion. that said, i'm still encouraged about how far we've come. we finally reversed a 22% decline in nih purchasing power that took place after 12 years of flat funding. but we need to step up our efforts. diseases like cancer, stroke, opioid addiction and mental illness will not wait on us. half of all men and a third of all women in the u.s. will develop cancer in their lifetime. someone's mother, father, brother, sister, or spouse is diagnosed with alzheimer's disease every 65 seconds. and one in every 300 people will be diagnosed with als in their lifetime. sadly, a number of my closest friends already have received this diagnosis. sustained and robust nih funding will help cure, prevent, and treat these diseases. it will help the people that we all care about the most, and it already has. because of nih funding, listen to this, the american cancer

society estimates that nearly 3.5 million lives were saved between 1991 and 2019 as a result of improvements in cancer treatment, detection and prevention. a 32% drop in the cancer death rate since 1991. 30 years ago hiv was a death sentence. but because of nih research, that is no longer the case. and because of nih funding, we're also on the verge of curing -- yes, curing, sickle crem anemia, an inherited blood disorder that primarily affects african americans. consider this, nih funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved by the food and drug administration from 2010 to 2019. let me repeat that for emphasis. there are only two countries in the world that allow general advertising of prescription drugs -- the united states and new zealand. you can't turn on the television without hearing the story of a

new drug. every single drug approved by the food and drug administration from 2010 to 2019 started off with government-funded, taxpayer-funded research at the national institutes of health. so when you see these wonderful drugs, understand we as americans put down the initial investment that made these drugs all possible. however, there's a real threat to our nation's investment in medical research. the new house republican majority, after more than a dozen, in fact 15, painful and embarrassing failed votes to secure the speaker, an announced that speaker mccarthy had finally won the day, he made some deals, agreements with maga republicans for that to happen. one of those agreements would literally devastate funding for medical research in the future. what a price to pay. he reportedly agreed to hamstring government funding for

2024 at 2022 levels, a senseless move -- senseless move that would cut funding for hispanic be breakthroughs but -- for scientific breakthroughs and delay delivery for new cures and treatments for those most in need. so i'd like to know for the record, which diseases and conditions would speaker mccarthy and the house republicans like us to slash funding for. cancer? alzheimer's? parkinson's? diabetes? als? heart disease? which one? speak up, mr. speaker. this is supposed to be a new transparent house of representatives. if you're going to cut the funding in medical research, what can we put on the back of the burner, and how can we explain that to the families across america? now is not the time for political horse trading that puts one person in power at the expense of everyone waiting for a cure. we need to build on the

bipartisan success which we have had to date, and we have achieved over the past decade, and continue to prioritize medical research funding that creates jobs, but most importantly saves lives. mr. president, i yield the floor. >> for congressman omar, two republicans have come out so far, moving from your committee to that effect, by trying to -- i was intrigued by the questions, the rhetorical questions my friend from illinois has asked the speaker. i've got a question for president biden. when you say that you're not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling, does that mean that

the federal government is going to continue to rack up more and more debt on top of the $30 trillion that we already owe, particularly during inflationary times when interest rates on that debt basically are eating up more and more of our discretionary budget? to me, if the answer is yes, i'm going to refuse to negotiate as we continue to rack up more and more debt, about two-thirds of which is on auto pilot as the presiding officer knows. this is mandatory spending. that is a supremely irresponsible position to take. president biden, when he was in the senate, was known as a dealmaker. as i said yesterday, during 2011, he negotiated with senator mcconnell the budget control act which was probably

the most recent response, as mixed bag as it was, to try to control federal spending. it was a noble effort, although it did not succeed. so i know our friends on the democratic side would like to sort of add to mr. mccarthy's challenges. we've got six months perhaps between now and the time the extraordinary measures the treasury department is going to be using to make sure we don't actually breach that debt limit. but i would suggest that the time would be better used, rather than sort of to add gasoline to the fire, to actually try to solve the problem. and the problem, the debt limit, is real. it needs to be addressed by two people -- speaker mccarthy and the president of the united

states. because anything the senate were to pass with 60 votes, which would be required, would certainly be dead on arrival in the house of representatives. and so as a practical matter, while we were going to be very interested and engaged in the debate and discussion, that's where the decision is going to have to be made sometime between now and the time extraordinary measures are exhausted. perhaps as early as june. but in the meantime, for the president of the united states who represents not just democrats, who represents all americans, all 330 million-plus of us, to say i'm not negotiating, even though he's got a track record as a senator and as a vice president of negotiating hard things like this, to me is an irresponsible answer, and i hope he will reconsider. now, mr. president, talk about

what i came here to talk about, talk about the border. i live in a border state. we have 1 serks 200 miles of -- we have 1,200 miles of border with mexico. as a country, we have 2,000 miles of border with mexico. and we are seeing numbers of people showing up at the border that we have never seen before, millions of people since president biden was sworn in as president on january 20, 2021. millions of people showing up, many of whom are claiming asylum and seeking to immigrate permanently to the united states under the asylum laws. but because the administration has a policy of releasing those individuals into the interior of the united states to await a future immigration court hearing, which may be years in the future because of backlogs,

many of those individuals do not show up at their immigration court hearing but simply are willing to play the odds that they can just melt into the great american heartland and not be returned or repatriated to their country of origin or actually have to appear at an asylum hearing. we know that statistically the number of people who actually do show up for an asylum hearing in front of an immigration judge only roughly 90% of them fail to meet the very stringent requirement for asylum, which is basically a credible fear of persecution based on some classification -- race, sex, ethnic origin, or the like. that's a very narrow test, and it certainly does not include

fear of poverty or even violence in your home country. yet the policy of the biden administration to basically create open borders and place individuals who show up and claim asylum, these are not people trying run away from the border patrol, by the way. these are people who are turning themselves in because they know they can play the system, and they will be able to make their way into the united states without any consequences. certainly no legal consequences. i'm sure those of my colleagues who visited the border -- and we had a bipartisan group just a couple of weeks ago who did visit again in both yuma, arizona, and el pass so. but as my colleagues can attest, there is no data, there is no image, there frankly are no words to adequately convey the complexity of what's happening

at the border today. to understand, you have to see and hear for yourself. several years ago i took -- i traveled to brooks county, which is a little county in south texas, where visited a ranch that the border patrol had a rescue beacon in the middle of. and just to explain, the border patrol does a lot of humanitarian rescues because you can imagine people coming from central america up across the land bridge from mexico up to the united states. many of them show up dehydrated, suffering from exposure. some of them frankly die on the trip. but the border patrol, while they have the responsibility of enforcing our immigration laws at the border and interdicting illegal drugs, they also rescue migrants who are in distress.

