dangerous man. i beg to differ. i believe in my constitution. hard fought and hard won. it's not a perfect amendment, thank god for the 13th, 14th, 15th amendment, first amendment. but he should explain what he means when he says we're living in a post constitutional time. the trump administration and its architect, includes the nominee before us today have a very simple playbook to shrink the federal government and enrich themselves and their financial security. you are witnessing the unfolding of the kleptocratic designs they

have on that your republic. god help us if woe just stand by and allow it to happen. so what's their first step in getting that done? the trump administration is telling civil servants like the people who inspect your food or monitor diseases like bird flu or care for veterans at the v.a. to accept a meager buyout or risk being fired. all while be an unelected billionaire posing as co-president accesses your private data at the treasury department. russell vought said in 2023 that he wanted federal workers to, quote, be traumatically affected. that's what he said about your neighbors. that he wants them to be

traumatically affected and when they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as villains. they're saying the quiet part out loud. i've got news for mr. vought. the people whose staff are v.a. hospitals are not villains. the people who keep our food safe so much that we americans don't even think about it are not villains. the people who keep our water clean are not villains. the people who keep our military bases operating are not villains. a couple of days ago my office started to receive a flood of calls from federal employees, friends of mine who do great work at the cdc and other places

called me directly. folks who do noble work every single day. out of a deep sense of patriotism, certainly not pay. out of a deep sense of commitment to the covenant we have with one another. in the wake of this assault they began the call, these are folks who in their moment are finding themselves attacked by dangerous and d-- dystopian designs on ou country. just demanding that the workers just quit. well, to all the federal workers listening right now, let me say to you that not only do they want you to quit, more importantly, they want you to surrender. and you must never ever

surrender. you must never give in to the forces that would weaponize despair so that they can have their way and create a country that we will not even recognize. this is the people's house. this is the people's democracy. and the people have to stand up and say it belongs to us. even the people with whom we disagree, this is our house. the democracy is the framework in which we get to fight, in which we get to have the great arguments about guns and butter, but how to spend the budget. we get to have these robust family arguments and they get

rambunctious from time to time in order to avoid violence. that's the american way. what we've seen over the last two weeks is its own kind of violence. pardoning of those who attacked this house on january 6, the permission structure to do it again. the gaslighting, telling federal workers who are working hard for you on one day, don't come to work the next day, that is its own kind of violence. and it must be condemned by all americans who believe in the covenant we have with one another. and so when we're talking about federal workers, we're talking about hardworking folks i know.

don't allow them to turn these people into some vague and nebulous dark picture of somebody you don't recognize. these are your neighbors. these are the folk who are practicing medicine and nursing care in our v.a. hospitals. these are those who manage our social security payments. these are folks who are keeping our military bases operating safely and efficiently. ensuring folks get their tax returns on time. helping georgians navigate their student loans. keeping our airports operating safely. providing critical support for our children, assisting farmers

with loans, protecting our public health system and our public schools. eradicating diseases that know no borders. protecting our clean air and water. these are your neighbors. these are your family members. these are not villains. always be wary of politicians who tell us to be afraid of each other. they're the ones you should fear and be concerned about. these are people throughout georgia, our nation's capitol and scattered across the country dedicated to safe communities and helping to build that more perfect union that we hope to

aspire to. these quiet public servants who quietly and nobly do the people's work day by day, know this, i appreciate you. we appreciate you, and we've got your back because in so many ways you've had ours. these tens of thousands of georgians are now living in fear that their ability to support themselves and their families are at risk. yesterday dozens of georgians visited my atlanta office, some of whom lost their jobs through the abrupt dismanlting of -- dit mantling of saved. they're worried about how they will keep their lights on and take care of their children. a young woman came to my office yesterday, a single mother,

works for usaid, doing noble work. it is, indeed, a humanitarian cause, care for the sick, the poor, the most marginalized members of the human family. it is that to be sure, but it is national security. it is keeping us safe as americans, and it is a smart investment. it is less than 1% of the budget -- one half of 1%. for that we get programs like pepfar, a program that is perhaps the greatest hundred tarn relief -- humanitarian relief in our history, saving millions of lives on the african continent. it pays dividends for us.

a woman came to my office, a single mother, she was doing her work one day, and went to the doctor and the doctor saw something in her test that was concerning and said i need you to come back in a couple of days and get more tests and in that time she got notice and lost her job and her health insurance. she deserves better than that. my mama taught me to treat people with respect. with human dignity, to know that when you look in the face of your neighbor you see the image of god. surely people who have been working for us deserve better than that.

so people are anxious. people are concerned. know that you are valued. and that we'll continue to stand and fight on your behalf. but not only are the careers of these federal workers on the chopping block, so too is the federal funding that helps all of our communities and local economies run smoothly. my constituents were deeply shaken by last week's federal funding freeze. i received thousands of calls and e-mails from folks afraid of the freezes unknown harm to their community. so let's peel back the curtain even more on what happened over the last few days. the trump administration froez trillions of dollars of government spending to enact

massive and disruptive funding cuts. these cuts are being orchestrated in part by russell vought and in partnership with the world's richest man, slon musk -- elon musk, the co-president. this unelected, unvetted bureaucrat who by my best guess appears to think that the livelihood of georgians and americans is some kind of start-up he can tear apart. so if you want to get a sense of who president trump is looking out for, look at who he's surrounding himself with. on that stage when he was inaugurated, you saw them, some of the richest people in the world. they were the once who had proximity. well, proximity matters.

you can tell a whole lot about the character of a person's public service based on the people who can get close to them. the folks who get to speak into their ear. if you want to know who donald trump is working for, look at who he's surrounding himself with. the likes of elon musk, the billionaire, the richest man in the world who is now telling us the -- the rest of us that we need to tighten our belts. how quaint. president trump isn't serving them -- isn't serving you, he's serving them. he's serving those in our country who are well off and who don't play by the rules and putting at risk basic programs that help folks send their kids to school, keep food affordable

and lower their energy bills. in fact, the other day, as a member of the banking committee, i asked president trump's nominee for treasury secretary, who manages the finances for the entire united states government, if in the administration supposed quest to cut federal spending and give it back to the american people, would he agree with allowing the trump tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest americans. you're concerned about the federal deficit, are you willing to let the tax cuts put in place by trump during his first term to expire for the wealthiest of americans? let's return to the tax policies that we had during the bush administration, even if just by a dollar. when i asked the nominee that question, now secretary bessent, he said, no, we can't afford to

allow those tax cuts to expire. i said what about folks making over $400,000 a year? he said no. i said what about millionaires? he said no. i said, well, what about billionaires? no. so when elon musk and his billionaire buddies go looking for spending cuts and they're focused on cutting government waste, they start by targeting the working class. he said he couldn't cuss taxes for billionaires because they are the job creators. what about the folks who work on the job day to day? what about the folks who clean

hospitals? who mop floors? who pick up our garbage. why is it that those at the top deserve so much more than those working at the bottom. those in the middle. hardworking americans. who play by the rules. already we've seen secretary bessent give the world's richest man the keys to the kingdom. allowing him to prowl around in the sensitive data and systems of the treasury department. whoever heard of any such thing as this. what is a billionaire doing with access to the system that handles grandma's social security check? look, i will work with anyone

who is able to have a serious bipartisan conversation about how to best utilize government resources and taxpayer dollars. working across the aisle to get good things done for georgia has been a cornerstone of my service in the senate over the past four years. i'm listed as one of the most bipartisan senators in the senate. i have worked with republicans many, many times. but right now the playbook is obvious. cut programs that you rely on and give the richest of the rich the money. robin hood in reverse. steal from the poor, give to the rich. and as this plan unfolds at a breakneck pace, i think it is

important that project 2025, it's important that we remind people that project 2025 aims again to shift our democracy from citizenship to ownership. to shift the president from citizen to owner. donald trump, the real estate developer and his billionaire friends wants to own the country. last night he suggested that we should own gaza as well. imagine that. here's what else they have in store under project 2025. and its lead er russell vought. increase costs for families by $4,000 a year by slapping a trump sales tax on goods that families rely on like gas, food, clothing, medicine.

cuts to social security and medicare, hurting hundreds of thousands of georgia seniors. elimination of federal funding for k-12 education impacting georgians from the heart of atlanta to our rural counties all across our state. tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations while making working families foot the bill. gutting the affordable care act which will raise health care premiums and threaten coverage for hundreds of thousands of georgians and millions across the country. their program would end student debt relief that ensures their student loan payments don't consume the entirety of their paychecks. their plan would reverse provisions of a law i secured that is capping insulin at $35 for seniors. and lowering prescription drug

costs. and their program would eliminate head start which provided me with an early childhood education when i was growing up in public housing in savannah, georgia. i stand tonight on the floor of the united states senate, but i want you to know that you're looking at a head start kid. i know it works. this program that gives poor children a chance, which exposes them as preschoolers to literacy and a love of learning, which narrows the word gap between poor children and well off children, and puts them on the road to success.

head start is a worthwhile inve investment. it is a recognition that god is an equal opportunity employer, that god creates genius and talent and possibility on all sides of talent, on both sides of the track, and you never know where the very person we need to do the work that needs to be done, we never know what zip code that kid will grow up in. and so we have to investment in head start. on owe he we have to invest in head -- we have to invest in head start. to cut it is shortsighted. not only that, we have to invest in all of these programs that provide a child care safety net so mommas and daddies can go to work and children can be safe and thrive and be exposed to learning and literacy.

and so i was deeply moved when i began to get calls from folks involved in providing child care to our kids all across our state. child care centers in neighborhoods some forgotten, where people get up every day and go to work and they do their best. i heard from sweetie pies learning center in macon, georgia. they rely on federal funding for child care services. but this freeze meant that they missed their regular check that covers food costs, which left employees scrambling to make plans on how they can make ends meet while still caring for children in this community.

i'm thinking now about the folks i heard from in learning hive in lawrenceville, another child care center, navigating this chaos. delayed payments for child care and parent services. and if the freeze remained in effect, they would only have enough money to make payroll for two weeks. two weeks until your child is without care. think about that. as myself a working father of two young children, i cannot imagine the stress and the confusion that that would bring. to put food on the table, keep a roof over your heads, and make sure your kids have a safe place to learn and play while you make it happen. i'm thinking about the folks at easter seals child care center in clarkston were counting on this funding also for fresh

meals for children living at 100% below the federal poverty level. these kids risk going hungry in the wealthiest nation on the planet. so let me be clear. project 2025 is no longer theoretical. it is unfolding right before our very eyes in real time. we are seeing these policies implemented every day, and the president who claimed to disavow project 2025 is putting its chief architect in charm of administering -- charge of administering the federal budget. we must not give in. we must not give up. we must not let those who would weaponize despair win.

for many it's attaching right now -- it's dark right now. but my faith teaches me that the light shines in the darkness. and the darkness overcometh it not. and so let me say that even in a time like this, i am incredibly and immeasurably blessed because i get to do this work. i get to wake up every single day thinking about what i can do for the people who gave me the great honor of representing them in the nation's capital. it is a great honor. when the people of your state say since all of us can't go to that crazy place called washington, d.c., we're going to send you. and we're going to trust that in rooms of power, where decisions

are be made and deals are cut, you're always going to center the concerns of ordinary people. you're not going to forget about us. and so i'm honored that people all across the state of georgia, from barto to brantley county, when they took stock of the hopes for their families and their children and grandmothers and grandfathers, they said again and again, we want you to go to washington to fight for us. i'll tell you that for me, that is a sacred covenant not much unlike my first job, pastor. the promise to walk with the people even as you work for the people. part of the reason georgians have voted again and again to

send me to washington is because they know that i will fight for them, but they also know why i will fight for them. as a pastor in the senate, georgians know that i bring the moral lessons if my pastor recall work with -- pastoral work with me to the capitol every single day. so i'm going to keep fighting. i'm not going to stand by and allow folks to undo what we did, to cap the cost of insulin. why? because as a pastor, i have spent countless days in hospital rooms. i've seen up close what diabetes untreated can do. i've seen the amputations. i've been there when folks have gotten the news that they've got to go on dialysis. when you need your insulin, you need your insulin. it's not a luxury, it's a

requirement. so that informs my fight. when i cast my vote to fund programs that range from supporting law enforcement to veterans, for making food and housing more affordable, to ensuring every kid has a fair shot at making it on a college campus or a technical college, i see these votes as an extension of my pastoral work, my work to create what dr. king called the beloved community, a world where everyone is cared for and all of god's children can thrive. it is an honor when the people send you here to represent ordinary people. and that is why i take such great offense to the illegal and immoral actions that i've seen over the last few days.

to try and freeze federal funds that center the needs of ordinary people for the purpose of enriching our country's wealthiest individuals. i'm a matthew 25 christian. i was hungry and you didn't feed me. i was sick and i was in prison and you didn't visit me. i was a stranger and you did not welcome me. and then there are those who will ask the master, master, when were you hungry? when were you thirsty? when were you sick with a preexisting condition and nobody came to see about you? when were you in prison? when were you a stranger, an

immigrant? the answer matthew 25 says, in as much as you've done it on to the least of these, you've done it also on to me. representing the people is holy work. it's noble work. and i remember return to georgia every week and i return to my pulpit every sunday because i don't want to forget why i came here in the first place, to stand up for the very people who mr. vought says are villians. we all know that donald trump has a history of bailing on debts and shorting people of what they are owed, but our government is supposed to step in to protect hardworking individuals from bad actors who seek to take advantage of

people. yet we're seeing those bad actors fill our government's most powerful positions, playing fast and loose with taxpayer dollars at the expense of ordinary people. this is not how the most powerful government in the world ought to serve its people. the reality is this new level of new washington's dysfunction has real-world consequences that extend beyond washington politicians. georgia's economy does not stop just because washington is exercising a kind of chaos. while we're trying to get our act together up here, guess what? farmers still need crop insurance, child care workers in community health centers still need to make payroll, our roads and our bridges and pipes still need repairs. when federal investments are put in limbo, the stability of our

states and local communities are also put in jeopardy. and let me be clear, the trump administration has demonstrated that it will try this again and again and again, and when they do, the business community will suffer and georgians will be out of their jobs, unless we stand up and say no. if this federal funding freeze continues, as russell vought hopes, the impact will be felt hardest by those who can least afford it. it's easy in all the blusters of the beltway who is actually bear the brunt of donald trump's actions. delays in freezing are not just inconvenient. they create anning sdieshths instability, and they cost the jobs of our friends, our families, and our neighbors.

be very clear. this is all unconstitutional. so why so many of our colleagues across the aisle surrendering their constitutional responsibility that their voters elected them to carry out? my colleagues remain silent while this administration breaks the law. they are sacrificing the duty to their constituents in service to one man occupying 1600 pennsylvania avenue a well, i don't work for him. and i don't work for some oligarch threatening to run for my seat or run somebody for my seat. i work for people of georgia. it's this obsession with power, it is this obsession with

election, the next election, that has left us in this place in which we find ourselves tonight. and so it's up to us in this moment to stand up. i am listening to the people who sent me to represent them. i'm thinking about those who do the work every single day. it is our job to respond to the call and the urgency of this moment. history will not treat us kindly if we are silent at a time like this.

in closing -- and nobody believes a preacher when he says in closing, but i believe my colleague is ready. but in closing, senator, i was thinking the other day about the dark challenges that your people have been through. and during the era of the third reich -- and i'm never quick to raise the specter of that ugly time -- but there was a pastor by the name of martin lee molin, when in the midst of the ugliness of that dark time said first they came for the communists and i did not speak out because i was not a communist. then they came for the socialists and i did not speak out because i was not a socialist. then they came for the trade unionists and i did not speak out because i was not a trade unionist.

then they came for jews and i did not speak out because i was not a jew. then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me. when they come for one of us, they come for all of us. dr. king said we're tired of the did hes anyone knee -- whatever affects one directly affects one indirectly. ironically and tragically, we learned from covid-19, a deadly pandemic airborne, that if my neighbor is sick, not only is she sick, i am you a potentially imperiled. -- i'm potentially imperiled. it doesn't make nigh neighbor my enemy. it means that in my enlightened self-interest, i ought to be

concerned about her health care. i ought to want her to be covered so i can be covered. we're all in this together. so we must stand up in this defining moment and resist those who would have us to be afraid of one another because of our differences, because of our diversity and know that we are one people. that's the american way. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. i have the bad fortune and audacity to follow one of our greatest speakers, one of the nation's great orators and a preacher. i know we all appreciate the old wisdom, never foal a preacher.

