as i said earlier, the executive orders give a lot of guidance about what the administration's priorities are and i think that the funding will end up following that.

funding

donald trump has shut off billions perhaps trillions of dollars that help american families every single day. it's cruel, it's reckless and this money supports states and cities, school boards, hospitals, small businesses, families, firefighters, police officers, fighting fentanyl, so many things just boom cut. law enforcement, aid to the

elderly, support to the veterans, this decision is lawless, it's destructive, it's dangerous, it's cruel, it's illegal and unconstitutional. donald trump has done a lot of bad things in the last week but nothing is worse than this. somehow the public found out about it, 60% of the people knew what it was and they hated it. and yet this is the same thing in another name. so you know what they're up to and you know the american people

hate it. people are scrambling in all of our states to figure out what it means. i've gotten hundreds of calls from everybody, head start, hospitals, firefighters, what does this mean, what does this mean? just about any organization, a school, a state or a police department, fire, hospital that depends on federal grant money to run day-to-day operations is now in danger, thanks to donald

trump his new taxes for americans everywhere, new tax on active military duty and spouses they need every day to deal with emergencies in hospital. head start programs in new york have already begun to feel the the impact. they are unable to access any funds, some of them are rent checks, they don't have the money, this is cruel, and it affects everything everywhere. republicans are quite literally defunding the police and in all these things we will not stand oddly by.

illegal decision is virtually limitless. its impacts are going to be felt over and over by families and we are already in touch with families and people throughout the country to mobilize them against this cruelty, this blatant assault on americans. and american families should make no mistake, the money has been taken from them will be spent, that money will be spent but not on them when the people at the very top who want tax cuts. it's cruelty and lawless as i said. does this cruel action hold down the price of groceries, no, they'll probably raise it. just yesterday before they did, this i was in up state new york talking about funding, stop the bird flu. that's one small instance of how much this affects things.

pressure on republican house and senate members to see if they support this stuff, mobilization of people across the board because this cannot stand, it's just awful, patty. >> well, thank you, every one of us in the building owes gratitude to the police. we all should be able to the say with one voice that if you violently assault a capitol

police officer you should not, not get a pardon and you should not get off scot-free. i have a lot more to they on that on the floor later today, but from trump pardoning violent insurrectionists to issuing blatantly unconstitutional executive orders to lawlessly, lawlessly blocking bipartisan for funding. we've got a lot of ground to cover and today i want to talk about the omb guidance that the trump administration issued in the dead of night. now not even 24 hours later they are issuing new guidance trying to clean up the massive mess they've made saying, wait, we don't actually know what we are doing.

needless uncertainty of what is actually, actually is happening and they are still, let me make that clear, still withholding approved funding all across the government. meanwhile the chaos is already hurting people, creating confusion and causing devastating delays. where do we start here? there are a lot of urgent questions but precious few answers and the answers keep changing. what about grants for public safety, grants for firefighters or that prevent violence against women, those aren't direct to individual, health care, what about the community health centers that millions rely on including in our rural areas, money fighting the opioid crisis, grants that go to states, communities and nonprofits, are they stopping fund for addiction treatment and prevention? clinical studies, scientist thes at the university of washington and washington state university are deeply alarmed.

this is not theoretical, research projects will collapse, staff will be furloughed or laid off. tribes in my state are deeply alarmed that they won't see severe cuts across health care, education, law enforcement, housing, practically every aspect of daily life on indian land and, of course, what about disaster relief that could be derailed and eastern washington and my home state, $44 million to help rebuild after wild fires, money that was announced weeks ago still on pause, last week trump visited communities in north carolina, california reeling from disaster, now he's throwing to aid those community into chaos. schools that need title 1 payments are worried they may not get the funds that congress has allocated and voted on, suddenly we don't know how meals

on wheels feed seniors who depend on them. what does this mean for homeless veterans, we are working to get housed, entire budgets and payrolls across the country are carefully hinging on these resources. we are talking about small towns, cities, rural americans, much more. and look just kidding is not a solution. you can't pretend you had no idea that this would cause chaos despite all the warnings, that is not believable and even if it's not true despite damage it has caused. there are still, there are still promising to illegally withhold funding owed to all of our states that basic truth has not changed. so i am urging fellow republicans to open eyes to just how bad this is and will be for

your states and your communities and speak out. i know reports say the white house is trying to silence members who have done that and we are talking about your constituents and specifically i urge republican colleagues on the senate budget committee to vote against nomination. republicans should not advance until the trump administration follows the law. and i'm warning the trump administration the law is the law, you need to reverse course, follow the requirements of the law, ensure the nation spending laws are implemented, as congress intended and avoid pointless damaging chaos. [inaudible] >> republicans are defunding the

police. >> they depend on this money day-to-day. head start programs, school meal programs. >> we are in the midst of sweeping authoritarian power grab that has never been witnessed in the lifetime of anyone standing here right now. the inspector generals being, telling government workers to spy on government workers to see if anyone is overly sympathetic to the idea of diversity and now we have trump saying, i'm going to steal the power of the purse allocated into the constitution

to the house and senate to congress and i'm going to take it for myself. i don't care what's been authorized or obligated in contracts, i'm going to decide what funds get spent and which ones don't. that is a constitutional crisis. now, the architect of this sweeping author tear thian power grab is russell vote. he is very experienced, he was director of office and management before. he ran a think tank where he advocated ideas in project 2025 and became the architect of project 2025 and then in the nomination process he says he has a three-part plan.

