from a veteran who served 21 years, a civil servant in the department of defense who served 5, who is alarmed, who is is embarrassed, who is offended by the communications he's getting trying to push him out of federal service. the messages i've gotten from leaders of our universities, of our hospitals, of our day cares, of our community nonprofits have elevated my sense of concern to alarm that russell vought,the n director of office of management and budget, has a plan, that that will face no meaningful opposition from the other party, that he will be confirmed and he will do lasting damage. the presiding officer: the senator will suspend. pursuant to rule 4, paragraph 2, the hour of 12 noon having arrived, the senate having been in continuous session since yesterday, the senate will suspend for a prayer from the senate chaplain. thank you, senator coons.

the chaplain: let us pray. sovereign lord, permit us to feel your nearness and to know the inspiration of your presence. may our closeness to you help us to choose light over darkness, love over hate, and good over evil. today, continue to provide for the needs of the members of this body. move among them, instructing, lifting, and guiding them. so that whatever they do, in word or deed, they will glorify

you. give them the confident security and peace that comes from developing a friendship with you as they open their hearts to the in-flow of your spirit. lord, show them what needs to be changed, and give them the courage and wisdom to do your will. we pray in your merciful name. amen. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware is recognized.

mr. coons: mr. president, i've joined my colleagues on the floor today. we've held the floor all night, speaking out against the nomination of russell vought to lead the omb, the most powerful federal agency you've never heard of, because it has the power to suspend payments, to direct funding, to cut things off, or to make funding flow. russell vought has a plan, it's called project 2025, and it laid out how, if president trump were reelected, although he disavowed it on the campaign trail he's implementing it now as president, he would issue executive order after exaecutiv order to splash federal funding and shut down federal programs. i've spoken about how this is

impacting federal aid all over the world, foreign assistance, and how that's making us less safe and less secure, how those who cheer are the chinese and russians, the human traffickers and drug cartels. i've read from e-mails, calls, letters, that i've gotten in my offices in delaware and here in washington, the alarm, the embarrassment, the concern of folks being pushed out of the federal workforce and whose partners and programs are being shut down. we will be less safe. we will be less strong. we will be less the america that we all promise we will work hard to be if russell vought is confirmed to lead the omb. i wouldn't trust this man to run a wawa or a sports league or to run a 5-k, and we are voting to empower him to run the most important and powerful federal

agency you've never heard of but that will impact your life. i will vote no, and so should all my colleagues. thank you, mr. president. with that, i ask for -- i put us -- i subject the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. alsobrooks.

them. >> about 40% come from india. the eu, japan and u.s. fight illegal antibiotics in their shipments. there's allegations they use at every step of the supply chain. i praise raised this witr boss with catherine and now with you. if we have tariffs as the tool

and we can show my gosh sanitary issues, forced labor issues and yet were having our people driven out of business by shrimp being dumped into our country would you commit to putting a slap on a tariff on the trip if we can show it's being imported under the circumstances? >> there's a a process. section 301 and other statutes of the process behind them. if i prejudge that i get in trouble with the courts. if we have an investigation and shows there's unfair trading practices you can oppose the tariff or other measures if that practice isn't remedied. it's important with you and the shrimpers. i feel like they're not getting the relief they need and we need to explore whether section three of one or other tools to make sure we're detecting the unfairness and addressing. >> ago something sheldon whitehouse but appear i'm not against the tariff. it's across the board era for

tariffs sake. i'm not so quite sure about. i'm not quite sure exactly how the law is being applied. one thing i am concerned about is china is not using not enforcing environmental regulation. they produce a lot of sulfur dockside nitrous oxide you name it in the atmosphere, blows in the trade winds over to our country but it lowers the cost of manufacturing by not enforcing those environmental relations by 20% and industry moves there because they just lowered their manufacturing costs by 20% by dumping the air pollution on us. this classical economics. i have proposed that the on the carbon intense products from countries which do not enforce internationally accepted norms on pollution control any thoughts? >> you've articulated the problem very well. there's an unlevel playing field that other countries take

revenge of lack of environmental regulation. we will differ in our country on appropriate level of environmental regulation but we are cleaner in than these other places. it would be interesting to explore how do we address that issue. we have to think of creative notions i had to get. >> i take that as your commitment, thank you very much. >> senator young. excuse me. senator tillis. >> okay. senator young, you're up. >> thank thank you, mr. til. chairman. mr. greer, during the last administration trade policies seem to be treated as an abstract concept. not an opportunity for america to gain market share to make our people wealthier. if anything trade policy was something that where we were consistently in a defensive

crouch. it screened insecurity. it screened weakness and i'm expecting better from this muscular administration as relates to trade policy. ignoring trade doesn't make us stronger. it feeds ground when we are actively looking for partners and allies to help sure our supply chain by building redundancies. it feeds all sorts of economic realm. i've introduced a strategic minerals act. we introduced it yesterday that would give this present and future presidents more authority when it comes to renegotiating sector specific free-trade agreements. focus exclusively in this case on critical minerals and rare earth elements. we need these here we don't have them in the ground here. we you, mr. president. mr. president, i just come from

a meeting with the prime minister of israel, benjamin netanyahu. our meeting comes on the heels of incredibly good news for everyone, and that's that shoblgs are coming home -- hostages are coming home. earlier this week, keith siegel, an american hostage was released verge he's a 65-year-old american citizen who lives in israel, a father, a grandfather, and on october 27, 2023, he was a abducted by hamas, taken to the underground tunnels. his wife was also held hostage. he was held prisoner by the terrorists for 484 days. the conditions, we know, were hellish. he's finally free, united with his family, and recovering in a hospital. we look forward to more of these mom mom moments. they're the results of bold action by president trump. as prime minister netanyahu said this week, president trump is the greatest friend israel has

ever had in the white house. we all celebrate the good news. we're also keeping an eye on alarming news, the news is the rise of anti-semitism around the world. prime example is the international criminal court. it's a kangaroo court. last year, it issued arrest warrants for israeli officials. one of those is prime minister netanyahu. the charges, of course, are bogus. the senate had an opportunity last week to fight back. senator tom cotton of arkansas, chairman of the intelligence committee, introduced a bipartisan bill to impose severe sanctions on the icc. the house of representatives passed the same bill last month. the bill was bipartisanship. passing this bill in the senate would have september a very strong -- sent a very strong message that america stands with israel, that we wouldn't let our ally stand alone.

democrats in this body, in the u.s. senate, filibustered, in spite of the fact that 45 democrat senators voted to abandon our closest ally. two now democrat senators voted for this same bill last year when they were members of the house. yet when the opportunity last week to support israel in the senate came, they voted no. democrats' filibuster is the reason why the icc is not facing the crippling sanctions that it deserves. this very topic came up in our discussion with the prime minister of israel. we did point out the fact that icc is a kangaroo court, refuses to point out the difference between right and wrong, and the vote of the democrats to block this bill in the united states senate was an affront to the people of israel and the prime minister specifically asked the democrats to get this passed, to

support this legislation, which has united support by the republicans and bipartisan support in the house, but was held up in this body by unanimous vote of the democrats, or near unanimous vote of the democrats, to stop this legislation in its tracks and to allow the so-called international criminal court to continue with their lack of justice in a court they claim to have where i see having no jurisdiction. so where do we go from here in terms of what we've seen today and in our discussion with the prime minister? what is the path forward for peace and prosperity in the middle east? that's what we just spoke about. first, peace and prosperity in the middle east begins with american support for israel. president trump and republicans in the congress stand with israel and have from the beginning. our support is unwavering, it's

unbreakable, and it's unequivocal. it's not what we've seen from the other side of the aisle. additionally, the biggest barrier to peace and prosperity in the middle east continues to be iran. as the largest state sponsor of terror in the world, iran controls a vast violent network of proxies. these include hamas, hezbollah in lebanon, the houthis in yemen. iran funds its terror proxies and where does the money come from? by selling oil to the communist china. last year the iranian regime's oil sales to china averaged over 1.5 million barrels of oil each and every day. how did that happen? the biden administration allowed it. they looked the other way. tanker loads of oil to china, pay at a discount. tanker loads of cash back to

iran. to break iran's choke hold on the middle east, america must bring back maximum pressure. president trump is going to do that. he's tough on iran. during his first administration, he imposed crippling sanctions and enforcement measures that brought iran to its knees. president trump is now back into the white house and so is his successful maximum pressure campaign. this week he restored sanctions on iran. this comes after he relabeled the houthis as foreign terrorist organization. it's a strong start and we can still do more. in the senate, stopping iran terror is a priority for the republican majority. deterring iran means restoring peace through strength. republicans are supporting our military. we are ready to make key investments to make our military

more lethal and the most powerful force on earth. with secretary of defense pete hegseth now in place we are already seeing morale return and recruiting numbers rise. we're also working to bring back american energy dominance. energy is america's most critical national security asset. we as a nation are an energy super power. we have enormous natural resources. we ought to behave that way. and under this administration and this majority, america will unleash american energy. a stronger america makes our allies stronger. it also makes the world safer. strength deters enemies. we will work with israel every step of the way. together, america and israel will bring a new era of peace and prosperity to the middle east. now, mr. president, on a

separate matter, democrats last night filibustered another one of president trump's well-qualified nominees. i sat in the presiding officer's chair during the wee hours of the night listening to concerns by the democrats. the democrats continue to want to slow things down. republicans are not going to allow it to happen. we will push through their blockade. we will man the chair, continue with the senate in session, and tonight we will confirm the 13th member of president trump's cabinet. we are confirming the cabinet twice as fast as democrats confirmed president biden's cabinet in 2021. this week we will have confirmed 5 cabinet members in just 4 days. tonight's confirmation is for be russ the vought, he's going to be the director of office of

management and budget. our pace has matched the urgency of the moment. we'll push forward and move deliberately to confirm more nominees. that includes robert kennedy jr. to be the secretary of the department of health and human services. it includes tulsi gabbard to be the director of national intelligence. when necessary we are voting late into the night, early in the morning, on weekends, and that's what republicans said we would do. we are serious about spending the time and pushing through the work to make sure the president has his cabinet and his team in place. mr. president, we are moving with a speed and commitment that we said because we know the president has a strong and active and bold agenda, and we're part of it, and he needs his team in place and able to accomplish it. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire is recognized. mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i come to the floor to join a number of my colleagues in is expressing my opposition to russell vought to head up the office of management and budget. but i want to start, before i do that, in responding to my colleague from wyoming, who we've worked closely together over the years. we've both been on the foreign relations committee. to his comments on the icc because i was also in the meeting with prime minister netanyahu. i also share concerns about the way the icc has operated. i think we should be the able to come to an agreement, to a compromise on how this bill gets written. and in fact that's what the prime minister and his entourage suggested, that this senate should work together to get this done. t unfortunately what we saw was an unwillingness on the part of my republican colleagues to come to a compromise, to actually provide the protections

that we're hearing from american businesses that they need in order to continue to not be sanctioned for work that they have already done for the icc. that we're hearing from our colleagues from the european nations who have people working at the icc that they need so that they're not sanctioned. and unfortunately, the senator from arkansas, who we worked to try and get this done, was not willing to look at a compromise. five words divided us on the icc. and because he didn't think we were serious, he said no, i'm not going to compromise with you. i'm going to have this my way or the highway. well, that's not the way we get things done in the united states senate. that's not the way we should get things done in our government. and i think we're ready to come back to the table at any time, but we need to see a willingness