and -- never follow a preacher. and i want to thank reverend warnock, my great colleague and friend, for that eloquent and powerful speech. and particularly the ending of his speech which evoke add time in our history -- which evoked a time in our history that many would like to forget. a lot of americans are forgetting. the world is trying to erase from its memory. but it is a time evoked by senator war no being that -- warnock that couldn't be more relevant to this moment in america's history. because we face a crisis in governance. it is a moral crisis, not just a political or legal crisis. it is a challenge to us, to our better angels, to our sense of

mutual respect and caring, as he said so well quoting martin luther king, that web of mutuality that bidens us as a nation. ultimately it isn't our wealth, the number of dollars we have in bank accounts or the economic strength of our corporation oz. it isn't our might militarily, the strongest and best military in the world. it is our common values and our commitment to our faith and our family and to each other, respect for each other, even when we differ. when we come to this body, mr. president, we all take an oath. i've taken that oath a number of times in my life when i became a private in the united states

marine corps reserve, when i became a united states attorney in connecticut, when i became a state legislator, and then when i became attorney general, and now as a senator. i raise my right hand, as did all of us, and we took an oath. it wasn't to a president. it wasn't to a government. it wasn't to a monarch. it was to the constitution. and the laws of this country. the constitution stands for something that bidnds us together, and it is at the core of this great nation that we call america. i hope when these young pages become our age and stand here

perhaps, but it will be around only if we fight to sustain it. it doesn't happen by magic or by inaction. it happens because we come together and we say, whatever else happens, whatever divides us, whatever natural disasters, norte dose -- tornadoes, floods, hurricanes befall our great country, we're going to stand together for the rule of law and for each other. we will come to each other's aid, and we will respect each other's rights. a wonderful professor and friend of mine at yale, tim snyder, wrote a little book on tyranny -- that's the name of the book. it's 20 lessons from tyranny in

the 20th century. and the first lesson is do not obey in advance. which is to say, do not anticipate what a dictator wants and accede to it in advance. do not acquiesce. do not obey in advance. today we have to take a stand against a group of people who want to shred our constitution, want to light it on fire because they feel there's a higher good. they want to save money or they think that we're in the midst of some religious movement or they

simply want to get power. whatever their motive -- and i don't pretend to fully understand it -- they have unleashed on our government a group of doge technocrats -- i use that word advisedly -- young people, maybe older people who think they can simply slash government spending. but, more to the point, that they have right to access information which americans have been providing in trust to the department of treasury, the labor department, the department of education, private, confidential information about

bank accounts, checks that are paid, and veterans' benefits. that information is supposed to be held in trust secretly, confidentially. and yet right now it is being scanned by elon musk and his crew. his benchmen are busy not just reading and scanning that information, but collecting it. and that actually serves potentially many of elon musk's business interests because on x, for example, he could profit mightily from knowing more information about people who might use musk in tesla or spacex. who knows what he might do with that information. and some of his billionaire friends, some of the people who

maybe provided access to that information could profit even more. so here's what i've done today as the ranking member of the permanent subcommittee on investigation. i've written to every one of elon musk's companies -- spacex, tesla, all of them. including his a.i. company. demanding information about the workings of that company that might benefit from access to that private information. now remember, his access is as a citizen. i'm not sure what his status is. the white house says he's a special government employee. he has no security clearance that would entitle him to take

that information and use it for his own personal benefit. no security clearance could give him that right to profit from financial information that belongs to you, the taxpayers. it's your data. and we have nothing that i've seen in writing from the president of the united states that gives him authority to seize and exploit that information. he certainly has nothing under law that would justify his monetizing after that information, the use of it. i think the american people have a right to know. all about the workings of those

companies that would be benefited from seizing and exploiting this information. i've written him, a few of those companies today, and i'm very hopeful that they'll explain to me what the facts are because the american people deserve those facts. in a sense, what you need to know about this administration and about doge and about elon musk is to follow the money. he says he's following money that may be wasted or abused. i want to follow the money that will come to him and other billionaires in the government, others who may be made privy to this information and use it for personal benefit and who may profit from it. i want to follow their money. and i want to follow any of the money that comes to other officials in emoluments.

now, emoluments is a term in the constitution, and the reason it's in the constitution is that our founders most feared, in addition to tyranny, that leaders of this country, people in public office, would take benefits, gifts, cash from foreign governments. we were a struggling, small country at our very beginning. we were nascent in our weakness. and their fear was that leaders of that small, struggling company might be tempted by one of those big monarchies in

europe that had the glittering palaces and jewels and riches, colonies around the world, that they could be bought. so they said no gifts, no benefits. nothing from any foreign source. and they had a domestic emoluments clause as well that in effect prohibited foreign bribery and that kind of domestic misappropriation as well. i want to know whether any of these officials in our government are benefiting in any way from advantages, benefits, payments from foreign governments, because we have become a global economy. we know that, to take one example that comes to mind, one

of the president's relatives is planning developments, hotels all around the world. the president has said he wants to make gaza into a mideastern rivera. who's going to be paid? we need the facts. and so i believe we need to be watchful, vigilant, and wary. follow the money. now we're here tonight before a vote on someone who's going to be following a lot of money. russell vought. if he were to be confirmed as director of the office of management and budget, in charge of all the money spent by the united states government, or almost all of it, i know most

americans have no clue as to what omb does. omb, office of management and budget. not to be confused with opm, office of policy and management. in the state of connecticut, we call the similar body office of policy and management. i suspect that the presiding officer's state, all of our states have something equivalent to omb or opm. it is the kind of brain central of the financial nervous system in the government. it controls the flow, the disbur

disbursement, and then also the projections for the future about what the government does. it administers the federal budget, and it's the entity that actually gets that money out the door after congress appropriates it. it puts the money into use by portioning it out to various federal agencies and programs. mr. vought is no stranger to the omb because for four years in the first trump administration, as both acting director and director, he served that agency. unfortunately for us and for him, his record there ought to be disqualifying.

he slashed budgets. he obstructed oversight efforts. he repeatedly violated the law by p withholding funding congress had already appropriated. all of it, harming american families, farmers, working people, communities, and in violation of the law. the omb director is very powerful. but, you know, there is this thing, and i keep coming back to it, the constitution. the constitution of the united states, which says we have separate branches of government. the congress is the one that has the power of the purse strings. it authorizes and appropriates money. the executive implements that

budget. it executes, as the term executive implies, on that budget, and many other laws. it enforces criminal laws. it implements other statutes. and of course the judiciary calls them both into account if they violate the constitution. and, congress actual ly believe maybe there ought to be an additional guarantee of its power to appropriate and the president to faithfully execute laws. and so in addition to the constitution, it passed a statute known as the impoundment control act, which says, you know, when the constitution requires that money appropriated

by congress be spent faithfully by the executive branch, the constitution really means it. and the impoundment control act implements it by saying it must be spent in exactly that way. but in his first service in the office of management and budget, omb, mr. vought really didn't think it was his duty to follow the law and the constitution, and so he impounded money. now, you would think, maybe it was an error. maybe it was an oversight. maybe it was kind of an innocent mistake. but he came before us in a hearing at the committee on homeland security, and i asked him specifically whether he would follow the law and the

impoundment control act, and he said that act is unconstitutional. his theory is that constitution doesn't really mean what it says. the framers didn't really think that the president had to spend money if he if he felt it was against the public interest. and if his intention was good, he didn't have to follow the constitution. well, the supreme court has affirmed and lower courts have followed that law again and again and again. so, mr. vought thinks he is in effect above the supreme court, above the law, and above the norms that others in his position followed faithful ly i

executing appropriations bill. i join my democratic colleagues in voting no on mr. vought's two previous nominations and i join my democratic colleagues in voting no on mr. vought's current nomination. in fact, mr. vought's records and views are so troubling, he has never received a democratic vote. never. i'm here to tell you that if confirmed again, mr. vought will be even worse than he was the first time around. he's had practice. he told this body that the one lesson he learned from his previous tenure was the need to act faster. during the confirmation process, he told us that he, quote, does not intend to do the job

differently. end quote, than he did the first time around. and he would apply his experience, quote, from day one. he said he'd be acting and taking the helm of omb at a time when president trump has thrown that agency and the country into chaos and l confusion with his unconstitutional illegal funding freeze. with mr. vought in charge, it will be more of the same. he's already proven that he's willing to break the law on behalf of president trump. as i mentioned, one of his most concerning beliefs is that the executive branch, the president, acting through omb, has the authority to withhold funding that congress has legally appropriated. now, this point is fundamental because if you believe the president doesn't agree with funding already enacted into

law, he doesn't need to release that funding, and the president is above the law. let's be clear on appropriations bills. as the presiding officer and all of our colleagues know, budgets in the united states government are the result of extensive negotiation leading to compromise and agreements that are then put into writing and incorporated into drafts and then finally into the bills that are voted in this chamber and then approved in the house of representatives. and if they are approved, they go to the president of the united states, and he signs them into law. that's kind of high school civics. everybody should know it.

p and it becomes a law. the president signs it. these funding withholding decisions that president trump made during his first term on the recommendation of mr. vought were a violation of laws that a president, either he or a predecessor, signed. and that's why i want to focus on the devastating effects of this wrongheaded, misguided philosophy and approach to the law. as a member of the senate committee on homeland security and government affairs, when i questioned him on and this very topic, he was clear that he disagreed with it, which is his right to do. he can disagree with the

constitution. nobody says you have to think the constitution is perfect. but if you take that oath, it's that oath that we all take, it's to follow the constitution, so help me god. when he fails to spend money appropriated by congress, he will be violating that oath and he has indicated he is ready, able, willing to do it. he's unqualified. he's unprepared. he lacks the character and confidence to be omb director. these issues, i know they appear abstract, hypothetical, but they have real consequences for real people in their everyday lives.

as wildfires rage across california, i asked mr. vought if he would commit to releasing disaster relief funding promptly and fully. disaster relief funding for the people of california but also for the people of north carolina, texas, florida, connecticut. we had floods recently. my colleagues and i came together in the closing days of the last session to overwhelmingly approve this funding, $110 billion, the disaster supplemental. that's $29 billion for fema, the federal emergency management agency, to help california recover from wildfires and my own state of connecticut to recover from the devastating flooding that occurred last

august. that's $21 billion to the department of agriculture to support farmers recovering from disasters, and billions of dollars for countless other programs from small business loans to fisheries assistance to roads that have to be repaired to other kinds of effects, disasters that are a rull of the new -- a result of the new normal, climate change, and the people who are victims of it, who suffer financial losses or losses of their homes, injury are not to be blamed simply because they were in the wrong place or their house was in the wrong place at the wrong time. there are things we can do now in rebuilding that make those homes more resilient, that

rebuild them in a different place, where the risk is lower. but many lack the insurance because they were told they didn't need it by banks that gave them mortgages because there had never been a storm of any real magnitude before. it's happened in connecticut, and they were victims of rains or floods or earthquakes or other natural disasters that was not their fault. that's why we come together, we help people. as i mentioned earlier, we support each other. that's part of the fabric. that's not the legal fabric, it's the social and moral fabric. but mr. vought told me that he was not, quote, going to get

ahead of the policy process of the incoming administration. he never committed that he would release the disaster funding. he left himself an out. he might violate the law. and we now know because of his testimony that he will likely violate the law. and we also have his past experience to inform our judgment under mr. vought's past leadership, omb delayed community development -- community development block grant disaster mitigation funding to puerto rico that congress had provided for recovery from hurricane maria. i visited postcloture in the wake of the hurricane. i saw the devastating destruction to that island, to

roads and bridges, to electricities and utilities, to hospitals and clinics, to agricultural areas that were completely isolated some of them. i flew over them by helicopter and saw the homes that had been leveled or rendered roofless or isolated, unable to find food or water without it being dropped from the air sometimes by fema. but he withheld the development block grant disaster mitigation funding provided by congress for recovery from hurricane maria, and the symbol, the visual

symbol of that time became president trump throwing rolls of paper, paper napkins or towels -- for towels of people waiting for food and water. it became emblematic because mr. vought withheld that money. my constituents and all americans should not have to worry that when disaster next strikes, they may not receive the aid that they need and deserve and should be forthcoming because of action by congress only because a single man, russell vought, has taken it on himself to make a decision that it should be withheld, as he did from puerto rico.

natural disasters all the more frequent and damaging baugs of climate change -- because of climate change, don't discriminate between red states and blue states, florida, north carolina, texas, connecticut, california, they've all suffered these natural disasters recently. and it doesn't matter whether they're red or blue, they need and deserve help. no administration should withhold it. this is troubling is mr. vought's track record about ukraine aid. this issue is especially close to my heart. i'm wearing a pin at this very moment that has the american and ukrainian flags. i have been to ukraine six times since the beginning of the war. i believe their fight is our fight. we have a moral obligation in supporting them because vladimir

putin will keep rolling, if conquers ukraine, he will keep going. first law, first lesson, 20th century tyranny, do not obey in advance. tyranny starts abroad sometimes, but it comes for us. vladimir putin will come for others if he succeeds in ukraine, and we will have an obligation under article 5 of the north atlantic treaty organization to put american soldiers and troops on the ground, airmen, sailors, marines, all of our military. so it's in our interest to stop him where he is right now. during his first time, mr. vought was instrumental in delaying security assistance to ukraine and we all remember who

served in this chamber during those years that first impeachment of donald trump because of that withholding of money, and the circumstances surrounding it. in 2019, under mr. vought's leadership, omb withheld $250 million appropriated to the department of defense for security assistance to ukraine. the government accountability office found that omb's actions to withhold this funding violate the law, gao also concluded omb's withholding of an additional $141.5 million appropriated to the state department for ukraine might be a violation of the law. that's the government accountability office,

nonpartisan, impartial, objective, and independent. violated the law by withholding that money. ultimately congress had to pass another law to ensure that our allies in ukraine received the funding they needed and when i asked mr. vought if he would release the remaining security assistance now that has been authorized and appropriated for ukraine, mr. vought said that he, again, was not, quote, going to get ahead of the president on a foreign policy issue of the magnitude of the situation with regard to ukraine. that's astonishing. that's a yes or no question. will i obey the law? yes. but he ducked it. he dodged it.

it is astonishing. time and again congress has come together on a bipartisan basis and passed vitally needed security assistance to support our allies in ukraine and mr. vought could not commit to following the law and honoring that promised funding. i was and remain astonished and aghasted that someone in a position of such responsibility that we are considering mr. vought to have would in effect say, well, maybe the president would be above the law so i've got to see whether he chooses to follow it. saying he's going to not get ahead of the president on a foreign policy issue, that's not a foreign policy issue, that's an integrity issue. that's whether or not the

president is above the law and whether he will follow it. legal scholars, the department of justice's office of legal counsel and even the supreme court have all found again and again and again that the president does not have the authority to withhold congressionally appropriated money. but here we he have a nominee that says that the supreme court is entitled to their opinion but he could supersede it. baffling to me that this man is now before the senate for a nomination to oppose -- to a post that is one of the most critical in our government at an unprecedented moment of crisis in our history. and i think my colleagues ought to be equally aghast, both republicans and democrats, because this issue of the

constitution -- i keep coming back to the constitution -- is bigger than any of us here, bigger than mr. vought, even bigger than president trump. it is what sustains us through constitutional crises as we face right now. it's bigger than this administration or any other. it's whether the law of the land should prevail, whether it's up for grabs depending on what the president thinks or what mr. vought recommends the president should think. it's about the power of the purse being usurped from congress and put into the hands of unelected bureaucrats, spesh government -- special government employees like elon musk. the constitution provides for nothing like it. nothing close to it. this issue goes to the foundations of our country.

again, i know these issues seem esoteric and legalistic. i'm a lawyer. i understand that making the law real for people is a challenge, and a lot of what i've said, even when it concerns natural disasters, might seem abstract. but the person who appropriates the money, congress, makes judgments about where it should go, who it should benefit -- child care, community health centers, the snap program, providing aid for the hungry, the military, new weapons plat platforms, our intelligence community, our national security. all of the domestic needs, all

of the challenges from abroad, they're not hypotheticals. and we saw last week how real the threat is, how damaging the effect would be on every single american if mr. vought's views prevailed. last week the trump administration swept the country into chaos and confusion, and all of us in this chamber heard from our constituents, loud and clear -- what in god's name are you doing? you're disrupting the payrolls of community health centers that provide basic services to patients who need them, children who use them, child care, head start, medicare, medicaid, the basic nuts and bolts of our government disrupted.