and what these rescue beacons are out in the middle of nowhere, frankly, what they are are large poles with a light on top that allows migrants who are sick, injured, or otherwise in distress to contact law enforcement for help. and metedly get access to -- and immediately get access to health care, water. there is a sign that instructs the migrants to press a red button for help and remain in the area. well, when i first went to brooks county, which is where falfurrias is probably the largest inland port where the border patrol has a checkpoint in brooks county, i was surprised to see the rescue beacons not written in just

english, not just written in spanish, but in mandarin -- mandarin. this is brooks county, texas, a rural county 70 or so miles from the u.s.-mexico border, and the rescue beacon is in chinese, the chinese language. this is a factoid about the border crisis that doesn't get nearly thate tension that it -- nearly the attention that it deserves. what it tells me and what i've learned subsequently is that migrants just aren't coming from mexico, they're not just coming from central america, they are literally coming from all around the world. now, when i hear, for example, vice president harris or the president of the united states or secretary of state blinken

talk about the migration crisis, they want to talk about root causes. and i think, although that's a little bit vague, i think what they are talking about is they view migration as an economic crisis, people living in their home countries seeking a better life, which we all understand, or fleeing violence. they want talk about root causes. but what they don't understand or certainly aren't articulating is the fact that this is far broader than a regional problem concentrated in mexico and central america. and i think the fact that these rescue beacons have been for many years written in english, spanish and man calendarren is evidence of the -- mandarin are

evidence of the fact that this is a far large irone, one that the administration has not acknowledged. a couple of weeks ago i traveled with the bipartisan delegation of colleagues to el paso, texas, which is the western most point in my state, actually just a bit of trivia, mr. president -- the city of el paso is closer to the pacific ocean than it is to the eastern tip of texas, to give you an idea of the scope of what we're talking about. it is a big place. when you we traveled to el paso, texas, but we also -- which is an urban area. but we also went to yuma, arizona, which is a southwestern portion of arizona, another border state, just right up against california. but it is an agricultural community. it's -- i think it's fair to say, a i am neat disparaging it, it is a sleepy little

agricultural town. we met a number of people in el paso and yuma that i want to mention. in el paso we went out on a night patrol with the border patrol. they got on their horses and rode over this large area where there is a lot of traffic. then we were informed that they had detained two migrants. and so we walked over there to sort of see what was going on and the border patrol said, well, these two are from china. el paso, texas -- two chinese migrants trying to make their way across the border. as a matter of fact, a one of the border patrol agents had to use an app on a phone -- i think it is called google translate -- in order to communicate with these migrants. and then when we went to one of the detention facilities or processing facilities actually

-- not really detention -- we met a family from uzbekistan while touring the central processing center in el pass so. not mexico, not central america, but uzbekistan. you can look that up on the map. it's not part of the region that the president and the secretary of state and the vice president are talking about when they're talking about root causes of illegal immigration. but when we went to yuma, the little sleepy agricultural town, the acting border chief told us that one of the unusual features of the number of the migrants that came across yuma were they came from 176 different countries and spoke more than

200 languages. and you might ask, how in the world is that possible? well, senator kelly, one of the arizona senators, said, well, there's an airport right across the border in mexico, northern border, called -- in a city called mexicaliti. you'll see it is a pretty large urban area on on the arizona border. people fly in there, of course they have to pay human smugglers, criminal organizations that are a network -- that smuggle human beings for money from anywhere in the world to that airport and then they walk across -- or walk up4climate to the -- or walk up to the yuma border patrol and claim asylum. somebody mentioned gucci

luggage. these are not the sort of mental picture people have of migrants who are seeking a better life necessarily, fleeing poverty, i should say, or fleeing violence. one of the reasons i mention this is because the reality of what's happening on the ground along the border undercuts the rhetoric we hear from the administration about how to solve this problem. the white house has push add narrative that the only way to fix the border crisis is to fix the, quote, root causes of migration, meaning the economic and security concerns that cause people to come here. it has honed in on the northern triangle including guatemala, h1n1 honduras, and el salvador and the primary area of concern. the border czar, vice president

harris, even led the development of the, quote, root causes strategy. the problem is, the data shows that this is not the region driving illegal migration. last month customs and border protection encountered more than a quarter of a million migrants at the southern border, fewer than 33,000 of those 250,000 were from northern triangle countries. 33,000 out of the 250,000 were from northern triangle countries. so these are the three countries that the administration has focused on, and it reminds me of the story of people who look through a soda strata problem. well, they can look down the soda straw and they can see what's happening there, but they don't see what's happening around it. and they lose complete -- any

sense of context or of the complete picture. and that's what the administration is doing when they're looking at the border and the humanitarian and national security crisis. -- occurring there on a daily basis, and in my state's backyard. as a matter of fact, these three countries represent only about 13% of the migrants encountered at the southern border in december. mexican nationals, a large country right on our southern border. mexico is not driving the numbers either. only 19% of the border encourts in december were -- encounters in december were from mexican nationals. so where are all these men and women and children coming from? well, you can take a global map, a map of the world, and you can take a dart and throw the dart at the map and you're likely to hit a place where these migrants

are coming from. last year across the entire border, customs and border protection encountered migrants from 174 different counties -- countries, excuse me. people from every corner of the globe are traveling through mexico and crossing america's southern border. there is no question that the conditions in mexico and northern triangle are contributing, but they're only a small fraction of the problem. people around the world see the biden administration catching and releasing migrants by the thousands on a daily basis. they see the yearslong wait for cases to be adjudicated. they see the lack of any interior enforcement by immigration and customs enforcement as they look at all this picture, they realize if they can make it across the southern border, they're likely to be able to stay in the united