to work together to get this bill done. i stand ready to do that. i know leader schumer stands ready to do that. but we need to see our colleagues on the other side of the aisle also stand ready to do that. so i will yield my time to senator schumer and then i'll come back to speak on russell vought. mr. schumer: just to reiterate before -- mr. president, thank you. and i thank my friend from new hampshire who cares so much about this issue and has done a great job. and i'll just be brief on that because i want to talk about russell vought. as is clear, we democrats, i certainly, i hate the icc. i've hated it for 40 years. we have to come to, we have to get something done. but there's got to be a fair compromise. and the compromise has nothing to do with weakening any efforts that the icc will be punished for what they do to israel,

which i think is anti-semitic. but there are other things in that bill that would sanction other people, other countries, other leaders, other businesses, american businesses that have nothing to do with israel. jeanne shaheen, our senator from new hampshire made a valiant effort to compromise and we could have had it done but there were problems with the rest of the bill, poorly drafted and went beyond what we were supposed to do. we are ready to compromise. the israeli ambassador said at our meeting he wanted a bipartisan compromise, and i told him we're ready to sit down and do just that. now, on mr. vought, this morning it's not business as usual on the senate floor. russell vought is not a business

as usual nominee. he is one of the most fringed and hard-right individuals the senate has seen in a very long time. for the last 20 hours, virtually every single democrat has come to the floor of the senate to tell the american people how bad russell vought will be for them, to sound the alarm on russell vought. we were here yesterday, we were here all last night, we are here today. and we'll be here throughout the day to let the american people know exactly what's about to happen if russell vought is confirmed. he's the chief architect of project 2025. he's going to make it the officialing, make project 2025 the official policy of the federal government, and in omb he has the power to implement it, to hurt every american,

whether it's medicare or med medicaid, social security, whether it's owning a home, helping afford a home, whether it's help for schools, for head start, for veterans. you name it, if you look at project 2025, they want to slash so many of those things to bits. and here you have the wrong man -- russell vought -- in the wrong place -- omb -- with the wrong philosophy -- project 2025. it's unfortunately three times bad. wrong man, wrong place, wrong philosophy. and deeply, deeply wrong. his policies will hurt children. his policies will hurt seniors. his policies will hurt veterans. and i say to our republican colleagues, you will regret your vote on vought because he will

do such harm to the american people, and you will hear about it day in and day out. but don't say we didn't warn you. don't say we didn't let you know. we've been on the floor for now close to 24 hours. we'll be on the floor close to 30 hours, the maximum we're allowed, to tell america from one end to the other that this man is dangerous not just abstractly, not just in terms of democrat-republican. but in terms of how average people lead their lives and how we can make their lives better. just imagine what will happen if russell vought and doge team up, as they seem to be doing to eradicate funding they allege is wasteful. imagine what the awful combination of vought and doge together would make for kids who struggle to get a good meal at

school, for veterans who need help with health care, for parents who struggle to pay for groceries, for couples looking to buy a home. confirming the most radical nominee who has the most extreme agenda to the most important agency in washington is a triple header of disaster, a triple header of disaster. again, wrong person, wrong ideas, wrong place to be to put those horrible ideas into effect. so, we are going to keep going and going and going for these 30 hours because we know how bad this nominee is. yesterday in another effort, we wrote a letter with my democratic colleagues to secretary bessent, treasury secretary, demanding he meet with us face-to-face about the risky things doge is doing at treasury. i thanked vice chair murray,

vice chair warner, ranking member wyden and warren and peters for joining me on this important matter. bessent has made time in his schedule to talk with republicans in the house about doge. he has a responsibility to meet with senators from across the aisle, especially because we have such deep concerns about what is happening at treasury under his watch. his written responses have been wholly inadequate. he came before the committee before the treasury payment system was invaded. and he should not be evasive. he should come before us and answer questions. we speak not just -- in this letter we speak not just for the caucus but for millions of americans who say this is an urgent matter. secretary bessent should meet with us so the american people have confidence that our government will continue to function effectively and that their privacy remains protected. again, i thank my colleague from

new hampshire for ceding me a little bit of her time and look forward to her remarks. mrs. shaheen: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: now i'd like to go back to my concerns about the nomination of russ vought to be the head of office of management and budget because that's an office that determines the services that millions of families and small businesses rely on, and yet he supported unilaterally taking away those services and help for more than 2,600 federal programs that were ordered to cease activities with less than 24 hours notice. and in every state in the country we heard confusion and panic and chaos. since then i've heard from thousands of granite staters who are worried about what those

cuts mean for them and their families. i've heard from health care providers, from our community health centers, from our nonprofits, from our police departments, from so many people who provide services to the state of new hampshire. it's now been more than a week, and despite not one, but two federal judges ordering the trump administration to stop holding up funds, we are still hearing reports of frozen payment systems and missed reimbursements. i know my republican colleagues are hearing this too. despite this outpouring, we are still here condemn plating -- contemplating russell vought. he was directly involved in drafting the memo that omb sent out that started all of this last monday.

that memo was so extreme that it provoked concern and outrage from both sides of the aisle about the breadth of payments that were being halted. russ vought then had to walk back parts of the memo that he worked on just the day before and all of this happened and he wasn't even a confirmed nominee. so i'm very worried about what he's going to do if he actually gets confirmed for this job. we know that what we saw last week was just a short preview of what he plans to do, and the justification that we heard since that memo is that memo wasn't meant to cut off funding to all the programs that saw their funding halted. it wasn't meant to stop medicaid in every state or to shut down hud's renl assistance or -- rental assistance or homeless

funding. if that's your defense, that meant that omb sent a memo so poorly drafted, that it caused programs to be cut off. either the memo deliberately stopped funding for 2600 programs for water and sewer projects, for housing, for meals for seniors or they were so incompetent that without meaning to, they sent a memo to the whole federal government that had that effect. well, lardless of which -- regardless of which answer it is, the person behind that, russ vought, should not be running the office of management and budget that determines how fungoes out in the federal government. and i think this is especially true because there's no question that russ vought and

president trump intend tyke away some of the funding that congress has provided on a bipartisan basis to help families in new hampshire and around the country save money things like their energy bills, to help address pollution like pfas and i would just remind folks that we passed the bipartisan infrastructure law on a strong bipartisan vote, 19 republican senators voted with the democrats to invest in our communities. we worked shoulder to shoulder, republicans and democrats to prioritize things like energy efficiency, water infrastructure, funding that this administration says it's looking at cutting off even though communities are depending on it. well, i plan to continue to stand up and defend funding that congress provides to make necessary investments in all of our communities. and i hope my republican colleagues will do the same.

and then this past weekend we learned that elon musk, the world's richest man who's never been elected, along with unelected, unconfirmed doge employees, the doge boys, we call them, now have access to the payment system at the treasury department. that is a system that processes more than $5 trillion worth of payments every year. that's everything from tax refunds and social security checks to reimbursing towns for work that they're doing on sewers or roads. they have access to social security numbers, to health information and to so much more. this is a system that the vast majority of people working at treasury can't access and they shouldn't be able to because this is private information. you may have heard that treasury only gave read only.

i say that in quotes. read only access, but if that's the case why is elon musk talking about using this access to stop payments to a charity that helps seniors with housing? what's he doing in the treasury records anyway? why does he need in an information? this week we're hearing confirmation that musk's team didn't just have read access. in fact, they had administrator access, giving them the ability to make changes to this payment system. one specific treasury employee refuted treasury leadership's denial that they gave a doge staffer write access, that's the ability to change the code and to change the checks that get sent out by treasury. the employee said, and i quote, i am looking at his access right now and it has the deputy

assistant commissioner instructing the team to disregard all previous instructions and assign him, the doge person, read/write privileges for the database. so he can change what's in that database. that doesn't sound like read only access to me. i think it's unacceptable for an unelected billionaire to be take over the payment system that our government relies on, that millions of americans rely on and trying to stop those payments. now, fortunately the original omb memo was rescinded but this fight is not over. instead, this access to the treasury's payment system could be the next front in stopping funds going out to the american people. we can and we do intend to be

continue to push back on these illegal actions to stop funding that's required by law. and despite knowing better, russell vought has never shied away from his belief that the executive branch can disregard the law and override spending decisions made by congress. he clearly believes this administration should be above the law and should be able to take away funding that helps millions of americans. russ vought is the architect of project 2025. that proposed a budget that would cut medicaid, just medicaid, by $2.1 trillion over ten years. it would slash snap, the food program, by $400 billion. we have people in new hampshire who count on the snap program in order to be able to feed their kids. his proposal would cut funding

that helps low-income americans go to college by more than $250 billion. it would eliminate the affordable care act tax credits that help millions of americans afford health care. these are not cutsha lower costs, this does not make it easier for people to be able to afford their rent and their groceries. it's beyond ridiculous that anyone could propose these cuts with a straight face while also supporting trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and corporations in this country. you know, i'm not one to claim that the federal government can't be run more efficiently. i think we can always do everything better, and it's important to all americans to make sure our government runs effectively and efficiently. but indiscriminately freezing hiring across the board and

pushing out thousands of civil servants makes that problem worse, not better. last week more than two million federal employees rule of lawed of received ee -- employees received e-mails to be paid for the rest of the fiscal year if they resigned. congress hasn't appropriated dollars to pay those employees. why would somebody want to pay people to go home and not work? that's what this e-mail said. at the time this included hundreds of thousands of individuals working in critical national security roles. it included, for example, every single air traffic controller in the country just days before we tragically saw the worst aviation incident in nearly 30 years. now, he they've since -- now, they've since walked the offer back stating it is not for people who are critical to

national security. but like the claim of the funding freeze, they say that was always their intent, they must have made a mistake. i'm not sure which option is worse. while we're shot more than 3500 afshg controllers -- air traffic controllers, and that they blasted out a reckless effort that could have had devastating consequences for critical positions without taking the time to think it through. they tried to convince us this offer would save money. making it clear even if we lose thousands of key employees, we'll be better off. well, tell that will to the people in new hampshire who are trying to get answers on their social security or their income tax checks, tell that to students who need help with

their fsfa forms. they have attacked the hundreds of career civil servants. some of these people have served our country 30, 40, even 50 years through countless presidents and congresses. we're not talking about political appointees here, we're talking about people who write the checks at the social security administration, about the case workers at the department of housing and urban development who make sure people have roofs over area that heads and food to eat. we're talking about doctors and therapists at v.a. hospitals who provide around the clock care for veterans. program operators at the small business administration who help entrepreneurs get loans. they're the forest rangers who show up in all weather conditions in the white mountain

forest in new hampshire to ensure there is safe and enjoyable recreation opportunities to our visitors. speaking of the weather, they're the meteorologists at the national weather service, the people we rely on for hazardus storms. these employees contribute to the maintenance of nuclear submarines, which is an essential ten enter of our -- tenet of our national security to deter major conflicts and the impact to our shipyard, we have the portsmouth naval shipyard between new hampshire and maine that does maintenance on our nuclear submarines pchl any impact -- submarines. any impact, is already saturated

