that we can afford that tax cut for the very, very wealthy. but then there's this other thing that's happening. again, we don't nope what it is yet but it looks really worrying. so why is elon musk inside the department of treasury? why has donald trump given him access to this incredibly sensitive payment system? i'm going to admit to you, we don't know yet. it just is unprecedented. and you saw the long time treasury employee -- this is a nonpolitical p guy. this is just a guy who shows up to work every day trying to make sure that you get your medicare benefits and you get your refund check. he left. he left. he had never seen anything like

this. he had never seen a billionaire with a political agenda come in and take control of this payment system. and so what's the agenda there? i don't know. but could it be in the same service as the elimination of usaid and potential elimination of other departments? could it be they want to take control of the payment systems so they can strip benefits, admittedly expensive benefits for the middle class so they can afford their tax cut? if you have control of the payment system and you don't care about the law and you don't care about the constitution, you can decide to reduce payments or shut down payments. for a day, they stopped paying medicaid claims. so it's not like this is beyond them. for a day they shut down the medicaid system.

if elon musk has control of the treasury payment system and there is a need to save some big money so that you can claim that you passed along the big tax cuts to the billionaires and the corporations and you didn't increase the deficit, then maybe those social security benefits get turned off for a day. maybe those medicare benefits get turned off for a day. i don't know what the hell he's doing inside that payment system. and you can say you shouldn't believe the worst or you shouldn't just hypothesize, you shouldn't guess, but we haven't been given a good explanation for something that looks like a fundamental perversion of precedent and the law. remember, elon musk can't get a security clearance. he can't. but apparently he can have access to all of our most sensitive information and data, and maybe it is in service of

trying to rearrange payments to save money for that tax cut. it's stunning the number of programs that he has access to. social security and medicare benefits, salaries for all federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, tax refunds. the system holds a lot of sensitive information, including social security numbers, all of our social security numbers, all of our names, all of our addresses, much of our private banking information, much of our private tax information. news broke today that musk now has access to even more. he didn't just get access to the treasury payment system, but now

he has access to cms's payment system. cms runs medicare and medicaid. so now elon musk has access to all of the payment and contracting systems that run medicare and medicaid. literally has control of hundreds of billions of dollars in payments to health care providers. they got access to that payment system. today they also showed up at the atlanta headquarters of the cdc. they met with labor department leaders to begin the process of getting access to those payment systems as well. why is this happening? why is this happening? well, it could be that they are trying to save money so that

they can afford the billionaires tax cut, but it also may be so that they can direct payments to the companies and the individuals that have l pledged support to donald trump and they can deny payment to people who have not pledged loyalty. and again, i understand that that sounds a little fanciful, but p just look what's happening right now at the white house. the president is saying he's going to shut down a high-speed rail system in california while saying nothing about a high-speed rail system in florida. he's proposing eliminating fema because there was a series of devastating deadly wildfires in california, but he wasn't -- and republicans weren't talking about eliminating fema when there were disasters in republican states. it seems as if there is a pretty unapologetic preference for

political friends. and if elon musk has control over the payment system, why should we assume that he wouldn't use that control to turn on money to people he likes or maybe even entities he is affiliated with, and turn off money to entities that he's not affiliated with or to his competitors. that's why you don't allow a billionaire, that's why you don't allow somebody with massive financial interest to be in charge of the treasury's payment system. that's bananas. we don't do that because it opens up the opportunity for fundamental corruption. but if you understand one of the key reasons for all of these early actions to be a transfer of power and wealth away from regular people to the billionaire class, then it makes

sense because you can either use your control of that payment system to bank money that you can use to cut your own taxes or you can just use control of that payment system to pay people that are affiliated with you or help your business and deny money to your competitors. this is where the firing of the i.g.'s matters. because if we had inspector generals in these departments of, then we would actually be able to have a view as to whether the access to these information systems are being used for corrupt purposes. here's the list of the inspectors general or inspector

generals. the inspector general at the state department, the inspect general at the department of energy, at the interior department, defense department, department of veteran affairs, at the department of transportation, at the environmental protection agency, at the small business administration, the inspect general over social security, the inspector general over the department of labor, over health and human services, of the department of agriculture and the inspector general over of housing and urban development. they are gone and being replaced with no one because the complaint wasn't that these inspector generals weren't good enough watchdogs over the federal tax dollar. the complaint was that they were watchdogs. the complaint was that somebody was looking and watching.

all of these inspectors, all of these inspector generals were fired and replaced with no one for the purpose of darkness descending. elon musk got access today to the entire medicare and medicaid payment system. why we do not know. but it is certainly plausible to believe that there are nefarious purposes afoot. that his access to that system is part of a design to harm our democracy or enhance his economic interest. but we will have a really hard time figuring out because the inspector general at the department of health and human services coincidental was fired days before elon musk was given unprecedented access, an unaccountable, unelected billionaire with tons of

business interests inside this government, was given access to the most sensitive payment systems in our government. it is not a coincidence. i was being facetious. it is not a coincidence that l all the inspectors general were fired right before elon musk got access to these payment systems. the intent is darkness. and if your intent is to steal from the american people, if your intent is to use that access to be able to divert money from legal purposes to illegal purposes, if your intent is to transfer resources that are supposed to be due to the taxpayer instead to the millionaire, billionaire, and corporate class, then you can't have sunlight. you can't have pesky inspector generals because the public would hate that if they knew it was happening. there are thousands of people showing up to riots, but there would be hundreds of thousands

showing up to protests, but there would be hundreds of thousands of people showing up to protests if they knew through the reports of these inspectors general that there was thievery happening. we don't know what's happening because darkness has descended upon these agencies. the other part of this plan related to the shutdown of these departments and the infiltration of these departments by people like elon musk is that another way for the billionaires to get richer beyond cutting services, influencing the economy by giving themselves payments and denying payments to their

compe competitors is to just privatize more and more of the federal government so that they get to take it, to privatize more and more of state and local services so they get to take it. project 2025, written by russ vought, amongst others, is very clear about that intention. they sort of look at the remaining parts of the federal government -- and our government writ large that are still done just for the common good, not done for profit, and they say to hell with that. we want every public service to be a source of profit. i think that's a disaster. i think there is an important private public partnership in a

lot of our government. i think it's well for the department of defense to have the army, navy, our military services be a public service. we don't have our, we don't have a mercenary army. our army is run by the government, by generals, by officers who work for the government. but they are supplied with equipment that comes out of the private sector because in the private sector, you're may be going to get more innovation than you would in the public sector. i think that's a legitimate public private partnership. same thing in health care. i don't like how much of our health care system has gone to the for-profit sector, but i understand that it is important to have a profit motive, for instance, in drug discovery. that private companies probably push a little bit harder to comm commercialize breakthrough therapy than might a government laboratory. i think there are plenty of places in government where public-private partnerships work. there are plenty of places in government where maybe it should

all be in the private sector and we just flow money from the public sector to the private sector. but i don't think that works for law enforcement. i don't think that that works for protection services. i don't think that works for our public schools. i do not want a private equity firm to own my kids' public school. i don't want the motivation of the administrators of my kids' elementary school to be sucking as much profit out of the school as possible. i want my kids' school to be a place where they only care about quality and performance. and does that mean there might be a little redundancy built in? a little inefficiency built? yeah, but i just want the mission to be doing good for my kids. but that's not how russ vought

sees it. that's not how the trump administration sees it. they see every existing remaining public service from the security at our airports to the administration of our schools as a lost opportunity for the rich to get even richer. i reverenced this article -- i referenced this article earlier but i'll do it again. this politicization. from buyout snyder, it's -- buyout insider. it is entitled back to school. investors are bullish again on education. private equities appetite for the sector is strong is the subheadline. and while a lot of this article is immediately about private industry in tech, the technology

that surrounds schools and used by teachers, it talks about the private equity's interest in buying be running schools. it talks about some of the schools that are already being bought and run by private equity. remember becky devos, she ran for profit schools where the goal every day was not to educate kids but to make money for betsy devos and her family. and so part of the agenda here is not just to pass along a tax cut to the billionaires and the millionaires and the corporations, but also just ship big parts of our public service infrastructure into the private sector. i'm a capitalist. i believe in the genius of the private sector, but i think

there are some things we should do for the common good. there are some things that shouldn't be about how much money can i make? billionaires, corporations, private equity firms, they're doing fine. like, they don't need our schools. they don't need our schools. frankly, there's plenty of evidence to show that when they get their hands on fundamental public services, they do it worse. for instance, if you look at nursing homes that are owned by private equity firms versus nursing homes that are not for profit, the not for profit homes are better quality homes, are better quality homes. less people die in nursing homes owned by not for profit organization than die in nursing homes that are owned by private ekt. why? because private equity exists not to keep patients alive. i'm not saying that the owners of these companies aren't moral

human beings, i'm not saying they're indifferent to life, but their bottom line is how much money did we make? and there are certain sectors of public life, like the end of your life, like my kids' education, leak whether i'm safe -- like whether i'm safe at the airport, i don't want profit to be the motivating factor. so it's important to understand the why, the effort to shutter these agencies is in part an effort to send their services into the private sector. the agenda at the department of education is not just to destroy the bureaucracy of the department, it is also to outsource the education of our kids to the private sector.

they want to destroy these agencies so in part they can move the services into the for-profit realm so that the billion nears and the millionaires and the corporations can get even richer. so i think it's important to understand that element. there's another piece of this story. specifically the story about usaid that is relevant to this effort to transfer power into the hands of the elites. you have to ask why was usaid first? why was there such a fervor to shut down usaid? i don't know the answer, but what i know is that we traditionally don't allow people like elon musk to be this involved in foreign policy

because they are conflicted. i understand that that is probably the reason why elon musk can't get a security clearance because he has these m massive business interests outside of the united states, in particular in china. and so you have to ask yourself, why is usaid being shuttered? why does elon musk care so much about usaid? and i hate that we're searching for explanations but the explanation that we've been given on the record is a lie. it's not true. what elon musk and others have said is that they had to shut down usaid because it's a criminal organization. i mean there's not a single united states senator, even the united states senators who don't like the fact that we spend

money addressing famine overseas that thinks usaid is a criminal organization. that's ridiculous. it's not true. nobody who spent a day looking at usaid thinks it's a criminal organization. it is just normal public service committed people who show up to work every day trying to solve problems for america abroad. so we just have to accept that they're on the -- their on the record explanation that they're shutting down usaid because they're a criminal organization is not true. it's not true. so we have to search for what the answer is. who benefits most by usaid shutting down? i would argue it's china. so china's influence in the world is primarily nonmilitary. china's got a big growing military, we've got to worry about that. but china doesn't have military

partnerships like the united states does, china has technology partnerships, mineral resource extraction partnerships, port partnerships. china's influence in the world right now is primarily nonmilitary. they don't do as much relief aid as we do, but they do a lot of it as well. they do help countries invest in public infrastructure, they do show up and help with disasters, and that's how they get influence. the defining contest in the world right now is between the united states and china for who is going to control the piping of the international economy. when i say piping, i mean, the navigation of the seas, the information infrastructure, the a.i. data sets, the flow of critical minerals that are so key to making all of the

technologies, the chips, et cetera, of the future. china is treeing to buy up -- trying to buy up that piping and they do that by creating relationships overseas based on their nonmilitary relationship, the investments that they make. usaid competes with china when it comes to those nonmilitary invests -- investments so that china won't command that competition over who controls the economic piping of the world. and so when usaid disappears, china cheers. they are cheering right now because now they have the run of the place. they are able to gain more influence when the united states has withdrawn. i say that because elon musk has a lot on the line with china. here's a recent article describing the extent of elon

musk's business relationships in china. mr. musk has a lot on the line in china. his best known company, the electric vehicle tesla, makes half its cars in china. tess lass are -- and his local competition is getting stronger and chinese regulators have not yet allowed tesla to have the assisted driving car technology while allowing chinese automakers to race ahead with similar systems. elon musk's other companies face formidable competition with chinese businesses. some of his businesses might benefit from the decoupling of the chinese and american economies. it goes on to explain all of the different i was in which elon musk has real interest in china and real reason to curry favor

with the chinese government. we can't know for certain whether there is a connection between elon musk's very rossty in -- voracity in ee limiting usaid and his business interests, but we haven't seen any more credible explanation. and we've got more evidence today of how elon musk's business interests seem to be dictating american foreign policy. one of the places that decisions get made about the rules of the world, rules that matter to the united states and u.s. companies is the g-20, the 20 biggest economies. we're there every year because we want a seat at the table when the rules of the global economy are set. because if we're not there, the rules are going to disadvantage america, disadvantage our

interests and disadvantage our companies. well, the secretary of state today announced that we would be boycotting the g-20 this year. why? because we just don't like the place where it's being held. guess where that place is. south africa. and guess what elon musk has been doing over the course of the last several months and years, running a p.r. campaign against the government of south africa for a host of reasons, but one of them is that the south african government refuses to sign a contract with star link. it's because whether he likes it or not, south african government has certain rules about diversity and inclusion and equality that he can't meet and so what did secretary rubio

announce today? we will not be attending the g-20 in south africa because we don't like their rules on diversity, equity and inclusion. the very rules preventing elon musk from getting a contract in south africa are the reasons why the united states are not showing up at the g-20. i'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this seems a little weird that our foreign policy seems to be impacted by the billionaires' interest, billionaire that has such a close connection to the policy of this dmiks. so -- administration. so one of the other ways that american policy and american law can be per vertd to serve the -- perverted to serve the billionaires and the corporations if there is an integration between the interest of the billionaires and american

foreign policy. it is something that we have to have our eyes wide open to. and the last thing i want to talk about is, you know, just what's coming with this reconciliation bill. because it could be that what's happening inside treasury or what's happening at usaid is partially an effort to try to create savings or the illusion of savings to be able to afford this big tax cut for billionaires and millionaires. but there's also a plan that's put down on paper by a congressman in the house who is influence in budget circles that lists out a series of cuts that they intend to carry out or want to have on the table in order to afford that big tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. on that list is $479 billion of

cuts to medicare, $2.3 trillion worth of cuts for medicaid. medicare insures all seniors in this country, medicaid insures seniors and pays for many senior services but also pays for many services for the poorest families and kids in this country. 24% of berths in this country -- births in this country are paid for by medicaid. that is a lot of really hurt people if you cut it$.3 trillion out of the medicaid system. cuts to the affordable care act. that means kicking people off of their insurance. $347 billion of cuts to things like tanf, which is assistance for the very, very poor kids in

this country, food programs that keep kids and families alive who can't afford food. i mean this is a draconian list of cuts. medicare, medicaid, the affordable care act, food programs, emergency assistance programs. none of these programs that are laid out in the arrington memo, none of the programs laid out in representative arrington's memo impacts billionaires in a meaningful way or millionaires in a meekful way. -- meaningful way.