states for years, if not a lifetime. despite what the administration may think, this is not just a regional problem. it is a global phenomenon, run by transnational criminal organizations. that ought to concern all of us. last year cbp encountered migrants from 147 different countries. if the administration wants to fix the root causes of this crisis, are they going to fix the world? you can see why their misconception, their misunderstanding, their erroneous narrative of what the problem is doesn't help solve the problem. so it's time, mr. president, for the comboimed to acknowledgn administration to acknowledge the reality of the situation and

look at solutions that are effective. in order to get this crisis under control, we have to move quickly on a bipartisan basis to insist on the enforcement of our immigration laws when people attempt to enter our country other than through legal means. that is the only viable path forward, and the sooner that the administration understands that, the better off woll all be. -- better off we will all be. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you, mr. president. and i would thank my colleague, the senior senator from texas, for his comments and his perspective and his insight serving as a senator from a bored -- border state and what they are facing every single

day. and i would say to my colleague, mr. president, that nebraska has become a border state. i know colorado has become a border state. every state in this country now are feeling the effects of the chaos that we see at our southern border. so my thanks to the senior senator from texas for offering his perspective on that. i would say on january 13 in nebraska, we had two nebraska state patrol officers who pulled over two separate vehicles that were hours away from each other. one car contained 50,000 suspected fentanyl pills. the other contained a suspected fentanyl cocaine mixture. and both cars were driven up from the border.

these are only the latest instances of synthetic opioid trafficking in my state of nebraska. in 2022, the nebraska state patrol confiscated 66 pounds of fentanyl, and that's up from 25 pounds the year before and 10 pounds in 2020. in nebraska and throughout this nation, the numbers of drug seizures are staggering. at the southwest border there was a 55% increase in fentanyl seizures from just november to december. heroin seizures increased by 52% the month before. methamphetamine seizures increased as well. we know what is driving these

drug trafficking numbers. we have a crisis at our southern border. the effects of that crisis are rippling across the country, felt by communities in nebraska and beyond. when we cannot control who is entering the united states, what they are bringing in or where they are going, that is a serious national security risk. let's go over the numbers. customs and border protection encountered 2.3 million migrants at the southern border this past fiscal year. more encounters than any other year in our history. migrant encounters in december reached the highest monthly

level ever recorded with over 250,000 encounters in one month. that number had tripled in just two years. and it gets even worse. border patrol agents have stopped individuals on the government's terror watch list 38 times so far since october. suspected terrorist encounters will hit record levels if this trend continues through 2023. gang-affiliated encounters skyrocketed last year as well, from 348 to 751. these historic statistics should concern anyone who cares about our country's security and the safety of our communities and

the safety of american families. but this administration doesn't consider what's going on at the border to be a crisis. in fact, our president hardly seems to consider what's going on at the border at all. despite his recent trip south for what i thought was a photo op, his administration has exacerbated the border crisis. in case anybody's forgotten, let me refresh your memories. with simple strokes of his pen, president biden ended the national emergency declaration at the border. he halted construction on the border wall and he scaled back i.c.e. enforcement in the first few months of his presidency. and no amount of photo ops can change what we all know.

this administration has not only failed to prioritize the safety and security of our border. it's put forward policies over the past two years that have worsened this crisis. only a month ago president biden himself insisted that there are more important things going on. well, i happen to think the national security threat posed by an flux -- an influx of suspected terrorists across the border is important. i think that human trafficking overrunning our border is important. expingt -- and i think the massive increases in overdoses due to drug smuggling across the border is important. across the country fentanyl is

now the leading cause of death for americans ages 18 to 49. between 2019 and 2021, nebraska's largest county saw an appalling 400% increase in fentanyl overdose deaths. complacency is not an acceptable response to this atrocious uptick in loss of life. my republican colleagues and i have real commonsense solutions to the problems that our border is facing. we need to invest more in new border security measures and resources for the men and women who serve us honorably as border patrol agents. we need to end the lenient

policies like catch and release and increase penalties for people who don't show up for their immigration court hearings. we need the department of homeland security to create a serious comprehensive strategy to address those issues. simply throwing more tax dollars toward a smart phone app that offers people appointments that cross our border, that is what the biden administration proposed. it is not a response to the may mayhem that we are seeing. their policies do nothing to secure the border and to reinforce our nation's security. until president biden and my democratic colleagues seriously

work with us to fix this border chaos once and for all, we can expect to see more drugs brought into our country, more women and children facing a life of sex trafficking, and more threats to the security of our nation. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> good morning. thank you for being here. yesterday marked 11 months since russia's brutal full scale invasion of ukraine. 11 months in which ukraine people have shown putin and the world the full force of the courage and indomitable determination of the freedom. that through every single step of this horrific war, the american people have been strong and unwavering in their support, and democrats and republicans in congress have stood together to the united states has worked in lockstep with our allies and partners around the world to make sure the ukrainian people are on the strongest possible position to defend their nation,

their families, and against the brutal, , truly brutal aggressin of russia. haven't seen the likes of this in a long time. the united states and europe are fully united. this morning, i had a long conversation with our nato allies, german chancellor scholz, french president macron, prime minister, and italian prime minister maloney. to continue our close coordination and our full support of ukraine the kind you will know i've been saying this for a long time, the expectation on the part of brush is we're going to break up, we're not going to stay united. but where fully really totally united. we are working to defend the territory they hold and prepared for additional counter offenses. deliberate delay in the need to be able to counter russia's evolving tactics and strategy on the battlefield in the very near term. they need to improve their ability to maneuver in open

terrain, and they need enduring capability to deter and defend against russian aggression over the long term. the secretary of state, the secretary of the military, behind me, are, , they been deeply, deeply involved in this whole effort. army capability as general austin will tell you is, has been critical. that's why the united states has committed hundreds of armored fighting vehicles to date, including more than 500 aspartic assistance package we announced last friday. and today, today i'm announcing that the united states will be sending 30 abram tanks to ukraine, the equivalent of one ukrainian battalion. secretary austin has recommended this step because it will enhance the ukrainians capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives.