with demand. why did we get an e-mail giving these employees the option to resign? this administration has said repeatedly that it wants to restore the warrior ethos at the pentagon. if russell vought there isn't going going to be anybody -- isn't going to be anybody left at the pentagon now we hear that the elon musk is plugging into our national air traffic control system. the air traffic control system has asked for more funding, targeted investments, shorter hours and upgraded technology. we need to get to work in this senate, in this congress on legislation that addresses these issues, but handing the keys to the nation's air traffic control system over to an unelected, inexperienced billionaire who

cuts first and askses questions later isn't -- asks questions later isn't the solution. russell vought will tell you over and over again that -- he says every time he's not going to break it with zero regard on how this will help you and your family. we have heard more horrifying parts of russell vought's agenda. esteeming up with elon musk. last year for the first time thanks to pepfar, more than half of new hiv infections were outside of sub saharan africa. one of the most successful health programs in u.s. history put in by george w. bush. one of the only things that has stood between americans and so many of the diseases that come from overseas is usaid. you know, i was listening to the

prayer breakfast this morning, and i heard president trump talking about his admiration for billy graham, for franklin fram, for the -- graham, for the good work that they do. and then a few minutes later, i heard test. the morning news and what's happening in sudan, where we have a famine and millions of people desperate because of the conflict there and what's happening. the news report said if we don't get our foreign assistance turned back on to help the s sudanees -- the sudanese, eight million people are going to starve to death in the coming months. i can't imagine billy graham or franklin graham support the idea of eight million sudanese dying because we've turned off the foreign assistance that we

provided, because elon musk doesn't like the united states agency for international development. i think billy graham and franklin graham, billy graham when he was alive and his son franklin, would say these are also god's children, and it's important for us to support people around the world who are dying. you know, it's not just those kinds of situations like we have in sudan. we have significant diseases that are breaking out in parts of the world, and we don't have people on the ground to make sure that the people who -- the outbreak of ebola happening in africa, some of us remember in 2014 when ebola came to the united states, we don't have any aid workers anymore, because under elon musk's order they've

shut down those programs. they're bringing those people home. so there's nobody there to make sure that that ebola outbreak doesn't go across borders and wind up in the united states. there's a marburg outbreak, another hemorrhagic disease that's happening in africa. it has a 90% mortality rate. right now, we have no real treatment and no vaccination for the marburg virus. yet again, we've taken our teams. people -- our teams of people who help in-count to treat the -- in country to treat the marburg virus, we've taken them home. we said go ahead, cross whatever country lines you want, come to the united states, because we're not going to prevent that. we've got a bird flu epidemic now. you may have heard there's a new strain just discovered in cows in nevada. we've had about 70 people who

have been infected with bird flu. we've had somebody die from that. we used to monitor bird flu outbreaks around the world. but under this shutdown of usaid and its programs, we're not monitoring bird flu anymore. so that bird flu could come to the united states. we don't know. nobody seems to care in the trump administration if that happens. these things don't just happen overseas. they affect us here in america. it's in our interests to ensure that these efforts that help with diseases, that help prevent vladimir putin and russia from its nefarious activities in europe, in moldova, romania and ukraine, that's also happened, the aid to help ukraine in this war against russia, that's all

been cut off. that doesn't make america safer that doesn't make us stronger. that doesn't make us more pro prosperous. i hope my colleagues will stand against russell vought, who has been the architect of so much of this carnage. sadly, i don't think colleagues on the other side of the aisle will do that, and i hope that we can reverse some of this harm that's being done to so many people around the world that is going to come home to roost in america if we don't address it. so, mr. president, i have taken all of my time. i yield the floor. mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: today we'll vote

on the nomination of russ vought to be director of office of management and budget. mr. vought served as the omb director for much of president trump's first term, and before that he was deputy director of the same agency. so, he's clearly qualified for this job. my discussions with mr. vought focused on the nation's dismal fiscal trajectory, overregulation, congressional oversight, and respects -- respect for whistleblowers. with the federal government running a 2 trillion annual deficit and a national debt approaching $37 trillion, a fiscally sound budget is more important than ever, and i'm

counting on mr. vought to help the president chart a new fiscal path that will not be an easy job. in addition to reining in spending, mr. vought understands the need to cut red tape. for too long, overzealous and unelected bureaucracies have sought to use regulation to stretch the meaning of laws beyond congressional intent. the supreme court's recent decision last year in -- should be used by omb to place a check on out-of-control rulemaking. mr. vought and i also had a good discussion on the importance of responding to congressional letters and respecting

whistleblowers. he not only agreed with me, but expressed interest in helping ensure timely responses to congress and respect for whistleblowers as the norm across government agencies. i look forward to working with mr. vought to right-sizing the federal government. now, i'd like to take about three minutes for a little history. today we're celebrating the birthday of our nation's 40th president, ronald reagan. he was born in a small second-story apartment above a tavern in illinois, on february 6, 1911. after graduating from college and struggling to find a job in illinois during the depression, reagan moved to davenport, iowa, where he landed a job at woc

radio. he started off calling university of iowa football games, quickly becoming the voice of hawk eye football. soon after, he moved to des moines to work for who radio as a chief sports announcer, where he called games from the studio of that radio station. if you know history of that sort of a way of telling about bas baseball, you read off the teletype and tried to put in as much color as you could. in addition to baseball, reagan called a variety of other sports, including basketball, boxing and the prestigious drake relays, and they still are a prestigious relay. it was also during this time that reagan had the opportunity to call the 1933 world series between the cubs and the

washington senators. during his time in iowa, he improved his speaking skills, later gaining the title of, quote-unquote, the great communicator. for this senator, 1980 marked a turning point in our nation's history, a time when americans demanded change. it was the year that ronald reagan was elected president, and i had the honor of being elected to the united states senate. reagan's 1980 campaign slogan, let's make america great again, reflected a call to restore confidence in the united states during a time of economic struggles, particularly high infl inflation, foreign policy fai failures, and widespread dissatisfaction with government leadership. now, does that sound familiar?

much like reagan's vision, president trump aims to restore america's strength and leadership. president trump is taking action to secure our southern border. i look forward to working alongside president trump and his administration to continue the fight for a stronger, a safer, and a more prosperous america. i yield.

mr. van hollen: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: mr. president, as we gather here on the senate floor, over at the u.s. department of treasury, elon musk, the richest person in the world, not elected by a single american, has gained access to the u.s. payment system, payments that go to about $2 trillion worth a year. he's gained access to the personal information of millions and millions of americans -- social security numbers, bank accounts, all sorts of sensitive information that we do not want to be shared. it compromises people's privacy. and that kind of scenario is playing out across the federal government. elon musk and his so-called doge boys are in many other departments, and every day that we wake up we hear about another

one. one department that we know they're in is the department of state, and specifically usaid. now, what we are witnessing here, mr. president, is the result of the most corrupt bargain in american history, because elon musk spent over $280 million to elect donald trump, and donald trump has handed the keys of the u.s. government over to elon musk. and damage is being done every day, and it is hurting the american people and the interests of the american people. i want to focus for now on the situation at the agency for international development, which has been a critical piece of our o overall national security and foreign policy strategy. and a.i.d. has enjoyed

bipartisan support in this body for its work for decades. i want to thank the great pat patriots, the men and women who work for a.i.d., for the important work they're doing for our country as we speak. but when president trump turned the keys to the government over to elon musk, elon musk began dismantling the agency for international development. here's what he said in recent tweets about his plan to destroy usaid -- quote, we spent the weekend feeding usaid into the wood chi chipper. could have gone to some great parties, but i did that instead, unquote. he said, this is elon musk, quote, usaid is a criminal

organization. time for it to die, unquote. i think my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would be surprised to know that they've been supporting a criminal organization all these years by voting to support the agency for international development. and let's make no mistake that his effort to dismantle a.i.d. is a gift to our adversaries, it's a gift to china, it's a gift to russia, and others who want to do us harm around the world. in fact, one of putin's cronies immediately posted on x, quote, smart move by elon musk, unquote, referring to dismantling a.i.d.. so this is not america first. this is america in retreat, and it has nothing to do with government efficiency and everything to do with aiding and

abetting our adversaries. in fact, mr. president, if you know this, when you talk to our military leaders, they will tell you that our investment in a.i.d. is an important component of our overall foreign policy and national security strategy. you know, we spend about 50% of our discretionary budget on defense. actually, a little more than half of our discretionary budget on defense. we spend about 2% on aid. if you look at our overall budget, it's .6% for aid. having a strong military is important, we all agree. but in addition to demonstrating the power of our military, we've always worked to also demonstrate the power of our example. trying to work with people around the world to provide a

little bit more opportunity, a little bit more stability, and, yes, help stop diseases from spreading around the world. poverty and violence and disease, they spread like fire. and if your neighbor's house is on fire, you don't build a wall. you go for water. when you have an outbreak of disease in one part of the world like we saw with ebola in africa, by helping stop the spread of diseases, of course we help people in other parts of the world but we also save american lives when we prevent diseases from spreading elsewhere. and if the world doesn't trust america to help, and believe me, at this moment they are doubting us, they will turn to china and russia and those adversaries will be itching to fill the vacuum. now elon musk's crusade against

usaid is not only a security risk, it's also a purge of dedicated public servants who have committed their lives in service to the values our country holds dear. and thousands of aid employees have now been furloughed, many fired and direct hires are being put on administrative leave. there's absolutely chaos in the aid system. as elon musk system said, he wants it to die and that's what he's trying to accomplish. for those men and women who serve our country as part of aid, they are being ordered to come home immediately, so thousands of our aid staff overseas were called back with just a few days' notice. their kids are being pulled out of school in countries overseas.

many of them don't have homes to come back to at this moment. to be homeless upon their return. and they're being ripped out of their lives where they're doing that important work for our country. mr. president, usaid has more than 13,000 total employees worldwide. on monday night the e-mail was sent out to all staff and then subequently posted on usaid's website. you can go and look at it right now, telling all of them that they will be placed on administrative leave globally. placed on administrative leave globally. this is absolutely cruel and an unnecessary infliction of punishment on americans and others who have been part, or partners in this effort in supporting humanitarian causes and advancing u.s. priorities

around the world. i'm hearing from many of these usaid employees, and what is really inspiring at the same time it's heartbreaking, is they're not worried about the themselves, but they are worried about the impact and cost and harm that will be done to the people that they're trying to help in places around the world. and, mr. president, what's happening here is just plain illegal. now, secretary rubio said he wanted to give a waiver for all essential lifesaving treatment. he said that on wednesday. but "the new york times" uncovered that no money has actually gone out. money is still missing, and people are still in danger of imminent death. and even if the money got out the door, who is going to service it when everybody has

been put on administrative leave, fired, or otherwise told not to show up to work? i went down to the aid building on monday when i heard what was happening, when i heard that elon musk told everybody not to come in to work, and went up to the doors and asked if we could come in to talk to employees who might still be there. we were denied access. the folks there were told and instructed not to allow members of congress to get into the bu building. presidents are not kings, and you don't get to pick and choose what part of the law you decide to apply. and elon musk doesn't get to shut down the usaid operation

legally. he may be a dictator at tesla and he may be playing one here in washington, d.c., but he doesn't get to shred the law of the land. and that's why i'm expecting that in the coming days, just like we saw judges in rhode island and here in the district of columbia issue temporary restraining orders on president trump's efforts to freeze important federal funds going to communities all over our country, that that same argument will be used with respect to this illegal action and takeover of usaid. mr. president, i want to close with this, because you would think that all of us, regardless of party, would want to stand up for the law, that we wouldn't want elon musk to be able to