i know the president wants to be a change agent. he shouldn't be a chaos agent. disruption shouldn't mean destruction of those basic services. but that's what a delay in funding could mean, or a suspension of financial support. and that move wasn't approved by congress. to be clear, it was against the law. they made the unconstitutional and unilateral decision to halt congressionally mandated funding. as a result of that order, chaos and confusion halted federal payments to food bank programs, health care and nutrition assistance programs, head start and child care programs, housing programs, energy assistance programs, and so much more. we heard about it. and throughout the chaos, the administration was utterly

unable to communicate to the public. first there was a vague memo, which claimed there were exceptions to the trump funding freeze, but many of those programs, like medicaid and head start, remained unable to access funding for extensive periods of time. a federal court had to step in and halt the order and stop the chaos. and then, in another one-sentence memo, president trump caved to the public outcry and allegedly rescinded the funding freeze entirely. 24 hours after it went into effect. of course, it didn't end there, because right after the funding freeze was supposedly halted, it was put back into place by a tweet. that's the way we govern these days, in the trump administration, by a tweet from the white house.

agencies and organizations on the ground were still in chaos, solely because of president trump's incompetence, but also advice that he received from people like mr. vought, who pretended he was above the law and he could unilaterally freeze that funding. but here's where things really get scary. mr. vought scares president trump's ludicrous and unconstitutional views about the executive power over federal funding, but he, unlike president trump, is not incompetent. he knows what he's doing. he spent four years at omb, tearing out this agenda of withholding funding, and he's primed and ready to continue that mission with all of that experience behind him, as he put

it, on day one. make no mistake, even though courts have intervened to halt trump's federal funding freeze, this fight is not over. it's not even the beginning of the end. it's not even the end of the beginning. we are in the first two weeks, now maybe three weeks, of the trump administration, and i'm hearing from constituents that funding has yet to be unlocked, especially from the inflation reduction act. even if all the federal funding taps are turned back on, this administration is not done wrecking havoc in our communities. the president will try again, only this time if we let him he'll have mr. vought on his side. with all that experience, breaking the law at omb on the

president's behalf, it won't be a vague several-line memo from omb, imposing the freeze. it will be a well-articulated set of falsehoods designed to c confuse and obstruct, but still order, a freeze in funding. let me give you some examples from connecticut about what the ramifications are in real life. given the magnitude of the danger facing us, i want to take some time to highlight again the harms that result from a funding freeze. i've spent the last couple of weeks, the last week particularly, fielding concerns from constituents who are understandably worried and confused and scared about the devastating effects the freeze has imposed on services they provide to people who need and

deserve them. let me be clear -- the congressionally mandated aid this administration legally has withheld helps families put food on the table and keep their homes heated in the winter. it helps our communities, and particularly farmers, recover from extreme natural disasters. it helps needed support for infrastructure updates in every state across the country. to every american who is list listening, it's your money that president trump is playing games with. it's your taxpayer dollars that are owed back as investments in your communities. it's not donald trump's money. it's not russell vought's money. it's your money, taxpayer money. let's call the funding freeze what it is, theft.

president trump is stealing money from american taxpayers and citizens and threatening their ability to pay rent, heat homes, and much more, and that money is going -- stolen by donald trump will be used to finance tax cuts for billionaires and the ultra wealthy like himself. follow the money. follow the money when it is illegally impounded to be used to finance tax cuts for the benefit of a tiny slice of the american public, the ultra wealthy, billionaires. nothing wrong with being a billionaire. we all can aspire to be a

billionaire. it is the favoritism and discriminatory use and effect of our laws benefiting them at the illegal expense of everyday americans, whose taxpayer money has been stolen. grifted, thieved. i have no doubt every single one of my colleagues, even on the other side of the aisle, who have remained silent or complicit, have been inundated with requests for help from their constituents. and my republican colleagues know well, red states and blue states receive funding from the federal government. in fact, i saw a statistic in "the new york times" that something like 80% of all the infrastructure money has gone to

congressional districts represented by republicans. don't hold me to the 80% number, but that's approximately what it was. which is not to say they shouldn't receive that money, if they're entitled to it under the formula that congress establishes based on need or other factors. doesn't matter whether they're red or blue. the law ought to be executed fairly and faithfully, implemented properly. but then to turn around and say, well, we should impound money that's been lawfully appropriated affects them as well as the congressional districts represented by democrats. it's not about republican or democrat. here are some real stories -- during the chaos that overwhelmed federal agencies,

community health centers were unable to access the federal funding they rely on to provide critical health services. many of them were weighing furloughs of their doctors, nurses, their counselors, their essential providers. a nonprofit in connecticut that provides critical mental health services was terrified that they may not be able to pay their staff if the funding freeze continued. i spoke to the head of the alliance or association of community health centers. he told me about one in the northeastern part of the state that had to close its dentsal -- its dental services. medicaid payments are now seemingly back on line, but this administration put one million connecticut residents who rely on medicaid and the connecticut

children's health insurance program at risk with these needless and reckless theatrics. child care, similarly connecticut head start was unable to access payments. president trump jeopardized child care and early childhood education for 5,000 families in connecticut. connecticut farmers, who just over a week ago were celebrating, and i was there with them, millions of dollars in much-needed disaster assistance from extreme weather events, they weren't sure whether they would ever see that money or when. you know, farmers really can't wait a few months to plant the seeds or feed their livestock. there are seasons, there are days when obligations have to be

met, and they deserved the aid that was coming to them, and they should not be forced to wait for it. millions of dollars. to the hardworking farmers of connecticut, withheld potentially on that day. we still are unclear whether that freeze or that aid has been unequivocally lifted. at the outset of the freeze, i spoke to the ceo of connecticut food share. he expressed to me his deep fears about potential impacts of food assistance, like snap, the emergency food assistance program. freezes to these funds could push hundreds of families into poverty and hunger. any more politically motivated funding games from the trump administration would have potentially life-threatening impacts on survivors of domestic

violence, because they depend on vawa, violence against women act, and the money appropriated under it for the domestic violence shelters, for the counseling, for the hotlines, all necessary to provide survivors with options rather than just staying home where they are victims of abuse. they are survivors if they can get away, and they deserve these services. the operation of connecticut's 24/7 domestic violence hotline could be severely impacted by another suspension, court-based and community-based services for survivors and their children also on the chopping block. this funding freeze was terrifying to these women and children, and potentially tragic, not just for connecticut but for the whole country, on domestic violence.

housing, connecticut organizations that rely on federal funding from hud to help families at risk of homelessness also in jeopardy. 150,000 connecticut residents depend on federally funded housing programs, even a temporary pause puts them at risk because potentially it puts them out of their homes. i heard from one organization that can provide permanent supportive housing to over 40 households in waterbury and meriden with the help of hud funding. this housing is for people with disabilities and their families during this chaos and confusion they reported that the payment system for hud was down and they were unable to access the funds

just days before the rent was due on the first of the month. while the system now seems to be back online, that organization had to live through poe tensely tranlic trauma -- potentially tragic trauma and the stress was debilitating for them and the trauma has lasting effect. it increases the sense of insecurity for the people who already feel an anxiety about their future. the low-income home energy assistance program known as lihe. we all know it because it heats the home of people on days like this one, cold. here in the district of

columbia, a lot colder in connecticut, and the northeast. and in many of our states and people need this critical program that provides energy assistance to low-income individuals and households. it was in jeopardy, too. over 100,000 households in connecticut that rely on heat were told the money has stopped. again it may be back online but no one knows whether that's for sure because russell vought and donald trump, they may be above the law. funding to support critical water infrastructure, brown field remediation and clean drinking water also frozen. that move threatened the health of communities everywhere. and i'm still hearing from constituents that grants they

received under the inflation reduction act are continued to be frozen. the city of new haven received over $10 million from epa for two grants under the ira that they say have been blocked, severely disrupting work. recipients of epa's solar for all program which enables households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from solar power are similarly still frozen, including recipients in connecticut. make no mistake, the trump funding freeze continues in effect today. the courts need to block it and then they will need to hold in contempt the officials would failed to obey it, whether it's mr. vought or the president of the united states and lawyers will go to court to seek

contempt motions to hold them in contempt. trump's funding freeze put the future of connecticut's and our nation's roads and bridges and rail at risk. amtrak state of repair backlog for the northeast corridor is tens of billions of dollars alone. it's estimated at $78.8 -- or $7 billion in 2023. this funding is critical for safety repairs along amtrak's line. funding the connecticut river bridge replacement project and the gateway hudson tunnel replacement project. it will ensure rail passengers can safely enter and move through all of new england. and without this funding from the federal state partnership for intercity passenger rail and the consolidated rail infrastructure and safety improvements program, just naming a few, all of these

investments will be at risk because they are all connected. you can't stop work on one part of the line and expect the trains to magically go in the air over that break. and transportation costs will escalate because construction costs will rise. the interruption itself could be devastating financially. last week i was proud to join the mayor of new haven to announce that the city of new lafshen was awarded $2 million on the -- under the reconnecting -- reuniting the city of new haven which was divided by interstate 91 when that road was built, it split

the city. it created a physical barrier. it isolated residents from social and economic opportunities that are critical to thrive. it destroyed city blocks and dozens of homes. and now this grant will help reunite neighborhoods, bring communities closer together. incentivize housing and other important assets. but right before we made our announcement, d.o. tfrnlts pulled down -- dot pulled down meetings it was supposed to have with grant recipients because they didn't know whether the award would be granted. this funding freeze means that new haven will no longer be able to identify ways to make roads safer or safeguard against disaster or encourage construction of new, affordable homes and promote new businesses and more for its residents. just one example, around $1

billion federal funding, $1 billion for connecticut alone that is in jeopardy. the longer the trump administration's reckless agenda causes chaos and confusion, the clearer it will become that every day americans are suffering from this ill-conceived, wrongly implemented, reckless and heartless program. i talk about all these stories concerning my constituents, but every member of this body could tell the same kinds of stories. it's across our nation. it bears repeating because the trauma and the hurt and the harm are to our neighbors and communities. when russell vought as director of omb, if he is confirmed, he will have proesident trump as hs

leader who apparently has indicated he will follow recommendations that put him above the law. russell vought is the perfect person to help donald trump rob the american people, carry out -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. blumenthal: he's proven he was willing and able to break the law for president trump in his first term -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. blumenthal: -- and security assistance and he will do it again. i recommend that my colleagues say no to this nomination. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, i yield 120 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the vought nomination to senator murphy. the presiding officer: the senator has that right.

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: well, we're in interesting times, mr. president. and we're beginning to see the corporate and billionaire takeover of the united states government. and in that corporate and billionaire takeover of the united states government, the nominee russ vought to run omb has a key role. and that key role to do the work for the billionaires and the big corporations is what makes him unfit and dangerous and what compels us to come to the floor tonight to warn the american people of what this guy will do

and who he is. let's start with a little history. this is the guy who violated the impoundment control act by withholding 214 million appropriated dollars from the soldiers fighting and dying in the trenches of ukraine against putin's thug army. it was that stunt that led to the impeachment of president trump. this is the guy who caused lives to be lost in those ukrainian trenches by withholding funding

they needed desperately, withholding the funding they desperately needed illegally and withholding that desperately needed funding illegally in order to support a scheme by president trump to put pressure on the ukrainians to give him dirt on his political opponent. that's a little bit of history of where this guy will go. the omb is the nerve center of the federal government, and to have someone there of that character is dangerous. vought is also lawless. the impoundment control act that he violated, the government accountability office said this. faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that

congress has enacted into law. he violated that and they specifically find therefore we conclude that omb violated the impoundment control act. is he re-pentant about that now that the accountability offices that called it out as being illegal. never mind the ukrainian lives he caused to be lost. no. he continues to say the impoundment control act is unconstitutional, even though no court has ever said so. he was pressed on this question in the budget committee. in answering the appropriations ranking member senator murray's questions about this, he said, president trump has stated that the impoundment control act is

unconstitutional. i agree with the president's position. again, no court has said this. he said, if i am confirmed as the director of omb, i will follow the advice of legal counsel and ultimately the president with respect to the implementation of the impoundment control act. pay attention. i will follow the advice of legal counsel and ultimately the president. not i will follow the law. not i will follow court decisions that say what the law is. no. i will follow the advice of legal counsel and ultimately the president. so let's just have a quick look at who his legal counsel is. people may remember this. this is a painting that was

commissioned by this guy, the billionaire harland crow. as you may remember the billionaire harland crow has been funding the lifestyle of the next person over, justice clarence thomas. millions of dollars in secret gi gifts to the thomas family. and the next guy over in the paymentsing -- by the way, if you saw kristi noem sworn in by justice thomas, he has a picture of this right behind them. he's so pleased with it that he's got his own version of it. him with his billionaire sugar daddy and with mark paoletta. this is the guy who is going to be the legal counsels who advice vought is going to listen to.

this guy is neck deep in the billionaire court capture scheme. of course his advice is going to be what the billionaires say. the next guy over is leonard leo, the court fixer. this is basically a panorama of the corruption of the supreme court. the billionaire who funds it, the justice who secretly accepts millions of dollars in billionaire gifts, the guy who cooks up the whole scheme and travels with justices on these billionaire-funded trips, and is here at the billionaires' estate in the adirondacks with them and of course mark paoletta. that's whose advice he's going to take. again, he was careful not to say not the courts, not the law.

the billionaire court-fixer guy who's now his counsel and the president who's already said he thinks the law is unconstitutional. this guy on this question of the impoundment control act, he hasn't said he's going to follow the lou either. in fact, he said, the impoundment control act is a stupid law, and he tweeted at russell vought, impound baby, impound. huh, yeah, you're going to get sober, legal advice from a guy who says impound, baby, impound, and hangs out with billionaires who fund the capture of the supreme court as part of leonard leo's scheme. this is an illustration of how this guy, russell vought, is a creature of the far-right billionaire dark money world. before he went to omb the first time, he worked as vice president of heritage action.

what is heritage action? heritage action is a billionaire-funded dark money group that advocates for the things that dark money billionaires want, and he for years worked for them. then he went into omb, and i submit he still worked for them, although they weren't paying his paycheck at the time. he gets back out after trump won, and he sets up something called the center for renewing america. again, a billionaire-funded dark money enterprise whose purpose is to advocate for the things that the dark money billionaires want. it also, by the way, took care of the refugees from the first trump administration. that creepy character jeffrey clark, who was in the department

of justice and tried to wangle his way into the attorney general partnership by proposing that he would put the attorney general into the election-fixing scheme that president trump was running down in georgia, that guy. where did he land? right, the centrality for renewing america. consider the center for reneuroamerica, courtesy of -- the center for renewing america. who also there? mr. paoletta? who else? kash patel, the guy who has threatened over and over again to turn the fbi into a political weapon for donald trump against his adversaries.

he went so far as to repost a tweet of himself chainsawing the heads off members of his enemies list. yeah, this is the guy who published an enemies list of who he was going to get in what he called a manhunt, a manhunt begins now, he says of his enemies list. and trump wants to put him in charge of the fbi so it becomes his personal political weapon. and kash patel has shown time after time, instance after instance, he is all too willing to do that. and where did he land? yeah, right at voughts's center for renewing america. so this guy vought is neck deep in the billionaire dark money

operation that is working right now to take over the u.s. government and run it its own way. the way it wanted to do this is through the plan that it cooked up and paid for called project 2025. and if you look at the first couple of weeks of the trump administration, you see project 2025 playing out again and again and again and again, and who was the central architect of the heritage foundation's project 2025? oh, yes -- russell vought. paid for with $120 million. you know in rhode island that's still a pretty good number. $120 million from a couple of right-wing billionaire families to cook up a scheme to run the

government and vought both writes it and now goes into implement project 2025. if you want to look at the guy's lawlessness from another angle, he doesn't believe in independent government agencies, so the federal energy regulatory commission, for instance, that is an independent government agency because it adjudicates disputes in the energy sector and because it makes policy and has to do a number of things, but it has to be independent to have this adjudicative function, or the securities and exchange commission or the federal reserve. he doesn't believe that any of them should be independent. he says, what we're trying to do is identify the pockets of independents and seize them.

seize them. for the corporate and billionaire takeover they want to seize the independent agencies in government so that they're under the control of the big donors who put this administration in. he said specifically about the federal reserve, it is very hard to square the fed's independence with the constitution. except that the supreme court of the united states has squared the fed's independence with the constitution for decades. the decisions of the united states supreme court supporting the existence of independent agencies goes back to the humphreys ex-he can could you -- executor's case.