just like usaid benefits regular people, making sure that their sons and daughters don't have to go off and fight a war just like the department of labor, the department of education protect regular people. are you seeing the story here? this agenda is about stealing money from the middle class and poor people and rerouting it to the billionaires, millionaires, and corporations. every part of this story, the shuttering of these agencies, the removal of the i.g.'s, the infiltration of the payment system, the requisition of american foreign policy by the billi billionaires, the reconciliation bill, it's all in service of the same thing -- taking power and

money from people in the middle and delivering it to the very, very wealthy. for what? what else does elon musk need? what more does somebody who makes $500 million need? why do they need another giant tax cut? why do they need to run our schools or the tsa? just to be able to pad their pockets. i mean, i don't begrudge anybody making money in this country. that's the genius of america, is that you get to get rich. if you have a good idea and you work hard. but i don't support the wholesale rapid transfer of money and resources from folks

in need and the middle class to folks that are already rich and don't need any more help. all we're talking about here is just a realtime shift. cutting medicare, medicaid, social security, shutting down agencies that help normal people, corrupting our foreign policy in order to deliver more money to people who are already billionaires? nobody wants that. so let me talk about the second goal here that i think is actually in some ways much more urgent. the second goal is to try to either suppress or shutter public dissent. because they know what they're doing is really unpopular.

cutting medicare and medicaid, the affordable care act, in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, that's not popular. it's very, very unpopular. repealing the affordable care act was and still is really unpopular. so how do you get away with that? how do you stay in power and win elections if you do things that are really unpopular. you rig the rules. you rig the rules. the before and after moment is january 6, 2021. i am still flabbergasted by the fact that the majority of republicans between the house and senate endorsed the idea that donald trump should still be president of the united states after he lost the election.

that was the majority position for republicans in congress, that donald trump had lost the election. they said he really won the election. they claim there was fraud. obviously there was not fraud. obviously there is no evidence that he lost the election -- that he won the election. he lost it by a landslide. he lost it by a landslide. it wasn't a million votes, a thousand votes. he lost it by a landslide. republicans said no, i don't care that he lost the election. i want president trump to stay in power. in many ways it is the most dangerous day in american politics since the end of the civil war because it was an admission by one major political party that they care more about power and keeping power permanently than they care about observing the will of the people. the people elected joe biden. the majority of republicans here said i don't care.

i want donald trump to stay in power, and i'm willing to do whatever it takes, including endorsing condoning violence in order to keep donald trump in power. that effort to try to destroy public dissent, to try to eradicate democracy as we know it so as to keep republicans and the trump family in power permanently has not disappeared. and i think it's important to talk about that. so as i mentioned before, the most significant thing that has happened in many ways in the last two weeks, something that was supported by this incoming

director of omb is the endorsement of political violence, the pardoning of the january 6 protesters. it's unforgivable what happened. it's unforgivable because the people that assaulted the capitol that day engaged in unspeakable violence. you know these stories. these rioters who came here with metal poles and beat police officers over the head. the rioter who dragged a capitol police officer by the neck into the crowd and held him down while his fellow rioters stomped on the police officer's body. the rioter who posted the night

before the revolution is coming, there will be blood. the scaffolding that was erected outside of the capitol, the chants of hang mike pence. the rioter went to the scaffolding after beating up police officers, after beating up police officers, and posted on social media too bad there's no democrats here. the police officers who died afterwards, the police officer who had a heart attack after being tased repeatedly by one prot protester. the rioter who walked around the capitol with zip ties apparently looking for any democrat to be able to seize, to kidnap, to tor torture. i was here inside this chamber. for my republican colleagues who remember that day as a day of

wayward tourists, none of my republican colleagues stayed here to welcome the tourists when they were beating down those doors. republicans ran just like democrats ran. i covered this before, and so i won't belabor it. but russ vought is really dangerous in part because he has been part of this effort to endorse political violence. and i don't know that we ever repair our nation from that transition away from a universal belief that only peaceful protest is acceptable in this country to a world today in which as long as you are engaged in political violence on behalf of the president, you can get away with it. i mentioned this before as well,

but the other component of this attempt to seize power and hold power permanently for republicans in the trump family is this attempt to try to control information. it's wild to me that this major information platform, twitter is now essentially being run out of the white house. it's amazing to me that president trump is proposing to spend taxpayer dollars to take a 50% ownership stake in tiktok. it's amazing to me that people like mark zuckerberg are making deals with the president in which apparently the company will get some favorable treatment from the administration in exchange for facebook stopping patrolling false content being posted by everybody, but including

supporters of the president. the bullying of the media, the deals that seem to be being cut are not unfamiliar to those of us that study the ways that democracies die. in democracies that vanish, it is often because the information systems get co-opted or controlled by the regime. we're not all the way there yet today. i admit, even though twitter is run by an ally of the president, i still post on twitter, and there's still people that see my criticisms of the president and elon musk. buff all it takes -- but all it takes is one tweak of though algorithms and all of a sudden content that opposes the president is depressed.

it isn't a coincidence that all the ceo's that were on stage at the inauguration, or the majority that were on stage at the inauguration run information companies. again, i've covered this before, but another way in which they depress descent is by stopping information from getting out to the public. the effort to fire the inspectors general, the effort to place gag orders on people who work at these agencies, that's just an effort to try to hide the bad behavior, hide the potential fraud so that folks who are organizing out there to oppose the president's agenda never get access to the infor information. second to the endorsement of political violence in, i think,

in order of urgency for us to talk about is the seizure of government funding. i talked about the seizure of government funding in the context of how it allows for corruption and how it allows for somebody like elon musk to send money to people he likes and deny money to people he doesn't like, how it allows them to unilaterally violate the laws that we've passed, hold back funding so that they can bank dollars to afford a tax cut or a tax cut for a set of individuals or a corporation. but it also suppresses political dissent in speech. and we saw this happen in realtime when those grants were all shut down, we had a hard time during that day to get information from grant recipients, because they were

afraid that if they went public, the grant would never be turned back on. and that fear has not completely dispated. it is very hard to get information from grant recipients even when their money has been turned back on because, again, they fear if they collaborate with democrats they will be a target to have their dollars turned back off. again, this is exactly why the founding fathers said a unitary executive, a single executive cannot and should not be in charge of who gets money and doesn't because they can use that money to reward friends and to punish enemies. and so we are still trying to understand the full scope of the president's compliance or

violation with the court orders. but it seems clear to us that there is an agenda here to protest money when it goes to places that don't align with the president's political priorities and let money go through when it goes to places that are lined up with the president's political priorities. i mentioned the most obvious example of that being the president's threat to shut down a high-speed rail grant to california, but his recipients. disinterest in that grant when it is going to another state that supports him like florida. the last very, very worrying development is what's happening inside our justice department right now. there is a rolling purge that is

happening right now. you are watching the fbi squeeze out anyone that was affiliated with the prosecution of the january 6 rioters. you are watching the firing of anybody that was associated with enforcement -- law enforcement actions against the president. and so the message is clear. if you're in law enforcement and you go after republicans or you go after donald trump's political interests, you are not going to have a job. that would be worrying in and of itself, but there is something else that is happening. and that is early threats of law enforcement against opponents of

the president. the new acting u.s. attorney in washington, d.c., sent a really interesting letter directly to elon musk. geb, elon musk -- again, elon musk is a private citizen, he can't pass a security clearance. but ed martin, the acting u.s. attorney for washington, d.c., sent a letter saying it was good to work with the doge team this weekend. we must keep all our american government employees safe, we must protect the american people's property. i recognize that some of the staff at doge have been targeted publicly. that's true. doge is apparently a public agency. if you are working for doge, you have accountability to the

public. we are having a conversation about doge, about elon musk and the people who work for him. he said i ask that you utilize me and my staff to protect the doge's work and the doge's workers. let me assure you of this, we will pursue legal action against anyone who impedes your work and threatens your people. let me read that again. let me assure you of this. we will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work and threatens your people. that's extraordinary. the political opposition in this country is allowed to try to impede the work of the majority party. we are allowed to publicly criticize the work of the majority ruling party. we are allowed to protest

outside buildings. woe are allowed to name individual government officials and criticize them for the actions that they have taken. but this letter from the u.s. attorney says that be assured we will pursue legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people. online, there are many critics of elon musk. the other night one of -- one of them targeted a critic of elon musk. and he tagged ed martin, the u.s. attorney in his tweet. he said i found one right here,

eagle ed martin, lots of stuff in his blue sky account as well. i'd look into him if i were you. he was looking to hurt elon musk. this is a pretty mainstream critic of elon musk and donald trump. he's not threatening to hurt anyone. he is a pretty regular critic of elon musk. that critic responds to this troll, and then guess who shows up posting, the u.s. attorney for washington, d.c. he responds to this mogatroll, thank you for the information. noted. that's extraordinary. that's a law enforcement issue with the power of arrest and imprisonment. posting on a thread that

includes a very loud visible contradict of the president and elon musk that he's watching him, he's watching him. coming on the heels of a letter that says, we will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people. even if this critic doesn't end up getting arrested because there is no claim that there is anything that he has done as far as i have seen that would ever rise to the level of an arrestable defense, he is just a critic of elon musk and donald trump, even if he never gets arrested, the chilling effect of a u.s. attorney telling critics online that i'm watching you, that is authoritarian stuff. and it has impact. because this particular

individual is not going to stop criticizing, but plenty of other people faced with a vague threat of federal investigation for their criticism of doge will stop doing it. and i wouldn't blame them for it. if i get threatened with imprisonment because i criticized the president, i won't stop. this particular activist will not stop. but it would be reasonable for many americans, if they were trolled by a u.s. attorney on their twitter feed being told, i'm watching you, it would be logical for them to stop criticizing, as it would be for the recipient of federal grants to stop criticizing the president because they worry if they do, their funding will be shut off, as it might be for any ordinary american to do knowing

now that elon musk has the ability to control whether they get a tax refund or not. democracies don't die in an instant. there isn't this minute when i did accept has been -- dissent has been crushed so badly that we don't have fair con tests in this country -- contests in this country. it is a slow rolling death. and why russ vought, to me, is so dangerous is that he helped write the document that is it the foundation of all of this attack on democracy that is happening. put it all together. information platforms agreeing

to the terms laid down by the president because they fear retribution by the president. political violence being endorsed and main streamed, people being told if you engage in violence to support the president's power you won't be held accountable. the message being sent inside law enforcement that you will lose your job if you pursue any law enforcement action against allies of the president and the message being sent to critics that you will be subject potentially to arrest, at the very least to harassment if you impede the work of the administration. some people will not stand down

fafd with -- faced with political veenls, faced with -- violence, faced with the cutoff of funds of their agency or organization, faced with the potential action of an unhinged proeshth, some -- proesht. some people -- prosecutor. some people will not be silent. in hungary, there are people who show up for protests, but not enough to topple the regime. a lot of people just stay home because they don't want to get on the wrong side of the government. because the government decides where the money goes and where it doesn't go. because they don't want to be subject to an arrest wasn't. we're not there yet. we weren't. -- we aren't. we aren't. but we have never had a series of developments like we have had over the past two weeks that

pose such a significant threat to our democracy. and so the reason we are on the floor tonight, the reason you feel this urgency from our side of the aisle and from the american public is that we used to think that we were in this together, republicans and democrats, but really we've always had a difference on this philosophy on where wealth and power accumulates. i think republicans believed in the trickledown, they have not believed as much in supporting the middle class with medicaid, medicare, and the affordable care act. and if that's what's going on, then the country will survive. but if there's a seizure of spending power by the president, if the president gets to decide by himself which agencies exist

and which don't, well, our democracy doesn't recover from that. because what goes around comes around. today it's a republican president seizing power, a democratic president will do it as well, and then all of a sudden the people aren't in charge, one person is in charge. i thought we were all in that exercise together, the defense of the constitution, the defense of congress's rightful prerogative to decide how money to spent on behalf of our constituents. what donald trump is doing is putting congress out of business. i think i heard senator schatz saying something like this as i walked in. i don't know why you work so hard to get a job like this if you're just going to outsource all of your power to one man. it's not easy to become a united

states senator. most people spend their entire career fight toing get this -- fighting to get this job. you kind of have to do like ugly, distasteful things like sitting in a room raising money for hours on end in order to become a united states senator. you have to give up all your weekends. you spend less time with your family. why go through all of that if you're comfortable with not being in charge of spending, of endorsing the violation of the constitution and the enshrinement of spending power in the hands of one person? there's really nothing left to do here. there's a lot less to do here if we don't decide how the taxpayer dollars are spent. but even more worrying to me is is that it seems like we are getting out of the bipartisan business of caring about

democratic norms. i am heartbroken, heartbroken that a lot of people that i like and respect on the republican side didn't stand up to the president when he pardoned the guys who entered this building and beat police officers over the head with polls. -- poles. i'm even more heartbroken that many of my republican colleagues endorsed it and i don't understand why my republican colleagues don't see the i was in which this seizure of power could be used for corruption, could be used so that the executive branch gets to shower favor on individuals and entities that are loyal to the administration while punishing individuals and entities that are not loyal to the administration.