shred it unilaterally. we got this letter from secretary rubio a few days ago, and clearly he's playing catch-up here. clearly he's not in control of aid, even though it says that he's now taking control of the operations at usaid. here's what the letter says. this letter provides notice and advises you of our intent to initiate consultations with you regarding the manner in which foreign aid is distributed around the world through the united states agency for international development. consultations. he really should talk to elon musk who's tweeting out that he's putting aid in the wood chipper and that he's killing aid. all of us are prepared to sit down it for a conversation about how we can reform aid if we want

to better integrate it into our overall foreign policy operations. that is a matter for congress to deliberate on in consultation with the state department. but secretary rubio sent this down after the doors had been closed on aid. this is just cover, a coverup for the fact that he wasn't controlling what was going on. and i think as members of the senate, we have an obligation, if we care at all about our law-making duties and care at all about whether or not when we appropriate funds for aid they're actually spent as we indicated, we all have an interest in making sure that this process operates in a legal way. and what elon musk is doing is flat-out illegal. and if our colleagues won't join

together on a bipartisan basis to do it, the courts are stepping in. but the courts shouldn't have to do our job. so i appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, if you care about the constitution and if you care about article 1, you should be rising up when elon musk is talking about putting aid through the wood chipper and saying it should die. i will be back a little later on the floor, mr. president, to talk about about russ vought moves place and the role he plays in this operation, but for now i yield the floor. a senator: thank you, mr. president. ms. lummis: when i was growing up, i thought about foreign aid as helping people in foreign countries who needed food or shelter, who were struggling

because their country was having a civil war and they had been cut off from having clean water, enough food for their families, someplace for shelter. i think that's what most americans think foreign aid is, that we want to help people around the world because the united states is blessed. god has given us more than he's given most nations. we need to respond in ways that are helpful to our fellow man. but today i hear my colleagues blaming a guy named elon musk for doing away with foreign aid. if anybody is to blame, it's us. it's the congress of the united

states for taking our eye off the mission of our country to provide aid to those around the world who need it. millions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted on left-wing pet projects that don't benefit us here at home, that actively work against our interests and do not help those in need around the world. i believe that american taxpayer dollars should be spent making lives better for americans and better for those around the world who have far less than we have. i've been talking about our national debt since i was first elected to congress in 2009.

at that time our national debt was just turning over from $9 trillion to $10 trillion. i was apoplectic. how can we let our national debt get over $9 trillion? mr. president, today our national debt is $36 trillion. that's absolutely inconceivable. it's inconceivable to the american people. it's certainly inconceivable to the people in my state. they want answers. they want to know where's all this money going. that's why they elected donald trump. they didn't like seeing people come in to our country illegally. they didn't like seeing inflation make their lives harder, make their family pay

$1,000 to $1,500 more per month with no change in their lifestyle. inflation is eating away at the lives of american people. they're working harder than everything and their dollar's going less far. so now we're talking about elon musk being the blame. i'm proud that president trump chose to include elon musk in his administration because president trump is already getting results, the kind of results that the congress has turned a blind eye towards. we all know that washington is addicted to spending, and it isn't getting any better.

for too long my colleagues have had meltdowns any time somebody suggests we should cut spending, but i'd always thought that we all agreed we need to take a look at some of the federal programs into which we're pouring taxpayer money. thanks to president trump, we finally had the opportunity to get started assessing what we're spending money on, and what we're finding in some instances is it's not very pretty. this week we learned just how much usaid has been weaponized by the far left. they're pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into liberal programs and causes, and i'll bet some of these, even my colleagues on the left had no idea about.

this is wildly out of keeping with stated american interests for how we will spend taxpayer dollars abroad. here are some of the ways the last administration have wasted your money. more than $4.5 million to combat disinformation in kazakhstan. and just who's disinformation is it? i think that's probably in the eye of themoney. beholder. $20 million for a new sesame street know in iraq, $25 million for deloitte to promote green transportation in the country of georgia. nearly $8 trillion srilanka how

to teach -- $5 million to echo health alliance, one of the key ngo, nongovernment organizations, fighting bat virus research at the wuhan lab. $20 m 20 related -- $20 million to -- $1.5 $1.5 million to rebuild the cuba ecosystem, $1.5 million on dei programs in serbia. diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in serbia. mr. president, i could probably go on for another hour. president trump isn't just talking about cleaning up the waste and abuse of your

taxpayers, taxpayer dollars, his administration is doing something about it. these bureaucrats are accountable. they must be accountable. they have to be accountable to us, to congress, to the american people. and president trump is holding them accountable. because of doge, which is led my elon musk, the trump administration is taking action where we wouldn't. congress wouldn't uncover the waste, fraud, and abuse that's going on in our foreign aid programs. thanks to doge, the trump administration is already terminated some 36 contracts, saving taxpayers more than $165 million. the administration has canceled underutilized leases, saving

taxpayers close to $50 million. that's after two weeks in office. this is just the first step towards reclaiming control of our government and our budget. and i would think my colleagues from all over the country, both parties, would be pleased that we're uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse. that's why the american people elected donald trump. president trump and elon musk are threatening to turn off the d.c. spigot that flowed taxpayer money into far-left organizations and causes. now, i want to respond to some of the claims from my friends from on the other side of the aisle calling this a constitutional crisis. i'm grateful that democrats

realize that we are the article 1 branch and we control the power of the purse. i'm also happy to hear that most of us want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. and that's why i ask my colleagues to join us now. regardless of party, regardless of state, join us now. we have a funding bill coming up and reconciliation, let's work together and do our job. rooting out government waste and making real cuts during our appropriations process. i'm serious about this because the fiscal crisis before us could not be more serious. no nation has lasted very long when their debt exceeded 100% of gdp, but that's where we are. that's where we are today. it's time to act.

we must clean up this debt and spending crisis. our fiscal future is on an unsustainable path and a scary path, and everybody says that, including the chairman of the federal reserve. he says it's unsustainable. with higher interest costs and our record debt, we are in trouble. in 2024, the interest on the national debt was over $880 billion, that's more than we spent on defense or medicaid. that number will only increase. protections put interest payments on the national debt at more than $13 trillion over the next decade. that's $13 trillion that isn't going to further our interests to help with foreign aid. it's not going to help our children. it's a debt burden on this

entire nation. rooting out wasteful spending should not be controversial. every taxpayer should want their tax dollars to be spent wisely and on things that make oush country stronger -- make our country stronger, our goals more closely held to heart around the world, but that hasn't been the case. what's been the response of some in the minority party regarding the disclosure of this wasteful spending? instead of joining in a bipartisan effort to get our fiscal house in order, we're seeing protests. we're seeing elon musk demonized. it's starting to look like blaming elon musk is trying to change the subject, trying to

blame elon musk for shining a light on congress's wasteful spending. i'm sorry to see it because it's beyond time to get serious about our national finances. the people of wyoming are grateful, i hear it when i go home. i see it in their eyes. people will come up to me in the feed store, in the grocery store and say they're grateful to president trump for creating doge. they're grateful to the patriots working hard at doge to identify waste and fraud and abuse in these programs. and to start the process of cutting reckless spending. so speaking on behalf of the people of wyoming, i want to say thank you. thank you, president trump,

thank you for bringing in a group of people to help us shine a light on how we can make america better in just the way that the american people yearned for, wanted, expect and celebrate. mr. chairman, i yield back. ms. rosen: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nevada's recognized. ms. rosen: thank you. mr. president, earlier today i stood before this chamber to voice my concerns about russell vought, president trump's nominee to lead the office of management and budget. vought is an extremist and allowing him to hold this position, a position that

oversees the entire federal budget would be nothing short of disaster. as one of the authors of project 2025, mr. vought has made his extreme policy agenda very clear. and one of the key pieces of the project 2025 agenda is illegally dismantling usaid. as we all know, the united states agency for international development, or usaid, has long been a cornerstone of america's foreign policy and national security. this agency has long enjoyed bipartisan support and works tirelessly to promote peace, security, and development around the world all for less than 1% of our budget. by preventing conflicts that could threaten the u.s., responding to the spread of

deadly families, strengthening democracies and improving economies so we have new trade partners, usaid plays a critical role in advancing america's interest abroad. through its programs, usaid has fostered strong partnerships with nations around the globe and these partnerships have proven time and time again to be essential in maintaining our national security. and, frankly, ensuring a safer more prosperous world. unfortunately, president trump's recent illegal attempt to eliminate usaid without the approval of congress while simultaneously freezing almost all of foreign assistance, well to say it is deeply concerning, that is an understatement. these moves, well, they undermine key components of our nation's foreign policy, and we can't afford to allow the

reckless shuttering of usaid to take place. the consequences of such actions would be grave. you know, our national security, it depends on our support of diplomacy, our support of defense, and our support of development around the world. and abandoning these priorities would have dangerous and long-term implications. at this moment, when america needs to demonstrate strength on the global stage, we are opening the doors for our adversaries like vladimir putin, chinese communist party, and even violent extremists to step in and seize the opportunity to advance their own interests at who's expense? at our expense. at your expense. and as russia and china have shown time and time again, they are ready and waiting to fill

the vacuum left by strong american leadership. so let me be clear. donald trump's attempt to eliminate usaid doesn't make us stronger, it doesn't make us safer, it doesn't put america first. in fact, it puts america last by forcing us to retreat from the world stage. it puts america last. and we simply can't allow this to happen. that's why i'm committed, alongside my colleagues, in stopping this reckless and illegal attempt to get rid of usaid. our global leadership is not just a matter of pride, it's a matter of our own security. and as we face the challenges of a chinainging world -- changing world, it's more important than ever before that the united states, well, that we remain at

the forefront of international development and humanitarian assistance. and thb isn't possible -- and this isn't possible without usaid. i can't say this strongly enough. we cannot afford to retreat into isolation. we cannot afford to let adversaries fill the void that we will leave behind. so we must fight to protect the work of usaid and make sure that the united states influence remains strong. that the united states as a nation, our commitment to global peace and security endures, and that america's leadership continues to shine brightly on the world stage. our nation will be stronger and more secure by doing so. thank you. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from maine is recognized. mr. king: we began our careers here with the following words, i do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic. when each of us arrived here in the senate, we took this oath to support and defend the constitution and as it says against all enemies foreign and domestic. i think it's interesting that the framers could see there might be domestic enemies to the constitution. our oath was not to the republican party, not to the democratic party, not to joe biden, not to donald trump, but our oath was to defend the constitution. and right now -- right now literally at this moment that constitution is under the most direct and conventional assault in our nation's history. an assault not on a particular

provision but on the essential structure of the document itself. it's hard to grasp what is happening because of all the events that are swirling around us over the last several weeks. it's coming from so many different corners and actors. it's hard to get a picture of what's really happening fundamentally. but this is an assault, and how we respond to it will define our life's work, our place in history, and the future of our country. none of us will ever face a greater challenge. before we get to the challenge, however, i think it's important to ask why we have a constitution in the first place, why ours has so far stood the test of time. the answer it to the first question, why have a constitution in the first place, is contained in the preamble --

we the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, there's number one, establish justice, number two, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to do ordain and establish this constitution of the united states of america. you want to know what the constitution is for? there it is. there's the list -- ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. but there's a paradox at the heart of the creation of any government, whether it's here or anywhere else on earth, and anywhere else in history. there's a paradox built in, because the essence of creating government is to give it power, give it our power, in order to look after us, in order to provide for the common defense,