the abrams tanks of the most capable takes in the world. there also extrema complex operate and maintain. so we're also giving ukraine the parts and equipment necessary to effectively sustain these tanks on the battlefield. when we begin we will begin to train ukrainian troops on this issue of systema logistic and maintenance as soon as possible. the living these tanks will take time, time that will see and will you will use to make sure ukrainians are fully prepared to integrate the abrams tanks into their defenses. we are also closely coordinated this announcement with our allies. american contribution will be joined by an additional announcement including that we will be ready and available more easily integrated for use on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months from other countries. i'm grateful chancellor scholz for sending tanks and leader in effort to organize european country had to take the tag and for ukraine. i want to thank the chancellor

for his leadership and a steadfast commitment to our collective efforts to support ukraine. germany has really stepped up. the chancellor has been a strong, strong voice for unity, a close friend, and for a level that we hope will continue. supporting ukraine's ability to fight off russian aggression to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity is a worldwide commitment. not just us, it's a worldwide commitment. last week germany in germany secretary austin convened a contact group for the eighth time. this group is made up of some 50 nations, 50 nations have each making significant contributions of their own to ukraine's integrity. each boy committed to making ukraine remain stronger and independent and able to defend itself against russian threats and violence. i want to think every member of that coalition for continuing to step up. the uk, the united kingdom recently announced that it is donating challenger two tanks to

ukraine franciscan privity amx ten, armored fighting vehicles. in addition to the leopard tanks the germany like the united states is also germany is also sending a patriot municipal data. the netherlands is donating launcher. france, canada the uk slovakia norway and others have all donated critical air defense systems to a secure ukrainian skies and save the lives of innocent civilians who are literally the target, the target of russia's aggression. poland is sending armored vehicles. sweden is donating infantry fighting vehicles. italy is giving artillery. denmark and estonia are sending howitzers. lott is providing more stinger missiles. lithuania providing antiaircraft guns, and finland recently announced its largest package of security assistance to date. you may remember i was asked a while ago when i think it was happen and he said, he thought

he would end up with -- europe turkey's get nato of finland. got to do something he never intended. together with our allies and partners we have sent more than thousand armored vehicles, more thousand at the more than to my friends of artillery and ammunition and more than 50 events multi-launch rocket system. anti-their shipment defenses all to counter ukraine's brutal aggression that's happening because of russia. and look, today's announcement builds on the hard work and commitment from countries around the world led by the united states of america to help ukraine defended sovereignty and territorial integrity. that's what this is about, helping ukraine defend, protect ukrainian land. it is not an offensive threat to russia. there is no offensive threat to russia. russian troops returned to

russia, where they belong, this will would be over today. that's what we all want, an end to this war. in just and lasting terms. our teams do not permit one nation, we're not going to allow one nation to steal a neighbors territorial force. our terms, preserve ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and honor the u.n. charter, , that's the terms we'e working on. these are the terms we all signed up for an 1043 nations voted for in the united nations general assembly last october. so the united states standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies and partners is going to continue to do all we can to support ukraine. putin expected europe and the united states to weaken our resolve. he expected our support for ukraine to crumble with time. he was wrong. he was wrong. and he was wrong from the

beginning and he continues to be wrong. we are united. america is united and so is the world. we approach the one-year mark as we do, the russian full-scale invasion of ukraine we remain united and determine as ever in our conviction and our cost. these tanks are further evidence of our enduring commitment to ukraine and our confidence in the skillet ukrainian forces. as a told president zelensky when when is here, today's his birthday by the way, in december we are with you for as long as it takes, mr. president. ukrainians are fighting an age-old battle against aggression and domination. it's about americans have fought proudly time and again, and it's a battle we are going to make sure ukrainians are well equipped to fight as well. this is about freedom. freedom for ukraine, freedom everywhere. it's about the kind of world we want to live in, the world we want to leave to our children. so may god protect the break ukrainian defenders of their

country and keep the flame of liberty burning brightly as we can. thank you. >> why you taking this decision now? did germany forced you to change your mind on sending tanks? >> germany to enforce it achieved by my. we wanted to make sure we're altogether. that's what we were going to do all along. that's what we're doing right in response to the pence disclosure of classified documents. >> was sir, are the searches of your home completed?

>> good morning. on congressman adam schiff and want to briefly address the speakers decision to remove mr. spall well and myself from intelligence community as well as continuing threat -- swallow. i'm joined of course by my colleagues. let me just begin if i can to make a few observations about the decision on the intelligence committee and then had up to my colleagues. this decision by kevin

mccarthy to bow to the defense of most extreme elements of his conference and use the intelligence committee as this kind of political plaything doesn't show the strength of his speakership. indeed, it shows the weakness of his speakership that he is so beholden to the most extreme elements of his conference. and it bodes i think poorly for how he will conduct the remainder of his speakership for however long or short that may last. but more to the point, , by irrigating to himself the decision about who on the democratic side of the aisle should lead the intelligence committee, who should sit on intelligence committee, he will cause the intelligence agencies i think to distrust this action and in combination with the formation of the so-called select committee on the weaponization of the federal government which ostensibly want access to classified information, it will only i

think breed his distrust within intel's committee as to what they can share and what it can feel confident about sharing with the congress. that will impact policymakers in terms of the information that we have to make decisions about how to protect our national security. so this is i think not an unexpected but none noneths destructors moved by kevin mccarthy that will bode well, that will bode ill in the future for the conversations that he has to make, to placate to marjorie taylor greene, paul gosar, and, of course, his boss down a mar-a-lago the disgraceful former president. with that money turned over to my colleague eric swalwell who i've had the pleasure of serving with an intelligence committee for great many years, one of our finest members and one of our most vigorous overseers and indeed part of mccarthy's motivation is not just revenge

retaliation and appeasing the radical element of his conference. it's also an effort to impair the ability of democrats to push back against abuses of the majority and eric swalwell has been such an effective advocate on the committee. this is a think part and parcel of the motivation as well. mr. swalwell. >> thank you, chairman schiff. the old -- the new mccarthy looks a lot like the old mccarthy. the older mccarthy abuse political power to punish and demean and smear his political opponents. and a new mccarthy in washington today is doing the same. and throughout this journey of vengeance, the three of us have chosen to stick together because this isn't about any individual committee assignment. this is about an institution where the speaker of the house is using his power to go after