this has been precedent in which literally dozens of cases involving independent agencies have come before the court, and it has never said that it's hard to square the independence of agencies congress has deemed to be independent with the constitution. this is an eccentric and lawless legal view and they intend to impose it, notwithstanding the law. there are -- number one, he said, is going after this whole notion of independence. there are no independent agencies, he says. the sec, the fcc, the cfpb -- none of that is something that the constitution understands. oh, yeah -- except for those 90 years of supreme court precedent interpreting the constitution to understand exactly that. in addition to the billionaire

stoogery that he's been involved in for decades, in addition to his penchant for lawlessness where there is clear supreme court precedent, he's just a little bit strange. here's what he has said about the men and women who work in the federal government -- we want them, he said, to be tau matterically affected -- tau matterically affected. when they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villians. the postman, the villain; the meat inspector who makes your steak safe, the villain a the people who do brain cancer

research for us. yes we definitely want them to be viewed as villians. he goes on, we want their funding to be shut down so that -- and of course he picks the epa because we're dealing mostly with polluter billionaires -- we want they are funding to be shut down so that the epa can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. we want to put them in trauma. if you want that's normal, you want to go have just a little look in the mirror. he wants mass firings, which we're already seeing threatened. he wants to eliminate the civil service, fire staffers so that they can be replaced with loyal partisans. so let's say you're big

polluter. let's say you're a big oil company. let's say you're not cleaning up your methane leaks. you're spewing methane into the air for everyone else to breathe. programs the department of interior comes to you and says to you, you know, you've got to clean up your mess here. you're spilling methane into the atmosphere. it is poisoning people. you've got to knock it off. nope. out you go. bring in the sycophants, bring in the loyal part, bring in -- loyal partisans, bring in people who have tell the people at work now, never mind. we've got your back now. you just keep leaking that methane. here's one that kind of stunned me. pretty simple question. i asked him, did joe biden win the 2020 presidential election? what was his answer? i believe that the 20 election was rigged f -- i believe that

the 2020 election was rigged. no court has ever believed that. people got their bar ticket removed for telling courts falsehoods that the election was rigged. this was the first big lie of the trump administration, and he's not over it. and he wants to go and run the nerve center of omb. he even wants to invoke the insurrection act, bring in the united states military onto domestic soil to break up people who are protesting the trump administration. this is not a normal guy. this is not a guy who respects the law and the constitution. this is a tool of a very small right-wing billionaire elite, and he has proven himself with his participation in the trump scheme to hold back urgently needed money from ukrainian

warriors trying to defend their country against putin so that he could put pressure on zelenskyy to develop dirt on trump's political opponent. he was part of that scheme. what a giechlt the last thing that i'll mention -- what a guy. the last thing that i'll mention is that he has described joe biden and his administration as having engaged in climate fanatacism. climate fanatacism. this from the slow, cautious, temperate, noncombative biden administration. i wish they'd been a little bit more fanatic. but they sure weren't. they were slow, they were cautious, they were temperate, they were noncombatives and he found that to be fanatic.

well, i'll close with what's coming because what's coming from climate change is a beginning meltdown in property insurance markets all around the country, which is going to cascade into a problem in mortgage markets around the country because you can't get a mortgage if you can't get property insurance. and unless you're selling billionaire to billionaire palm beach estates a, if you want to sell your home, you got to find somebody who can get a mortgage. if your home can't get a mortgage because they can't get insurance, you can't i find a buyer and so your property values crash. and the chief economist for freddie mac has warneded that this insurance to mortgage to property values crash is going to happen and is going to hit as hard as the 2008 mortgage mettledown. so somebody that takes this not seriously at all is the wrong person to lead us as we head

towards disaster. out of the budget committee, where's where we're seeing massive nonrenewal rate increases. that is the insurance companies telling people who pay their premiums for years, you're fired. we don't want you anymore. we're not going to insure your property any longer. you're done. or jacking up the rates. and you can see obviously where the high percentage places are. it's in coastal and wildfire areas. here's another one. this followed our budget committee report, but that i just americansed. this is where home insurance premiums are predicted to go because of climate change. up to a 300% increase. thats's quadrupling. if you have a $600,000 insurance policy that's $2400. that's all over. it's in the hot spots for wildfire and in the hot spots

for coastal property damage from storms and sea level rise. and when you raise home insurance premiums by that much, what do you do? you knock down the value of the home. because when you buy a home, if you're buying into a, let's say, $24,000 expense every year, the present value of $24,000 out of your pocket year after year after year comes off the value of the house. so it will knock down property values. indeed, it is predicted that in many of these areas homes are going to lose as much as 100% of their value. a home that people have invested in, purchased, loved, raised their children in will lose its value in some places completely because you can't get insurance, you can't get a mortgage, you can't find a buyer, the place is

going to burn, the place is going to flood. and it's not just me warning of these things. here is an article from the "economist" magazine, not exactly a liberal green publication, predicting globally that the next housing disaster is going to come from climate change. severe weather brought about by greenhouse gas emissions is shaking the foundations of the world's most important asset class -- real estate. the world is facing roughly a $it 25 trillion hit. the impending bill is so huge it will have grim implications not just for personal prosperity, but also for the financial system. climate change in short could prompt the next global property

crash. and if you look back here to florida, you see how acute the trouble is as that insurance market melts down. home insurance in florida, the average annual premium for a typical single family home in the state is likely to hit nearly $12,000 this year, says "the economist" magazine. citizens property insurance corporation has become florida's largest home insurer. it's exposure is now $423 billion, much more than the state's public debt. this is a high-risk situation. the financial times reporting says that billion-dollar-plus disasters occur once every three weeks now on average compared with every four months for equivalent easters in the

1980's. cracks in the u.s. housing market will widen. this danger of housing values collapse is already under way. residential properties in the u.s. are overvalued by $121 billion to $237 billion for flood risks alone. not the wildfire risks out west. the flood risks alone. that's the financial times. "the new york times," without insurance it's impossible to get a mortgage. without a mortgage, most americans can't buy a home. headline -- insurers are deserting homeowners as climate shocks worsen. bloomberg news, u.s. home insurance real estate markets teeter on financial crisis. here's what they say. it's hard to overstate the role that insurance plays in the modern economy. banks won't make mortgage loans for uninsurable properties.

without those loans, the real estate market slows to a crawl which in turns eats away household wealth and the tax revenue that state and local governments rely on. for insurers to play their part they have to feel confident predicting how much damage they may have to cover. they build models of the future based on what happened in the past. they don't have to be right all the time. just enough to win by more than they lose. climate change has made that much harder. a warming world is more dangerous and unpredictable in the 1980's. the u.s. experienced roughly three disasters a year that did at least $1 billion in damage. now the annual occurrence is closer to 18. and it's not just news reports. here's the congressional budget office analysis. the risks of climate change to the united states in the 21st century, as emissions of greenhouse gas from human activities accumulate in the

atmosphere and ocean, in the united states those changes will have consequences for economic activity, real estate, and financial markets. here's the financial stability board. it's the global board that advises banks on how to stay sound. l climate related vulnerabilities in the financial system when triggered by climate shocks could threaten financial stability and in the real economy or the financial system leaned to financial losses. climate shocks could also affect the real economy through damage to real assets or the creation of stranded assets or a disruption to economic activity that can feed back to the financial system. i'll cut to one of the end points here. the projected physical risk impact from climate change could cause global gdp to decline

versus the baseline by 5.3% by 2030 and by up to 15% by 2050. that is a global recession, folks. driven by climate change, pounding insurance markets which pound mortgage markets. and this guy thinks that taking climate science seriously is fanatacism. here's what the american people think about some of this stuff. penalties on high pollution imports. letting high pollution chinese products into our country, putting a penalty on that? 12% oppose. 74% support. a 62% be positive swing. carbon pollution limits on big companies, 12% disapprove, 72% support. impose a fee on big polluters,

10% oppose. 74% support. a 64% swing. the american public wants to solve this climate problem which is why the billionaires need to come in and take over the government from the inside with people like russell vought, so they can defeat the american people, continue to pollute, and let the economic mayhem ensue. and i'll close with this last image just because i really love it. here's the maga guying standing outside the wall of trump mar-a-lago palace. we showed those elites who's in charge. meantime inside are the

helicopters from wall street, big tech, bezos, pharma, big ag, musk, musk, kohl, big oil, crypto bros. this is what is happening. maga may have thought it won the election, but here's who really won the election. the looters and the polluters. the musks who are running into our information systems looting data out of them for their own purposes, and the polluters who want to pretend that this climate change threat is not real. russ vought is dangerous because he won't face the facts on these things because he belongs to the billionaire looters and are polluters. and with that, i yield. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to continue the discussion about russell vought, the president's

nominee to be the director of the office of office of management and budget, but before i do i thought i would just share with my colleagues and all who are in the chamber a vigil that i just attended. there was a vigil at a riverfront park in alexandria near the site where the flight went down a week ago, killing 67 people on the american airlines flight and the army helicopter that had deployed out of fort belvoir. it was a simple, moving, candlelight vigil that was organized by my friend don byer in the house of representatives. it was attended by a few hundred people, mostly residents of alexandria and arlington, nearby communities. there was a heavy representation of law enforcement there because the alexandria police and fire departments were very integral to the rescue and recovery operations that were ongoing. it was somber. it was somber.

you struggle for words at a time like that. i couldn't think of any of my own that really were that enlightening, so i fell back on psalm 90, teach us how short our lives are so that we may become wise, thinking about the children, the ice skaters and their friends and family who were killed. but frankly, all of us have short lives, even the oldest of those who died that day, the mother who was celebrating her birthday, a wife who was on her way home whose husband was waiting for her in the airport. coaches, folks in wichita doing a pipe fitter training program. and frankly all the attendees, our lives are all short. so what is the wisdom if you follow the logic in psalm 90 teach us how short our lives are so that we may become wise, well, what is the wisdom that we are to gain if we understand that our lives are short? the psalmist doesn't really say. that psalmist leaves us to

conclude for ours what is the wisdom we are to gain out of such situations. what i said to people there if there is one bit of wisdom we should gain when you realize how mortal we are, it's probably the wisdom about the value of community, that we link arms and we support each other. certainly if we're celebrating positives, we ought to do that, but particularly when we're mourning and we're thinking about lives lost and lives and futures cut short. our wisdom should compel us to find solace and comfort in each other's company. this vigil lasted about a half-hour. we had candles. and after representative byer spoke and i spoke and the mayor of alexandria, mayor gaskins spokes, the chaplain of the alexandria police department gave a closing prayer.

we stayed and comforted one another. i was struck because i was coming here to speak tonight, i mept a guy from dhs involved in the recovery effort on frigid waters on the potomac. i met a key official from fort belvoir where the three soldiers had deployed from in the training flight who were killed that night. i met other people who were part of the federal family, who work in air traffic control, who work in the faa. alexandria is pretty close to the pentagon. i met people who work at the pentagon whose family members do. i met some folks who weren't federal employees but they tubed me about, one woman talked to me about her son who was a federal employee, is a federal employee currently stationed in tennessee. i took that to mean a member of the armed services. this was the random community that gathered to commemorate the 67 lost lives and comfort one

another. and while we were there to focus on the tragic accident, most wanted to talk to me about their own fears for their careers and for their families and for others who are feeling confused and afraid right now because of actions that are being taken against federal employees. and that brings me to russell vought. my colleagues have spoken on the floor about a particular statement of mr. vought's that i examined him about fairly aggressively during the budget committee hearing. in the course of his speech, he said, i want federal employees to be traumatized. i want to put them in trauma. i want them to not want to come to work because they know that they are increasingly viewed as the villain. now who talks like that? i mean, who talks like that? is there a single manager or leader or organizational chief

that we admire who believes that their mission, their happiness, their glee, their purpose is to make their workforce feel traumatized? no, we would never celebrate a leader of that kind, and yet that is precisely what russell vought said. i asked him, do you really mean that? do you really want air traffic controllers to come to work traumatized? no, i didn't mean that. do you want people to come to work traumatized? i didn't mean that. what about omb? you ran it before, you're running it again. a lot of folks might call them bureaucrats. do you want them to come in traumatized? no, i don't like that. but that's what he said when he was not in front of a senate budget panel and speaking candidly, there's a beautiful biblical phrase, i think from luke, from the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. what he said was i want federal employees to be traumatized. what i want to do in my time on

the floor is talk about these federal employees and what having a traumatized workforce means, and then for a few minutes focus upon not the federal workforce but others who were affected by the russell vought strategy on the federal budget, what i've heard from virginians in the week since the funding pause order, which all agree was something masterminded by russell vought. federal employees -- yesterday, i decided, after hearing stories from federal employees, to launch on a website a resource where federal employees could share their stories, if they chose. with anonymity guaranteed, because so many are afraid. some will remember i took the floor yesterday and read an open letter to federal employees, there's 140,000, give or take, in virginia. i read an open letter, offering them a bit of a pep talk, encouraging them to keep doing what you're doing, serving your fellow americans, just do that.

you signed up for the job to do that. don't pay attention to all these things and trauma. i know that's hard advice to give, but keep searching your fellow americans every day. if you have a problem, call our office, we'll try to be helpful if we can. no guarantee that we'll be able to avert this, but just do what you have a passion to do, we'll try to help if we can. i also in delivering that letter to federal employees, we launched a website in my office and encourage people to share their stories. within three hours, we had about 400 stories of federal employees who shared. those stories keep coming in. some are asking us to give them a call, probe further details. some are giving us their names and agencies where they work. some are too afraid to give us those. what i thought i would do tonight is i've taken 18 of these stories from the federal employees who have come in, in less than 24 hours, of the hundreds submitted.

i want to read some to you. to tell you about who these people are who mr. vought believes need to be traumatized, who these people are that mr. vought wants to personally make them feel as if they are the villains. first, a federal employee who works at usaid, after two extremely painful miscarriages i'm now 34 weeks pregnant with my first child. since my husband works as a lawyer for the epa, what should have been a joyful time in our life now feels like a dystopian hellscape and we're very afraid for our future and financial security. we're just hoping to have health insurance at this point where when i give birth, but that feels uncertain. i swore an oath, and i believe in the work that usaid does, i believe it makes america stronger, safer, more prosperous, just as secretary

rubio is calling for, and i will support the agency until they boot me from the system, god help us all. 34 weeks pregnant after two extremely painful miscarriages, just hoping she will not lose her job and health insurance. second story, a federal employee working for the national science foundation, headquartered in virginia. nsf funding supported my undergraduate summer research experiences, my ph.d. project, and my previous job. the opportunity to give back and support the next generation of u.s.-based scientists was a dream fulfilled, and i'm terrified i will be fired as soon as friday with no protections or severance. the fair compen tation and -- compensation and flexible schedule lets my spouse work as a teacher, and she's greats at her job, but that will not pay our mortgage. we never accounted for a

scenario like this. a third story from a federal employee working at usaid, i've worked at usaid for 12 years, including bosnia, row wanda -- row wanda and washington. our work is and has always been critical to advancing democracy, american interests and the prosperity, safety and strength of americans. we will continue this work. the attack on usaid lacks intelligence and foresight. china and russia are filling the vacuum. outspending the u.s., and deepening partnerships with our allies who feel abandoned. this is undoing decades of progress in a few days. this does the opposite of making america stronger, safer and more prosperous. these are the direct words of virginians who've shared their stories. a fourth story, a federal employee working at the u.s. department of agriculture. i'm a young person working in the federal government.