to ensure domestic tranquility, to provide justice to our people. in other words, we're giving our power to this separate entity. but we have to do so with the realization that the power that's being given has the potential to be abused. in other words, how do we give power to this entity, this government, and ensure that the government itself doesn't use that power to abuse us as citizens? this is a question at the heart of all political discussion throughout history. the romans even had a question that captured it. the question was who will guard the guardians? who will guard those who we have given power to guard us? it's a fundamental question that's confronted every society and every government throughout

history. madison put it this way, and by the way he used a gender-specific term. i suspect if he were writing today it would be more broadly phrased. in the 51st federalist, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. if angels were to cover goran men, neither internal nor external controls on government would be necessary. in framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this -- you must first enable the government to control the governed. that's the function. and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. our framers understood this. they were deep students of history and also human nature. and they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated

governmental power, george iii. the universal principle of human nature they understood was this -- power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. that's a universal principle, all over the world throughout history. power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. so how did they answer the question? how did they answer the question who will guard the guardians? they answered it by building into the basic structure of our government two essential safeguards. one was regular elections. in other words, returning the control of the government to the people on regular scheduled elections. by the way, this is what we learned in sixth grade, checks and balances. but the other piece that's built into our system that's the other essential safeguard is the

deliberate division of power between the branches and levels of government. this is important, mr. president. the cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. the framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. and the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. the whole idea, the whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power. why? because it's dangerous. history and human nature tells us that. this division of power as annoying and inefficient as it can be, particularly to the executive, i know because i used to be a governor, is an

essential feature of the system, not a bug. it's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms. now, this contrast with the normal structure of a private business, where authority is purposefully concentrated, allowing swift and sometimes arbitrary action. but a private business does not have the army, and the president of the united states is not the ceo of america. power is shared, principally between the president and this body, this congress, both houses. in fact, this hurrerky-jerkines the two houses, the war power divided between the president and congress, this unwieldy

structure is the whole idea. no one has or should ever have all the power. so the concern i'm raising today isn't some academic exercise or manifestation of political jealousy or abstract institutional loyalty. it's the guts of the system, designed to protect us from the inevitable. and i mean inevidtable abuse of an authoritarian state, the inevitable abuse of an authoritarian state. it's the guts of our protection. in fact, this clumsy system is the main spring of our freedom. by the way, it's worked so far, so far, and distinguishes us from the historical norm. we have to understand, we are an anomaly in history. the historical norm is pharoahs,

kings, dictators, emperors, presidents for life. but the fact that we're such an anomaly, and we've seen in our lifetimes other governments, other systems based upon ours slip into authoritarianism and dictatorship tells us how fragile what we have is. what we have in this country is an anomaly in history and it's fragile, and it needs to be, must be, protected from generation to generation. this makes this moment all the more urgent and pour ten chus -- portentious. now, the nominee before us today is one of the ring leaders of this assault, one of the ring leaders of the assault on our constitution. he believes in a presidency of virtually unlimited powers. he's written extensively about this. and explicitly rejects, for

example, the exclusive power of congress to authorize and appropriate funds for the operation of the government. he espouses the discredited and illegal theory that the president has the power to selectively impound funds appropriated by congress, thereby rendsering the famous -- representedering the famous -- rendering the famous power of the purse. i will touch on a.i.d. and other issues, but what i'm really worried about are the impli implications, the structural implications for our freedom and government of what's happening here. we have to keep our eye on the big picture. not all the confusion and smoke that's going on over the last couple of weeks. mr. vought is one of the principal authors of the infamous project 2025 which the president strangely hadn't heard of during the campaign but now seems to be the essential guideline for his presidency.

project 2025 is nothing less than a blueprint for the shredding of the constitution and the transition of our countries to authoritarian rule. he's the last person who should be put in the heart of the op raying of our government -- heart of the operation of our government. again, this isn't about politics. this isn't about policy. this isn't about republican versus democrat. this is about tampering with the structure of our government, which will ultimately undermine its ability to protect the freedom of our citizens. if our defense of the constitution is gone, there's nothing left to us. so thomas more said, i expected you to betray me, richard, but for whales? we should not betray the constitution for temporary

expedient because we don't like this or that agency. now i want to speak to my republican colleagues. it is your constitutional prerogative to confirm this nominee and any others. i do not question that right, only its wisdom. and this nominee is a place to say no to the undermining and destruction of our constitutional system. but don't stand aside in the midst of these confirmations, ill-considered foreign policy pronouncements, flood of executive orders, none of which will do a thing about the price of eggs, cost of housing or availabilities of child care. don't get caught up in all of that and ignore the steady and not-so-slow usurpation of congressional authority and fundamental alteration of the framers' scheme. my colleague who preceded me, speaking from the republican

side, bemoaned congress' lack of oversight and praised elon musk for doing what congress should have done. maybe she's right and congress should have done it, and we should do it, but not give away that power, which will never come back. once this door is open, it's going to be very difficult to close it again, no matter who the president is. no matter who's in charge. to my colleagues, are there no red lines? are there no limits? just in the past ten days, we've seen the literal destruction of a statutorily, i emphasize that word, statutorily established and funded federal agency by people ostensibly working for the president understand vague authority, no transparency, and no guidance from the congress. did they come to the foreign relations compe and say what do you think about a.i.d.? are there parts to work with or be reformed? no, zero.

this small group, and we don't know who they are, but this small group apparently it's reported in their 20's have no experience with government, no experience with foreign aid, no experience with the operation of the united states government, but they're making basically policy decisions and constitutional decisions. the constitution does not give to the president or his designee the power to extinguish a statutorily established agency. i can think of no greater violation of the strictures of the constitution or usurpation of the power of this body. none. i can think of none. shouldn't this be a red line? by the way, i find it especially galling to read the sneering comment from the richest man in the world that, quote, we spent the weekend feeding usaid into

the chipper. describing an action that will literally take food from the mouths of starving children. forget red lines. do we have no decency? and then there is the executive order freezing funding, again, selectively, for programs the administration doesn't like or understand. i mentioned that i was a former governor. i would have loved to have had this power, but it's a fundamental violation of the whole idea of the constitution, the separate of powers. to say that the executive, you can pick and choose which laws you like, which funding programs, the level of funding, you can impound if you don't want to spend it. richard nixon tried to do that. he was rebuffed by the congress who passed a specific statute, no impoundments. in addition to the chaos, the uncertainty and demonstrable damage which my colleagues have been outlining all day brilliantly, there's nothing

theoretical about cutting off funding to a rural health clinic, for example, or support for small farmers or grants to your fire department. but getting away from those specifics, it's easy to get pulled into those, and my office is hearing calls every day, we can hardly handle the volume, this again, to underline, is a frontal assault of our power, your power, the power to decide where public funds should be spent. isn't this an obvious red line? isn't this an obvious limit? or finally, and i picked a few examples, but my final example is the power seemingly assumed by doge to burrow into the treasury's payment system, and now cms for undefined purposes, zero oversight and raises questions up to and including

threats to national security. do these people have clearance? are the doors closed? are they going to leave open doors into these? what are the opportunities for our adversaries to hack into the systems? we're already under unprecedented cyberattack and we're opening doors, although it's impossible to determine what they're taking. remember there's no transparency or oversight. access to social security numbers seem to be in the mix. all the government's personnel files, personal financial data, potentially everyone's tax returns and medical records. that can't be good. that can't be good. that's data that should be protected with the highest level of security and consideration of americans' privacy. and we don't know who these people are. we don't know what they're taking out with them. we don't know whether they're

walking out with latops or thumb drives. we don't know whether they're leaving back doors into the system. there is literally no oversight. the government of the united states is not a private company. it is fundamentally at odds with how this system is supposed to work. shouldn't this be an easy red line? in short, mr. president, we're experiencing in realtime exactly what the framers most feared. when you clear away the smoke, clear away the doge, the executive orders, foreign pronouncements, for fundamentally what's happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. and we have a profound responsibility l based on that pesky oath that we all took, to

stop it, to stop it. we can -- if the republican members want to appoint mr. vought, that's fine. it's not fine, it's terrible, but that's their right. but stop what's going on in terms of altering how our government is supposed to fundamentally function to protect our people. the power of the majority is with you, my republican colleagues. together, together we have the power to right the balance, to reclaim the authority we thought was inherent in our jobs, and in the process save our country. at a prior time of crisis, abraham lincoln came here. december 2, 1862, and he defined the stakes for all of us. fellow citizens, we cannot

escape history. we of this congress and this administration -- this could have been written yesterday. we of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. no personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. we will be written down through his history, we will be lit through history in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. i would suggest, mr. president, that the red line should be the constitution of the united states. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

♪♪ [cheering and applauding] [cheering and applauding]

[applause] [applause] >> thank you very much. we want to bring religion back stronger and bigger and better than ever before. this is a good start. [applause] did suffer greatly over the last two years but it's coming back and i want to thank you. fantastic. all across the country and all around the world. this is a beautiful tradition -- senator from north carolina is

recognized. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, this week has been interesting. as i've seen some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth and all the horrible things that are going to come before us. and it reminded me of a book that i used as a basis for management consulting training back in 1998. it was called "who moved my cheese." it's a story about two mice and two small people in a maze. the mice are named sniff and scurry, and the two little people are hem and haw. it's only about a 100-page book. the purpose of the book is the cheese was moved in the maze and the challenge was to figure out where the food source was.

sniff and scurry, the mice, did a pretty good job fairly quickly to move where the choose was and deal with the status quo. but hem and haw had more challenges. i think we've got some hemming and hawing going on here in washington right now because they just don't understand business practices that we're firefighting apply to government -- that we're trying to apply to government that have never been applied at scale before. i decided that i would give you an idea, because a lot of people think that elon musk is off the chain and causing all kinds of havoc. i haven't seen that yet. as a matter of fact, if time allows, i'm going to talk a little bit about the narrative this week over the payment system and all the detailed payment system that supposedly got out which is patently untrue, contrary to what press reports have said. but i thought i'd start with the story of spacex. when elon musk decided to invest

in and create spacex, he did something that has never been done before in this industry. he decided that instead of doing what the old players do, which is to be perfect. never launch a rocket until you're absolutely certain that that mission can be accomplished. he decided that you can learn from failure. this is actually a social media post of one of his first launches where the booster failed to come back to earth. his immediate response, whether it was either his instincts or really good communications people, his immediate response was a social media post that said great launch, unscheduled rud, rapid unscheduled disassembly. he was telling his investors, the people who invested in

spacex, it happened on its face, it was a disaster but it was willing to fail, provided human life was not at risk, being willing to fail, and you bypass everybody who partnered with the federal government. you get through all of that and now you have the premier launch platform. while all the other competitors have been working on it for years or decades. because he understands the concept that i understand in business where i've spent most of my life, that you learn from failure if you know how to measure it and you're responsive and resilient. when i advise clients, we would pull back if we thought it was a market reputation risk instead of a business risk. so i believe we need to do more of this but we have to have guardrails, clearly. now there are just people that just can't figure out where the cheese is. now, if i just go back to the

one area on payments, i have to admit when i first heard about the payments information with read-only access being provided to someone who may be technically a government employee but not a career government employee it did give me concern, so i had my staff dig into it and since then the administration put out a sheet that anyone who is concerned at the payment platform should look at it. they're not looking at detail payment data. this is looking at the way payments are processed. maybe more money that we can use to retire our debt. that seems like a reasonable thing to do. people said they're getting top secret information and confidential information they shouldn't have. i asked the specific question. i've been assured if there's any classified information that the only ones who are going to see it are people that already have

the appropriate clearances. and i've also been assured that there is no confidential information being passed. so i would defy those in the press or maybe some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, i'm all about facts here. if i've established no reputation in the the u.s. senate, it's that i am tedious and i complete my due diligence. i went to the administration, i asked these questions, and i believe we're dealing with a false narrative because people don't want to know where the cheese has been moved. they've got to get used to change. i've been in the u.s. senate for ten years. i am sicked of saying medicare has to get better. i am sick of saying medicaid has to get better. i am sick of saying we are not getting people more healthy on medicaid today. i'm sick of hearing people say that on both sides of the aisle, folks. so if we don't take some calculated risk, then we're going to be talking about the same sort of vexing issues ten years from now.