his political opponents and pick them off, and that's why we have chosen every step of the way to stick together. in my case it's purely political vengeance. speaker mccarthy is choosing to do something that speaker boehner, speaker ryan and speaker pelosi did not do, which is with access to the same information with the claims us f speaker mccarthy has made about me, speaker boehner, speaker ryan, and speaker pelosi kept me on the committee. chairman nunez with access to the same information to which mr. mccarthy is making claims about me never made a peep, allowed me to stay on the committee. the claims that mr. mccarthy has made about me that i could never get a security clearance, mr. schiff was also briefed on. and supported me staying on the committee because he fbi said three times, all i did was to things. i helped them over and over, and i was never suspected of

wrongdoing. the "washington post" in response to mr. mccarthy's claims gave him four pinocchios which is a whopper, the highest amount they can get for one of the biggest lies that you could tell about somebody else. so this is purely about political revenge. the cost of removing us on the committee on intelligence committee the cost is that only breaking, shattering the most precious glass were in the cabinet, a committee that it's always been bipartisan. the cost of the death threats that ms. omar and myself and mre mr. mccarthy continues to aim and project these smears against us, , even though we have said publicly these smears are bringing death threats. he continues to get which makes us believe that there's an intent behind it. but we will not be quiet. we are not going away. i think you will regret getting all three of us -- but at the end of the day our mission is to restore the credibility and integrity of this institution of which the speaker has so

greatly, so greatly smashed and distribute i'll turn over to my colleague, ms. omar, a of the foreign affairs committee, the first member of the committee to be born in africa who could serve in a subcommittee and delete a subcommittee of the democratic side in a historic way because of her history and her bonn. >> thank you, chairman schiff, and representative swallow well. our democracy and our governing bodies rest on a healthy and vibrant debate. our strength lies not in our perfection but in the diversity of our voices and our openness to civil discourse. that is why whatever our disagreements might be as members of congress, policy differences alone have not and

must not be cause for eliminating someone from serving on a committee. in modern american history, the punishment of stripping a member of congress of the committee assignments has been reserved for only the most egregious wrongdoings. those convicted or indicted on corruption, those who have engaged in bribery, sexual misconduct, encouraged violence, or other charges. i've served on the foreign, on the house foreign affairs committee and the house education and labor committee for the past two terms, committees that i've lived experience and expertise in. as a child who survived the war, lived in a refugee camp, i would've never imagined that i i would want to have the opportunity to serve on a subcommittee on africa global

health and global human rights. i would not have believed that i would one day not just through as the first african board member of congress, but on the committee that oversees policies towards the continent. kevin mccarthy's purely partisan move to strip us from our committee is that only a political stunt, it also a blow to the integrity of our democratic institution and threat to our national security. we are thankful to leader jeffries and house democrats, and even some courageous republicans, for standing with us. if mccarthy wants to denigrate the integrity of the house and its committees, we will always stand up to these efforts here i am grateful for the confidence of my constituents and my colleagues have shown me to serve in these committees, and i look forward to continuing that work the building a more

peaceful world. >> we're happy to respond to some questions. we understand the president is going to speak at noon going y to be off the stage before then. yes? [inaudible question] what if you could wreck respond to that? [inaudible question] >> well, let me just say mr. mccarthy's rationalizations, justifications keep shifting. the cardinal sin appears to be that i've read the impeachment of his master at mar-a-lago for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid from ukraine, a nation that was even then at war with russia in order

to extort that country and to helping donald trump's reelection campaign. we proved of those facts and got the first bipartisan vote in the senate in history to remove a president. kevin mccarthy calls that a hoax. well, it was not a hoax here but he will do the former president debating. he is entirely reliant on the former president. and this is something the former president wants. but i can assure you that if the former president or kevin mccarthy believes that this is going to stop any of us from fighting to protect our democracy, they're going to find out that the opposite is true. only intensify our commitment to doing so. i do want to mention with respect to mr. swalwell also that i come as a indicator i sat on that briefing. and when kevin mccarthy misrepresents it, and, and does that disservice to the american

people it's shameful. mr. swalwell has served honorably on our committees, never been accused of any kind of wrongdoing. this is a patently unfair smear by mr. mccarthy, but that's what he traffics in and that's what we are seeing. >> i have addressed it. i apologized. it's been too would have years ago and i think it is important in all of our cases to remember, it is not the accusations that mccarthy is making against us that is pushing for a removal from these committees. it is about revenge. it's about the appeasing the former president. all three of us have been a thorn in the back of the previous, disgraced president.

republicans have been gunning for our seats, and obviously know how effective that we have been in upholding the constitution, in defending our democracy, and standing up to extremists. and we will continue to do that work regardless of whether we are seated on these committees or not. >> my question is for congresswoman omar specifically. at least to a group of us have come out voting to remove you from your committee. have you had a private conversation that affect? you think the speaker -- [inaudible] but there may not be support there? >> so, if you remember in the last term when we removed two members of their committees,

there was a precise reason for that. that was for inciting violence. you remember the speech leader hoyer made with an image of a rifle being held to my head and ahead of other colleagues. we have all seen the video that represented paul gosar made of killing alexandria ocasio-cortez, speaker pelosi and president biden. many republicans stood up and offended those members and their ability to continue to serve on committees, even after they threatened the lives of their colleagues. now, if those same members want the american people to believe that while they defended those acts, that they should not defend us to continue to serve,

then it is going to show their hypocrisy. so i do believe that when and if this vote comes, it will be a moment of clarity. and i hope that many of his republicans will have conscience and will not prove to their constituents and the american people just how much of partisan hacks they are, how much hypocrisy that they have, and show themselves to be a disgrace. >> do you believe a vote against you would succeed right now our way to fail? >> i don't know. >> on curious to know what you all think about the fact you are all been removed from committee -- what does it say about the politics of the country right now? what does it say that the institution?

just any thoughts you have about being on committees and what you are going through. >> i'll take a quick stab at it and defer to my colleagues, but the hypocrisy just grabs you by the throat. this is a republican speaker who is seating a human fraud, george santos come on committees, a serial fabricator about every part of his existence. he's perfectly countable with it. he needs george santos vote if that's then he's going by these days. this is someone who, kevin mccarthy who owes his allegiance to a party leader and a logger who dines with white nationalist and anti-semites. he's putting people on committees who speak at white nationalist rallies. the hypocrisy just grabs you by the throat. but hypocrisy is probably the least of mr. mccarthy's sins.