that's what we are facing right now. so we, the senate democrats are standing in the way of the sweeping power grab and saying, no, it's not acceptable. it cannot be business as usual. we are calling upon our republican colleagues to join us because this isn't these versus ours, this is not blue versus red, this is an imperial authoritarian president attacking purses of power allocated in the constitution of the united states of america. now this power that architect of the sweeping imperial authoritarian take other russell vote, he says he doesn't care. he doesn't care that we have the

1974 control act. he doesn't care that the supreme court founded unconstitutional, he said the president disagrees that it's unconstitutional for the president to grab the power of the purse and that he agrees with the president and he's going to do it. well, last night we found out he is doing it and that's why he's become the most dangerous man and we must stand together to make sure that this sweeping authoritarian effort is stopped from the firing of the ig's to government workers being called to spy on each other and then fired to this grab of the power of the purse. >> well, thanks, everybody, for being here. look, america has endured for almost 250 years as the world's greatest democracy and greatest nation because we believe that no one is above the law.

up until now, our leaders have never confused themselves with kings, but president trump has been relentlessly attacking those principles of our free government since the moment he finished his inaugural address. the president began by pardoning violent criminals who assaulted police officers and tried to overthrow our free and fair election and mainly friday night president trump illegally attempted to fire at least 17 inspectors general which is successful will make our government less efficient. it means that the government will waste more taxpayer money and the absence of inspector generals also will allow big corporations to rip off the american people especially through some of the government contracts that they hold. and now as if to test the limits

of our democracy, as if to exploit what president trump believes to be the weakness of the republican senate caucus and to test our society's capacity for outreach, outrage and chaos, the president is unilaterally freezing all federal grants, these are vital federal funds as you have heard. this act is illegal, the president is required to spend the money appropriated by congress. the supreme court has ruled that the control act which prevent a president from unilaterally holding back funds, the supreme court has rule that that is constitutional. equally as important and perhaps more important is that this the action will hurt people all across the country. president trump's order defunds police departments even as law enforcement officers are trying to keep us safe.

it imperils disaster relief as fires rage. it halts cancer research as we strive for cures and it shuts down shelters for homeless veterans in the cold of winter. the white house claims or tried to claim that medicaid isn't impacted but let's be clear, we are hearing from medicaid offices all across the country that they are right now locked out of the critical medicaid computer portal that the allows them to draw down funds. they are locked out of these federal reimbursement systems which in practice means that federal funds can be halted or rejected. new hampshire law enforcement agencies have told my office that the freeze of federal funding may force them to rescind job offers, meaning

fewer cops on the streets. a new hampshire organization that helps domestic violence survivors also told my office that it is now locked out of federal funding systems which will significantly impact the crisis centers it runs for women. these are concerted and insidious actions. senator merkley talked about ross vote, ross vote is the ultimate washington insider and he was hired by donald trump and he faces our confirmation vote, he was hired by donald trump to do this work using his insider knowledge in a way that will hurt millions of people, small businesses across our country and send shock waves through our economy. let's be clear, this money is not the president's to freeze or takeaway. it was appropriated by congress

and it belongs to the american people. to my republican colleagues, i suggest that you have to decide what bridge it is is too far to examine if you would tolerate these authoritarian acts and presidents where the president not of your own political party. the president would, of course, be better served spending his energies attacking high prices, not life-saving grants, not the people's watchdogs and above all, not the rule of law. we cannot let america become a place where our people's hold back funds by day and purge the people's watchdog by night. not here. not a democracy like ours, not ever, thank you. >> let me just say one thing, folks, any republican senator who votes for russell vote will

bear the on their shoulders all of these horrible, horrible cuts in actions. they have a chance to stop this, let's see what they do. [inaudible] >> i think our republican senators and congressman are going the hear from their constituents from one end to the country to the other. they are going the hear from police departments, schools, cancer research clinics and fire departments and police officers, everyone is really upset about this and we are going to continue to put heat on them so that they will not vote for vote.

[away from microphone] >> there shouldn't be anti-semitism anywhere. >> do you think any sanctions from the united states undermine the efforts -- >> one of the reasons that every democrat but one voted against the icc bill was not that we didn't want to make sure that they did -- we did everything we could to stop their antisemitic actions against israel was because we cared about ukraine and bad things that they were doing. >> in communication with the white house with the omb to get more clarity, do you anticipate some kind of communication -- >> we are going to communicate with everyone under the sun and

most importantly with our constituents and tell them, let your republican senators know, let your republican congressman know that you hate this, they'll feel the heat. thank you, everybody.