i graduated from college four years ago. since then i have committed my time to serving the public and helping the environment. i served two americorps terms and worked two seasonal federal jobs before lansing a permanent -- landing a permanent federal job. these last two weeks have been a hell for us federal workers. i come to work with a pit in my stomach. i'm a probationary employee, so will probably be the first to go during an rif. they've left us in the dark while constantly terrorizing us with threatening, passive aggressive messages and half legal deals to resign. i fear for my job, but i fear more for my country. a federal employee who works for the department of transportation, i'm frightened about my position. i'm a single-income household and i'm convinced no one has my back. congress has been pretty much

silent, and the news has gained very little traction nationwide. we need people to tell the story about what government workers do. thank you for providing the platform to connect. we're only in this to serve the american public. a federal employee working for the department of defense -- it's hard to even know where to start. as soon as this administration took office it felt like federal workers were under siege. they began with their flurry of executive orders and memos. they put elon musk, who no one elected, who's not a federal employee but has huge contracts for other areas with the government, in charge of handling the potential mass layoffs of federal workers. his fingerprints were all over these actions, from insecure servers being jammed into the opm to poorly crafted mass e-mails meant to stir chaos and

bypass chains of command to then bragging about it on social media and insulting and belittling the millions of federal workers as, quote, unproductive. also laughing at people in his giant social media platform who mock us and call us stupid. no one knows what job security looks like. no one trusts anything these people are saying to us, especially with these deferred resignation mass e-mails. the entirety of opm wants a solid standard for human resources in the united states is now a total joke. agencies are left scramble because they've been given serious guidance with no serious leadership from the administration. all of this is frightening, anxiety-inducing, depressing and wrong. it's so difficult to fight the m misinformation, because if you out yourself as a fed you'll be piled upon. we're middle-class workers with burdens and families and debt, just like everybody else. we need our jobs, and we'll

fight for them. i take my oath to the constitution seriously. please, anyone with power, exercise that power and serve justice. a federal employee at the u.s. patent and trade office, headquartered in alexandria -- i've served the american public for the last ten years in different positions in the uspto. the uspto's mission is outlined in the constitution, quote, to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. to that end, the uspto uses telework to attract and retain highly talented people who work hard to serve the american people. as a result, the united states has been the beacon of innovation for much of the world. in fact, so many inventors come to the u.s. to secure intellectual property. left me be clear -- the people at uspto are incredibly talented, hardworking people, not the owe poising --

opposing team or low productivity. the constant harassment from the current administration underscores the diligent efforts of over 14,000 people that keep this economy moving forward. another story from a federal employee working for the general service administration -- thanks for the opportunity to share my story. the ongoing threats of job losses due to a reduction in force have been deeply demoralizing. as you know, federal employees already earn on average 25% less than our private sector counterparts. the disregard for union contracts is deeply concerning and undermines the commitments made to the workforce. many of my talented and had working colleagues have been living in fear for weeks, facing uncertainty they don't deserve. this unlawful treatment not only undermines their dedication but also creates an environment of instability and anxiety that no employee should have to endure. here's a story from a virginia federal employee working for the

department of homeland sec security -- this is a pretty common one. my husband and i are both federal employees and we're both on probation, meaning they're relatively new employees. we also have student loan debts and under the public service loan forgiveness program. if we lose our jobs because we're on probation, we will lose the ability to have our payments to public service loan forgiveness counted. we will not be able to pay for child care. we will lose our apartment. furthermore, the d.c. area will be flooded with fired federal workers, and we won't be able to find jobs easily. our future is increasingly bleak. please, please stop them. another employee working for the department of homeland security -- i've worked for dhs for 15 years. i truly believe a strong, healthy workforce of civilian servants is vital for a strong,

healthy america. our government has a duty to protect its citizens. this includes making sure people's basic needs are met, health care, food, housing, education, the private sector isn't taking on the obligation. the federal government isn't profit driven, which is partly why our jobs are secure. my worth as an employee is not tied up with how much product i sell, but on doing my best to improve the lives of american people. a federal employee who didn't feel comfortable even sharing the agency he or she works for -- it's impossible to get our work dub under -- done under these conditions. it's a constant assault for us serving our country faithfully and to the best of our abilities. i've served under different administrations, republican and democrat, and been proud to do so. as a family, we're canceling our vacations for the year, any unnecessary subscriptions or expense, and tightening our belt, because i don't know if i had are have a job by the end of

the year. while i could be comfortably making double my salary in the private sector, i chose federal service out of a sense of duty to my country and to use my skills to better the lives of fellow americans. now it feels as if the federal government is not holding its end of the bargain. the last two weeks have been a nightmare. a federal employee who works for the defense health administration -- senator kaine, i'm a dha health care civilian workers. i worked for 12 years for the army, at the u.s. military academy in new york. for the last four-plus years at the medical clinic on the doggrin base in virginia, a little east of fredericksburg. i'm so upset. our local commander, my supervising commander, and a lieutenant general heading dha have all e-mailed us since the famous, quote, fork in the road e-mail came out, they all said the same thing, they don't have

any information or clarification for us, but will reach out to us when they do. i check daily, and today no information. stop and think about that for a minute. this dha employee received a fork in the road letter, drafted by elon musk. this is somebody who worked for the dha for many, many years. the dha employee reaches out to their own direct supervisor. we don't have any information for you. they reach out to the base commander, we don't have any information, we can't clarify what the letter means. even reaches out to the very head, the lieutenant general, the head of the defense health administration, asking what does this mean? we don't have any information for you, we can't clarify what this letter means. imagine that. the entire chain of command, in this agency, responsible for providing health care to our troops is unable to tell the

medical professionals providing service to our active duty military every day what this fork in the road letter even means. it's shocking. i check daily, and to date no information. he another federal employ ee who did -- employee who did not feel comfortable sharing the place she worked. every day is uncertain regarding the future of our contract work and our counterparts who we work with daily. our firm has begun cutting staff already because interests no funding. this is also becoming the norm in other areas of our company. this clearly must be from an individual who works with with a federal contractor. i suspect with probably usaid. it's unfortunate because many are new or younger people trying to earn a living and starting off public service careers and

now stuck dealing with the mess that is everything now. here's another letter from a federal contractor who works for usaid. in the past week i've experienced near everyone in my company getting placed on fur low. beyond the fact that we're all working to make enter national development more impactful and the fact that the u.s. company we invested so much time in may not come back with this, we are all without salary and uncertain for the future. r we're applying for laws but acknowledge so many are furloughed, there's extremely challenging competition. do we move away from our home in d.c.? do we leave our careers because we could see making the world a better place. here's someone who works for a small agency. it's been my dream to be a federal employee, since civics

class in grade school. i could see what they could do for people and realized i wanted to pour my heart and soul into doing that. but the winds have been taken out of my sails, i'm on the probation ordinary -- i'm probation ordinary, i am on schedule a so my name is on this list too. oo i feel i'm being threatened by the institutions to safeguard the principles of truth, compassion and respect. i've lived my life placing others' needs in front of mine, trying to practice what i preach, but i'm being forced to remove protected classes from our website, take down reports on deia. it's interesting, the trump executive order tried to kill dei, diversity equity inclusion, but many of the documents sent

to agencies, they are sending deia. what is the a, it is accessibility. even though the executive order did not attack accessibility programs for those with disabilities, the implementation documents going out from the administration are adding accessibility as a negative that needs to be rooted out of the federal workplace. could anything be crueller than that? being forced to take down these reports on things, including accessibility, the writer says i feel as though there's blood on my hands doing this. it breaks my heart. finally, one last story and then i'll say a word about federal funding to programs around virginia. moving on from just sharing the stories of my federal employees. and this is it another federal employee who doesn't feel

comfortable, i have three more. this is from a federal employee who doesn't feel comfortable revealing the agency. we had a restraining order tied to trump's executive orders that would limit how we disdisburse our grants, this could be a witch hunt for all kinds of programs and grants we give out. a federal employee from an unnamed agency, i'm a senior human resource professional at the department of interior. i'm on daily calls with h.r. leaders who receive direction from opm. leadership mentioned that their leadership was with doge employees, they have full access to our usa satisfying hiring system, which includes personally identifiable information for all applicants, not all employees, but all applicants to any position in the federal government. it is unclear what kind of

clearance these individuals have if any and what authority they even have to access this system. finally we're beginning do work on identifying employees to schedule out the short response time of 90 days. stopping schedule f must be your top priority. this is from another a federal employee who works for hhs, health and human services. after working fers as a contractor -- first as a contractor, i transitioned to a position after graduating with a bachelor's degree, i faced competition with people returning to work after being laid off during the recession. i'm married and pregnant. i'm the breadwinner, a woman, a homeowner, i pay taxes. i took an oath and i love my job. the daily fear tactics and targeting of federal employees has uprooted my life.

i no longer feel safe going on a vacation, making purchases or doing anything because every day i wonder if i'll have a job. what's happening is wrong, i'm pregnant with my first child. i didn't do anything wrong. i would have to separate weekly from my husband if forced into a particular location. what did i do wrong to deserve this? working for the federal government was a dream. graduate from high school, go to college, get married, buy a home, have a baby, all in that order i did everything i was supposed to do and now we are all caught up in a political firestorm we did not ask for. tell me why am i being punished? what did i do wrong? when will they be satisfied, when we kill ourselves from depression.

i suffer from anxiety and depression already, this is enough to push a regular person over the edge. what more for somebody that battles are their mental health. why should what i earn be ripped away from me? why do millions deserve for our worlds to fall apart. every day my mind goes through what's happening, it's unsafe for my health, my baby's health and my family. i ask for compassion and i want people to know we are hard workers, we are regular people, we are humans employed by the federal government. please do something. an intentional strategy of traumatizing federal workers produces stories just like this, now in the hundreds, and tomorrow i'll have hundreds more. i know my colleagues are receiving these as well.

i see my colleague senator baldwin is here. but i do want to turn to not just federal employees, but the federal funding that's coming to virginia and virginia organization. it's been hard, mr. president, to get the sense of this. because, of course, the administration didn't chair anything, they didn't tell is what they were going to do, and my governor has been sharing with us either. the analogy i've been using is this funding order, i feel like a jig saw puzzle was dumped in front of me and all i could see is the cardboard, nobody gave me the box with the picture. i'm getting no information from the trump administration, i'm getting no information from my governor about what this plan is, what's going on. but every time somebody shares a story like these and every time someone calls my office and every time a mayor talks to me about an infrastructure project or something, i have been turning over pieces and the

picture is starting to emerge. let meal tell you what people in virginia are telling me. today -- my days are running together. i met yesterday with the virginia association of community health centers. mr. president, you know senator baldwin from wisconsin has been active on this piece on the help committee. these are the federally qualified health centers, charlottered and funded -- chartered the according to the association. in virginia there are 29 qualified health centers that serve hundreds of thousands of individuals. and they're talented, focused in their localities and regions. there tends to be a shortage of primary health care providers. on monday when i came to the office i had an outreach from the second largest metro area in virginia and here's what they

said. they are used to getting a payment for their congress appropriation at the end of every month. it would have come in on january 29. president trump's executive order pausing federal funding, it happened a few days before, but that order was enjoined. the trump administration was ordered to continue to make payments and not pause federal payments, but this very large health cling in hampton roads had not received their monthly payment on january 29. when they called to ask at their federal contact what about the payment, they weren't given any answer about the january payment, february payment or any payment. they couldn't get an answer. i had the entire association in my office, with representatives from virtually all of these. and i asked them what was going on and they said well more than half of the hfuac's had not

received their payments, had submitted to receive it under a normal course of business but hadn't gotten and couldn't get an answer about when or whether they would get it. this is front line health care for low-income people. if they are not getting pry playery health care, they will go to an emergency room, creating long lines that will make it harder for everybody else to get the treatments they need. it will make people sicker, it will make hospitals more crowded for everybody who needs hospitals and you know the thing about it is russell vought was not only the architect of the funding freeze, but now he and others are responsible for following the court order. the court order said they had to resume payments. my hufc's are not getting paid. my commonwealth's attorneys, my

prosecutors around virginia, they all get funding through various funding through the grant funding to hire victim witness coordinators. i had the organization of prosecutors in my office today. they talked about how they rely on federal funding to hire victim witness advocates in their office not funded by the state, it's funded through the federal grant program and they don't know whether they're going to get the funding for that. and so compounding these concerns from federal employees, i have head start programs, i have health care clinics, i have common wealths attorneys, i have shares offices -- sheriffs offices and from mental health services, they're not sure they will get them. the compounding of confusion and fear is sharp and unnecessary. and illegal.

these are appropriated funds. i don't need to repeat everything that senator whitehouse said. congress has appropriated these funds. democrat and republican house reached budgets together signed by the president. the president is under an obligation to implement those funds, there's no legal authority for them to hold hem back -- them back. why is he holding them back? what did the patients at the health clinic in hampton roads do to get punished? one is called the capital health care clinic area, they have six clinics in the metropolitan area, they closed three of the six. others are reducing services, trying to keep the doors open, but trying to reduce services. there's a court order that says they're supposed to be paid but they're shutting the doors of their clinics and reducing services because the administration won't follow a court order. it's my hope that they will.

i don't think this is a glitch. i think this is an intentional effort to thwart a court order in order to hurt people who don't deserve to be hurt. so under these circumstances there's no way that i or any of my colleagues can stand here and cast a yes vote for somebody who has declared their intention is to traumatize federal employees. i'll finish as i started -- who talks like that? who talks like that? that is the professed goal of this individual who's been nominated for this most important post and there is no circumstance under which i could cast a yes vote for someone harboring that kind of resentment. finally i asked mr. vought at the confirmation hearing to tell me if he -- who his favorite presidents are. he's a republican so i had a pretty good sense of them. i asked if he admired president

lincoln and he said very much. with malice towards none, with charity toward all, that's what lincoln said to a divided nation during a civil war. he spoke to the south, he spoke to confederates, he spoke to those waging war to try to destroy the union and what he said malice toward none, with charity toward all, he told me he admired abraham lincoln. he would never think i want to traumatize you. i want you to not go to work because you are viewed as the villain. how far this grand old party hats come from the sentiments of its founder putting at the head of the federal workforce someone who wishes to traumatize workers. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: like my colleague, senator kaine, i will be uplifting the words of some of my constituents who have been contacting me in a panic really over the last several days. but i want to remind folks why we come here at this hour to speak on the floor of the united states senate. we're here today to consider president trump's nominee for the office of management and budget, russell vought. many americans may not be familiar with mr. vought. however, you may be familiar with his most infamous work -- project 2025. that's right, president trump's nominee for the office of management and budget was one of the lead authors of project 2025.

it is a document which president trump repeatedly denied having anything to do with during his campaign. first, i think it's important to break down the responsibilities of the office of management and budget, or omb. what does it really do? omb oversees the preparation of the president's budget request. this is a budget proposal that they send to congress. and omb evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures. omb oversees and implements the appropriations bill and mandatory spending programs enacted by laws we pass in congress. the office does not have a magic wand that allows it to create new laws, fund only programs they want and slash others that they don't, except through specific authorities that

congress provides. the director of omb is not in fact the 101st senator nor the 436th member of the house of representatives or even a second president. the operative word here is implement. a second stated mission of omb is called the open government directive which emphasizes the importance of disclosing information that the public can readily find and use. and, folks, the good news about mr. vought is that he has been clear from the start on his goals. case in point, project 2025. for those who didn't read that 922-page document, i can share some of the low lights. for economic policy, project 2025 further shifts the tax burden from the wealthy on to the middle class while giving

american households with $10 million in annual income an average tax cut of $1.5 million per year. it seeks to raise the retirement age when americans can receive social security benefits from 67 to 69. it also proposes limits or lifetime caps on medicaid benefits. in wisconsin, 595,300 medicaid enrollees would be at risk of losing coverage because they are low income and lack access to alternative affordable coverage. project 2025 aims to further impede on a woman's right to make her own decisions about her body, calling to eliminate emergency contraception and safe, effective abortion

medications like mifepristone. mr. russell vought himself even called on congress to outlaw that medication. the document also calls for the department of education to be abolished, which can only, by the way, be done by the congress of the united states. but the department of education is already clearly a target of this administration. important for our discussion here today with regard to education is that project 2025 outlined a plan to take a hacksaw to the services and programs that families rely on the federal government to provide, slashing essential programs like title 1 grants that go to more than 80% of public school districts around the nation. and that includes sending about $227 million into wisconsin in the current school year. these chapters in project 2025 were primarily offered by none

other than omb nominee russell vought. i'd be the last to say that our federal government is perfect. it's not. but the career civil servants who have served under republicans and democrats are essential to ensuring that services americans rely on run smoothly. from medicare and social security to head start and child care, to making sure that folks get their tax refunds from the irs, these are essential services that hundreds of millions of americans rely on every year. getting rid of the people who are working for working families will not fix our federal government. the doctors at the v.a. and staff sending out social security checks, they are not the enemy. by confirming russell vought as director of omb, we'd be putting

one of the chief architects of project 2025 in charge of an agency that is tasked with getting critical funding out the door that our communities depend upon. and i hate to use this idiom, but we are in fact asking the fox to guard the henhouse. we don't need to guess whether russell vought will turn to his project 2025 playbook if confirmed as omb director. we are already seeing the destruction of his extreme views and how they're causing problems with allocation of federal funding. before last week i'm sure that most americans have never heard of the office of management and budget, omb, let alone what role it played in their lives. but all that changed last monday night when omb sent a two-page

memo on the president's plant to virtually all federal grants and loans. this is tantamount from stopping wisconsin money from going into the services they rely on. the trump administration is trying to steal from wisconsinites to implement its own agenda. and more on that later. this messy, haphazard and illegal action started causing chaos and confusion in my home state. our phones were ringing off the hook from constituents and organizations worried about what this would mean for them. was the funding for child care centers impacted? was the medicaid coverage they relied on in jeopardy? what about nutrition programs that keep food on the table? what about rental assistance or funding to help pay for heat in the winter? sadly, my office didn't have answers for these folks due to the chaos that president trump

has created. all these essential programs that they rely on for health care, safety, and food on the table, they were all on the chopping block. i even had a constituent write in asking these exact questions. she wrote to my office, what can you do to stop this freeze? because both short and long-run impacts are dire. will rural hospitals get medicared reimbursement for the services they provide? will nursing homes receive payments for the care they're providing to elders? will schools bounce checks and be charged late fees because title 1 grants that finance ongoing are operations are disrupted? the long-term consequences would be catastrophic, causing a steep recession. the federal government gives $1 trillion in grants to state and local governments alone, and