the most significant impact is that he is continuing this destructive trend set by his party leader of caring down our institutions, of the grading the congress. you know, this new select committee that he is establishing is going to simply just bring greater discredit on congress. and that's our paramount concern is what he's doing to our institutions. in a bitter bargain to get the gavel, to get the speakership, he is slowly undermining each part of the work of this institution, and that's certainly not in the best interest of the country which expects us to be working to make sure that we confront inflation, that would deal with the economic challenges that we have, that we create an economy that works for everyone. this is what our focus should be on, not on what the lowest common denominator in the

republican conference wants. >> i would just add, you are seeing now the fulfillment of kevin mccarthy's corrupt bargain, corrupt bargain with marjorie taylor green, somebody who declared on january 5 the day before the attack on the capitol that this is 1776, someone who cheered on the insurrectionists, someone who as we honor the police officers who were injured that day, she goes to the d.c. jail to make sure that insurrectionists are taken care of the first time this person has ever cared about the condition of the jail, this one insurrectionists are in sight. she is going on committee. it's too rich that the day that george santos, yesterday, admits to the federal election commission that he defrauded them in his statement that he put $500,000 of his own money into the campaign, it's too rich that the day he admits he lied to federal agency that the ranking member of the intel committee is pulled off the committee. it's just too rich that as the three of us are about to lose

our committees, this corrupt bargain also enables paul gosar who depicted himself in killing a colic goes on to committee. it's too rich that this corrupt bargain also includes $75 billion to defund the troops come to defund the troops by $75 billion, part of the promises he made for this corrupt bargain. so we are caught up in this. doesn't go get it all. it doesn't feel good personally but that's of what's important. it doesn't feel good for the country and the congress because they ran on inflation, crime, border, and do not take on any of that. [inaudible question] could you walk us through how they handle the information after that, the issue? how did you handle that? >> i'm happy to heat up the leftovers left of them something to happen in barack obama's nevada.

ms. cortez masto: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. coart cortez-masto i -- ms. cortez masto: mr. president, i notice the be absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

>> this is the scene inside the while house and that meeting

with the president and vice president kamala harris and top democratic leaders in congress and strategize for the fiscal battle, 118th congress and just after that meeting that senate majority leader chuck schumer spoke to reporters outside the white house. >> the bottom line is we said that our unity is our strength, the president, the house, the senate are going to be on the same page talking about what we should do and one of the things we want to do on the debt ceiling, say to the republicans show us your plan. they've passed a rule and they've made commitments and by the odderrer and see what their plan is on the debt ceiling and cut social security and veteran care and medicare? do they want to cut police? do they want to cut food for needy kids? what's your plan? we don't know if they can even put one together, but we are

unified in saying we'll stand together and help working families and not do the things that they want to do about the wealthy. the first thing they put on the floor was to tell the very wealthy people, ultra rich who use lawyers and accountants and everyone else to take advantage of tax loopholes, they said we want to let you keep doing that. if we were just to close that loophole, we wouldn't have a debt ceiling crisis from anymore future. that's just one example of where we're at. >> senate majority leader chuck schumer yesterday. meanwhile back on the hill yesterday, house speaker kevin mccarthy was asked about his plan and about the debt ceiling. this is what he had to say. [inaudible].

>> no, it's very disappointing when at the white mouse nobody in america would choose to live this way and reach the limit on their credit card and extend the limit and not look about where they're spending. no state can do this, no family, no city or county can do this. this isn't even behavior of past joe biden. when joe bind was vice president, they were involved in the biden talks and praised ideas of negotiation together and i don't think anybody in congress believed this as well. look, we have to have a responsible debt ceiling. not saying no debt ceiling but you hit $32 trillion, 120% of gdp. your party has been there for four years and increased discretionary spending were 40% and i want to look the president

in the eye and tell me there's not one dollar of wasteful spending in government. who believes that? the american public doesn't believe that and the whole government is designed to have compromise. here's the leader of the free world pounding on the table saying no, no, no. just raise the limit so we can spend more. no, that's not how adults act or how elected officials, that's not how the american public believes their elected officials act. what i have asked for is to sit down, let's find common ground and let's ylem nate the waste -- eliminate the westful spending to protect the hard working taxpayers and protect the future of america. the greatest threat to america, it doesn't matter if you sit before a four star general. they'll tell you the debt is the greatest threat to this nation. for the president to say he wouldn't even negotiate, that's

irresponsible. >> kevin mccarthy yesterday on capitol hill and we're asking in the first segment of the washington journal, your message to washington on the debt limit and federal spending we'll be talking about this for most of our program today. several members of congress joining us on their thoughts for the washington journal and the house in at 10:00 a.m. today and we'll take you for a live gavel to gavel coverage when they dorks plenty to discuss this morning but mostly i want to hear your message to washington on these issues of the debt limit and federal spending. democrats it's (202)748-8000, republicans (202)748-8001 and independents (202)748-8002 and we'll look for y texts, tweets, facebook messages as well. craig is up first. line for independents out of port orange, florida, good morning. >> good morning. >> nor thoughts on this debate,

the negotiations and debt limit that is quickly approaching. >> my thought is that republicans and democrats spent more than the country can handle and the government should shut down for awhile to have a big reset. >> what does a reset involve, craig? >> a reset means we got to stop our wasteful spending just like the democrats did the past four years with spending on the infrastructure bill, climate change, nothing has been done with those two bills passed, nothing. >> craig, when it comes to spending cuts, should entitlement programs be on the table? >> some entitlements. medicare is what we pay into when we work. >> what about military spending,

craig, should that be on the table? >> military spending i think we should spend more money to get our arms back up and stop wasting money in ukraine's war and spending all our equipment over there and pretty season there's going to be a war, i think, and we won't be able to handle it. >> that's craig in florida. this is anne in indian trail, north carolina. good morning. you're next. >> hi, good morning. yes, i was just calling and had partially agree with the gentleman before me. i paid into social security for 50 something years, and i didn't have insurance left for my husband when he died ten years ago and that only lasted so long and i feel like i deserve my kansas and also medicare, i've gotten medicare and bought extra medicare, and the way they are

doing is scaring people into this era and doing nothing but straight people everywhere. i mean, there'd be nowhere left to go to live. everybody, they need to think of their constituents. i know republicans have older constituents and please, mccarthy, get your act together and quit acting so highly and godly and stop acting like you're saving the world because you're not. you're just punishing democrats. i want this leave entitlements, which i am entitled to my own money back. i which they'd leave that. >> that's anne in north carolina. this is the headline from front page of washington post today but their story on the