and so i would ask everybody to reject this narrative we're going too fast, too soon, too many things on the line, and let's get to specific examples. i've used the example that's dominated the press this week to determine most of what's being said is a red herring to take the president and in this case elon musk off of the -- find efficiencies. you've got facts to dispute tedious. that, stop creating a false narrative because you want to continue to follow the status quo which is failing the american people and failing to fulfill promises that i've heard people make for the last decade. so, mr. president, i just -- i come here to say -- i also shared a story. i had a friend of greek ancestry called me saying what's going on with mr. musk? i will say, mr. musk has put out

some social media posts that are incorrect. he actually is one of the reasons why we're having to do this due diligence because he was talking about looking at payment data versus professionals, some career personnel, looking at source code do figure out how to do it better. so he probably needs to tighten it up. my greek friend told me, he said i think the president has enabled mr. musk and other people a lot like icarouses father, and if you know the mythology, the idea was to fly and never go so low as to drown in the sea but never go to high as to have his wings melted, his feathers float away and ultimately drown in the sea. for those looking at all of

this -- all of this in a way that i am, i want that sweet spot. i want those who are looking at government efficiencies to understand the rules. they need to understand confidentiality and national security. lives are on the line. we're talking about dod, intel community, foreign service, you need adult supervision in the room to mack sure that we -- make sure we don't compromise or put those men and women in danger. in the meantime, if we really want to force change, if we really want to fulfill the promises that we made to the american people when we took control of washington, then we have to get people comfortable with change. and we have to start fulfilling promises, some of the big promises that for the ten years i've been here i've heard it every year and we haven't made progress. that the american people are patient. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will present facts, not innuendo, that could be politically motivated at best or

just bad information at worse. we could get through this and do right by the american people as a result. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from illinois. ms. duckworth: mr. president, after hours and hours of arguments from my democratic colleagues, not because i woke up this morning with a strong desire to hear my own voice, but i am here because decades before i ever considered a career in politics, when i was just starting out in the army, i raised my right hand and took an oath. i swore to support and defend the constitution of the united states. i vowed to protect our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and at this moment at

this precipice in our country i need to make good on that promise. because in the just 18 days since donald trump has been inaugurated, we witnessed an all-out assault. we have seen the president both overreach and underdeliver proving through executive orders and twitter marching orders that he cares more about the billionaires who belong to mar-a-lago than the middle class folks he pretended to care about on the campaign trail. a few brave patriots grabbed their muskets and risked their lives at lexington and concord on a country more of an ideal than reality. they did so because they could not stand living under a tyrannical leader, and they knew

that a system based on checks and balances was the best way to keep this nation's leaders from turning into the very kind of tyrant they fled england to escape. a system of checks and balances. well, two weeks ago, two weeks into trump's america, the only checks i see are the ones going into the pockets of trump's rich friends. only balance i see is ripping off the middle class and endangering our nafrnlt our system of government is being eroded before our eyes. it is being perverted to work for the faw, the -- the few, the billionaires rather than the people. it is sickening to see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and pretend they don't see what's happening. they are refusing to speak up as the president turns into more of a despot every day, as his power

grabs get more extreme and cruel. even if we took the full 30 hours of debate on this nomination, i don't think we could get through all the ways how president trump's absolute disregard for law has already harmed america and americans. but let me use my time to try. last week news broke that trump had declared a blanket freeze on all federal grants. ignoring the fact that congress appropriated those funds, ignoring that he pointblank did not have the authority to do so. ignoring that his action would and already has hurt countless folks who rely on these grants for their most basic needs. president trump may think that he owned the libs by causing hav ex-, what he did is his own voters who are not sure how they will put food on the table next

week. he may think he destroyed world culture with this freeze, but no he didn't. instead he manufactured a crisis that has left that single mom working a double shift in a southside nursing home unsure whether her medicaid will be stripped away in the dark of night. he's created ka crisis that left veterans wondering if they'll be able to access the benefits they earned with the blood they were brave enough to shed for our country. he's fabricated a nightmarish reality where homeless shelters may have to turn back on to the streets the teenagers who rely on their care. when i was in high school, my family struggled. my dad lost his job and was unemployed for four or five years. we eventually ran through all of our savings and we ended up with no money and some days we had no food. i still remember going to the grocery store and counting out

our last five $1 food stamps to buy as much bread and baloney as possible and then praying we would have enough to last the week. i still remember fainting from hunger in my high school english class, waking up on the floor dis-orrin entered -- disoriented, not knowing what had happened. if remember the hours -- i remember the hours my dad spent walking from pay phone to pay phone hoping to find $0.10 at a time so that he could find enough so that my brother and i could each get $0.50 so my brother and i could buy a hot lunch at school and many times it was the only meal i could count on for that day. as a former hungry kid and now as a mom of two little girls, i cannot imagine the pain of parents who rely on school meals to feed area that own kids and

are now terrified that trump's vanty project will force their kids go hungry as cafeteria programs may now get gutted. shame on donald trump and shame on republicans who can't seem to find the ounce of courage necessary to stand up and say what all of us in this so obviously no. that this is wrong, that this is outrageous and this is a wild, unlawful abuse of power. but trump didn't stop with the grant freeze. last weekend he gave elon musk, the world's richest person, someone not elected by the people of the united states of america, the power to cut off aid from the world's most vulnerable people. he gave him the thoert to did hes mant -- authority to dismantle an entire agencies in one fell swoop. they are now gutting usaid, completely undermining the united states national security

and global standing, knowingly, intentionally jeopardying the safety of countless innocent people worldwide who rely on the organization for humanitarian assistance. now, bad actors in the communist people's republic of china and russia will be able to step in to fill the leadership vacuum that trump created forcing folks in need across the world to turn into our adversaries -- turn to our adversaries and not us for help. usaid is an organization dedicated to doing good around the globe but the good it does also has a direct, tangible impact on the safety and economic security of families here at home in the united states. it is an organization that helps allies detect fentanyl in part so we can stop it before that fentanyl comes across our own borders. it's an organization that helps feed starving families worldwide but it does so using $2 billion

worth of food from american farmers with the paychecks going into their red, white, and blue pockets so they can keep their farms nor another generation. it helps to stop global families, and it works to make sure that the poorest children in the poorest countries don't die from drinking dirty water. when countries experience water insecurity, they're more likely to undergo political instability as well and that increases the odds that their governments fail and falls into the wrong hands which leads to the keened of -- keened of immigration -- kind of immigration crisis we face at the border. i'm all for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, i have written past legislation that has done that.

eliminating an agency with vital missions is not the way to go about it. usaid makes up 1% of our federal budget and this will end up costing the federal taxpayer even more in the long term as there will be more global instaeblt, more migration crises, more families to contend with because of this it otic decision -- idiotic decision. the guy who is making the decisions is making it more chaotic. he is threatening to use american troops to bring home usaid workers if they don't leave their overseas post in the next 30 days, it would cost americans an estimated $100 million. that's elon musk spending $100 million more, not saving it. elon musk is unelected, unvetted, and unqualified. he does not have the legal authority to dismantle entire answer -- agencies, yet in

trump's america he is almost a coequal president, as far as he is willing to bend the knee is enough for our president to bestow on him unchecked power. musk is willing to bow to trump's fool's gool and false -- gold and false promises. slon gets -- elon gets to have full access to americans' social security numbers and veterans's information. for what reason? we don't know. he gets to enrich himself rather than the middle class. he gets to stomp on those in need and then fire anyone who dares to stand up for what's right or what's legal. trump and musk are not bringing back the good old days of ronald reagan. reagan believed in international aid. reagan is the one whose name is on the front of usaid's building. they aren't making america

great. they're making it authoritarian, and we should all be asking ourselves if we let them gut usaid, then what is next? the answer is the department of education and then your social security, your medicaid, the things that you and your families need to get by are right behind on their list to take out. look, trump ran his campaign of lowering costs for the middle class. i support lowering costs for the middle class. he said he would reverse inflation on day one. i would love to say that. well, day one has come and gone so has day two, day three, day four. here we are weeks in and all he's done is break his campaign promises and then take actions that have hurt everyday americans to help his rich buddies afford yet another private jet under his stewardship egg prices have

skyrocketed, inflation remains sky high, a needless trade war could raise the price of groceries and gas. and we're all in danger of bad actors the world over. enough is enough. enough was enough a long time ago. drat is unchecked. donald trump is unchecked. the scales have become unbalanced. every day, those scales tip more away from serving the needs of the working class and feeding the greed of the billionaires who pal around with the president on his golf course. it was ronald reagan who once said, and i quote, the genius of our constitutional system is its recognition that no one branch of government alone could be relied on to preserve our freedoms. the great safeguard of our liberty is the totality of the constitutional system, with no one part getting the upper hand. reagan also described the constitution as, i quote, a

covenant, a covenant that he said we have made not only with ourselves but with all of mankind, end quote. so today, i am asking my republican colleagues to honor the covenants so cherished by their own conservative hero, ronald reagan. heed his words, he's his plea to us all. under donald trump our government is not of, by, or for the people. it is of, by, and for the people with the deepest pockets. e pluribus unum is supposed to signify the strength and sol dared of our nation. do not -- solidarity of our nation. do not let donald trump pervert it to mean he and his only buddies are the only ones who matter. to my colleagues on the other side, i'm asking you to do the jobs you were elected to do. all i am begging for is that you make good on the oath you took when you were first sworn into this chamber, to support and

defend our constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. trump is acting as if he believes the constitution is just an old yellowing piece of paper he can crumble up at his will. my colleagues, you know better and you know your constituents deserve better. please find the courage to stand up and say so. it's the least we can do for the country we're lucky enough to have been elected to protect. you can do that today by voting no on trump's latest unqualified, unfit cabinet nominee, russell vought, who doesn't care to hide that he will happily rubber stamp trump's worst instincts. now, i'd like to take time to illustrate the very real impact trump's illegal actions have had on middle-class americans. i want to begin by reading some of the many letters from my constituents in illinois. let's start with trump's federal funding freeze. here is a message from metro

chicago's ywca that supports the delivery of over $10 million worth in head start funding to child care providers, taking funding away is both cruel and counterproductive. it hurts our families, businesses and economy. this is what the ywca said. we partner with 19 child care center providers to enroll 621 children in the head start and early head start program. many of these centers are mom and pop small businesses. due to the callous and irresponsible federal funding freeze yesterday, ywca was unable to access the payment portal for these critical programs for several hours. they hurt our child care centers across the service population were frozen out from receiving direct payments, payments these centers depend on to make payroll, feed children and

provide other resources. child care centers in illinois are scared. child care centers across the country are scared. the child care businesses that ywca serves typically survive on profit margins less than 1%. wages are astonishingly low, with child care workers making less than 98% of the nation's other workers. the harm has already been done, even with that temporary funding freeze and it cannot be undone. the at-risk children include those living in poverty, children in foster care, children experiencing homelessness, people of color, and children with disabilities. the parents and caregivers are hardworking taxpayer americans. when they don't have access to quality child care, the federal reserve tells us child care

probable are the main barrier to job seeking, the main reason for missed work and part-time work. next i received several messages from constituents after they were locked out of their medicaid accounts in the aftermath of trump's illegal federal freeze. here's what medicaid means for them -- i'm a single mom in centralil. medicaid provides quality of life for my disabled son and service and supports that i would not be able to provide otherwise. i'm a parent in southern illinois. alex's genetic disability requires many doctors visits and tests and medication. she also requires physical therapy and occupation altherapy. she will always require a caregiver. medicare provides caregivers. in the future, medicaid will provide day programs. when i am not physically able to care for her and her brother becomes her guardian. medicaid provides for needs so she'll have a good life.