i'm heart broken that my republican colleagues don't have a problem with what's happening at the doj and the fbi. if you're an fbi agent and you investigated the people who attacked the capitol, you shouldn't lose your job and we should all be outraged over that. not just because they were doing their job but also because they were investigating a legitimately illegal action. come on. we can't agree? that the storming of the capitol and destruction of the capitol and attacks on police officers are out of bounds? political violence is a real thing. we have had colleagues on both sides of the aisle that have been irreparably injured by would-be assassins from steve

scalise to gabby giffords. just telling you the temperature rose in this country when all of those rioters were let off the h hook. so this is really important that we raise the alarm as to what is happening in this country. you need to pay attention to the things that matter and you need to understand the story. that story is about the wholesale transfer of power and wealth from afternoon people to the billionaires and the millionaires. that story is about the destruction of democratic norms in a way that may be irreversible if not abated in the next few weeks or months. russ vought is the architect of those plans to erode our democracy and to transfer wealth to the very powerful. he does not deserve to be the

director of the office of budget and management. and i am very glad and proud of my colleagues for being on the floor all night to raise those concerns. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. a senator: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank you. i want to thank all the folks on the floor from the parliamentarian's office, the floor clerks for spending the night on this important effort. mr. welch: i want to thank you and your colleagues for occupying the chair, something i had the privilege of doing for the last two years. i want to thank my colleagues, particularly senator murphy, who is working the night shift along with senator schatz. and i share the concerns that i've heard senator murphy express about the peril of our

democracy and the peril of the people that all of us represent. you know, my view here is that january 6 is not over. i was here that day, as i know you were, mr. president, and senator murphy was. and i remember taking a walk in the morning from the capitol right here down past the ellipse where the president later that day spoke to the washington monument and then down to lincoln memorial. and i didn't have a sense of dread or anticipation of what ultimately happened that day. there were lots of people here who were supporters of president trump. i was looking at them as american citizens. i was nervous a little bit about the signs that were so

aggressive, hang mike pence, seeing the gallows put up outside the capitol, seeing the signs about killing nancy pelosi. but i had an assumption that i think all of us had is that it would be peaceful and orderly and i never ever anticipated that there would be a direct attack by a mob on the capitol. and i don't think any of us were. on the other hand, my walk had ended before the then-president trump in his last days of office, he had 14 more days, had his rally at the ellipse and encouraged people, invited them to come here and go wild. he said that he won the election. he had feverish activity in a number of states to try to assert that it was false

electors. he filed -- i don't know -- 60 or 70 lawsuits and they were all set aside i think except one on a minor technicality. the courts defended the outcome the election. there was never any evidence that there was significant fraud that in any way affected the outcome of the election. that's not me saying it. that was then-attorney general barr coming to the conclusion that there was no evidence whatsoever that there was widespread fraud or any kind of fraud that was substantial enough to affect the outcome of the election. so you had 67, maybe 70 courts that rejected all the arguments that the trump team made. you had his own attorney general reject it. but despite that, you had

intense efforts on the part of president trump to convince people that he won when he lost. and it got so extreme that he got on the phone with the secretary of state of georgia and asked them to find him 11,000-plus votes to reverse the outcome the election. he actually asked the secretary of state to completely violate his oath of office and, quote, find me the votes. you just don't do that when your job more than anything else is the president of the united states, is to respect the process of the citizens voting for who the next president will be. and that didn't stop after january 6. when he got feverish calls from highly respected leaders here in the capitol, mr. president,

you've got to do something, that was after the invasion of the senate. when vice president pence was actually in quite a bit of danger and the stories are told that when the president was told that at the white house, he said basically why do i care. and that attitude persisted. it just went on and on and on. and while the president was in the white house watching tv, watching things unfold and there was incredible violence here, many of us were in the building and i was. i'll tell that story. i was in the house and i was in the gallery. the reason i was in the gallery as opposed to on the floor, of course that was covid so there was social distancing so we were doing our business both on the floor and the gallery. the gallery is probably the worst place to be in some ways because you couldn't get in and

out with any kind of ease. and what i so vividly remember was a couple of things. one, we had the speaker in the ch chair, and we had no idea what was going on outside. it was on tv apparently. but we didn't have -- we weren't watching it. we were watching the floor activities. and suddenly, the speaker was interrupted when a capital police officer came on -- capitol police officer came on the floor and interrupted and shouted that the capitol was under siege. and we were to stay in place and that we were to take out the gas mask, breathing apparatus that

were under the chairs and get ready to put those on. now, one of the things we still have in the senate and we had in the house was a sense of decorum. and there might be in a fierce debate some talking over one another on occasion. but the chair was always the person who was in charge. and suddenly we had a police officer literally interrupting the proceedings of the house of representatives. and i just thought to myself, how is this happening. and of course he told us that we were under attack. we didn't know what that meant. i had taken that walk, a calm-hour -- couple-hour walk early in the morning and i saw a lot of aggressive activity but i thought it was peaceful. by the way the one thing that i

did see that didn't mean all that much at the moment but meaned a lot to me after all -- meant a lot to in me after all the events unfolded, there were three groups of people marching in military formation, and they were singing anthems which were pretty vulgar about what to do to nancy pelosi. but they were in a military lockstep. it was all civilians or so i thought. but it was a formation that i later in the videos saw was used to overwhelm the capitol police who were at the gates, the racks that were surrounding the capitol. all very, very premeditated and practiced. it was a military kind of formation. so when we were in the -- going

back to the -- going back to the gallery, we were all mystified what to do. we were apprehensive, obviously. and right after that officer spoke, i saw a couple of other capitol police come to the leaders, speaker pelosi, majority leader hoyer. i was watching that side of the room and leader mccarthy as well were just whisked out. they were just taken out. and then it was just silence. because the mob that ultimately attacked the house side had to get from this side of the capitol to the senate side over there. and we watched and waited and one of the things -- and then we try to go back in session and congressman mcgovern took the

chair and tried to proceed. and i think part of it was that even though the police officer had told us that the capitol was under attack, we wanted to get our job done. it was january # -- january 6. we had to certify the election. it's an easy job. our job is not to debate the election. it's to validate the vote of the citizens that we represent so that their will will be officially recorded and the person that the people of this country in all our 50 states elected will be certified. very, very simple. and as mr. mcgovern was attempting to proceed, there was more and more alarm. and i watched as our security staff began taking heavy

furniture and putting it up as a barricade against the doors, and the doors i'm talking about are the iconic doors where the president of the united states is escorted to the well of the house to give an address to a joint session of congress with the great ceremony and tradition that we have, is escorted over by the sergeant at arms who announces with great fanfare, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. well, those doors are barricade ed. and at this point we all began to hear battering at the doors, those very doors, banging and banging and battering. and then i saw something else i'd never seen.

i saw our security staff with guns out. i'd never seen that. and the banging on the door and then eventually the shattering of glass on these doors on the house side that are right over there, the comparable ones, and i saw this pole coming through the door itself where the person with the pole had managed to shatter that glass. and there were a number of us up there in the house, and all of us had different levels of fear. one of the fears that i think a lot of us had is this is possibly a mass shooting event. all of us know the tragedy of modern life in this country is that there are mass shooting --

mass shooting events are all too common. but this is one of the most vivid memories i have. i was standing there and having no idea what was going to happen, but seeing that the police had their firearms out and hearing the glass shatter. and as i was looking at this, i was feeling actually personally fearful as we all were. i had another feeling. there was even more -- that was even more dominant than my apprehension about our safety. it was disbelief. even as i was watching, even as was experiencing this attack, the breaking of glass, the back banging on the doors, the security folks pulling guns out,

i dvent believe that it was happening. i didn't believe it. and the reason i didn't believe it is that this is the united states of america. we have been able to enjoy something that apparently we took for granted for 250 years, and that's the peaceful transfer of power. that's the renunciation of violence as a means of affecting the outcome of election. it was shattered that day on january 6. so, of course later we found out that there was a huge mob outside and they did an immense amount of damage i. know they came over here and ransacked the

senate and some of the offices, including the parliamentarian. we had police officers who died. we had many of our capitol police injured. i want to just talk about one police officer who was in the capitol with me. it was a young man who is probably about 35, and i had been talking to him a little bit. he had two kids. he commuted in to work, and as many of the folks who work here, they can't live close by. it's too expensive. they work hard, but it's a tough grind. you've got to commute maybe an hour in heavy traffic coming in, coming out, especially the folks with a young family. and he was literally standing over me when i was on the floor, with his gun out. as you know, in the gallery, it's like in the senate

chambers. there are all these doors around the gallery. they were not all secure, although we did have some capitol police up there. and the apprehension all of us had at that point was there was going to be a mob coming through those doors and attacking us directly. and this officer, young man, had his weapon out, and he was intently surveilling. and i could just see, or maybe i'm imagining what was going through his mind. the last thing in the world he wanted to do, the last thing was to have to use that weapon a fellow citizen who was in the cap capitol. and i'm sure for all kinds of reasons. just think of the responsibility

one has if their job is to protect members of congress and the staff, and in the doing of that job you actually have to make a decision to use your side arm, and how traumatic that would be for the officer if he in fact had to do it. this person who has a family, who's working hard, whose partner is expecting him home in a matter of hours. maybe he's going to pick up the milk or pick up his kid at school on the way home. i mean, all the activities of everyday life, that's what is important to all of us. but what i could see is that as horrible as it would be for him to have to take that action, if that's what was required -- and in my case i was the one he was

protecting -- he did not want to do it. but i could just see he was determined to do whatever was required to protect us. that's the point where i really got disgusted with the people who were attack ing, because i was wondering how is it -- i get it. you think your guy won and you're over the top here. you're actually showing up at the capitol. some were violent. a lot were really violent. others were less so, but they obviously were part of the mob scene here. but what disturbed me was the lack of capacity on the part of the folks attacking the capitol to experience or empathize or see the impact that their

actions were having on everyday americans. not us in congress. they don't like us. they don't think we represent them. i get that. but what i don't understand is h how, a grievance you may have against members of congress on that day, or the vice president or the actors who were going to actually do the certification, how you would allow yourself to be part of a group that did such h harm. in this case, that officer who was standing over me, to put him in such jeopardy, to cause him such anguish and trauma. there's just no justification. we have an obligation to one another, as passionate as we may be about a political concern that we have, doesn't justify just treating with enormous

disrespect, with physical violence people who just aren't involved in it. just collateral damage. and then to think that while this was going on, president trump was watching tv, and he was getting frantic calls from people like kevin mc, the leader, and others. stop this. it's out of hand. you've got to call them off. he wouldn't do it. he wouldn't do it. that was a dark day, and it's not over. january 6 was the first time in our history where there was a mob attack like that on the capitol by a group inspired by the president of the united states, where the purpose was to

stop the it's really clerical administrative process of certifying -- not electing, but certifying the victor of the election for president of the united states. and what the president's team had done was cooked up a bunch of theories, all of which were dismissed by the court, to make it a case that the lech tors should be re -- electors should be rejected and substitute electors provided to get an outcome that the person who lost the election wanted in order to claim that he won the election. but the fact that the president of the united states, who is the custodian really and the one most representative of the whole people of the united states and the need and importance of us

having traditional commitment to the peaceful transfer of power was rejecting that and encouraging people to act against that tradition. and he did an effective job in persuading a lot of people who supported him. in fact, many of the folks who came on january 6 later testified that they were, they thought the president wanted him here and they believed the president when he said the election was stolen. there's an immense amount of power in that office, in the person of donald trump. so a lot of people who came here thought they were doing patriotic work. and then, of course, the senate and the house reconvened and we did certify the election. but the dispute continued.

many in this house and many in the senate voted against certif certification, in my view, without any justification whatsoever. but there was enormous turmoil among people of our country because a lot of folks did believe, inspired by president trump's assertions, that the election was, quote, rigged. and then of course after the certification and even the swearing in of president biden, the continuing assertion by president trump was that the election was stolen. he never stopped that narrative. and i'm not enough of a historian enough to know if what happened on january 20 with respect to the inauguration was unique, but president trump did not show up. he did not sit on the dais.

and the tradition we had of course in this country as part of the peaceful transfer of power is that the outgoing president does sit on the dais and acknowledge the arrival of the new president elected by the people. and it's a wonderful ceremony because it reminds us that the power that the president has is derived from the will of the people. and it's temporary. it's while that person is in office. they hold the power of that office until they don't. so i've been to a few inaugurations, and the only one i've been to where the outgoing president wasn't there was that one. another thing so incredible, the first inauguration i went to was in 2008. of course that was george bush,

a transfer of power to barack obama. and the ceremony that i remember most vividly was not what happened on the dais in the taking of the oath by president ob obama. it was after. the president takes his oath. following that, he comes in to the building, the capitol, and there's a dinner with legislative leaders and others, the guests of the president. and a lot of fanfare. a lot of people around. but after all that happens, on the east steps the president and first lady, the vice president and the second lady at that time walk down the steps just themselves, and on each step is

a uniformed military person from each one of the service branches. and there's not people out there. there's some press far away so they can record this. but my wife margaret and i were out there watching, and i got a pretty good view because i was a member of congress then. they had the ceremony where the branches of the military, each of them, wears a uniform that goes back to when that branch of the service was originated. and they have a solemn parade pass the president, the newly elected president. he's been president for an hour or two hours. and it's a beautiful thing to see military march when they do it in formation. each branch comes by, and as they get right across from the president who may be 100 feet

away, they all turn and salute. and i just thought this is a miracle that we have a country where at 11:59 a.m., all of those people who just marched by, their allegiance was to the then-president, president bush. and at 12:01, their allegiance is to the newly elected president, at that time president obama. and what is so moving to me is the power of this democracy that we have, where these magnificent wonderful people who serve in the military, who make this choice to serve respect the constitutional order that ultimately the power belongs to

the people. the person they elect is the commander in chief, and their allegiance is not just to that person, that newly elected president, it's to the constitutional right that the people are in charge. not a military. we take it for granted here because it's been there since george washington. that's not the magnificent. works in so many parts of the world. many times the military steps in and they take over, but this incredibly durable strength of our democracy where it's civilian control of the military is a testament, and i witnessed that then and i witnessed it again in the inauguration of

president trump, although that parade, because of the weather, had to be downstairs in the capitol visitors center. but what made that happen? what made that happen is not just that the military has that respect for the constitution, they certainly do. but because all of our leaders, all of our elected presidents understood that there was a tradition we had here that was absolutely vital to maintain and preserve and that's the peaceful transfer of power. that's to accept the outcome of an election and we've had close elections. that one wasn't a particularly close election. you know just think of bush v. gore, it came down to a few hanging chads, vice president

gore accepted the outcome of the election, including the role that the court played in that. so we've had -- and there's ee normures heartache for the -- and there's enormous heartache for the losing side. but what all of us have experienced is the pain of defeat, maybe not all of us, most of us, and if you haven't experienced it yet, it's waiting for you. sometimes it can be an ambition that's thwarted, sometimes it can be your health that's compromised. but if we're fortunate, then we understand you get a setback, you lose, you pick yourself up and dust yourself off and go

back. i have lost two elections, and it is a big deal, when you put yourself out, whether it's running for office or trying to get a job, you know, and you get set back, it's universal. in politics it's not so much about you losing an election, what's really critical is that we don't lose our democracy. and each of us has an obligation when we win or when we lose to move on, and if we lost, we get a chance to fight another day. and that's what we all knew. you know, you lose an election, democrats lose, republicans lose, you come back, run again, your party runs again, and you've got a shot to get the support of the american people. january 6 shattered that. and the lingering effects of

january 6 are still here. because, as we know, president trump never acknowledged that he lost that election and joe biden won, and a big part of his comeback was a continuation of, quote, the big steal. and it's really a danger to our democracy that now, emboldened by his win, and i won, okay. he won the popular vote this time, he won the electoral vote. he boasted it was a landslide is totally false, it was about a margin and a half, a

lincolnesque kind of president but acknowledged the-offs -- the obvious. it was a close call for the american people that he won, but his job is to represent everybody, whether they voted for him or not. and i think all of us in the senate, mr. president, if we won, we're here, we're really happy that we got the approval of the people we represent. but i think all of us know whether people voted for us or not, i have an obligation for everybody in vermont as you do to everybody in wyoming. they have a right to be heard. and what we're getting, i think, is a version of leadership at this point that rejects that. so where we are now is very regrettable. is we've got an administration

that is talking about going after people they perceive as political adversaries. and that will have real effects. you know, we had hearings about the judiciary, mr. president, on the finance committee, in the judiciary committee we heard from pam bondi, the nominee and now attorney general, and kash patel, we haven't voted on yet, and pam bondi, i was quite impressed with her. the county she grew up in in florida and had the gumption to run in the third largest state in our country and ran to be attorney general and won. but one of the questions she was

asked and mr. patel was asked and others were asked, who won the election in 2020. and president trump cannot tolerate anyone acknowledging that biden won. so the standard answer now that they go through in their preparation for the hearings is that president biden was the president or he was certified, but they can't say, because it would infuriate president trump, that he lost or that the other guy won. now, why is that so worrisome to me? because it's a continuation of the denial of the decision the american people made, and it's an indication of the demand of fealty that the president is imposing on people who are going to be in very important positions.