negotiations and the meeting at the white house and the house gop puts the third rail on the table. kansas and medicare along the potential targets in the bat bae to slash the deficit. this is michael out of delray, california. good morning and thank you for getting up early. >> yes, i think you shouldn't just look at cutting spending. you need to increase revenues. so one thing i would suggest is that the cap be listed on several employees and make sure you get -- that you would take 100 pester fica and one way to make sure that social security is mained and that no one -- maintained and no one should be allowed to retire till the age of 65. should be no retirements before 65. that would be another way to

increase revenues for social security because that's what i'm concerned about. >> michael, how do you force people to work till they're 65 if they don't want to? >> if they don't want to work, then work till they're 65 years olds and there's a lot of government employees that retire at 50. it's absolutely insanity. it's grave, it's cradle to grave government spending. you've got cops, firearm and teachers retiring across the state the age of 50. absolutely outrageous. i'm 62 and will probably work till i'm 70. >> and what do you do? >> i'm in the advertising and sales field. >> thanks for the call from

california. this is jaquline, dayton, ohio. good morning to the buckeye state. >> hello, my name is jaquline and i'm just concerned about everything republicans suggest is harmful to the american people. they never, never suggest anything that's helpful. it's always something that's going to hurt us. why do people vote for them? i just don't understand. that's all i have to say. thank you. >> andy is next out of pennsylvania, republican, good morning, sir. >> hi, how are you? >> doing well, go ahead. >> okay. during this whole discussion this morning, i'd like you, the host, and the democrat callers to remember two things: first when democrats say we need to cooperate to work things out, they mean do everything that

they want. also a washington budget cut is for example whenpr you say you'e going to raise social security 10% and someone says --

>> chuck schumer has done an extraordinary job ushering into agenda and make life better for every day americans, which is what drives house democrats and senate democrats and certainly president biden and we're thanker lful for the tremendous -- thankful for the tremendous leadership of chuck schumer. the republicans double and triple down on their extreme agenda. as a woman we want to make our own reproductive healthcare decision and republicans want to impose a nation-wide ban. we believe in social security and medicare, republicans want to destroy social security and medicare. we believe in democracy, many extreme maga republicans apparently don't believe in democracy anymore.

they have an extreme agenda, it continues. and the so called fair tax act is another example. the extremist agenda that republicans are trying to jam down the throats of the american people. so called fair tax act is unfair, unconsciousable and un-american. imposes a tax on the middleclase class, poor and sick and afflicted. it will impose an age tax on older americans in this nation who throughout their lives paid

into the system through income tax and now will be double and triple taxed by the imposition of 30 pester sales tax. that will create an enormous burn on older americans in this country. third, the unfair tax act would detonate social security by eliminating its source of funding. this legislation is extreme and it is functionally the gop tax scam part 2. the tremendous leadership, senate democrat leader schummer and partnership with house democrats do everything we can

to stop it. >> thank you, hakeem. i want to thank hakeem for being here. this plan is dangerous, it's a disaster, it would impact just about every single american family for the worst. it cannot be understated how devastating this would be to just about every family. this so-called fair tax plan is the craziest yet. it's a real deusy. it's hard to believe they came up with it. it could demolish the irs and 30% tax hike for everything and here americans are worried about inflation and the republican party, many of them are saying we want to increase your price of what you pay by another 30%. it would be the largest increase

of americans ever. steve forbes was a liberal and would raise the cost of buying a house by $125,000. it would raise the cost of buy ago car by $10,000. it would raise your average grocery bill by $3500 a year and people are complaining about high prices of grocery and eggs are too high and add $1.50 for each dozen and milk would be higher and $3500 on groceries, but it would also mean thousands

more in insurance premiums, out of pocket healthcare costs, and seniors who are saved and saved and saved for their retirement, first we don't know if there would be anymore social security but those that have social security, it would mean they have 30% less buying power, right away, a third lower. almost every american family would be devastated. let me just say this, as long as i'm majority leader, this devastating, unfair, nasty and almost crazy plan is not going to pass. not going to happen in the senate, absolutely. but it shows you how extreme these maga republicans are. i've rarely seen such an extreme proposal in all my years in government. they're so out of touch with reality. do they know what average people

go through? do they know that the wealthy are the only people during covid were doing even better? they want to help them some more. it would just -- every american would have a tough, tough time making ends meet under this. i believe it could cause the next greet depression if we were to -- great depression if we impose this and thank god there's fire walls in leader jeffries and the democrats in the house. question on this subject first? >> the program involved by 203p what are democrats doing to make sure that program is being involved? >> we have always defended social security. we will always defend social

security. democrats had a plan to make sure that social security is solvent. this plan would kill social security. >> speaker schumer, we've spoken to some republicans in the senate who have said they also would not have this plan like senator junior holly and the fact you have so many republicans including senator mccarthy saying no on this. why do you think some republicans thought it was a good idea? >> well, who would have thought senator mccarthy wouldn't go along with maga republicans when running for speaker and he's still committed to them now to put this bill before committee. i don't underestimate the power over mccarthy of the extreme maga republicans and we have to fight this plan now before it gains anymore of a head of steam. too many republicans support it.

>> this so-called tax plan would devastate working families and cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% in america is so extreme, so out of touch, so unconscionable that you wonder, who's sitting in some dungeon, some laboratory, some basement cooking up these extreme ideas to try and jam them down the throats of the american people? but that's what's happening and part of the house republican agenda, which is why we're speaking out against it. making it clear that the stakes are high for the american people. we're going to work to fight to defeat it, expose it, and make it clear that it's part of an overall extreme agenda to ands mine working families and the middle class in america in order to elevate the wealthy, well off, and well connected as part of some scheme desire for

subsidizing further the work of the rich and famous. >> if someone said this was a plan you'd say no, no way. the maga republicans are so far out they believe in it thornhill tore. it's wild and unbelievable. it's the biggest la la play makers zoo i've ever seen around here. lisa, one on this topic? >> senator schumer, mr. jeffries, why is it important to highlight this when it was die -- when it would die in the senate and i'm sure there's a lot of republicans that would object it. why is it important to highlight this now when -- >> it's very important first to make sure this plan dies as i said. the right wing maga republicans have a lot of power, certainly in the house and we saw that in the last week. but second, we have to show the

american people who's on your side and who isn't. you get a lot of rhetoric about protecting working people from the other side. they're not protecting working people. they're harming washing people in a way we've never seen before. >> that's exactly right and the extreme maga republicans are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the american people, which is why we need to expose them and their extreme plan. the fact they're suggesting this would cause increase fairness tells you everything you need to know in terms of why leader schumer, we're thankful for him and his senate democrats and our efforts in the house need to expose the extremism. public sentiment is everything. with it nothing can fail and without it nothing can succeed. that's abraham lincoln.