removing any significant portion out of local economies will create a huge economic shock, fatally harming the valuable resources governments provide to their citizens, many of whom voted for trump. with a two-page memo, the trump white house unleashed a wave of chaos as folks in my state and across the country worried whether this freeze would impact the programs that they rely on. i'd like to share some of the stories i've heard from folks in my state about how these cuts impact real people in a very real way. i heard from a single mom who lives paycheck to paycheck. she was laid off because federal funding was paused for the national science foundation, a grant that pays her salary. she wrote to me to say, i have enough money to pay february

rent, but i'm going to stop paying credit card bills and other loans. i'm not sure i'll even be able to afford to pay my wifi and phone bills, things crucial in finding a new job. but i can do without as long as i have rent, heat, and electric paid, and groceries in the fridge. i also heard from a deputy fire chief in central wisconsin. without federal grant funding, he'd have to lay off as many as nine officers, nine firefighters. would this mean a longer wait for a resident if their house was on fire? another fire chief in north wisconsin called me to ask whether his volunteer department could go ahead with needed upgrades for their equipment. without their federal grant, which was more than half of their operating budget, they would not be able to purchase new equipment that the

department desperately needed. and from western wisconsin, a local mayor reached out to share that a pause in federal funding would be catastrophic for their ability to make timely payments on a loan they took out to make necessary renovations to their fire department. i heard from an administrator at a women's shelter for survivors of domestic abuse, based in southwest wisconsin. without federal funding, they would have to turn away women looking for a safe place away from their abusers for themselves and sometimes their children too. as communities across wisconsin continue to battle the opioid and fentanyl crisis, a community organization specializing in drug prevention told me that they would not be able to pay their staff and continue their vital work if funding was cut. another organization that

provides supervised visitation and safe exchange services between kids and parents who have separated due to court orders reached out and worried about whether they would be able to continue to serve their community. they deploy a staff of they are -- employ a staff of therapists who supervise visitations and ensure kids can safely see their parents. i heard from a community dental center in southeastern wisconsin that serves thousands of patients every year, the vast majority of whom are children. they told me that without their federal funding, they would be at significant risk of closing within a matter of a few short months. and as a result, thousands of children would have nowhere to go to receive dental care, and 45 individuals would be out of employment. they wrote to me, we understand with each administration comes

change and different priorities. however, these orders to freeze federal funds have very real implications for communities that we live, work, and play in. i've heard from so many wisconsinites confused by this chaos, wondering whether their child care center is about to close, their head start, many did close. so, mr. vought, will you be willing to fill in as a mentor for all the kids who lose their mentors from big brothers, big sisters? or will you help pitch in as a fire fighter at some stations in wisconsin that might have to lay people off? will you be a substitute head start teacher in a classroom to ensure that parents have the child care and early education that they're counting on? if there's one word we can use to describe the first two weeks of this administration, it would

certainly be chaos. while the white house seems to be contradicting itself and putting out mixed signals on these drastic cuts, the level of panic and chaos it has created should be upsetting to every american. and there are so many other programs where americans are unsure if they should anticipate cuts. community health centers, which i am a proud champion of, were awarded $48 million in grants across wisconsin in the year 2023. largely in the form of federal grants designed to help these health centers provide medical care and other services to communities traditionally located in health care deserts. wisconsin has 17 federally qualified health care centers located around the state whose funding could be in jeopardy. there's also funding for law enforcement that could face cuts, including community oriented police grants that go

towards tribal law enforcement assistance, hiring mental health training, school violence prevention training, and technology and equipment upgrades. wisconsin receives $17.5 million in funding for counties, tribes and cities across the state to fund community oriented policing practices. you know, small businesses could also be harmed if loans for entrepreneurs are impacted. in fiscal year 2024, small businesses received nearly $237 million in small business loans for projects in wisconsin. these are businesses that just need a little support to get their idea off the ground or maybe they are loans for those impacted by a natural disaster. cutting off this funding would mean fewer businesses and fewer jobs. president trump's egregious overreach of his presidential power is plainly

unconstitutional and a power grab. it's illegal to withhold this funding from the american people. this is their money and these are the programs they rely on, period. this funding was provided in bipartisan laws. i want to remind my colleagues of that. on a bipartisan basis, we passed the laws and budgets and appropriation bills. and i hope my republican colleagues are just as angry at president trump for this confusion his administration has created as i am. but i fear they are not. this directive has put real people in real distress. and it begs the question of why. i will tell you why. they want to claw back taxpayer money supporting programs that serve taxpayers to ensure that they can give their tax breaks to the biggest corporations and

billionaire friends. this is not the first time the trump administration has done this. and this is their plan. cut programs wisconsinites rely on and give tax breaks to billionaires and multinational corporations. it certainly doesn't help that while my constituents were wondering if they would be able to put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads, and drop their kids off at child care, the richest man in the world worth nearly $500 billion has -- was handed access to our nation's checkbook and to americans' most sensitive information. first it was shutting the doors literally to the united states agency for international development, usaid, an agency that keeps americans safe, protects people worldwide from disease and famine, and stands up to our adversaries like china

and russia. but their next target is reported to be a shutdown of the department of education, the very agency that ensures all kids across america get a good public education. and young people are set up with the skills to land a good-paying job. it ensures that schools serving low-income students receive the high quality education they deserve, and students with disabilities get the services that they are required to receive and have the opportunity to thrive. and we are watching before our very eyes russell vought, an elon -- and elon musk illegally trying to shut it down. and if that wasn't enough, reporting today shows that the doge is coming after the department of labor, the agency that supports apprenticeship programs so people can earn

while they learn and land good-paying jobs. it's the agency that makes sure that big corporations are held accountable for stealing wages from workers. it's the agency that ensures workers on factory floors are safe on the job. again, this is what we are watching russell vought and his billionaire pals put in jeopardy. donald trump has apparently given an unelected billionaire elon musk who is again literally the richest man in the world free rein to run roughshod through americans' most sensitive information. he has the the to put programs people need on the chopping block with absolutely no transparency or accountability for what he's doing. much less any legal authority. the president claimed he would lower prices for families on day one if elected.

but how does taking child care away lower prices for families? does taking away people's treatment for opioid use disorder help their lives? how about cutting firefighters? would that lower costs for families and keep them safe? raising costs on families all while republicans work to jam through big tax breaks for billionaires is not what wisconsinites want. billions in tax cuts for the ultrawealthy in exchange for programs that my constituents need to feed their families, pay their rent, and stay healthy is not a good deal. i've always said that i will work with anyone to deliver for wisconsin and invest in the programs that my constituents rely on. but bipartisanship is a two-way street. we have to be able to trust one another that what gets signed into law is actually going to

get implemented. and right now we are watching elon musk, trump's billionaire cabinet, and donald trump him himself flout the law and cut funding from bipartisan programs that my constituents rely on. and all this brings us back to president trump's nominee to run omb would has openly called for the president to defy congress and take control of federal funding decisions that are constitutionally invested in the legislative branch. he said he supports the illegal practice of impoundment, a strategy to circumvent the checks and balances that are baked into the fabric of our constitution. mr. vought even said during his confirmation hearing last week that president trump believes the impoundment control act is unconstitutional, and he agrees with that assessment. what that means is he thinks the

president is free to withhold appropriated funding without limitation. and let me be clear. everything that we have seen in the last two weeks, including examples that i provided about the chaos and confusion across wisconsin, this is just the first step. it's the tip of the iceberg. but in the future, russell vought will be -- will just withhold funding at the beginning for anything that he doesn't like or that elon musk posts about on x. what this means is congress could pass an annual funding bill that maybe increases funding for head start, which we actually pretty routinely do. russell vought thinks he can say to congress thanks but no thanks. i'm going to eliminate head start and not allow any future grants to head start programs. maybe russell vought will ignore

congress and the laws we pass and eliminate or significantly reduce funding for opioid treatment programs or the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline or whatever he feels like opposing that day. even setting aside the very real impact, i think cutting funding for programs like this would have on families and communities across the country. i hope my republican colleagues will stand up against this blatant disregard for this body. how are we supposed to negotiate annual appropriation bills when an administration is saying it can just ignore what we do? if confirmed, russell vought would be the tip of the spear in his fight to take away funding for programs families rely on and give it to billionaires as a tax cut. we know that this administration intends to make every effort to

override congress' power of the purse. we've already seen mr. vought do it. during mr. vought's time as omb director during president trump's first term, the agency withheld roughly $214 million in security assistance to ukraine, which the government accountability office later found violated the impoundment control act. i know it can be difficult to flout the party line, but we are not just talking about party politics anymore. we're talking about our constitution. so many of my republican colleagues declare themselves to be originalists when it comes to our constitution, sworn supporters of the interpreting of this document as our founders intended when it was written. well, i can tell you if there's one thing that was crystal clear when our founders conceived this

nation, it is that no one person should have absolute power. the repeated brazen power grabs that we've seen by this administration could not be more out of step with the foundational checks and balances laid out in our constitution. while my words might not matter to you, i hope the voices of your constituents who i know are being adversely impacted by this administration's actions will. i for one will not sit idly by as president trump forfeits control of our government to billionaires. i will stand up for wisconsin workers and families and push back on policies that are hurting the people i represent. and i'm calling on my colleagues to do the same and oppose russell vought's nomination. otherwise we could be running

headlong towards a constitutional crisis. and it's up to all of us to make sure that people come out on top in that fight. in times of conflict and hardship, the senate has served as the conscience of this nation. now is our chance to stand up to this administration and show that we are here to represent the american people and not billionaires. and i yield.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. a senator: mr. president, it's getting late. mr. schiff: it's getting late, too late for some of the people we serve to even be awake, though i imagine many are. not by choice. a more in central valley is awake, staring at her kitchen table trying to work out where her sick child can receive the medical care that child needs now that a federal grant supporting the only rural health care center in her community is in limbo. a federal employee is awake trying to figure out how they'll make the rent next month if they're laid off. maybe they spent a few decades

serving this country overseas and were just called back home. now what? people around the world are awake watching humanitarian help. that means their next meal or safe harbor from disease has disappeared wondering why in their time of most need, their l longtime ally has decided to abandon them. because the trump administration has turned their lives, turned so many of our lives into a series of question marks because this president and his cronies like elon musk and russ vought are putting politics and profits over people's lives. over people's livelihoods, over lives. they're creating chaos and then somehow worst of all, they're gloating about it. imagine gloating about acts so callous. chaos seems to be the watch word with this administration, but the chaos is not a consequence

of this. the chaos is the goal. the chaos is the purpose. by throwing everything at the wall they can create confusion, they hope to muddy the waters while opening the floodgates. unconstitutional executive orders, illegal memos, illegally accessing private citizens' data, you name it, the scope and the speed of these actions is almost impossible to comprehend. and the impact is incalculable. this is all part of a larger effort to consolidate power, every possible power in the control of one man. well, maybe two men. so they can plunder the country to benefit themselves and their billionaire buddies. and what is this all about, what we've witnessed in the first couple weeks of this administration? what are these disspur rat acts -- disparate acts have in

common? what is it that the seizures of data belonging to millions and millions of americans by elon musk, what does that have in common with the efforts to shutter american development assistance around the world through usaid. what does that have in champion with efforts to fire -- have in common with efforts to fire agents and purge agents at the fbi, what does this have to do with pardoning violent criminals who attacked this building what does this have in common with a funding freeze and then a member dumb to complement the funding -- a memorandum to implementing the funding freeze and all the confusion that has caused? what does the mass deportation order have in common with all of this? what are the story of what they're doing here? how does this all fit together? and if it fits together in this way --

this is an effort to try to consolidate power -- the power of this government in the hands of donald trump and a few of his handpicked, very wealthy billionaire friends. it is designed to consolidate that power to essentially take the resources is of this country and enrich themselves and their friends. an effort to enrich themselves, which would not be possible, will not be possible if our system of checks and balances work. but if they can somehow take apart these institutions, if they can somehow persuade or demand or kow the people in this institution and the house of representatives and the courts and the supreme court, if they can prevent us from playing our institutional roles of check and balance, then what is left

between them and the treasury? nothing. nothing. and so this is the goal -- discredit the government, dismember the government, dismember checks and balances so that they can raid the till, make government purposely dysfunctional, discredit every institution so that all is left is the power of the strongman and the wealth of this country can be stripped away. checks and balances be damned. congressional authority be damned. the president wants to steamroll all of that and, at the moment, it appears he is succeeding. but donald trump can't do this on his own? he needs enablers to subvert our laws, enablers to divert congressional approved funds. sure, everyone knows elon musk, but it's not just elon musk.

and today we consider the nomination of a systems engineer to lead the office of management and budget, probably the most important agency no one has heard of. and that engineer, that architect of this effort to strip the country of its resources so that it can be plundered by the president and his wealthy friends, the architect, the engineer of this, the one who will make the trains run on time, the guy that stops the train to allow the high-rate robbery of that train -- the highway robbery of that train, is a man named russ vought. we all remember project 2025. project 2025. russ vought helped to write it. a funding freeze -- vought helped to orchestrate the plan for it and the slew of outrageous, dangerous actions taken by this administration

over the past several weeks were in many ways a direct result of vought and his plan to dismantle and destroy the government in the service of donald trump and his wealthy friends. two-thirds of the executive orders trump has signed come from, that's right, project 2025. russ vought doesn't believe in government except as a vehicle to take from the poor and take from the middle class and give to the wealthy people who should be running everything. he doesn't believe in the simple idea that we the people compromise -- or we the people compose our institutions, we the people are the government, a government that is supposed to be for the people not for a handful of very wealthy people. no, russ vought believes in dismantling that government of the people piece by piece, brick

by brick until what remains is a hollowed out democracy that serves the interests of the wealthy and abandons everyone else. to make it so small they can drown it in a bathtub. because that's what this is all about. this is all about taking the nation's resources for themselves. it is about using the infrastructure, the architecture of the government to enrich themselves. this is about plunder. that's what they're trying to do. the last few weeks are not incompetent. it isn't mismanagement, although there's plenty of that. no, this is a deliberate effort to break the federal government so completely that people lose faith in its ability to function at all. and when people lose faith in the government of the people, when they stop believing that it

is for the people, that's when the real damage begins. that's when they can dismantle the safety net program by program. that's when they can make the people beholden to the strongman. that's when federal workers, scientists, economists, social workers, public health experts are replaced with unqualified ideologues or driven out entirely. turn the federal workforce or what's left of it into an arm of the president, beholden only to the president. no more oath to the constitution but an oath to the person of the president, a loyalty oath demanded of our federal employees. that's when the next disaster, whether it's a pandemic, a financial collapse, or natural disaster becomes unmanageable because the very institutions

designed to respond have been gutted, because that's their end goal. not just to shrink the government of the people but to sabotage it, to make it dysfunctional, to make it ineffective, to paralyze it and then to turn around and say, hey, see... it doesn't work. the government of the people doesn't work. because of course they don't want it to work except to the degree that it can be used to take the resources of the american people and give it to their wealthy friends and to large corporations, to distribute every possible dime amongst the privileged few and not working families. this is why they are elevating russ vought, because when you need someone to dismantle the very machinery of governance, to turn the government of the people into an engine of destruction rather than an

agency of stewardship, russ vought is your guy. and now he has a second chance. a second chance to make sure that when that mother in the central valley reaches for help, there is nothing there. we're seeing, of course, head starts around the country, the head start program. wonder whether they're going to be able to open their doors the next day. there's all the parents that have their kids in head start are wondering what the future holds for their kids, but the view of this administration is, hey, that head start is getting valuable money. they'd rather give to themselves and to their wealthy friends. and if it means the sacrifice of those kids in head start, well, that's just the price you have to pay for oligarchy. russ vought is your guy. a second chance -- he has a

second chance now to turn social security and medicare into bargaining chips in a political game that none of us have agreed to play. keeping seniors up at night worrying whether a social security check might not make it to them after all. he has a second chance to rewrite the rules in a way that ensures the wealthy and well-connected are taken care of while everyone else is left behind. we should be clear about what this nomination represents. russ vought wants to oversee the erosion of the very services that millions of americans rely on every day, every single day. to lead the charge to remake the united states into a can country where people -- into a country where people are left to fend for themselves, where the government doesn't work because they don't mean it to, they don't want it to, they don't want a government of the people or a government by the people or a government for the people. they want a government of them.