law enforcement, where an attorney general and fbi director have enormous power to prosecute and where aggression is a good quality, you want to be ambitious and hard and work hard for the american people and bring law and justice, but restraint is also extraordinarily important in those positions, because the power to bring to prosecution a person is the power to ruin the life of a person. so there has to be caution and restraint in folks who have that awesome power. and my take on the insistence by the president on an individual that's going to serve him not acknowledge who won the 2020 election is an indication that first and foremost the president is demanding fealty to him as opposed to fealty to the

constitution. now, we're in the first whirlwind weeks of after new presidency, and i'm alarmed. i'm alarmed at what appears to be a disregard for the law on the part of president trump. number one, the order of -- the order the president sent out impounding money appropriated by congress is a direct challenge to the institutional responsibility and authority of the united states senate and the united states congress. under our constitution, article 1, congress has the power of the

purse. congress decides how to raise money, the congress decides how to spend money. we had a president in the past who tried to end run that and tried to take away the power that congress has and that of course was president nixon and the court found what he did illegal and congress passed the impoundment act to prohibit the president from doing that. although, allowing a president to come before congress to seek a revision. that's the way we do it. this impoundment act cut across all levels of government and com completely rejected the authority of congress. now, some people may not care about that.

let the president sdief. so -- decide. so why is it really important? just as the peaceful transfer of power has been the hallmark of our democracy and served us well, the system of checks and balances, of three branches of government he could equal where ambition is challenged by ambition, in the words of one of our great legal philosophers, and what that meant is that you have an ambitious executive, that's fine, and you have an ambitious congress where its role is to stand up for the people we represent if there's an overreach of executive authority. so we've got the three branches and there's a tug of war oftentimes. but the last thing in the world any of us can do, in my view, as

united states senators is to abdicate our responsibility under the constitution to be a separate branch of government. that's -- for me that would be a violation of my oath. and where you have a direct challenge by the executive is you did with the impoundment act that memo that the president sent out basically picking and choosing which appropriations he's okay with and which he isn't, that's a direct challenge to the authority of the congress. as i say, this is not about us indi individually needing authority, it's about good governance, it's about the constitutional principles of how as a large and diverse country we navigate the political questions that have to

be addressed in every generation, questions about war and peace, that we do everything that is within our power to protect that separation of powers and stand up for the institutional responsibilities of the united states senate. you know, that -- the other aspect is that's very disturbing to me is reminisce enter of my -- reminiscent of my experience in the gallery of the police officer, that young man who wanted to go home to his family and who is now in enormous jeopardy, if not physically the trauma of what he had to experience and what may have been required of him to do, there's a kind of callousness to

that on the part of the attackers where he's just erased. his feelings don't matter. whether he gets home with the milk that he promised to bring, whether he gets there to pick up his child at soccer, it doesn't matter to them. what reminds me of that is the impact of this impoundment and what it did to every day people. and of course i'm talking about the impoundment but also i'm talking about the letter that went out to people working in countries like mau -- working in rwanda, ethiopia, they're providing food to people who are starving, and providing vaccines to people who may be sick.

they're teaching young girls -- i was it in malai, and this yearning girl, she was -- this young girl, she was about 12 years old, and she went up to senator murray and she just thanked her that there was -- there was a school she could go to, but then you open up your e-mail andsthis an e-mail -- and there's an e-mail that says you're not longer working, you're done. this person, this usaid person whose life is to serve, that's why they're in usaid, that's why they're in usaid, they get gratification from serving. you take that away from them but then think about that young girl who threw her arms around

senator murray and is thrilled. here she is in malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. and she is thrilled that she's reading, that she is thinking maybe i could be a doctor. she's thinking that she can have a big life and be independent and that teacher who has been showing up for the past several months doesn't appear. and there's no explanation to her. that's happened in country after country after country and aid project after aid project after aid project. so there's a cruelty here that's just -- it's just bad for us. that's not how we treat one another, no matter how much we disagree on politics. so that's what -- that actually

makes me sad about what's happening. you know, there's really large issues here that affect us. i was listening to senator mu murphy, and i thought he made some really terrific points about our democracy, about what dynamic is happening here with this new administration, about the wealth transfers that's happening -- transfer that's happening. i'll give president trump this. he did tap into a lot of heartache and a lot of anxiety and a lot of concern that people around the country had. they didn't like the way things were going and they felt i think economically they weren't getting ahead despite working really hard. i think that's something that he

tapped into and i think to some extent we democrats did not do the job on the securing of the southern border. and as much as we did with many of the initiatives, economic initiatives of the last administration, there's a reality that confronts all of us, republicans and democrats, that if you're a young family and you're trying to buy a house that's out of reach, the health care you used to be able to count on is getting incredibly expensive, the cost of child care for young families, it's like going to college. these things are really tough on people. and we've got to address them. but those challenges that i just ment mentioned, they're in

all-america. it's not like that's just red america or blue america. you talk to a family in vermont, you talk to a family probably in wyoming or idaho or ohio, the challenges they face are very similar. and what that suggests to me, mr. president, is that the problems that we face and the people we represent face, those are real. and in a campaign we can argue about who has the better prescription to address them, and you won that campaign last time. you did. by the way, i can say donald trump won the election. i don't like to say it but i can say it, and i should say it because he did. but now is a time where the focus we have together should be to try to solve those problems to make life better for everyday people in your state and in

mine. but if you listen to the inaugural speech of president trump, i didn't hear any words about housing. i didn't hear any words about child care. i didn't hear any words about clean air. i didn't hear any words about strengthening rural hospitals, all those things that we share in common and are real challenges. they weren't talked about. the big emphasis was on these tax cuts and those tax cuts will help some everyday people, some of them but an immense amount of the allocation of those tax cuts are going to go to folks who are

doing really well and our corporations that are doing really well. and those tax cuts are going to come and be paid for by cutting into some of the services the government provides through the private sector oftentimes to the citizens in every one of our states. senator murphy went through a lot of those. the house has now taken the lead on this tax bill. they're trying to come up with ways to cut the spending in order to pay for the tax cuts. medicare is in jeopardy. medicaid is in jeopardy. chide care to the extent we help is in jeopardy. so there's a real wealth transfer that has been built into this major agenda item. the other aspect of this that is

disturbing to me is just the impact it has on people in vermont. and there's a lot of turmoil for our businesses and for our service providers. let me just talk about some of the effects of these ak across-the-board cuts that the president is talking about and how it would affect vermont. we had freeze funding for head start. that's about 12 hu kids in -- 1200 kids in vermont. it's poor kids oftentimes don't have the nutrition they need and a lot of these kids with the benefit of head start go on to become very successful people. a freeze in funding for community health centers.

when the administration sent out that direct ive saying -- reall just freezing funding, one of the community health centers we have is the wells river health center, community health center. and i was talking to the director. and they provide health care for people in the -- what we call the northeast kingdom and it's a very low-income part of our state. very, very hardworking and proud people. and they have an operating cash margin of like zero to five days. so when the funding is cut off and of course the website to get payments through the website, to find out what's going on was closed down just unilaterally. something mr. vought thinks is a good idea. when that happened, the director

was in an incredible bind. he had workers who were showing up. he had moms who were bringing their kids in for a dental appointment they'd been trying to get for seven months. he had support staff that had been working there for years and with this directive, they couldn't pay the bills. i'm not even quite sure what their status is right now, but that directive imposed on the director of the program, this horrible decision where he had no capacity to have any confidence whatsoever that you can meet payroll. why would you do that? if you have a plan where you say hey, we're spending too much money, we've got to figure out how to tighten our belts and then you take some time to have

a plan. there's some consultation with the agency and the people who are affected, that's a responsible way to proceed. but just a bolt out of the blue. you open up your in box and you're told you're shutting down and then the ripple effects that has in a community. then of course people who work there have to make their plans because they can't wait indefinitely to get the decision as to whether they will or won't have a job, whether the community health center will stay open or it will close. there's a lot of destruction that goes into an action that the administration took with that. we had a couple of roundtables because people were really, really stressed, calling all of our offices. and we're a small state like you are, mr. president. and one of the privileges that i

think you and i both have is being a senator in a small state, we really get to know an awful lot of the people we represent. i know i've talked to you about this and the great joy we get is in that interaction with the folks we represent. and that's whether we agree with them or not, whether they voted for us or not. but it also makes it a little more painful because it's very real. it's not abstract. so i just tell a few stories about some of the vermonters that got affected. sarah robinson with the vermont network against sexual and domestic violence. she said, federal funding in vermont supports emergency shelter and hotline services for victims of domestic and sexual violence. they get a call in the middle of the night, a woman who is getting battered and they respond. they have a network of volunteers that go out and they'll help -- they'll bring that woman to safety and they'll have a safehouse for her. that's a pretty amazing service. and suddenly that's cut off.

annie bartter from little rivers health care center. that's the one i was talking about earlier in wells river. he said this has been a week like none other, the threatening continuation and operations that has dearly affected the safety of our patients. you get these local institutions, they're so important to everyday peep. you count on -- everyday people. you count on being able to bring your daughter, your son to the doctor and somebody you know. i mean again, mr. president, i have such respect for you and admiration in your career as a physician and the healing that you do. i know the joy you get in that service. but suddenly we've got doctors who have that same ethic that you have in vermont. and suddenly the people that depended on them can't go there.

vermont state representative kate logan works at elevate said, our agencies are serving 78 young people, youth. if they don't get the resources, they're not going to be able to continue the services. and this is about housing and homelessness. and of course that problem in vermont like in all of our states has increased very, very significantly. sinali, u.s. committee for refugees and immigrants said we have 79 families in temporary housing. this is very challenging for us. we don't have the funds, and it's a public safety issue because there's openlessness and we -- homelessness and we don't have the funds to go on paying the rents. this is not new funds they're seeking. this is the funds that they've been authorized and have

committed and boom, out of nowhere they're told they're out of business. karen price, vermont family network. she said the executive order and memo has thrown all of our funding we rely on into disarray. we suspended all of our planned activities. we talked about furloughing our employees. cash flow for nonprofit like the family network is tight. we can't sustain a prolonged nonreceipt of funding. every day since tuesday has been filled with anxiety and uncertainty. steve from resonance, they do a lot of work for usaid. he told me 70% of our work is with the usaid and the state department. before the secretary of state's and secretary of state marco

rubio's stop work order, 62 of those have now been laid off. this is in the in box. you're not working anymore. it's no different than if we went home tonight, each one of us, had a nice meal with our fa family, went to bed looking forward to resting and getting up and facing today. got up and boom, in the in box were told don't show up for work. resonance. so the two features i've seen so far in this administration is a continuation of the january 6 ethics, is to disrar the law and -- disregard the law and casual infliction of cruelty on everyday americans who want to

keep doing the job they have and do the work that needs to be done. mr. president, i yield the balance of my time. a senator: mr. president, thank you for being here. thank you to the floor staff, to the clerk the -- ms. slotkin: the entire capitol team who have been here overnight. this is actually my first time that i've ever spoke on the floor. i'm a freshman senator, newly elected from the state of michigan. i did not anticipate doing my maiden speech so quickly and in reaction to what is going on right now in the country. they tell us that the maiden speech is something you think about and you build up to it and in the first three or four

months you give your speech, and i find myself here early if the morning participating in an attempt to stand up on behalf of something very, very simple, which is the u.s. constitution. before i was a senator, i was a dedicated career public servant. i was a cia officer. i'm what's called a 9/11 baby, i happened to be in new york city on my second day of graduate school when 9/11 happened. it changed my life. i got recruited by the cia out of grad school and wayne year i was -- within a year i was on my first tour of iraq. i worked at the cia, at the pentagon and worked proudly for both democratic and republican administrations. i was detailed to the george w. bush white house. i was there the friday he left office and the monday when barack obama walked in.

i did the same job for two different parties. i briefed the president and other senior officials on the most serious national security issues. i eventually went on to be nominated to be an assistant secretary of defense. i was at the pentagon for seven years and that's where i was until 2017. in 2018, i decided to run for congress. this was never a body i was looking to be a part of. when you grow up in the national security world briefing congress, doing hearings, you're not often looking to be a part of this body, but, to me, it was important to get in the fight for the country that i love and in 2018 i won my first race for congress and then just most recently won my race for the senate. i am very keenly aware that i won as a democrat on the same ballot as donald trump. right. so that means the very

independently minded voters of michigan voted for donald trump and elissa slotkin on the same ballot. that gives me a specific mandate. that means where ever i can, i will look for places we can work together, veterans' issues, broadband internet, agriculture. but i think every day my challenge is going to be to figure out what are the things i have to compromise on and what are the things i should never compromise on. and in my short 30 days here, what is clearer and clearer to me are the issues i should never compromise on go to the heart of who we are as a people, that's our constitution, democracy and our rights. and i think there's going to be plenty of areas where i can overlap with trump policies, right? the auto industry, you know, agriculture, dealing with china. i think there's going to be

overlap. but what has disturbed me the most in my first month here, 30 days on the job, the willingness of the people in this city, in this body to roll over as the constitution, our most sacred document is pushed aside. you know, we are here all night because of the nomination of a guy that probably most people in michigan have never heard of, russell vought. he is potentially to run an agency that probably most people have never heard of, office of management and budget. but what they don't know about this wonky side of washington they felt last week. they felt it. for the first time the trump administration reversed something they did in the first two weeks. why did they do that? they reversed themselves on a full federal freeze of all funding. the trump administration froez every single dollar that was

going out across the country, not for a future budget for money that had already been appropriated by this body, by people who sit in this room, by people who have been here for 30 years. and, again, that might not have really caught much notice in a place like michigan except for the fact that that money had already been planned for and in use by thousands upon thousands of organizations and people. so we heard an unprecedented number of calls in my office. i think we had 5,000 calls come into our office when that funding freeze went into place. we heard from people in law enforcement. i had deputy sefrs in my office -- sheriffs in my office saying, hey, we get a chunk of money to pursue sexual assault cases, we hire disputes with that money -- deputies with that money, do i need to fire deputies or let them go?