as a parent of a child with a disability, this relieves our stress. as a parent who won't live forever, it gives us peace of mind to know she has these services to live a fulfilling life. from a parent in newton, illinois, medicaid has been a lifeline for our family for the past two years. my daughter has a rare condition. she suffers from a whole slew of medical issues. medicaid pays for nursing that our primary insurance does not cover. the state allows me to be paid as her nurse to pay for our daily needs, home and wheelchair van to transport our daughters. without medicaid, we would not have access to medications, equipment, supplies and nursing. these keep my daughter alive. from a parent in chicago, my child has a rare genetic disorder. she's medically fragile and requires 24 hours care and is unable to do anything for herself. medicaid allows my family to

survive financially by covering all of the health-related costs. without medicaid we would drown in debt and my daughter would have to live in a hospital, costing the taxpayers more money. from a parent in elburn, illinois, medicaid helps to care for my daughter at home. it provides for critical support eva needs, ventilator care, nursing and medical supplies. without medicaid and the mftd waiver, keeping eva home would not be possible. it allows us to give her every opportunity and keeping our family together. medicaid is a lifeline for families like ours. now some messages from health care providers, researchers and patients in my state worried about how the trump freeze will impact their lives. one constituent said, i am a ca cancer survivor. thanks to research and early detection. currently, i have a friend who

is a vanderbilt medical center for treatment of leukemia. i have another friend undergoing chemo and will go to vanderbilt for a months-long treatment in may. reports say all communications and grant reviews and cancer research or trials have been stopped by the trump administration. i ask you to do everything in your power to restart the cancer research and trials so lives are not lost. thank you for your help. another e-mailed me, my uncle has a genetic disorder. my cousins have 50-50 chance of having some issue. my uncle has been in several studies in st. louis. they are working to identify what causes this gene, then how to treat it. the new administration has hamptoned all meetings and grant reviews by the nih. this funding is vital, capitalized, to researching what causes and how to treat so many diseases, including the one my uncle suffers.

please push to fully fund the nih so we can continue to research and treat terrible diseases that would impact all of us and our families. next, here's a message i received about how the trump freeze could hurt staff, researchers and students at southern illinois university. southern illinois university estimates they have approximately 550 employees paid fully or partially through federal dollars. a pause in funding in the programs they lead and research they perform in areas like treating alzheimer's or ensure the food we eat is safe would keep them from earning a salary. the trio upward bound program in east st. louis serves 225 participants between both programs. the majority of whom come from low-income college-bound families. these students face significant challenges, including academic barriers, limited access to

resources and lack of college preparation support. any freeze in the federal funding will stop the university's ability to effectively assist them in overcoming these obstacles. the upward bound program plays a crucial role in preparing students for college, providing tutoring, college admissions guidance and mentorship, which were at risk due to the freeze. our dedicated staff face uncertainty regarding their employment. this disruption also affects our broader community as our program serves as a vital resource for encouraging educational advanceman and economic mobilities. next, an except from an e-mail from a chicago nonprofit serving homeless youth. the nonprofit had to reach into their own wallet. they said the freeze turned their sector, and i quote, upside down. this is their message to me, thankfully we were able to carry out our commitments to youth

over the last 24 hours because we have a small funding reserve. however, if this is not re resolved, these direct services are at risk. essential mental health services and housing for over 500 young people, youth ages 14-17 who are victims of trafficking lose access to 24/7 shelter, young people at the greatest risk of harm will lose access to 24/7 crisis hotline. this freeze turned our sector upside down and shifted over 100 providers and our coc to rush into emergency mode. the most devastating effect was the fear youth experience, assuming their safe and stable supports were going away and insecurity of hardworking staff felt for their employment. now a message we received from beyond legal aid chicago after they learned trump's freeze would impact their work to provide legal services to juntas served communities and -- to

underserved communities and veterans. first, when the freeze went into place, the notice of funding opportunity for homeless veterans legal services was on hold. without that, we will be unable to serve veterans for benefits like featured in this story. our client was a 57-year-old veteran suffering from service-connected disabilities and faced challenges navigating the v.a. system. his efforts for upgrade have been denied, preventing access to critically needed support. he met our staff at one of our clinics, where our legal advocacy he was upgraded to 100% and total disability status. he now is protected from a rate reduction by the v.a. we raised his monthly benefits. he is now entitled to an additional benefit, for spouse and children, no cost for v.a. health care, dental care and i.d. card for access basis. his children are not eligible

for educational assistance up to $107,036 for their college education. this family was stabilized, keeping them in the middle class by recognizing what this veteran's service cost him. be in 2024, using federal funding, we worked with a home ownership preservation organization in the south suburbs to save 64 homes from foreclosure. that's 64 families with $19 million plus in preserved home value. our legal work saved 64 frames from homelessness. without federal funding, those homes would be lost and families face housing instability. over the course of our th three-year legal assistance for programs, received through the department of justice, was the principal funding source serving 286 survivors of sexual assault. they say further that all of

that work and more is funded directly by non-lse federal grants, all of which was subject to donald trump's freeze. trump's freeze impacted law enforcement in illinois. trump loves to say he backs the blue and democrats want to defund the police. but in reality, it's his actions taking money away from law enforcement officers and public safety, not to mention him pardoning january 6, people from january 6 who assaulted the blue, our campus police officers. in the aftermath of trump's freeze, police departments reached out saying their high-intensity drug trafficking area offices were notified they may lose funding. the high-intensity drug trafficking area program provides support for law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug trafficking regions across the united states. illinois is part of two regions,

they provide crucial assistance, especially to rural agencies to combat gangs, cartels and proliferation of fentanyl as well as those that surround us in places like indiana, missouri, kentucky, iowa. remember that the next time republicans claim they say they back the blue, they're actually not backing the bhidta. ed i'd like to read a list of federal programs that would be at risk if donald trump goes forward with his freeze. let's begin with head start. donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardizes federal funding for head start programs that provides comprehensive earlier childhood education for more than 800,000 kids and families. teachers and staff may not get paid and programs may not stay open in k-12 r students, the illegal freeze jeopardizes

funding because they may not be able to to access funding including title 1, idea, impact aid and career and technical education which impose financial burdens on schools during the middle of the school year. food assistance programs. donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardizes funding for millions of american citizens who rely on nutrition assistance programs like snap, wic, and school lunch. these americans would be left hungry as funding is cut off and nonprofits that provide additional assistance would lose federal funding and some of that funding especially for snap and wic and school lunches are spent purchasing from our americans farmers who would also be negatively affected. disaster relief. donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardizes funding for grants when the disaster fund to state,

tribal and territorial governments and nonprofits that help communities respond to, recover from and prepare for major disasters. right as communities are struggling in severe l natural disasters. public safety, donald trump's green new deal freeze jeopardizes grants for homeland sec security. l healths services, the freeze jeopardize funding for community centers that provide health care for over 30 million americans creating chaos for patients trying to get prescriptions and more. veterans care, donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardize grants for veterans in rural care to help veterans get critical services including suicide prevention, resources, transition assistance and housing for homeless veterans.

support for servicemembers. donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardize support for a host of dod financial assistance and grant programs supporting servicemembers and their families. including the fisher house, impact aid, community noise mitigation, rotc language training, stem programs, and the uso. preventing domestic violence, donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardize all violence against women act grants as well as funding for victims assistance and state and local police. 988 suicide and crisis lifeline. donald trump's illegal freeze jemdz funding for the 988 suicide and crisis line. life changing medical research, donald trump's illegal jeopardizes research on cancer, alzheimer's disease and diabetes

as well as clinical trials at the nih clinical center it disrupting lifesaving and often time sensitive research. support for is small businesses, donald trump's illegal freeze would mean the small business administration would have to halt loans including north carolina, texas and florida. emergency preparedness. donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardize critical preparedness and response capability funding used to prepare for disasters public health emergency and chemical and nuclear events. support for firefighters, donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardize grants to support firefighters across the country. this includes localities purchase firefighting equipment, good paying jobs in the energy

sector, donald trump's illegal freeze would jeopardize good paying job. the loan program office would halt loans in 28 states impacting hundreds of thousands of jobs. infrastructure projects, the illegal freeze jeopardizes federally funded transportation projects across the country, roads, bridges, public transit and more including projects already under construction. combatting the fentanyl crisis. the illegal freeze jeopardizes funding for communities to address the substance use disorder crisis and combat the fentanyl crisis. programs for american innovation and competitiveness. the illegal freeze jeopardizes existing grants to support research for a.i. and quantum computing and new grant funding undermining u.s. innovation and competitiveness with the communist chinese prc and putting american jobs at risk. programs to strengthen our military readiness.

the illegal freeze jeopardizes grants and other assistance appropriated to strengthen military effectiveness and defense capacity including the defense production act support for the defense industrial base, basic research grants necessary to advance key technologies and small business support to strengthen supply chains. programs to protect americans overseas. the illegal freeze jeopardizes programs to combat diseases, create opportunities for companies in emerging markets and counter influence of the prc. efforts to ensure safety around security of americans implementing these programs are suspended and could be terminated. food inspections. donald trump's illegal freeze jeopardizes whether some states will have to take on the full financial burden of ensuring the nations meat supply is safe if

inspections are halted. support for tribes, the freeze jeopardizes funding for health care, public safety programs, tribal schools, and food assistance. pell grants and direct student, direct plus loans for parents. donald trump's illegal freeze puts pell p grants and parent plus loans programs at risk. these grants and programs make college more affordable for americans giving them the opportunity for access to higher education and a ticket to the middle class. his reckless actions create another barrier opportunity for americans. i'd like to switch gears and let's talk about more campaign promises broken by donald trump. during his campaign trump attacked people he called unelected bureaucrats for having too much control over the federal government. but now donald trump has made elon musk the world's richest

man, the most powerful unelected bureaucrat of all. giving him the keys to our government and empowering him to illegally dismantle core agencies without consulting congress not to mention giving him access to our social security numbers, tax information and personal data. as my colleague, senator sanders pointed out, elon musk spent $277 million to elect donald trump president. since election day, he has become $154 billion richer. elon musk's net worth is estimated at $426 billion. yes, that's billion with a b. meanwhile, the average american salary is only $63,795. the average cost of child care for one child per year in the united states is $9,994. the average price of a gallon of milk in our country is $4.47. the average price of eggs in america currently is $5.29 for a

dozen. although it's getting up, it's actually increasing as we speak. the average price of gas in the u.s. is $3.12 a gallon. in illinois, the average person's salary is $67,192. the average cost of the child care per year for one child in illinois is $11,605. the average price of a gallon of milk in illinois is $5.52. the average price for a dozen eggs in illinois is $4.15, over an a dollar more than the national average. the average price for a gallon of gas in illinois is $3.26. you can see the disparity between the middle class and the billionaires that cozy up to donald trump. it's not just musk. wealthy elites have more money than most americans can dream of. they know he plans on giving them massive tax cuts to line their pockets even further. jeff bezos is one example.