with it we're making sure the american people clearly understand why the so-called tax fairness plan will be a disaster for them. >> again, it's very important for the american people to see how extreme the republican party has become. woe like to have a nice mainstream republican party. we wouldn't agree but we could get things done. i don't think a mainstream republican party would flirt with the devastation of a debt ceiling that is not, you know, defaulting on the debt. i think it's important to show how extreme these people are. how far out they are. yes. >> sing you brought up the debt ceiling >> gnat torr mention suggests he'd prefer to see speaker mccarthy meet with president bide ton have a conversation. do you find any value in the

president negotiating with speaker mccarthy? >> until speaker mccarthy has a plan and a plan that can pass in the house with his republican support, his going to the white house is like going with no cards in his hand. the bottom line is the first step since mccarthy and as many republicans are playing brinksmanship holding hostages instead of doing what we've done four time withs debt ceiling, three times under trump, twice with republican house senate and president. instead of playing that dangerous game of brinksmanship. it's incumbent on them to go, okay, what's your plan? we have a plan. pass the debt ceiling without hostage taking, without any brinksmanship. what's their plan? they haven't shown it and have an obligation on something as serious as the debt ceiling to show it. show us the plan.

show the american people the plan. show your caucus the plan. >> i'm supposed to get myself from the gentlemen of new york. >> the negotiation as leader schumer said we have a plan past the debt ceiling of what's been done under democratic president and republican presidents including three times under former president trump and we can have a negotiation and discussion about the future of spending moving forward through the normal process. that's negotiation. but what they're essentially saying on the other side of the aisle is we will detonate social security, detonate medicare, detonate veteran's benefits or possibly even risk a

catastrophic default for the first time in american history that will send us spiraling towards a deep recession if not a depression unless you cave into our extreme ma gather republican demand. that ain't negotiation. that's blackmail. >> thank you. we are carrying into the house question. what are your plans for the two intelligence committees with speaker mccarthy rejecting your selection for? >> well, my communication with speaker mccarthy on this issue is in the public demand and my letter speaks for itself, but in terms of the intel committee, we're in the process of l of farmlating our entire slate and i suspect this happens sooner than later. >> i have a question, leader schumer, have you spoken with leader mccarthy on any things like the deficit, debt limit or

do you plan to? >> yes, db of interaural plan to speak -- i do plan to speak with speaker mccarthy and obviously as democratic leader of the senate and he's republican leader of the house we have to get together and see what we can do in a bipartisan way and what i say to speaker mccarthy is show us your plan. thank you, everybody.

>> you can't forget that, it's a war. >> you're not taking abrams out of the exists stocks and is there a reason you want more training before that happens or something you need that you want to keep? >> no excess with abrams in the inventory and all of them are gainfully employed if you will to for our own national security in essence and even if there were excess tanks, the problem of getting them to -- process of getting them to ukraine and get to use by the ukrainians and train them to put all the parts and supplies in place would take many months anyway. it's not like this procurement process is really costing us any time than if we just drew it out of our own stocks but the real thing is we don't have excess

tanks and the second thing s this is not unimportant that i mentioned this a bit earlier, when they get there, we want to make sure that they fall on ready hands and that the ukrainians know how to use them, know how to keep them running, and they've got the supply chain in place for fair parts and supplies and anything else they need so they can be more effective on the battlefield. >> what's the soonest the pentagon could get there and no dates on the calendar and looking at what's many months before they get there. >> thank you. >> picking up from sebastian's question about the number of tanks, the ukrainian adviser and adviser told my colleague after the announcement that what they want, what they needed about

200-350 tanks from the west. so is that a realistic number or in the future that ukraine proves they can absorb the initial talk much of tanks and maintain them? >> don't get ahead of where we are now. we are working on the program to get them and procure them the 31 abram tanks to include all the supplies and parts that go with it and training that's required to operate and maintain them, and we know certainly based on the conversation the president had this morning that our allies and partners in europe are like wise focused of moving additional armored capability to include the german tanks in a shorter period of time. in the future, it's not all technology. >> we're focused on the announcement the president made today. >> the next step for ukrainians will be to request extended range missiles. is that right? >> we are in constant conversation with the ukrainians

about their capabilities. i don't have any announcements to make. >> madame president. is it fair to say these tanks will not be available for use and secondly one of the concerns in the leadup and debate about this was fuel concern. how is that being dealt with? >> that's part of the supply chain issue, isn't it? it's a jet engine and gas turbine engine and means jet fuel and a specific type of fuel that powers the abrams and we have to make sure that that pipeline literally and figuratively is available to ukraine so that's going to take some time as well. look, i'm not going to predict dates certain on the calendar and it's going to take many months before the tanks get there. let's not get ahead of specific spring offenses. we think as the weather improves and the less they want to increase their tempo, we want to make sure the ukrainians cannot only meet that tempo but be capable of their own and what that looks like and when that starts or where, that's up to

president zelensky and his military advisers and we won't speak to that. only thing i'll add to that is the other tanks won't take as long to get on the ground and i'll let the germans speak to this, but they wouldn't take the same length of time as the abrams will. why this did not happen sooner given the ukraines requests? >> you could ask that question about any system we provided and my answer will always be the same, we are in constant conversation with the ukrainians about their needs and doing the best we can to address the needs both short term and long term. the decision the president announced today with the ukrainians and allies and partners and it is very much

about forecasting and getting ahead of the timing we see in coming months here in the spring and summer of this year. >> feeling that can go and help us understand why the administration has not changed course and what makes that situation go on in western ukraine. to say we've been very consist that we want to see a two state solution and this