we heard from cancer researchers and scientists who said i'm trying to -- im -- i got a call from a doctor at the national institutes of health, pediatric oncologist, who does critical trials for sick children, and said i don't know if i can continue my trial or not. we heard from head start, we heard from our superintendents. we heard from democrats and republican. this is not partisan. these are people who had a budget and serving the people of michigan and now who couldn't receive their money. we organized a very quick zoom. we had 1,000rsvp -- 1,0 1,000 rsvp's, while there were questions about these agencies

and organization could do, it spoke to a bigger issue and that is who gets to decide how to appropriate money and who doesn't. luckily we have a very easy guide for this. you just have to read the constitution of the united states and the division of powers. it made this body a coequal branch of government and said that money appropriated by this body must be spent in that way. the reason i bring this up, first, the trump administration, again, reversed themselves in less than 48 hours because they don't like being unpopular. they don't like when people in places like michigan are unhappy with them, democrat, independent, republican. but mr. vought, russell vought, who is up in the -- for the nominee for the agency that spends the money that puts it out into the world. he has said very clearly that he does not believe that this branch of government is as the founders intended able to

appropriate money for a specific reason, that the president of the united states can actually decide how to spend it. i had the opportunity to personally question mr. vought. i'm on the homeland security commission. he came in front of our committee, and i don't care that he's been in washington for 25-plus years, that he's, you know, boroughing himself in in think tanks and has very specific washington, d.c., ideas about things, i don't care about that. what i care about and the one fundamental question is, will you uphold the constitution. you're going to swear an oath. every person who is sworn in swears an oath to the constitution, i have taken it many times, many in this room have taken it. you do not swear an oath to protect and defend any one president, any one king, you protect the constitution, and he could not a particular rate that -- articulate that if he was asked to do something that

he would push back. this is a small soda straw issue on a bigger trend that is happening in the first couple of weeks that president trump has been in office. i do not question that president trump won the election. i do not question that he and his administration have the right to nominate their own people and to create a forward-looking budget. i don't question that they will put out policies that i will fundamentallily disagree -- fundamentally disagree with. that doesn't matter. the only thing that matters that any administration upholds the constitution. because if not, what are we? what are we doing here? i certainly don't know what my colleagues across the aisle are doing in this body if they're not interested in being a coequal branch of government, right? and i understand. you can have those conversations in private. i understand people are

concerned about sticking their next out. we have a culture of fear that is dominating washington right now. but, to me, it is important to stand up for the very core things that make us americans. now, we all know that we're going through something as a country right now. that's not hidden from anyone, no matter what your political affiliation, right? we are going through turmoil. we're pendulum swinging between parties, just looking going from bush to obama to trump to biden to trump again, we policies every four years and then the next president comes in and undoes them. that is not normally our tradition, the tradition is administrationshave -- administrations have policies, but they done radically swing. we have a state like michigan where we are purple, we have political views that differ

within families, thanksgiving dinners have become uncomfortable in the state of michigan. we understand that there is something going on that is just different from the united states of america. so how do we understand what's going on? for me, you know, i'm aware that next year we will celebrate our 250th anniversary as a country. while that seems like a long time on some scales, in the scale of human history that's not a long time. we're a pretty young country. i personally believe we are going through our teenaged years, right? we all know what it's like to have a teenager who can't make up their mind who is angry, happy, sad, excited, who's turning against their own family and friends and then wants a hug from those family and friends. we know what it's like to deal with a teenager. what do you do with a teenager who's making themselves at risk? who's putting themselves at risk with their behavior?

you just try to get them through alive. you try to get them through those teenage years, out the other side, when they sort of settle, have a bit more maturity and can say, i'm going to think clearly about what's important in my life. so that's what i see our job as senior elected leaders in the united states. there's 100 of us. we have the responsibility to see our country that we love through this period in our history, through our teenage years. and how do we come out alive? what does it mean for our country to surveillance camera vooif -- we -- to survive. we have to believe in our constitution. we can't take a side because we like one politician over the other. i understand president trump was elected with a mandate to bring in disruptors to the government.

my colleagues said, he's dit -- disrupting. i don't question that. what i can't understand is the willingness to say that i'm willing to violate or bend the rules of the constitution in order to for my own party to win. now, i would say last week, after we saw the reversal of the funding freeze, it got a lot of people's attention, veterans' groups, universities, people of both parties, my mayors were screaming from the rooftops. it woke people up to an issue maybe they don't think about all that often. and since then, we heard incredible stories of people and what it would mean to the average person if this funding didn't come through, right? things like the great lakes restoration initiative, just caring for our great lakes which is one of the most bipartisan

things in the state of michigan. we heard about chronic disease prevention, again, veterans' programs, opioid treatment, all kinds of things, rural health programs. and then we heard about the things that were connected to national security, right? this is the thing that i think people don't understand. you know, we're having this conversation about federal funding, it can seem far akwai. but when you yank federal funding that's already been built into local budget, that's already been built into national security agency budgets, you're literally putting people at greater risk. these things have consequences. i think the other pieces that we're seeing that to me are hard to process are things like the sort of across-the-board pushing out of people in the civil service, right? and i say this as a former civil

servant. what's going on at the fbi, what's going on now at the cia, at the director of national intelligence office, nsa. i'm a former intelligence officer and i understand what people do every single day in the dead of night when no one is watching to protect us. and again, as someone who is in the federal government, i will be the first one to say that there is fat on the bone. i will be the first one to say that when i was a boss in the federal government, i couldn't fire people who deserved to be fired as easily as i wanted to. that's to me not a question. and i actually don't have a problem with a group taking a hard look at cutting back federal government and the different departments and agencies. i think what i take issue with is the complete lack of strategy or even understanding of what those across-the-board slices are going to do to the afternoon security -- to the average

security of someone on the ground in michigan. when those proposals first came out, the letters saying you can leave the government -- first of all, i think those letters have almost no credibility. the letter which was a carbon copy of what elon musk sent to twitter employees said you can go ahead. we'll pay you out. this body appropriates money. so any commitments of money by the executive branch, right there, like that's extremely fishy. number two, they said you can leave. we will pay you for sitting home for eight months, but you know what? if you want, even better, go and get a job. go and get a job somewhere else. like best of luck to you. i think they were misunderstanding that there is federal law that a federal government employee, as i was, cannot take a job in the same field. it violates laws on conflict of interest. if you work on the railroads at the department of transportation and then you go and work for a

private railroad company, that's an inherent conflict of interest. by the way, if you're a cia officer and you go sit home and then a chinese company wants to hire you because they know you understand the intelligence community, massive conflict of interest. so those offers to me are worth the paper they're printed on. and i think again speaks to this complete lack of awareness of what this does to real people. some of the first people who got those letters in michigan were faa flight safety instructors and evaluators. is there anyone in america who thinks we need fewer flight safety instructors? is there anyone in america who wants fewer people if the faa watching and deconflicting what happens above our airports with everything that has gone on, with all these tragedies that have gone on, including another collision i understand just in the past 24 hours out in

seattle. so again, trim fat but are we sure that the american people want less people looking at their security, their safety here at home or from threats abroad? most americans don't understand. i was someone who specialized in middle eastern terrorist groups and militias, the groups that were shooting at u.s. forces and plotting against the u.s. homeland. every single day decisions are made to keep americans safe and americans are sleeping at home in their beds and have no idea. by pushing those people to leave and not being thoughtful about it, you're pushing out some of our best in a generation and then purposely hiring no one behind them. and to me again, this isn't about pieces of paper. this is about the safety of american citizens. you know, the other thing that is just rubbing people the wrong way, that is just fundamentally

feeling wrong to citizens of all stripes is the idea that a group of billionaires are coming in and leading around this administration by the nose. leading them around, right? we're all here talking about confirmation of officials. what's the point of confirming a cabinet secretary at the treasury if a billionaire can just parachute in with a bunch of 25-year-olds to tell him what to do? i mean, that's humiliating for the cabinet-level official, not to mention what that does to the president of the united states. just look online. american citizens don't want unelected billionaires with their private data, all their tax information, their medicare, health care records, right? is there anyone who wonders what elon musk and anyone else is going to do with that data. what do they want it for? the goals of a billionaire are not the same as the goals of the

average american citizen. he has other conflicting interests. and let me just say the number of interests he has in china is public record. the closeness of that relationship is well documented. and his relationship, by the way, with his competitors, right? i come from michigan. we are american autos. he has no love for our car companies. and now he has the data of every single competitor, of every single person he's ever negotiated with, of every single person he doesn't like. is there anyone who wonders that he's going to put a backdoor on that information and have access to it for the rest of time? american citizens care about their privacy, especially their tax records, their health care records. so i think this idea that this administration is being led around by its nose by billionaires does not pass the sniff test. and i've had a lot of people

call me, write me, text me who are trump supporters who said hey, you know, i voted for trump and i still think he's the guy, but i don't like them sharing my data with these seeming oligarchs. so i think again i don't dispute that trump has the ability to do things that i'm not going to like. it's the things that violate law. and make no mistake, a new government employee who hasn't turned in a financial disclosure form, who doesn't -- hasn't gone through the full background check, who's just been stamped an employee does not have the right to have all that information. and now we have lawsuits that are coming. so this will be metered out in court. but i think the bigger question is, what does it mean to have a president that's beholden to a bunch of billionaires? what does that change about their calculus when they're sitting in the privacy of the

oval office making critical decisions? why is the president of the united states tweeting about south africa? is there anyone a the least in the state of michigan who woke up this week and said south africa is super important to my personal interests in michigan. no. he's tweeting about south africa because elon musk told him too, right? he's being led around by his nose. i think people are starting to see that. and again if elon musk wants to help look at how to reform the government, that's one thing. access to our data is a whole other ball of wax and it is not for the interests of the united states. now, i think there's a lot of questions about how we get through this period, these teenage years of american history. this pendulum swinging, this anger between people, neighbor arguing with neighbor about politics. i know in michigan, there's a heck of a lot of people, including in my own people where we just say we're going to get together, we're going to

tailgate, hang out but we're not going to talk about national politics. it's become something we can't talk about. by the way, in michigan that was never the case. we were always politically diverse. my dad is a life long republican. my mom was a lifelong democrat. we never used to argue with anger in might began. we were more likely to argue about sports than we were about politics growing up. michigan versus michigan state. hands were thrown. but not over politics. that was not our way. you kind of ribbed someone. if my dad, again, lifelong republican, if his friend from childhood came in and he was a liberal or something, he would say here comes the comy. made jokes of it was a ribbing kind of thing. it wasn't this anger that we can't stand, that's made us uncomfortable with our neighbors. so how do we get through it? how do we get through this period in our history? well, the first answer is we can't have our citizens just turn off. i've heard from a lot of people who say you know what?

i'm just going to like stop reading the news, stop looking at my alerts on my phone. i'm just going to pretend nothing's happening in washington and just, you know, put my blinders on. that doesn't work in a democracy. guess what? this is a team sport. but there are basically four things that we can do to help our country get through this moment in our history. we got to be strict upholders of the constitution, even when that contradicts people we have supported. and that goes for democrats and republicans. so we have four options. we have legislation and appropriations, the thing that this body does. we can make laws that respect our values, that push back. i want those. they have to be based on how the senate is divided, it has to be bipartisan. bipartisan answers are durable answers. they last longer. they're not pendulum swinging.

we can appropriate money based on our values. that means making sure we have flight safety instructors and making sure we have the right people in our -- in the pentagon and the cia who are protecting us. we have litigation. and unfortunately that's become an important tool. we have lawsuits going on. i mean, i think it must be dozens at this point that are just trying to uphold the law. and we want them to move swiftly through the courts. we need people to be invested in those court cases and watch them and start to educate yourselves on those cases. we have communication, right? we have the ability, each one of us in our phones to communicate with our fellow citizens, to talk about how concerning it is that we have a president that is being led around by their nose by a bunch of billionaires. talk about that. your neighbors aren't happy with

that. and then ultimately elections. the fourth category. that's how we meter things out in this country and we'll have new federal elections in two years where people can decide if they're comfortable giving the president of the united states unfetterred authority, if they feel like he's been a good shepherd of our constitution. now, i'll just say in closing that this body has a special responsibility. there are a hundred of us. we are the senior most or some of the most senior elected officials in the country. that means we have the roles here in legislation and appropriation. it also means we have convening power. we have the ability to pull people together and lead. and that is what the country is asking for right now. they're asking for leadership from this body, from democrats and republicans. from people who are new and

people who have been here 35 years. they're asking for us to stand up for them and to keep this country alive through these volatile years. history will watch this period. history will watch what we do on both sides of the aisle. and for me as someone who is new to this body, 30 days in this body, i will always seek to work where i can with my colleagues but not at the expense of the fundamental freedoms and our democracy. that may not be politically palatable back home but i don't care. because if we can't do it, what is the point. what is the point being senior elected leaders in this body if you don't stand up for the country that you love? there's no king in this country. there's an elected president. please stand up on behalf of your country. with that i yield.