they want a government by them, and they want a government for them. but let's be very clear. it does not have to be this way. we can reject this vision. we can reject this nominee. we can reject the idea that our government exists only to serve the powerful or to punish the vulnerable, and we will reject it because if we do nothing, if we simply sit back and let russ vought take the reins of omb once again, then we will be complicit in the destruction that follows. so let's -- let's take a closer look at the last few weeks. let's take a closer look at donald trump and elon musk's hostile takeover of the federal government. and the targeting of our institutions one after another over and over again. let's take a closer look at this effort to gut critical programs

to pay for their enormous tax breaks and what that means for all of us. and let's start with access to your personal data. as of today, elon musk, an unelected billionaire -- i think maybe the wealthiest man in the world -- with a vested financial interest in this administration's success, you would think that being the wealthiest man in the world or one of the top wealthiest people in the world, that would be enough, but, no... he has a vested interest in the administration's success and billions in government contracts. because apparently the billions he has already are not enough. and he has deployed a team of loyalists to infiltrate government agencies, to help with the plunder of the public

fiske. so let's think about that for a minute. let's try to take this in. the world's richest man has brought in his loyalists, some of them apparently just teenagers, to breach federal departments, to access sensitive data, classified information, and who knows what. and are we supposed to think that's okay? are we photographed pretend this is -- are we supposed to pretend this is normal, to have the wealthiest man in the world run roughshod over our federal agencies? are we supposed to act like this is anything other than a blatant, unconstitutional grab of power and our personal data? a takeover of government by a billionaire who has decided that the rules and laws don't apply

to him. our national security doesn't matter. but why? why go to these lengths? and, again, we have to follow the money. trump's 2017 billionaire tax cuts, the ones that handed corporations and the ultra wealthy an unfathomable windfall while exploding the deficit, are set to expire this year. and elon musk and his buddies want to keep these tax cuts in place. and if they're going to do that, then donald trump and elon musk, donald and elon have to find $4 trillion somewhere. so where do they look? not to the billionaires who profited from these tax cuts,

not to the corporations that benefitted the most. no, they're going to go after money where the cuts will hurt the most. they're going to go after what they consider low-hanging fruit. after all, what is the -- what is the power of the poor, what is the power of even the middle class compared to the power of the oligarchs? donald. they're going to go after where the money is easiest to grab so they're going to go after medicaid. they're going to go after medicaid. after all it's just seniors or folks who are disabled or folks who are working class and struggling to get by. what is -- what is that for

money for elon musk. what is that for donald trump and his stier to enrich himself? there was a press conference about a week and a half ago. it kind of got lost in the blizzards of -- blizzard of everything that happened. i found very striking at this press conference, the president was asked by a reporter whether he was going to stop trading in his own personal interest and his meme coin and there was this discussion between the president and reporter where the reporter says, yeah, you're making a lot of money and the president asks, well, how much money am i making from this meme coin, well, a lot. i don't know the exact dialogue, but it was blatant. it was so out in the open. i mean it takes your breath away.

i'll remember because it seems quaint, the beginning of the first trump administration when you might remember he had that press conference and he was talking about how he was, i don't know, going to make sure that his business interests were somehow separated from his interest as president or the country's interest, and he had those stacks of, i don't know, binders or white paper, and i don't think anybody knew what was in those stacks of paper or maybe it was just blank paper, but at least there was a superficial effort to suggest that he was going to have some -- some walling off of his personal financial interest. of course what we saw over the past four years, there were not walling off, there were gulf nations paying tribute by staying in his hotels and all other kinds of graft going on but now there's effort to hide

the profit taking with this mee coin. the grift is out there right in the open. but -- but that's really still small potatoes compared to the ability to raid the treasury. compared to the ability to take all of the money that goes into providing health care for sick people and medicaid and using that to enrich yourself. now, that's -- that's where the money is. now, part of what they're targeting is also usaid, and they're targeting federal workers, they want federal workers to resign. they sent federal workers a letter that says basically, hey, you can reply to this message

and say you quit and have basically a paid vacation until september. of course there's no money to pay for that. it's unlawful what they're offering, but if people respond to that message, then, well, they're on a list. why does elon musk and donald trump want all these federal workers to quit? that's more money for them? that's more money for those tax cuts. they've got to find those trillions somewhere so let's see if we can push people who work for the government out the door. the education of our kids, let's close down the department of education. okay, comparatively, look at the department of education, you look at the department of defense, not a whole lot of money already in the department of education, but, hey, if it helps to pay for one more of those tax cuts, let's do away

with the department of education. essential public services, okay, federal grants for firefighters, firefightering equipment. what's that when we're talking about a tax cut for wealthy folks. take it from those who need it to give it to people who need it elizabeth. it's a re -- least. it is a reverse robin hood. there are billionaires who stand to benefit financially if this administration stays in power and these cuts go through. that's what's happening, that's what they're trying to do. that's what this is about. this is about consolidating power, doing away with the checks and the balances, consolidating power so that you can raid the treasury.

if we saw during the financial collapse banks that were too big to fail, this was a caper that's too big to stop but only if we don't do our jobs in this building. strip government to the bone, funnel money to people who already have more than they could ever spend. how many lifetimes would it take to spend all those billions? and use the federal government as an instrument to personal gain without accountability and without justice. and tragically one of the things that makes this whole caper so possible now was something that took place in a building just across the street from here when the supreme court of the united states said to the president of the united states, you can commit criminal acts while you're president and they can't

touch you. if you use the justice department, you have absolute immunity. if you use other departments, your immunity is so strong, you can argue the presumption is pretty much irrebuttable. they gave the president immunity to commit crimes. his pardoning of all these violent criminals that attacked this building is a message that says, hey, you can't hold the president accountable, not anymore, not after this supreme court gave him that get-out-of-jail-free card. you do things for me that are unlawful, you do things for me unethical, i've got your back. there's a pardoned waiting for you at the end of all of this. let's turn to usaid. what is the deal with usaid?

now, usaid has been kind of a favorite -- a favorite issue, agency, idea, theme that conservatives attacked for a long time. and why? i think reflectively, the idea of providing assistance around the world isn't the highest priority for many people, and i totally get that. of course with a we -- we don't realize unless we dig into what that money goes for is a couple of things. one, the money we invest in development around the world ultimately helps the united states a great deal. so if we're looking at this from a selfish point of view, the money we invest in usaid helps us a great deal. and why is that? well, if there are diseases half -- halfway around the world

like ebola, like other potential dangerous to the united states if they were to get to our shores, if we could work with our friends overseas and we can stop these viruss where they are, it means we don't have to deal with them here. if we can stop the instability in place around the world, it means less fertile soil for terrorism and terrorists who might attack us hear. -- here. it improves our security, it improves our health, it wins friends for the united states around the world. now, i realize that the administration has an america first policy which i think the way they're executing it means everyone else last. of course not a policy everyone else last that is endearing to

your allies, but this administration doesn't seem to think we need any friends around the world. but even as we, through this administration, decide, well, we're done with development around the world, guess who stands to benefit. it's certainly not the people around the world. not the people fighting hiv-aids, not the people fighting malaria, not the people fighting poverty, not the people fighting starvation. no our adversaries benefit. probably the biggest beneficiary, china. so why does china benefit from our abandoning the field because it opens the field for china. china is already around the world investing in other countries and doing so with strings attached. it is making debtor nations of other countries, it's making them obligated to china. countries that are rich in rare minerals, it is giving china the

foothold or even more explicitly giving china military bases and naval bases, and they're using development assistance to leverage other countries. now, these other countries, so many of them will tell us, we don't want to work with china. they're not doing this for altruistic reasons. we know what china is all about. but if america is going to abandon the field, if we have no choice but to seek friends elsewhere, we will do what is necessary to feed our people. we will go to where we need to go to get help when we confront disease. and if america abandons the field, we will go to china. china is winning so much in these last two weeks it is getting tired of winning. just today we learned that

apparently some list, according to public reports of officers at the cia was sent to the white house in an unclassified e-mail. now, i remember times when donald trump was always talking about hill hillary's e-mails. what about this e-mail that potentially exposes the eye tenty of people who -- identity of people who work at the cia or want to work for the cia. and the response is don't worry, that e-mail might only contain their first time and the first initial of their last name. well, i'm sure that china with all of its big data an analytics will have no trouble with that at all. with an answer like that, the administration may think they

can pull the wool over our eyes, but they can't. and what's more they cannot pull the wool other the prying ayes of our competitors, our adversaries around the world. so usaid, first of all, let's start with a remember mundane point it would appear in this administration, what they're doing is illegal. i guess when you have absolute immunity, you don't worry about those things. but we in this body we should worry about that. we should worry about whether the president and some wealthy billionaire are violating the law. we are in the business of making laws. we used to cherish our institutional prerogative. we used to think it was valuable in the scheme of things. we used to believe the founders were quite brilliant in how they

established each institution as a check on the other so none would have absolute power. but here we are faced with something which i think we have to acknowledge is plainly unlawful, and not a peep -- not a peep about that by those who could most strongly resist this. it's harder for us in the minority. we don't control anything in the senate, we don't control anything in the house. if this administration succeeds in neutering the congress of the united states, there is little we in the minority alone can do without -- without the help of others who cherish this institution of we just cannot do that alone. now, we will do all that we can. we're all night, we'll be here

as many nights as it takes of we will raise public awareness of this unlawful scheme. we will use litigation, and we are. we will use every tool at our dis disposal, but it shouldn't be just us. it shouldn't be just us. i think a lot of americans are wondering now whether the constitution is so brilliant after all, whether it is adequate to meet this moment, a moment that our founders really anticipated, when we would have a demagogue who would ride the whirlwind of the confusion that he sows. i think it is a brilliant constitution. i think it's the best in the world. but it's not self-effectuating.

it depends on all of us. to work, it depends on all of us. the genius of the constitution is not that we are today where we are, where we have a supreme court that said the president is above the law, a president acting like he's above the law, we have the administration bringing in unelected billionaires to take data, and who knows what else, we have terrible national security breaches and not a murmur of dissent about them. the genius of the constitution is not that this is happening but that it was forestalled until now, that we got through these more than two centuries without confronting this, but this is where we, and this will be the real test of our constitution, what it will mean in this moment when the president and a wealthy billionaire, the world's richest

man, are engaged in things that are plainly unlawful, doing away with an agency like usaid, plainly unlawful, and even if you don't care about what usaid does, even if you're content to let china take over development around the world and win over friends and mineral rights and turn our allies into debtor nations, if you're -- even if you're okay ceding global leadership to china, which i am most certainly not, the moment you say it's okay for them to violate the law to shut down this one agency, you have said it is okay for them to violate the law and shut down anything. anything. if they can do this with usaid, they can do this with the department of ed. if they can do it with the department of ed, they can do it with head start. if they can do it with head start, they can do it with

medicaid. if they can do it with medicaid, they can do it with social security. they can do anything. usaid was established by the united states congress. it cannot and should not be eliminated on the whims of a president or his unelected billionaire friend. shutting down usaid or pausing its work will have devastating global and potentially irreversible consequences. but the biggest consequence will be to us. it is the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid, and through it the united states saves countless lives every year. i have to say, as i've had the opportunity, as chair of the intelligence committee, and even prior to that position in the house, to travel to some of the

most dangerous parts of the world, to iraq, to afghanistan, to pakistan, to yemen, you name it, i've met these usaid employees, the ones that just got this order, you need to get on a flynn and come back -- on a plane and come back, you're on leave whether you like it or not. i've met these folks. they're so patriotic and passionate about their work and such dedicated public servants. i remember being in afghanistan. fairly early in the war, i met this young man with usaid. he looked to me to be in his early 20's. his deployment was for one year in afghanistan. he had only been there for a few months, and these folks were

operating without much of a safety net. in order to be effective, they needed to be in the villages. they couldn't stay on their base. they had to be out, exposed. and this usaid worker, this young man, he had been there only a few months of a one-year deployment. he told me he had already signed up for his second year. i remember saying, wow, that's pretty impressive. you like it here? you like your work thatch, where -- that much, you've been here a few months, you've decided to reup for another year? he said, no, it's not that. we're in the development business. you really can't see the fruits of your labor in a single year. i want to be here long enough where i can see the result of the projects that i'm working on, i can see them come to

fruition. this was the kind of public servant that populates usaid all over the world. this is the kind of public s ser servant, i don't know if this young man is still with usaid, burr if he is, wherever he is, whatever part of the world where he's doing god's work, just got an e-mail saying, you're on involuntary leave. thank you for nothing. don't let the door hit you in the backside on the way out, sincerely, uncle sam. what a hell of a way to treat people. these folks at usaid, they're stopping diseases from spr spreading, they're helping to feed communities that are starving, they're showing the united states cares about people around the world, cares about

others, but the most powerful nation in the world hasn't forgotten about the most powerless communities in the world. usaid represents decades of soft power that the united states has built. they're showing allies in developing nations that we stand by them in crises, building partnerships that last, protecting our national security. i remember visiting pakistan. now, pakistan probably doesn't have a lot of great things to say about the united states much of the time. which i think, and i recognize, is frustrating, when you're trying to help and it doesn't seem like anything you do is enough. i get that. i totally get that. but i remember when an earthquake struck northwest

pakistan, and american helicopters were helicoptering in relief, and a toy became very popular in pakistan. it was a replica of an american helicopter, because we suddenly became associated with helping people in their time of need. probably the single most valuable diplomacy we had done in years. i guess we're not going to do that anymore. all of that, all that effort to show that the united states is concerned about the well-being, not just of ourselves but of others all over the world, all that is at risk. well, there are champagne bottles being popped right now

in beijing, probably quite a few in moscow, at the idea tonight that we are abandoning the field and that we are poised to confirm the architect of that abandonment. an otherwise obscure man named russ vought. alliances, decades of work going out the window. russia and china's influence on the rise. and for what? usaid represents less than 1% of the federal budget. but that 1% gets elon musk and donald trump closer to the $4 trillion hole they need to fill to give another tax cut to the wealthy. so, it's on the chopping block, plain and simple.

so, let's look at some of the other events of the next couple -- of the last couple weeks, and put them in persp perspective. let's look at the firing of these top department of justice offi officials. within hours of donald trump's order, the justice department fired more than a dozen prosecutors, many career public servants who had worked on criminal cases involving the people who attacked this building, or maybe they'd worked on criminal cases involving the one who incited the attack on this building. they weren't removed for incompetence. they weren't removed for corruption. they were removed because they did their jobs, patriotically. they were removed because they had the audacity to try to hold a powerful man accountable. the official justification for

their firing? that these prosecutors, many of whom worked under special counsel jack smith, could not be trusted to implement trump's agenda. let's think about that. a president of the united states who spent years railing against the so-called weaponization of the government, which is the expression he would use for holding him accountable for law breaking, that president, who railed against the department for weaponizing government, has now purged his own justice department of the very people who investigated his many crimes. this purge was a product of the white house, the order came from donald trump himself, the firings were executed by his appointed allies in the justice department, and when it was done, his administration made the end game clear -- the justice department no longer

represents the american people. it no longer enforces the law. it enforces donald trump's will. this is not a department that can be counted on anymore to investigate corruption, but to defend donald trump. a justice department that doesn't prosecute certain criminals, it protects them, as long as they serve the president's interests or are the president himself. this is the new normal in donald trump's second term, a government that exists not a check on his power but an extension of it. the message was unmistakable, to prosecutors, to judges, to anyone working in law enforcement who still believes in the rule of law or an idea, now which seems quaint, that no one is above the law, do your job, protect the person of the

president, not the people of the country or you and your job may be next. because in trump's america, there is only loyalty, not to constitution, not to country, but to the person of the president. and now, with the firings complete, the vacancies will be filled, not with independent prosecutors but with loyalists, with lawyers who will spend the next four years reshaping the very foundation of the justice department, ensuring that the next time donald trump or anyone like him breaks the law there won't be anyone left to prosecute it. they will be there to go after trump's enemies, whether they are real or just perceived. we are not inevitably headed towards authoritarianism or one-man rule. but firing these top prosecutors takes us one step closer.