the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. a senator: mr. president, since the beginning of the trump administration a little over to weeks ago, my office has heard directly from arizonans about how the cronies of this president are impacting their day-to-day lives. in one of his first acts the president in the office of management and budget moved to freeze the grants and loans to arizonans that worked tirelessly each day to better the lives of arizona families. these are not people who do the work because they're chasing a high salary. they're not doing it out of a drive to be millionaires or billionaires. they're doing it to help their fellow arizonans. fall fall the programs impacted by the federal freeze include assistance to firefighter grants, so our firefighters can

purchase equipment. staffing for adequate fire, emergency response better known as safer grants which funds hiring of firefighters. sexual assault services which supply rape kits and prevent the trafficking of girls which supports the prevention and early intervention services for girls at risk or victims of sex and/or trafficking. mr. gallego: the crime initiative which supports the implementation of violent crime reduction strategies improves investigations, improves services to victims, enhances collaboration between local stakeholders. public stakeholders programs provides benefits for survivors of fallen officers. violence against women formula

grants. assistance justice grants which is used to purchase critical technology, infrastructure, et cetera for police departments and other entities. and the chips research end development programs to grow arizona's semiask unanimous consenter industry. they were canceled not because they were ineffective, not because congress voted to cut them but because they were in the way of one man's crusade to tear down the federal government. and that man is omb nominee russell vought. russell vought is a danger to the united states. he has been a staunch advocate for drastically eliminating or cutting our safety net programs such as medicaid, medicare, and social security. he helped design trump-era

budget to cut trillions from these programs while simultaneously advocating for tax cuts that would only benefit the wealthiest of americans. so let's take sure we understand that'sing what here. he wants to cut to give to the richest americans. his vision for america is one where billionaires thrive while the families of arizona and america struggle to get ahead. vought has shown complete disregard for our democratic institutions. he was a key architect of efforts to put aside the federal bureaucracy and push for policies that would replace career civil servants with partisan loyalists. he played a significant role enabling trump's administration refusal to cooperate with congressional oversight.

his actions set a dangerous precedent and is a playbook that the trump administration is looking to deploy and has deployed in this second term. a playbook of reducing transparency, accountability, and disregard, disregarding the power of congress in favor of an empowered executive branch. the office of management and budget is one of the most powerful agencies in the country. it is responsible for crafting the president's budget, overseeing regulatory policies and ensuring the efficient operation of government programs. the omb director must believe in the fundamental mission of government, which is to serve the people. vought, by contrast, has spent his career trying to dismantle government institutions and push an extreme agenda that benefits only a select few. if confirmed, if confirmed to

lead omb, vought would have the ability to cuts to program programs. his leadership would result in policies that worsen economic inequality, weaken national security by defunding key agencies and eroding public confidence in government. the confirmation of vought would not only be a step backward, it would also embolden extremists seeking to undermine the role of government. his approach to governance is not about responsible budgeting or efficiency. it is about dismantling the federal government from within. the stakes are too high to allow such a dangerous individual to return to a position of power. russell vought is a major threat to our democratic institution. his track record makes it abundantly clear that he is unfit for any management role in

budget -- in government especially one as powerful as the office of management and budget. confirming vought would only allow an individual with a history of extremism, obstructionism and divisiveness to control the budget and regulatory framework. his vision for america is one where government serves only the wealthy and powerful where ordinary citizens are left without the support and services they need. in the face of such a threat, it is crucial that we reject any attempt to put vought in any position of power. the future of the country depends on leaders who believe in governance, transparency, and fairness, not those who seek to destroy it and its institutions that make this all work. the senate and the american people must stand firm against this administration, against his confirmation, ensuring that those who wield power to do so

in the service of this nation understand why they're doing it, understand that it's not just for the sake of i had logic -- ideologic crusade but to make sure that we have a government that answers for the people and by the people. in conclusion, we must remember at the core what is going to happen and what is happening. just yesterday i met with many of my local health care centers in arizona, more than 50 of them. and i asked them, what is going on in your communities? what is happening right now? and many were telling me about the fear they're hearing in the communities. what many of them also told me, these very critical health centers, some of the health centers that are on the front lines of taking some. most -- taking care of some of the most poorest communities in the country, with some of the largest health disparities in the country, people that are chronically ill and going to these places because it's the last place that will see them

since they do not have doctors, they don't have access to hospitals, they don't have access to health insurance, and these community health centers were telling me that right now most of them still cannot access payment. the organizations that are essentially taking care of the poorest of this country cannot get payments for services that they are giving to these poor communities for the contracts that we signed with them as a federal government because people like vought want to freeze those grants. they want to freeze out those types of groups that are taking care of the poor in order to save as much money so that they can give this money and these tax cuts to the richest of americans. it is the most cynical thing that we could be doing, the most cynical thing that this trump administration could be doing, and certainly is a very dangerous thing that omb nominee

vought will be doing. with that, i yield back. the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: thank you. i want to thank my colleague from arizona, originally from chicago, for taking the time to

come this morning to the floor of the senate. let me also thank the presiding officer and the staff who have weathered this experience as we consider the nomination of russell vought for the office of management and budget. i know it's personal and demanding sacrifice an their part and i thank them for being here. why are we doing this? we're hoping to call atension to this nomination -- attention to this nomination. most people in america, if asked, would not be able to identify the initials omb, office of management and budget. and if they could identify it as a federal agency, they would be hard-pressed to describe what it does. i've been in politics in congressional government for a number of years. i have an insight into what the agency can do, and i want to tell you that the head of the omb, though not a very well-known figure across america, has more power than almost anyone in the president's

cabinet. this person decides the policy and spending that supports it across the federal government and can make a serious difference. russell vought has had a chance to show america what he will do if given another chance to head the omb. you see, in the final two years of the first trump administration, he had the same job. so we saw him in action and we saw what his philosophy might be. i want to read you something, which sound incredible, but i am a frayed -- but which i am afraid is true. here's what they wrote in a position paper branding russell vought sasse a dangerous choice to head the omb. quote, as director of the omb under president trump, first term, vought would occupy a powerful position over federal agencies and the federal

civilian workforce. here's what vought had to say in 2023 about his intentions for these hardworking civil servants under a second trump administration. and i'm now quoting russell vought. we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. when they wake up in the morning, we want them to tot not want to go to work because they're increasingly viewed as the villians. we want their funding to be shut down so that the epa can't do all the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. we want to put them in trauma, end of quote, russell vought, what he would do if head of the omb. honest-to-god, is that what we want in america a person that takes a look at federal employees that do a myriad of responsible tasks in our federal government and treat them as villians, traumaize them?

for mr. vought, this sound like a political game. but for many of these people, first it's their lives, their careers that he have this he'll dedicated to their country and their government to do the best they can, and some critical jobs which we may take for granted on a regular basis until that moment when we realize how important they'll be. it was just a few weeks ago when we had a horrible plane crash near washington national airport. i followed that closely because i will tell you i have flown in a flight path a thousand times. i have returned home every weekend that i have served in the house and senate. i think know that piece of real estate pretty well. planes come down the potomac river to avoid noise in the city of washington and some have to make a rather abrupt turn into

the runway 33 that is available to them. this evening of the accident an american airlines plane made the turn and came into contact with an army helicopter. 67 people died. we checked to see what was going on with air traffic control, and we realized that the air traffic controller was doing double duty that night. he had to do not only the sillian side but -- civilian side but the military side. it's not beyond a person's capacity, but it's not preferable. there should have been more air traffic controllers on the job. air traffic controllers are federal employees, mr. vought. want to traumatize our air traffic controllers? i don't. i don't want to feel safe in an ampullate i want to be able -- i want to feel safe in an airplane. i want to be able to travel knowing that tan official working for the federal

government is doing his or her job well. if you're going to traumatize and call them villians and make them the object of your political phant circumstance that's what you get with mr. vought. it's not fair to them. i.t. not fair to the american people. these people who work in our federal government do responsible, important jobs. i advised my staff yesterday that this is reaching a point where no one seems to be in control. they've decided to save money by eliminating the publication of public health brochures that were put outing areally on a weekly basis, to notify people all around the united states and the world of outbreaks, of illnesses and diseases that could be dangerous. for the first time since 1961 we've stopped publishing those in the last few weeks. the trump administration has decided to, quote, save money, close quote, by russian the information available -- by reducing the information available to medical officials

all over the world. they used to look to us and count on us every single week to put out this publication. we stopped doing it, quote, to save money, close quote. i am afraid the day will come when we regret this decision and a lot of things that flow from it. i want to say a word about the department of justice. yesterday i had an individualdom see me who is seeking to be deputy attorney general. a good fellow. i never met him before. he talked about his career in the law and what he had done as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. his resume is certainly strong. i asked him a question when he worked for the u.s. attorney's office, was he given assignments or did he choose his caseload. he said when you're brand-new, you take what they send you. they put me to work on files and cases as they wish. i did them willingly. that was my job as a member of the department of justice.

so i said you had no really personal decision over these cases? you just did what you were given by your superiors? and he said that's exactly right, and that's how it works. and i said would it be fair to say that when it came to the assignment of these cases, some hierarchy made that decision, not yourself? he said of course. i said do you know what's going on in the department of justice now? they are asking the employees of the department of justice to fill out a questionnaire. the trump administration wants to know did you play any role in the prosecution of those accused of violence here in the capitol on january 6, 2021. clearly this is being done to separate out those who prosecuted those thugs who came into this building and attacked us. i don't know where this is going to lead. we're going to have to watch closely, but it's not been done before. if they are dismissed,

terminated, it's fundamentally unfair. as this individual who wants to be part of the trump administration told me, he had nothing to say about the assignment. he did what he was told and he did the best job he could. to fire these individuals because of the january 6 rioters is fundamentally unfair. mr. president, you're new to this chamber, and i've been here awhile. i'll tell you that day, january 6, 2021, is one that i'll remember for the rest of my life. i was sitting at this seat on the floor of the senate. vice president pence was the presiding officer. we were going about our responsibility under the constitution to count the electoral votes and to announce who won the presidential election. it's a rather routine sae assignment in the past. people haven't noticed but it's taken on new importance now because of disputes over votes in various states. 2020 was one of the most graphic

examples of that when president trump announced afterwards that he did not lose the election, that it was stolen. he gathered together his supporters who believed that point of view, into a rally on january 6 on the capitol mall. thousands of people showed up at the president's invitation, and he invited them to come to the capitol and wild. they sure did. they went wild by beating down the doors, breaking the windows, crashing through the doors, coming in to the united states capitol building while we were meeting here. vice president pence at about 2:10 p.m., i saw him turn to one of the secret service agents who was protecting him. l an agent grabbed his arm, pulled him off the floor and we had no one presiding. chuck grassley was going to take

the chair. the head of capitol police walked in and announced to all the senators in the chamber and staff people to stay in this room. this was going to be a protected room, a safe room and other people will be joining us. mean whiling outside you could hear the roar of the crowd as they were crashing through the doors and beating up on capitol hill policemen. we were here for about ten minutes when the same capitol hill policeman came in and said change of plans. we can't keep this room safe. grab your belongings and leave quickly through that door, which we did. we went to a building nearby and waited to see what would happen next. i was part of the leadership that was called to a secure location, and i was with mitch l mcconnell and chuck schumer and nancy pelosi as we followed the proceedings, what was happening on the floor. it was a horrible scene. we were able to see the senate chamber through c-span and realized that the thugs who were taking over the building were

sitting in your chair going through my desk, posing for pictures, jumping off the balconies. it was a scene you couldn't imagine. it was sickening to me. this building means something to me. it's been an important part of my life. i went to college here in washington. i used to come up on my assignments in my part-time job and get a chance to steal away for a few minutes and follow what was going on on the senate floor. i used to consider it a privilege and i still do. here these people were doing horrible things to the building and beating up on the d.c. policemen and capitol policemen. that was the reality of what happened. these people who work for the house and senate are federal employees, in russell vought's view, the villains. villains is what he called them. risking their lives to keep us

safe and being called villains by l russell vought. for goodness' sake, has he no sense of responsibility for the men and women and their families who risked their lives for this building. those who were prosecuted for this ended up being in the hundreds of individuals. some for misdemeanors, trespass. others for more serious crimes, assaulting police officer. one of them already has been released by a pardon from president trump and went on to defy a policeman in indiana and there was a gunfight noold and this individual -- that followed and this individual was shot dead on the scene a few days after he was released by the president's pardon. the point i'm trying to make is there are important and serious jobs taking place here in washington and around the nation. we count on federal employees and we count on people to be held accountable if they violate the law. i am sickened by the fact that

these men and women in uniform who i've come to know over the years are considered to be disposable, dispensable. in my mind, they're not. their lives are worth something, and those who attacked them should be held responsible. so when the wheels of justice turned and these individuals were held responsible, it was through the department of justice. now there is a hunt on in the department to find out each and every one of their names. if they're going on a list to be terminated, i would just say to the trump administration, you're in for a fight. these men and women did their jobs. they were responsible for prosecuting individuals who raided this capitol, and they did it well as far as i'm concerned. i'm sad to report that kash patel, who is president trump's nominee to head up the federal bureau of investigation, does not agree with me, and i'll tell you why. the federal bureau of

investigation has 28,000 federal agents around the world, 400 different field offices. these individuals are the premier law enforcement agency of the united states of america and have an international reputation. mr. patel wants to be the person to head that agency, and yet what he decided to do, kash patel, was to make a project out of music from those who were convicted of crimes on january 6, 2021. he gathered together a number of them. he swears that he doesn't even know their names, and created a recording, a song that he wrote and played at president trump's rallies, a song to be sung by the prisoners. they call them j-6 choir. as we asked mr. patel to tell us more about this, he said all the proceeds from that album would go to the families of the

prisoners. i said did you ever consider the proceeds going to the families of the men and women in uniform who were risking their lives to keep this building safe? no, he said, he focused on the families of the prisoners. he called them political prisoners. of course they were convicted under the court of law, many of them pled guilty. they couldn't deny the fact what the videotape showed of their conduct. mr. patel was raising money through this recording being played at the trump rallies of these individuals. he said he didn't know their names or who they might be, and were considering -- and we're considering this individual to head up the fbi. what would morale be like at the fbi if a person is put in charge who was entertaining america with songs by the prisoners in jail who raided this capitol? i often think, i wonder what we would have thought if the tables were turned on january 6, but it didn't happen here in washington

but happened in london. if we heard a mob crashed down the doors of parliament and taken control of the house of commons. my reaction would have been that's impossible. i've been there, i've seen that. it's carefully guarded and watched, and it's a venerable institution when it comes parliamentary law. i can't imagine that a mob would take over the house of commons in london. think about america and think about the impression of what happened on january 6 to other people around the world, that this happened in our time in this building. we have to go back to the war of 1812 to find an invasion of enemy force and now we come to january 6, 2021, the so-called political prisoners, some call them tourists that came in and desecrated this building. that was the reality. i think it's a serious, historic event and one that we'll think about many times again.

and individuals who were involved in that were federal employees and they were doing their job and risking their lives in the process for doing it. so what is going on through the office of management and budget there is a man named matthew thu vaeth who issued an order to call for a freeze on federal spending not that long go, two weeks or so. i don't know if he thought through what he was doing but he said he was doing it to make sure there would be no federal spending which would support transgenderism, or what he called marxian equity, or some green new deal. he wanted to make sure there was no political investment in those causes across america. do you know what he shut down? shut down a head start program in chicago, illinois. it's called el valore.