if we don't stop it now, if we don't draw a line here, there will be little justice left in the department to save. i spent almost six years with that department. i was an assistant u.s. attorney in los angeles, one of the best jobs i ever had. i worked with a cadre of prosecutors who were just top topnotch, some of the brightest lawyers in los angeles, they gravitated to that office. some of the most capable and idealistic young lawyers, who wanted to do justice, the office was completely apolitical. i had no idea whether my fellow prosecutors were democrats or republicans. and yes, when u.s. attorneys changed and presidents changed, there might be different

priorities in the office, but they were broad policy prio priorities. there might be more of an emphasis on drug cases or there might be more of an emphasis on white collar crime cases, but it was a difference of policy, it was never about the politics of vengeance or retribution. no one in that department had any -- in that office had any misunderstanding, misapprehension of what their role was, and their role was to do justice. now, i think the department made a mistake after this building was attacked, after our police officers were savagely beaten, after a president -- this president sat in that white

house dining room and watch thad violence occur -- watched that violence occur. i think the department of justice made a mistake not by investigating that massive crime on this building, on our police, on the peaceful transfer of power, on our democracy but in taking so long. i think they made a mistake in focusing on the foot soldiers of that attack who broke into this building rather than those who insighted it and -- incited it and organized it. but i understand why that mistake was made. that mistake was made because there was a desire after the first four years of donald trump and the terrible politicization of that department by bill barr. there was a desire to restore the independence of the department. there was a reluctance to follow

the evidence where it would lead. and that reluctance, that desire to insulate the department from criticism resulted in justice being delayed and out matly justice being -- and ultimately justice being denied. now, one of the biggest culprits in that failure of the justice system was that building across the street. and indeed the entire court system because that court system and most particularly the high court understood what was happening, understood the endless delays in bringing to justice the one who incited those attacks. they understood exactly what was happening and they permitted it to happen. and more than that, the high court not only permitted it to happen but by countenancing these endless delays, by letting

the president play rope-a-dope in the courts. they assured that justice would be delayed so justice might be denied and in fact it was denied. that was the mistake of the department, excessive caution. and that mistake meant that a court that has become a partisan court could use delay as a weapon to defeat justice and it did. but in this allison in wonderland world which we live, donald trump would make that desire to move the department away from the politicization of bill barr, restore a reputation for independence, that laudable g goal, would turn that into an alice in wonderland way into a weaponization of the government.

and why? because it believed that the rule of law applies to everyone, even the most powerful man in the world. so why get rid of these prosecutors? why purge the fbi agents? why after promising and their nominees, pam bondi, kash patel, we've learned how much we can rely on the promises, the commitments they made and the confirmation zero. but why is this firing of fbi acts such an important piece of this whole effort by donald trump, elon musk, and their enablers? because if they're going to take money from the public fist, if they're going to enrich themselves with their mean coins, if they're going to raid the treasury, if they're going

to take people's private data, if they're going to try to illegally shut down agencies, they don't want a department, god forbid to say no, that violates the law. they don't want an fbi that's going to examine anything they're doing. so stripping the department of its independence, instilling fear in thousands and thousands of fbi agents telling them you are just one wrong step away from being fired, this is the way to ensure and when they raid the treasury, there is no one there to call out what they're doing. this is also part and parcel of what these pardons were all about. what role do these pardons play

in this effort to bring about one-man rule and to enable that one man to raid the public fisk. so on his first day and with the stroke of a pen pardoning 1550 people, people who violently beat law enforcement, the president wished to make something abundantly clear. if you use violence in my service, i will have your back. and so people that came in through these doors and bear sprayed police officers and beat them with flag poles, took apart metal barricades and beat them with that, crushed them in the doors, officer daniel onlies,

i'll -- hodges, i'll never forget the images of him being crushed in that revolving door. the people who did that, they got a pardon. part of the ring leaders, gave them clemency, leaders of the proud boy, oath keepers, unrepen tants white nationalists who aspired to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. how did we get here where the president of the united states would pardon people for doing that? some were convicted of seditious conspiracy, one of the most serious crimes in our legal system. others were convicted of dragging police officers into violent crowds and of beating them, bear spraying them, of crushing them. we witnessed it. we were here. i was here, not on this side of the capitol but on the other side. i was here. i was here when they were breaking windows to get in. i was here on the house floor,

one of the floor managers that day opposing the efforts to overturn the election. i was here when the speaker was whisked out of her chair. i was here when the capitol police first informed us there were rioters in the building. i was here when the capitol police told us that we needed to get our gas masks out. i was here when we struggled to open the damn things that were in these sealed plastic pouchs. i was here when those masks were deployed and it was a polyurethane baggie you're supposed to pull over your head with an lastic band -- elastic band around your neck. i was here when the fan circulates the air when the mask so you don't asphyxiate, when the sound of the fans was everywhere on the house floor and in the gallery. i was here when capitol police told us that we needed to get out, that they cleared an exit

route. we needed to get out. i was here when some of my republican colleagues in the house as i waited on the house floor and we could really hear those people bagging on the -- bagging on the doors to get in said, you can't let them see you. one of them said i know these people. i can talk to these people. i can talk my way through these people. you're in a whole different category. and i have to say at first i was oddly touched by their concern for my safety. but my nextism press was -- next impression was if they hadn't been lying about the election, i wouldn't need to worry about any safety. one of us would. -- none of us would. donald trump pardoning the folks who were attacking police officers that day, this wasn't about mercy. this wasn't about justice. these people hadn't made restitution or shown any repentance. far from it.

this was about power. this was about hope to erase the crimes that had been committed in his name. this was a message to his supporters that the violence and illegal acts aren't just to be tolerated, they're to be rewarded because that's what this was. this was a message. a message that if you fight for him, if you storm the capitol, if you brutalize police officers, if you try to overthrow an election, you will be protected. you'll be hailed even. they'll make choirs with you like kash patel. you will be absolved because he, the president wants to so desperately be resolved. he wants to somehow remove the stain of his impeach m.b.t.s, of -- impeachments, ever the violent a -- of the violent attack in his name. so what's happened to some of these criminals since they've been pardoned by donald trump. one of those pardoned was killed in a shootout with police in

indiana. model citizen, i'm sure. one of them was arrest ed four times between storming the capitol and being pardoned by donald trump. another was rearrested for unlawfully possessing a gun as a felon. that was for his 2017 conviction for domestic violence battery by strangulation. seems like a worthy candidate for a pardon by donald trump. one rioter would attacked police with bear spray and a metal whip on january 6 is now grappling with unresolved charges of soliciting a minor, a third-degree felony carrying up to ten years in prison. maybe he'll be pardoned for that. these are the people that donald trump pardoned, that he celebrated because they showed loyalty to him. and in trump's world, nothing else matters.

in order to carry out this plunder of the treasury, to make the whole of government the vehicle for his self-enrichment and self-gran dicement, he must have a loyal cadres to do even the most violent acts in his service. stand back and stand by. so let's turn quickly to the funding freeze. how does that fit into this effort? there was a memo, as we know, to freeze all federal funding. federal loans and assistance. we saw the reports. the days of chaos. we saw hospitals wondering whether they would get funding to keep their clinic doors open. we saw parents wondering whether their child care would be

available. seniors wondering whether they would have the services that they needed. and for what? once again this is an effort to prepare, to raid the treasury, to take the resources that belong to the american people and use them to fund a massive tax cut for those who don't need it. now, i represent a state that has been battered by natural dis disaster. so i take this very perpally. -- very personally, this freeze on federal funding. because my constituents need the help of fema. they need the help of the sba. they need to know that as the government has been there for every other state in a natural

disaster will be there for us. and the idea of freezing that funding and inhibiting that recovery so that there could be just a bit more money for donald trump and elon musk and his allies is an anathema to my constituents and it should be unacceptable for all the rest of us. mr. president, i yield back. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, along with my colleague from california and so many others tonight, i rise in opposition to the president's nomination of russell vought to lead the office of management and budget. my colleagues and i are here.

it's now shortly before midnight to go through the night to make this case because this nominee has already demonstrated exactly how dangerous he would be if confirmed. we know that from the last time he worked in the office of management and budget and we know it because of his work in the last few years. and despite not even being in the office yet, he has already through his work on pro project 2025 driven a reckless budget decision that created immediate chaos and uncertainty across the country. the duty of the office of management and budget director is to assist the president of the united states in faithfully executing the laws passed by congress. notably, this does not include single-handedly turning off federal funding. it was just a few weeks ago that

donald trump was inaugurated. and that day as chair of the yearlong inaugural committee, i made the point that there are three branches of government. otherwise we would have had the inauguration at -- as in some ccurrencing the presidential palace. in fact, that inauguration was in the capitol for a reason, and that is because in our country we have three branches of government, three equal branches of government, and article 1 of the constitution makes it clear that the congress makes decisions about funding. the congress. and in this case, on a bipartisan basis, year after year after year, and it's not easy, we come together, democrats and republicans, and make a decision about funding, and it is the job of the executive branch, in addition of

course the president of the united states, sign something off on this -- signing off on this but the executive branch then implements it. but in this case you things are be backwards and upside down. when the office of management and budget comes in with a plan that had actually been devised by this nominee to freeze the funds. millions of americans awoke to find that vital federal funding had been frozen, not by congress, not by a confirmed official in an administration, but by an unelected advisor acting from the shadows. and, yes, it was chaos, big surprise. people lost access to essential services, agencies scrambled to interpret conflicting statements. it was in. 24 hours later it was rescinded. then the press secretary to the president of the united states put out a post that, no, no, no, all the funds were still frozen.

even the administration itself had to walk back its decision after a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional. that this whole mess that hurt regular people -- and i still wake up every day and say to myself, has donald trump brought down costs for housing or child care? has he created more housing or child care the number of people who voted for him thought they were going to get? has he brought down the cost of prescription drugs? instead what do we see? we see this chaos. this wasn't an accident. it wasn't even a decision made by an official with legal authority. let's be clear about exactly what happened. rus russell vought was not in the administration. he is before the senate right now. that's why we're here tonight. he was not in the administration, but his fingerprints were all over this scheme. according to reports, he was a driving force behind the

administration's decision to freeze federal funding. steven miller even credited -- someone very close to donald trump, even publicly credited vought with coming up with the idea. it was vought's plan. that led the administration to take an action that hurt millions of americans. now, i have heard from constituent after constituent terrified about, is this federal funding freeze that clearly the administration wanted to do and then a court stepped in -- and it's only temporarily paused. but i've heard from my constituents because for some of them, their funding is still in trouble. others don't know what's going to happen next. so here are some minnesotans, regular people, what they had to say following the decision to unilaterally unconstitutional cut off support that families across the country rely on. one constituent wrote to me saying, the late-night

decisions, the freezing of federal funds already appropriated by congress by an undisclosed group of entities is outrageous and gross mispassage of the it is the throwing of lives of your constituents into fear and chaos. she continued, the administration is offering conflicting information and no real answers as to what is going on. even more money will need to be spent. this is going to be challenged in court. it's going to be a mess. instead of just working it out, what a waste. that's right. there's a budget coming up. there's decisions to be made about taxes. there is time to debate this and decide, even if i don't agree with what the president wants to do, but there are -- there is a very clear way that this should happen, and this is for the upcoming budget. but instead want a make a big scene, want to hurt a lot of people? that's what happened.

another constituent wrote in concerned about her client, someone works in the area of mental health and she talked about her client's reliance on some of this funding. she said, executive branch interference with this funding not only creates massive economic harms but also directly violates the constitution's delegation of spending powers to congress. i will say there's a silver shrining here. regular people are actually looking at the constitution. they're saying, how can this happen? how can someone, how can an unelected billionaire come in and try to get data? how can you just stop funding in the middle of one day with one single memo from someone that's not even elected? so, like, maybe i should go look at the constitution. what does it say in the article 1? what's my role in elected people? another minnesotan wrote, i am a parent of a pediatric cancer survive and our family relied on

the katie beckett program. this program runs through state medicaid, she explained and it affords all families whose children have life-threatening diagnoses financial assistance pass a secondary coverage regardless of income while they make their way through treatments and while recovering from the significant impacts of these treatments. without access to this, she asks, what will happen to these kids? but then again acting in this way does seem to be a pattern, and people are figuring it out. and, believe me, there are a number of people in my state who voted for donald trump and voted for me, okay? and why did they vote for donald trump? well, they wanted change. they were worried about their costs. they thought, okay, maybe he is going to do what he says he's going to do. maybe he's actually going to do and work with people to try to bring costs down. and now they're seeing this chaos, in my mind which will be

leading to -- which we've already seen with the firing of the inspectors general, this corruption, these constitutional grabs at power, unconstitutional. one constituent who teaches a class on cancer research at the university of minnesota wrote about this research funding. and our state has a lot of research between mayo and university of minnesota, cutting-edge research. she says the students i'm teaching are dependent on national institutes of health support. the patients i'm seeing are helped by the national institutes of health-funded criminal trees. our trial organization and the core facilities that help conduct these trials. cancer patients on clinical trials may die because of pausing of federal support for these trials. another cancer patient -- please do everything you can to restore national cancer institute funding immediately. i'm in treatment for four different cancers. it's the fifth time. why would you stop the funding?

it's even impossible to contemplate. they're referring of course to this memo that was sent out with the blessing of the trump administration under their administration, sat out there for 24 hours, then gets repealed, but then the white house says, no, no, no. we still want to freeze all the funding but then a federal judge has to come in but of course that's only temporary. a different minnesotan worried about her niece being treated. to have the funding cut off could have deadly consequences for my niece. this is her second round with this very aggressive cancer and she's getting results from the clinical trial. she has three small children at home and is fighting as hard as she can but without this, i'm not sure what her physicians would do. san juan else, the havoc that the administration is causing with the on-again, off-again freezing of federal aid and the freeze on the work of essential public health agencies like the

nih and the cdc will have devastating consequences for our economy and citizens if allowed to stand. she continues, i know you will do your best to protect and stand up for congress's constitutional rights. again, my constituents -- i do see this has a silver lining -- are looking at what is the role of congress? what did our founding fathers want? what is the role of the courts? can the executive just stand in there and do anything he wants and, of course, the answer is no. which is why you've seen litigation, which is why i've urged my constituents to write e-mails to me with these stories because actually we will create a record of exactly what is going on as these court cases continue in states all over the country because right now we have an administration, a president that took the oath to follow the constitution, to support and defend the constitution, but doesn't seem to be reading it.

so she writes this -- i know you will do your best to protect and stand up for congress's constitutional rights. my family and i appreciate the work you do as our senator. and i like that you work across the aisle, she says. during this critical time, however, we urge you to do everything you can to be in congress to thwart these illegal acts. the extra constitutional gains need to -- games need to stop and the rule of law must stavenltdz the president is not a king and cannot be treated as one. another constituent, like many others, is worried about what this freeze will mean for seniors. as you know, she said, our adult day center relies on federal funding to provide essential services to seniors? our community. specifically, title 3 caregiver respite. these funds support a wide range of programs including health care, social activities, nutritional support, all of which are crucial for the

well-being of our participants. the sudden pause in federal funding has put these vital services at risk and we are worried about the impact on our seniors. she continued, many of our participants depend on our center for daily care and support and any disruption in our services could have severe consequences for their health and qualm of life. we are -- quality of life. we are particularly concerned about the lack of clarity regarding which programs will be affected and the timelines for resolving this issue. she concludes, we urge you to advocate on our behalf and work with your colleagues to ensure that federal funding for programs supporting seniors is restored as quickly as possible. our seniors deserve stability and continuity in their care. more on seniors -- another woman. my next-door neighbor is 81 years old. she has to get inexhe cans into both of her -- injections into both of her eyes. without the especiallyjections,

she will go blind. as of yesterday they are broke. my neighbor had to pay $1,028 out of pocket yesterday. she is on a fixed income. how can good day foundation get h their funding back? another constituent, a senior herself, wrote, i am 73 years old and i live in housing covered by a voucher. i eat with snap funds, disabled, and dependent on my cadi waiver to keep myself going. i captain be homeless at my age -- i can't be homeless at my age. i am currently enrolled in a senior service program. national able helps job seekers learn new skills and connect with area employers to fill their job openings. each year they help hundreds of seniors like me get a job and i want to make sure this program continues. i know age discrimination and

nottings have the necessary skills have been a problem for me in the past. the funding freeze would stop the payments that this program needs to operate and that would negatively impact me and the organization i'm training with. the wages i earn while in training help me pay for bills that i otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. and you know this is part of a pattern when the president ran for office this time, he talked about bringing health care costs, he told us how beautiful it would be. yet what do we see when they come into office in one of the first executive orders, different than that funding freeze, was stopping one of the key programs, a pilot for generic drugs at $2 a pop to try to encourage more generic drugs. and when the nominee for hhs secretary was before our senate committees, he would not commit to actually implementing the

prescription drug negotiation bill that i had spent years trying to get passed. and we finally passed it. we finally ended the sweetheart deal that big pharma had because of congressional action that locked them into high prices and high profits at the expense of regular people where americans were paying, in many cases, twice as much as people in other countries. it's part of the reasons there were bus trips from minnesota to canada, to get less expensive drugs. my colleagues here all know bringing down the cost of prescription drugs has always been a top priority, because in the united states of america no one should be forced to choose between filling their prescriptions or filling their grocery cart. taking on these big drug companies was not easy. they had three lobbyists, still have three, for every member of congress, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to stop us.