families of moderate income send their kids to this program. these kids are learning how to read, learning how to socialize. they're going to be ready for kindergarten and ready for school as a result of it. mr. vaeth at omb decided to shut it down and cut off their funds, and at least overnight there was a fear that's exactly what would happen. it was only when there was a national response in opposition to that that they reversed their position and decided to keep some of the things open. the head start is open in chicago that i just mentioned, but there are others that are questioning whether they're open as well. we got a phone call as well from doctors in chicago during this shutdown, this omb shutdown under president trump. i said what impact has this had on you? they said we're researchers for the national institutes of health. we work in laboratories looking

for cures for diseases. heart disease, cancer, all sorts of different challenges. we frankly were told at 5 p.m. on the day of his order to stop working on what we're doing. most of the projects that we're involved in are long-term projects involving a lot of work that goes beyond regular work hours, but we were told to stop. stop medical research because this order from the federal government that came out of the omb. so when we consider what happened just a few days ago, and it's still reverberating around the country, and consider the nomination of russell vought, you have to ask yourself, honest to goodness, do you consider that to be a villain who's working at that laboratory in chicago for a nat national institutes of health project? i consider that person to be a great professional and wish him all the success and luck in the

world. to characterize them as mr. vought has done is unfair to them, an indication of his values. so we are trying to appeal to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us with a few votes to stop mr. russell vought from taking over the office of management and budget. this is an important responsibility and it's one that needs to be left in the hands of those who will accept that responsibility personally. i see that my colleague has joined me from maryland. i'm glad she is here. i'm going to wrap up by just saying that we're going to rue the day if we put russell vought in this job as to what he's going to do, when he character izing our federal employees as villains and put them in trauma do you want the men and women responsible at the fbi to be in

trauma? i want them working for america's future as they have in the past. and to characterize them as the enemy is unfair. i'll be voting against russell vought and i hope other colleagues will join ms. alsobrooks: thank you, mr. president, and -- the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. alsobrooks: democrats have been here all night, and guess what, we are not letting up because right now in maryland and across this country the administration is conducting a witch hunt for federal workers. see, what the president said i am your retribution, he meant he will scapegoat, bully, and attempt to silence the federal workforce. it is is a retribution that they do not deserve. and i really want to paint a picture of who these federal workers are and who they are not. they are not partisan hacks hell bent on pursuing some kind of

political agenda. they are not part of some deep state conspiracy that apparently keeps this president awake at night. in fact, to the contrary. these people are hard-working americans who believe in this government, regardless of who the president is. as a matter of fact, they are my friends, many of them are my neighbors, and they are my constituents. they are marylanders. see, i represent over 150,000 federal workers. in maryland, we are proud to have the highest number of federal workers per capita in the country. they are public servants in the truest sense of the word who are not guided by party, not moved by vicious news cycles, but they are driven instead by mission, a mission to serve this country to

the very best before their ability under any president of any party. and in just 17 days this president has put all of their livelihoods on the line. how shameless, how reckless, how callous, how depraved. there have been so many actions that this administration has taken to villainize our civil servants and i want to be explicit of what they are up to. they have fired inspectors general, the people who conduct independent audits and investigations within government agencies to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, to replace independent watchdogs, this is the plan, with loyalists. you want to talk about making

government efficient? might i suggest not firing the very people committed to waste, fraud, and bouf. next we have the whole federal buyout scheme. yes, a scheme. today marks the last day of the so-called fork in the road buyout, but the administration continues to suggest that should not enough people take the buyout, they will begin mass layoffs. hardworking americans who have done their job dutifully, some for decades. i've spoken with them, fired for no reason whatsoever. this week, usaid missions overseas have also been ordered to shut down. and i've heard from marylanders abroad who are doing critical work to prevent wars who don't know if they'll even have a job anymore. we've learned that fbi agents

and employees were asked by justice department leadership to fill out a 12-question survey detailing their rolls in investigations stemming from the january 6 attack on this capitol. this led to the fbi turning over details of 5,000 employees who worked on january 6 cases to the trump justice department. we know the administration has issued a freeze on federal hiring. dozens of employees at the education department have been put on leave and more are expected. rumors continue to circulate that this administration wants to shut down the department itself. at multiple government agencies, agency heads were asked to identify employees on probation ordinary periods or -- probation

periods likely because these employees are easier to fire. the administration issued a memo pausing potentially trillions of dollars in federal aid, sowing chaos throughout the government. thankfully, this directive has been partially halted thanks to legal challenges. they've issued a stop work order in the united states department for all existing foreign aid. 160 national security security council staff members have been sent home while the administration reviews staffing. they ordered a review of the federal emergency management agency, or fema, as the administration considers whether to close the country's lead disaster response. how reckless, how callous. we've gotten reports of more than 40 head start providers

still unable to draw funds after last week's funding freeze. this is, of course, despite a court order because this administration not only sows chaos, but also has set the example of what lawlessness looks like. these are illegal actions, and these providers who helped make sure that our vulnerable kids what they need to thrive have all been put into a position of being insecure and uncertain. they provide for our children food, education, and so much more. and these are the very people who have been targeted by this administration. our veterans haven't been spared either. the administration froze federal aid for critical programs serving veterans and their families and then fired the v.a.'s top watchdog official in charge of protecting veterans from waste and wrongdoing.

they're firing the very people charged with making the veterans administration more efficient to better serve the great men and women who who served this nation. how callous, how reckless. each and every one of these moves inflicts pain and they all have a ripple effect. pain on the civil servants who do the work these programs and agencies fund and pain on people who rely on the work of these programs and agencies. it's a raw deal for americans, period. and what's clear is this witch hunt has only just begun. because today this very body is going to be voting on a nominee who wants nothing more than to see the federal workforce burned at the stake. he said it himself about civil servants he said we want to put

them in trauma. that's unbelievable. it is absolutely unbelievable. and i'll repeat, he said we want to put them in trauma. what manner of person speaks in that sfwha but -- speaks in that way? but those are the words of russell vought, the man this president has closen to lead the office of management and budget -- chosen to lead the office of management and budget, so when russell vought says he wants to put these people in trauma, i'm going to take him at his word. this isn't a situation where we need to see what vought is going to do. history has already shown us. in president trump's previous administration, russ vought was lead -- each plan contains a blueprint for robbing the american public of the services

that their tax dollars are supposed to fund. he kaufld for -- he called for $500 billion to be cut from medicare. and i will note very significantly that over one million marylanders are enrolled in medicare. two of them are my parents, 77 years old, worked their whole lives and these are the kinds of people that this president and his administration have determined that they will target. $900 billion for medicaid -- from medicaid. i will note nearly two million marylanders rely on medicaid. up to $71 billion cut from social security. and i will note one in seven marylanders receives social security benefits. by the way, it's so important to note these benefits are not ones

that have been given to these marylanders. these are benefits they have earned over a lifetime. $170 billion in cuts to college affordability initiatives. this flies in the face of everything that americans say that they desire. it has never been said that americans want us to cut benefits to our elders, it has never been said that they wanted to cut benefits to those who are did hes abled, who -- disabled who rely on medicaid and others, and it has not been the case that so many young people who voted in this next election cycle hoping to get a government that would make their lives better, instead it is making it worse. 25% of marylanders receive student loans and over 100,000 maryland students receive federal grants in the

fy-2023-2024 school year. how shameful to target the future leaders of the country. this isn't just a classic case of the past becoming pro lowing. in -- pro log. russell vought has continued on this crusade. federal workers are workers no matter what russell vought or anyone in this administration says, they are hard workers, dedicated workers, maryland-strong workers. and the crusade continued when russell vought raised his hand to help write project 2025. in particular, i want to hone in on the goal to deploy schedule f, and here's what the american

postal workers union had to say about it. and i quote, project 2025 seeks to undermine this expectation of efficiency and expertise in public services by dismantling the federal government and reinstating trump's 2020 schedule f executive order. this would allow the ruling administration to reclassify many civil servants as policy-making or policy evaluating workers, thereby removing their civil servants protections and making them at-will employees. president trump could then install whomever he pleases based on his favoritism and loyalty to his administration. deploying schedule f to replace dedicated civil servants with inexperienced cronies removes the very people who are experts

at their jobs and have the knowledge to help our government serve our communities in the best possible way. installing employees based on who you know, favoritism, effectively removes the nonpartisan and professional nature of civil service. civil servants should simply be the most qualified for the job. that's why tests like the ones postal workers must take for employment exists at all. an unbiassed exam means that workers earn their jobs based on their skills, not who we know or what color our skin is. furthermore, in the long run, this practice could ee ektively -- effectively dismantle trust in civil solveses, making president trump and elon musk making a provide

advertised -- privatized government that profits off of its citizens instead of an of government that uplifts workers in our communities. russell vought isn't concerned with making the government more efficient. all of us recognize this. no one is confused about this. i highly doubt he cares about anything whatsoever at all about whether government works or not. what he cares about is making sure every single federal employee supports president trump. this isn't a blue state or a red state issue. this is a united states issue. if this man is allowed to enact the president's revenge, there will be a collective and uniting pain that courses across our country. people, whether they voted for this president or not, will feel the devastating impact of not

only a less efficient government but a government unable to deliver on the services that it promises to provide. that's what this administration refuses to understand. when you target federal workers, you are also targeting the people that they serve. you know who federal workers serve? the american people. when ruffle vought -- russell vought says we want to put them in trauma, let's talk about who he's talking about. a woman i spoke with who has worked at the department of human services for over 35 years, she's been put on leave as a part of this president's executive orders. what has she done? nothing to deserve this. and yet her family is a family that's been targeted, a person who has served 35 years. another woman i spoke with who has worked for 37 years at the

department of agriculture and believe it or not, she was placed in her current position under the president's first administration. and guess what? as a result of this crazy and callous and corrupt witch hunt, now she's being let go as well. remembering, of course, that these two women are women who have worked now for several administrations, both democratic and republican presidents, and they have done so honorably. the marylanders at the fda who make sure that the water we drink is safe and that the food we eat is safe. let's talk about scientists and doctors who are actively researching cures to cancer at the national institutes of health. they're targeting civil servants at the pentagon working every day to protect our national security. when i think about the pentagon,

i can't help but think about my own grandmother. her nape was sarah daisy -- her name was sarah daisy. sarah daisy was a person who was a housekeeper, but it was her greatest dream to work in the federal government. many will remember that there was a time, however, when you went on to work in the government, you would take a civil servants exam and typing test. my grandmother sarah couldn't afford a typewriter so she went into the family's kitchen and put a white piece of paper up on the refrigerator and she drew on that white piece of paper a keyboard. and my father told me that in the one-bedroom apartment that they all shared, my grandmother, her three children and another family member, she stood in front of her refrinl rater every -- refrigerator every single night and taught herself the key strokes so she could take the typing test to get herself a job in the federal government. well, she went on and took that

typing test. she passed it. she got herself a job in the federal government, and she was so proud of the work that she did as a civil servant. she showed up every single day, took buses to get to her job at the pentagon, and she would often tell me she was so proud, she couldn't wait to tell me i passed the general so and so. i passed general so and so in the hallway. she was very proud to have served her country. but sarah daisy isn't the only one. civil servants who show up every day just to serve the american people. and those are the kinds of civil servants who are being targeted by this administration. we think as well about fbi agents. and look, i'm a former prosecutor. i spent 13 years working in court rooms and i worked alongside many of our best and brightest in the law enforcement community, including the fbi.

and never once did i ever wonder if they had voted for me. what mattered is that they were honed in on the same mission that i was, building safer communities for the people we collectively serve. and people like my grandma who i spoke about. again, these are all people who serve every day doing the very best they can. she never came home and told me whether the people she served at the piece of paper were republicans or -- at the pentagon were republicans or democrats because guess what? it didn't matter. it didn't matter. and this is who we are talking about here. so there have been so many calls to my office. the question we should be asking ourselves about people like my grandmother and about the other agents that i worked with as a prosecutor, who have given their whole life to civil service, what we should be asking is how

can we repay them. is it by villainizing them? taking away their jobs? it's ludicrous. it's outrageous. there have been so many calls to my office. some people have even shown up to my office in person looking for support. i stepped out the other day and there were three women who had driven here from their homes, and they were exasperated. they needed to come in person to let me know about their displeasure, about the actions that they are seeing from this government. we received a call from a federal employee as well who has worked in an agency for 17 years and is now furloughed. on the vernl of tears -- on the verge of tears, she was afraid not just for her own livelihood but for the fate of those losing their title 2 food aid. she was thinking of malnourished children who will stop receiving

food because of this administration's callous actions. we received a call from a federal employee concerned about elon musk and his access to confidential information. he said he feels helpless and after 22 years of service to our nation, he's afraid that he will lose his job. he said, it feels like a bad movie. a former federal employee of ten years called my office scared about how this is impacting her neighbors and her community, how it will hurt all her friends who work in the federal government. this was one call -- there was one call from a woman in her 60's. she was debating whether or not to take this buyout. she's close to retiring. and in the end she told us that

she wanted to continue this work. when i learned of this particular call, i immediately thought of my grandmother yet again and the pride she had in her work at the pentagon, the joy that she carried with her knowing that her job had purpose, that her service was meaningful, the north star she always looked to was helping her fellow americans. it came as no surprise to me that this marylander wanted to continue her work. i don't think it would come as a surprise to any marylander who has answered the call to serve their government in this way. we take great pride in this work. we believe in the power of the federal government to do good things for the people of this country. and if you ask any civil servant could the government use improvement, well, you would hear a resounding yes.

i think every democrat and every republican believes that we can make government more efficient, but firing a bunch of hardworking marylanders because you think that they may not agree with your policy, gutting agencies that work on behalf of the american people, well this isn't going to make government more efficient. in fact, dismissing experienced workers who care deeply about the mission is only going to weaken government functions. it's going to hinder the government's ability to do its job. everything from medicare to medicaid to veterans benefits to law enforcement to cancer research to -- i mean, the list goes on and on and on. in this brazen and callous mass firing, president trump is going to end up with a government

incapable of doing what the people expect of it, and it's shameful and it's un-american. because let me say this painfully clear to anyone considering supporting this nominee. the trauma that mr. vought describes won't just be exacted on the federal workers that he despises. it will extend to the people in this country who utilize the programs of the federal government. the exhausted mother of that child who calls the 988 lifeline for support on the darkest of days. the single dad who has to call out of work because his daughter's head start classroom closed its doors. the family business that didn't get their disaster relief check

to rebuild after the flood waters receded. the grandmother stretching her fixed income to feed a nourishing meal to her grandkids turned away at the checkout line when her snap ebt card declines. the woman seeking refuge from an abusive partner, the kind of woman that i represented for many years as a domestic violence prosecutor. just to be turned away from the local family violence shelter. the first generation college student that loses their pell grant and federal work study and can't afford to stay in school. the veteran whose appointment at the veterans administration gets canceled delaying his screening and treatment from his battlefield exposure.

when russell vought talks about inflicting trauma, none of us should forget these people. in these times of chaos, we must remain vigilant. we must not only acknowledge the deep pain being felt by so many american workers now, transform that pain into action. the tools at our disposal may be limited but our resolve must remain limitless. and my promise to the people of maryland is that it shall. i'd like to just end my comments because i see my colleague has joined us on the floor and say there's a prayer breakfast happening this morning. and it's my understanding that the president is there to attend and many others. and it is my greatest desire that their prayers today will be for the american people and for our country. and there is a scripture that is so clear in the bible and it

reminds us and the president professes that he is a person of faith, and it reminds us of one fact, irrefutable fact is that the bible tells us that they will know us by our love. in fact, it says they will know that you are my disciples if you show love, that we should love one another. and i believe that ought to be the guiding principle that guides us if all that we do. it is the only thing that will last is what we have done and we will exude the light of god and in so doing, we will have love for each other. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california.

mr. padilla: mr. president, i rise today in the strongest terms to oppose the nomination of russell vought to serve as director of the office of management and budget. and i do so not just for his poor performance and lack of transparency before the senate budget committee during his confirmation hearing but because of his truly dangerous and damaging vision for the future of our country. i'll be very clear. if russell vought is confirmed to lead the office of management and budget, it will be working families in america that pay the price. if he's confirmed, he'll work to slash the social safety net, threaten medicaid and snap

benefits, and to balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable neighbors. all in service of cutting taxes for billionaires and for large corporations. now, let me start this morning by saying that if we were hoping for some sort of clarity or some commitment, some reassurance from russell vought during his confirmation process, we certainly weren't given much to work with. during the confirmation hearing and yes, i'm a member of the budget committee, at best he was nonresponsive to our questions and inquiries. in fact, he was actually pretty evasive when asked some of the more pointed questions. and as i reflected on his testimony, i observed that it

was what he didn't say that spoke volumes. it told us everything that we needed to know about the dangers of reinstating him to this hugely important and consequential position. other trump nominees, other confirmation hearings and other committees that have been -- that i've been a part of, at a minimum they've committed, at least they uttered the words that they would respect the constitution and abide by the law. that should be the bare minimum for someone seeking senate confirmation for any position that is to serve the american people. that's the minimum. but mr. vought couldn't even do that. he refused to commit to

following the law, as it pertains to implementing the spending plans and priorities established by congress, including us, colleagues. we are the united states senate. why would he refuse to commit to that fundamental premise? because if he were to do that, he'd be lying under oath. he made it abundantly clear that, as director of omb, he has every intention of ignoring the laws passed by congress, including the spending plans. he's been very explicit about that. now, if this was any other nominee by any other president and he refuseded to make such a

commitment, we might be left wondering why what his true priorities are, what his true agenda is. but, for better and for worse, russell vought has already shown us exactly what he intends to do. we don't need to deal in hypothetical scenarios when it comes to him. for starters, he has served as head of the office of management and budget before. you'll recall during the first trump administration, in that time, in that capacity on multiple occasions, he illegally froze congressional appropriated funds and withheld taxpayer dollars in order to obey president trump's political

demands. even today, russell vought has already restarted this effort, as unlawful as it is, restarted this effort, even though he hasn't yet been confirmed by the senate. he's already played a central role in omb's attempt to withhold funding these last couple of weeks, funding for programs including head start that so many families across the country rely on. withhold funding for job assistance programs for our veterans. yes, veterans, the very women and men that we honor for their willingness to serve, their willingness to pay the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our country, who need our assistance when they return home from

service. that's who he's going after? he's withheld funds for countless other programs that working families across the country rely on. his actions in these last couple of weeks have plunged not just the federal government but, frankly you the country and our financial markets into chaos and confusion. and like i said, he hasn't even been confirmed yet. and this is what's already happening. colleagues, if these early signals weren't enough for you to grasp what he's capable of, what he is hell-bent on doing, if thank you a wondering what else -- if you're wondering what else he might have in mind and in store for the omb, i guess

you're in luck, because he literally wrote a playbook for what he intends to do. i invite you all -- and folks watching at home, if you haven't done so already, go to project 2025 -- go to project2025.org. as you call up this playbook, you will call up this agenda, you'll see that he is one of the key authors. and while president trump claims he hasn't had a chance to review his budget director's vision for the administration, and while many members of this body might have been a little too busy these last several months to read it for themselves, let me try to help by giving you just a very, very brief summary, some of the key points because when

you boil it down, the main goals of project 2025, as the authors, including mr. vought, have expressed, are this -- number one, give the office of the president of the united states unprecedented power. and, two, to use that power to slash the rest of government in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations. it's that simple. that's their goal. that's their objective. that's their agenda. they want an unchecked president to gut investments, investments that congress directs to help working families in order to give even bigger tax breaks for

big corporations and billionaires. billionaires, by the way, just like the ones he surrounded himself with in his inauguration. it's not a secret. it's not a veiled attempt it's play tavenlts it's out in the -- it's out in the open. they are literally working to steal from the poor to give more to the rich. that's the trump agenda. and that's all that russell vought is working towards. but again, colleagues, don't just take my word for it. let's look at the record. now it's easy to chalk up these first couple of weeks of the second trump administration just to chaos. that's how they operate. we've known this. we've seen it coming.

well, it certainly has been chaotic. some of that chaos may be due to incompetence. i think a lot of it very, very intentional. and a clearly a lot of it due to an utter lack of empathy. but what is intentional is chaos by design. you've heard these terms. they're proud of it. flood the zone. traumatize federal workers. yes, they've said it. i'll come back to that in a couple minutes. but they've sought distractions from the scale of what they're trying to do. so through it all, to my colleagues and to the nation, i urge us all to keep our eyes on

the ball. see the trump administration exactly for what it is and who they are. to understand this administration, you simply have to understand their single biggest objective -- huge handouts to the largest corporations and the wealthiest americans. president trump is trying to one-up his first term with his signature legislative accomplishment wasn't infrastructure improvements as a much as he tried to talk about that. it wasn't increasing access to health care or quality of health care. in fact, they worked so hard to try to take it away. the single biggest accomplishment of president trump's first administration was

record deficits brought to you by record tax breaks for the wealthy. and by cutting the corporate tax rate by 14%, from 35% down to 21%. that's right. he was giving huge tax breaks to corporations to increase their profit margins, and it's not that they weren't making money. they were making plenty of money. who wasn't making plenty of money was the workers who made those profits possible, the wage growth wasn't what american workers deserved it to be. now, that was the first trump administration. we've just begun the second trump administration. where you would think that maybe, just maybe they'd work

hard on making good on their campaign theme or campaign pledge, whatever you want to call it, of putting, quote, america first. i'd love to see it. they could put america first if they chose to invest in our education system and help educate and train our future workforce in ways that would grow our economy in the years and decades ahead. or they could put america first by tackling the high cost of housing and grocery prices. but no, that's not what they're doing. they're right back to focusing on tax breaks for corporations

by hundreds of billions of dollars. it's the only thing that president trump is about, frankly. look at his record. look at his life. he wants to make life even easier for himself, for his family, for his wealthy friends, for the top -- not just the top 1%, the top .1% of americans. but you can't just give these tax breaks away for free. you've got to pay for them somehow. somebody has got to fund them. so in order to pay for these tax breaks, the administration is determined to cut as much spending from our communities and our most vulnerable as they can. like i said, they're not even hiding it anymore. on the campaign trail, president trump enjoyed playing dressup at

mcdonald's and staging photo ops with garbage trucks, but on day one of his administration, who did he surround himself with? not a fast food worker, not a sanitation worker, not an autoworker who he claimed to reach out to in recent years, or a steelworker, as much as he wants to champion blue-collar workers in the midwest. no, he chose to surround himself by the richest men in the country, some of the richest men in the world. remember his inauguration? they were right there in the front row. you recognize the names -- zuckerberg, bezos, musk.

to hardworking americans who may have voted for him in november, sorry to tell you, he used you. he used you for your votes. he got what he needed from you, and now he and russell vought are about to make you pav pavement -- pay. for an idea of what the next four years with russell vought and donald trump in charge will mean, let's review again these last couple of weeks. it's been decision after decision after decision following russell vought and project 2025's playbook. empower the president. and then enrich themselves and their wealthy friends.

now, we've long known that this president could care less about the guardrails put in place in our constitution. but after the supreme court granted him blanket immunity, he's using his newfound powers to eliminate any opposition or dissent around him. from day one in his second administration, president trump has used his powers to seek retribution against anyone he perceives as a political enemy. and he sought to undermine and threaten any potential

oppo opposition. on day one, he issued 1,500 pardons for the january 6 rioters, if you want to call them that, insurrectionists is what i call them, folks who desecrated this united states cap capitol, who attacked law enforcement officers in an attempt to overthrow an el election. the last couple of weeks they have begun to investigate and fire professional career prosecutors at the department of justice who did their duty when asked to investigate the crimes committed on january 6 of 2021.

prosecutors who were required when assigned to, required to investigate insurrection, sedition, violence against law enforcement personnel. serious crimes, folks. serious crimes. president trump's team even sent out a survey to members of the fbi regarding their involvement in january 6 investigations. just this week cnn reported, and i'll quote, fbi turns over details of 5,000 employees who worked on january 6 cases to the trump justice department as agents sue.

end quote. president trump illegally fired 18 inspectors general and over a dozen career prosecutors from the special counsel's office who worked under jack smith to investigate and prosecute criminal actions from his first term in office. still early in the second administration, but the message is already crystal clear. president trump will threaten anyone who might show a willingness to hold him accountable for his actions. it's the same reason why he's not just firing folks, but he's installing loyalists at the he

department of the justice, especially at the fbi, so that no one will dare tell him no. how do we know these are loyalists? the newly sworn in attorney general of the united states has served as trump's personal attorney. people say there's a conflict there. just delegate it to the deputy attorney general. who might that be? oh, surprise, surprise, another former personal attorney. but of course there are still dedicated public servants out there willing to do what's right, even if that means standing up to trump.

but it is indeed getting harder and harder. earlier this week "the new york times" reported that the head of the fbi's new york office wrote to his colleagues and vowed to dig in. that's what he wrote, quote, dig in in the face of this assault. not just on law enforcement personnel, but justice. he wrote, quote, today we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the fbi and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and fbi policy. end quote. that's what's happening. retribution for folks who were doing their job simply because

president trump doesn't like it, fears the consequences and accountability. even if it was just at the fbi, even it was just the department of justice, it would be cause for alarm. but a similar trend is happening across departments and agencies not involved in our nation's law enforcement. when president nixon fired just a fraction of these numbers, it was called the saturday night massacre, and it led to his resignation. in comparison, i can't help but note that what president trump is doing is not a saturday night

massacre. it was a january massacre. and as astonished as i am at what president trump is trying to do, i'm equally astonished at senate republicans who are standing by and watching it happen, letting it happen. letting it unfold as if you have no choice, as if you have no power. unlike their republican predecessors who had the courage and the moral compass to recognize the harm that a president could do to the country and to tell president nixon that enough was enough.

the trump administration is hoping to force out thousands of experienced career federal workers who have served both democratic and republican administrations so that he can replace them with people whose only qualification is blind loyalty. you heard about the loyalty tests that he required of folks who wanted to be considered for appoi appointments. president trump is attempting to twist the united states code to redefine what nonpolitical career workers are to get him even more power to fire and torment our federal government workforce. one of the ways he's initiated this effort is by trying to

offer a buyout or a severance to nearly all federal workers, hoping that nonloyalists would choose to leave rather than stay and be tormented. he's doing this, by the way, with absolutely no authority to do so. i focus on this point because it truly hits home for us in cali california. for federal firefighters who have spent the first month of this year working 24-hour shifts battling life-threatening fires in los angeles county, they returned home -- not just federal firefighters from california, but from a number of states -- they returned home to

find a message from president trump. now you think after weeks of 24-hour shifts fighting these life-threatening wildfires, that they would come home to a thank you message from the president of their country. that wasn't the case. the message they came home to was a request for their resignation. how outrageous, how insulting, how offensive, so much so that i think it's worth repeating just a couple of the messages that i received from federal firefighters who reached out after these buyout offers went out. the first, and i quote, it's hard to put into words just how disrespectful this feels to any

civil servant, but especially to someone who's given so much. sacrificing precious time away from family, risking everything for the greater good. another reads, quote, today i returned home after a two-week fire assignment in california. a slew of executive orders over this last week have put myself and a lot of others on edge. i am worried for my livelihood and my future. a purge of federal wildland firefighters will have catastrophic outcomes. our fire seasons are only getting longer. neighbors continue to expand well into wild landscapes. we cannot control when a fire

will choose to wreak havoc on a community, but we will show up. we want to show up. can't help but see it the way they see it. this is a slap in the face to federal firefighters. and it's a gut punch to the confidence and the pride that so many dedicated federal workers have in the job that they do. but i'll remind us again that that's exactly what russell vought wants. he has said, and i will quote him, quote, we want the bureaucrats to be traumaticically affected. when they wake up in the morning, we want them to not go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the

vil villains. and, quote, we want to put them in trauma. mr. president, let me repeat that last sentence. we want to put them in trauma. this is russell vought on behalf of president trump speaking. we want to put them in trauma. let that sink in. what kind of person says that about the people that they're preparing to work with and about the workers who they will be responsible for? quote, we want to put them in trauma. what kind of person wants to inflict trauma on anybody else? is that really the kind of person you put in charge of the

of office of management and budget, the nerve center of our federal government? clearly in russell vought and donald trump's government, you're not rewarded for your love of country and service to country or for standing up for the constitution. in fact, you're punished, and you will be made to suffer. p and by purging the federal government to make way for loyalists, the trump administration is trying to further protect a reckless president from any accountability for his actions. president trump's goal remains clear. he wants to destroy the founding

principles of our country. he wants to eliminate the separation of powers, the checks and balances enshrined in our constitution and to strip congress. yes, one of the three coequal branches of government, of its power. that's not an exaggeration. congress, particularly those involved with the appropriations process, know and respect the power of the purse. congress, of course, has the power to create laws, and congress has an important power to conduct meaningful oversight to serve as a check on a presidency and a