he's from new mexico and his net worth is estimated at $250 billion. meanwhile in new mexico, the average person's salary is $57,512. the average cost of child care for one l child is $8,056. a dozen eggs will set you back $5.46. next up, meta ceo mark zuckerberg, in new york the average person's salary is $78,624. the average cost of child care is $12,844. the average price of a gallon of milk is $5.05. the average price of eggs is $5.46. and the average price of gas is $3.18. these guys don't represent america.

they have no clue what the middle class experience is. they don't care about making the government work for everyday americans. they only care about making it work for them and their buddies. donald trump ran for president on the promise he'd lower the price of eggs. how much since being in office he seems to have forgotten that vow. he's done nothing to stop the bird flu which caused the price of eggs to skyrocket further. l in fact, his freeze would stop the research into and tracking the bird flu virus that is causing eggs to skyrocket. the cost of eggs accelerated since november, the month donald trump was elected president, according to the data from the u.s. labor bureau of labor statistics. in the week ending january 18, a dozen eggs cost $5.29. a steep climb from february of 2024 when the price was a little over $3.50 a dozen. in november the price of a dozen eggs was $3.65.

since the moment trump returned to the oval office he has abused his power both overreaching and underdelivering signing executive orders and issuing commands that are illegal. hypocrisy must be dead because donald trump used to claim a lot about executive overreach when there was a democratic president in office. here are a few examples of when ironically donald trump was complaining about president obama's executive actions. in 2016, this is what trump said, and i quote, we don't want to continue to watch people signing executive orders because that was not what the constitution and the brilliant designers of this document had in mind. we need people that can make deals and can work because right now in washington there's total absolute gridlock. in another instance trump declared he doesn't want to get people together the old-fashioned way where you get the congress, you get the senate, you get together, you do legislation. he just writes out an executive

order. that's supposed to happen that way. you get the congress. i'm sorry i'm butchering the english language but i'm quoting donald trump directly. you get together, you do legislation. he writes out an order, executive order. it's not supposed to happen that way. another time donald trump lied and said, quote, quo i would build consensus with congress and congress would agree with me. i'll give you an example because i don't have like the idea of using executive orders like our president does. he was referring of course to president obama at the time. it is a disaster what he's doing. i would build r consensus but consensus means you have to work hard, cajole, get them into the oval office and get them together. you have to make deals. i end quote. there are countless examples of other republicans hypocrisy when it comes to executive overreach. i want to name one. in 2014 now house majority leader steve scalise had this to s

say -- in 2014 then house majority leader steve scalise had this to say about president obama. president obama has this fantasy that he can use his pen to write laws. we don't have a monarchy in this country. there is an executive branch and the legislative branch and the president has to work with congress to get things done. on to the topic of usaid and the trump musk decision to gut the agency. the decision is dangerous and heartless and careless. the house majority leader steve scalise was not majority leader when he said this. he was a member of congress at the time. first i'd like to read excerpts of speeches given by secretary rubio in which he expressed support for international aid before confirmed. the lack of un-american engagement comes with a higher price of its own many. of our nation's adversaries

rivals have been enbolded by foreign policy. our allies want to know if h america can be counted on, whether we will continue to be a beacon to the rest of the world. our legacy is that of a nation that for two centuries planted its feet and pushed out against the walls of tyranny, oppression and injustice that constantly threaten to close in on the world and sought to replace forces with the spread of liberty, free enterprisescalise and human rights, of the american influence, those adult require any military might. for example, consider the countless lives we saved from the scourge of aids in the pepfar program or the economic mobility created by american trade and investment. these accomplishments prove that. while military might might be the most eye catching abroad, it is far from being most often utilized. in most cases the decisive use

of diplomacy are the most effective ways to achieve our interests and stop problems before they turn into a crisis. marco rubio said that. marco rubio, where have you gone? i would like to also share a news article about secretary rubio's prior comments in support of usaid from cnn. it stands in contrast to his criticism of the aid agency. and i'm going to read from the article. secretary of state marco rubio fnewly in charge of united stats agency for international development was a supporter of its mission while in the united states reversing his views only recently as president trump and his allies have moved to dismantle the agency. as cnn case file revealed, rubio's past comments show he has been a major supporter of foreign aid and usaid which in fiscal year 2023 distributed

more than $40 billion in foreign aid to more than 160 different countries. his most recent comments contradicts years of support and praise he has directed towards usaid included a tweet he posted in february of 2017 that said, foreign aid is not charity, we must make sure it is well spent but it is less than 1% of the budget and critical to our national security. during his fox news interview on monday, rubio dismissed concerns that scaling usaid's presence could allow china to influence nations. but just three years ago rubio argued the exact opposite, urging the biden administration in a 2022 to prioritize usaid's funding as a key tool to counter the china party's expanding deplorable influence. we don't have to give foreign aid. we do so because it furthers our national interest.

there's a component to foreign aid that is humanitarian in scope and that's important too he said in february of 2013. foreign aid is part of our overall budget, it's less than 1% of the total amount that the u.s. government spence said in one 2017 speech on the senate floor. i promise it will be harder to recruit someone to anti-americanism and anti-american terrorism if the united states of america is the reason that person is alive today. neb who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that we will -- and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget. it's just not true he added in august 2019 while speaking to the forum club of psalm peach -- palm beacher. foreign aid is a cost effective way to advance our security and our economic interests, marco rubio said in april of 2012 to the brookings institute. as a senator he introduced

legislation in 2013 and 2015 to make these programs more transparent. a lot of times, he said people say, well, cut foreign aid. foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget but foreign aid can make a difference when prop rememberly used and if you ever have a chance to travel, go to the african continent and in are people alive because the u.s. funded antiviral medications, the american taxpayers saved their lives and the lives of their children rubio said while on the presidential campaign trail in late 2015. where is secretary rubio's enthusiasm for usaid now? time and time again we see republicans reversing their stance even members of the trump administration who just a week or so ago said they supported programs like usaid like marco rubio who have now reversed

their position. mr. president, at this time i will end my remarks. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you, mr. president. in america our news cycle is often fraught with controversy and dispute. from watching the news or scrolling through social media, it might seem like there are very, very few issues that americans can agree on. it may be true that we disagree on some big issues, important issues, but behind the headlines and the social media posts, there are many things that americans agree on. and one of those is paid family and medical leave. the pew research center found that the vast majority of

measures support paid parental leave, up to 82%. that's really a broad consensus. 85% of americans say people should receive paid leave to deal with their own serious health conditions. 67% said they should receive leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition. we rarely see americans now days so united on other issues, but it's for good reason that republicans and democrats come together on paid family leave. the reality is that americans shouldn't have to choose between their paychecks and caring for their families. and that's why i spearheaded our nation's first ever federal family leave policy in 2017 with senator angus kenning, as part

of -- king. as part of the 2017 tax cuts and jobs act we passed a paid family leave and tax credit that allows to offer relief to employers. they could receive the tax credit if they offered up to 12 weeks of paid leave. our credit increases access to paid leave without penalizing small businesses with limited resources like a government entitlement program or a mandate from the government would. almost eight years later, this tax credit is about to expire and congress is set to work on another tax package. so now is the perfect time to pass my bill, with senator king, to make our tax credit permanent and also to improve it.

yesterday we introduced the pfml tax credit extension act. we have a companion legislation in the house. our bipartisan bicameral bill supports additional options for financing paid leave such as paid family leave insurance. it also allows employers to be begin offering paid leave to workers sooner after being hired. the legislation includes a strategy for educating employers and employees about the option to receive this credit and it requires the small business administration and the irs to provide targeted outreach and assistance to those who need it. that will raise awareness of the credit and it will expand the number of americans who have

paid leave. passing this bill in our upcoming tax package will deliver on the promises republicans made to the american people this past november. we promised to make families' lives better, more prosperous, more affordable, more access to family leave will contribute to that goal. our tax credit is tried and true, one with a bipartisan track record of success. it's the paid family leave solution that will do the most good with the smallest price tag. so i urge my colleagues to join me in pushing for this legislation's inclusion in this year's tax package. this is how we expand paid family and medical leave for

employees across this entire country. this is how we are deliver for the american people. i am determined to get this done and i hope my colleagues will join me. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. you know we're just 17 days into the trump-vance, and yes, elon musk administration, and we're already witnessing the great betrayal of what president trump promised on the campaign trail. for the last 17 days the trump-musk administration has

been engaged in a reckless abuse of power that is already harming people in communities throughout our country. and one of the principal architects of this chaos is the man who was nominated to be the head of the office of management and budget, russell vought. but before i get into that nomination, let's just start with day one -- day one of the trump administration. because a day one, president trump pardoned individuals convicted in a court of law of beating up police officers here on capitol hill on january 6. they bludgeoned them. they beat them, assaulted them. as the national fraternal order of police said, that pardon sent a terrible message to law enforcement all over the country.

it sent the message that political violence is okay as long as it's done in the name of donald trump. and since then we've seen the trump administration carry out retribution against fbi agents and department of justice officials who are part of the investigations and prosecutions of the people who beat up police officer s on january 6. so if you are part of the effort to hold people accountable for assaulting police officers, they went after you. sends a terrible message. and then of course president trump unleashed elon musk on the american people. i've said it before and i will say it again. we are witnessing in real time the most corrupt bargain in american history. elon musk spent over $280

million to elect donald trump and donald trump has handed the keys to the u.s. government over to e -- to elon musk. they seized access to the treasury's payment system. this is a $6 trillion payment system. elon musk's doge boys have gotten access to social security numbers of the american people, bank account numbers, and other very sensitive, personal information. judges are trying to rein him in but who knows what information they've already accessed and what kind of damage has already been done, not to mention what could still be done in the days ahead. and elon musk has gotten into the department of education, the state department, health and

human services. mr. president no matter what name he gives it, elon musk takeover of these federal agencies has nothing to do with government efficiency. it was about -- if it was about government efficiency, trump would not have illegally fired the inspector generals whose job it is to provide oversight at these agencies and blow the whistle on corruption. in fact, when you fire the inspector generals who are the watchdogs at these agencies, whose job it is to look out for waste or fraud or abuse, when you fire them as one of your first acts, what you're doing is making the way -- clearing the way for the kind of illegal actions we're seeing from elon musk and his team. so what they're really doing

here is seizing control of the government, taking over a lot of these agencies. in the long run to empower further the very powerful and the very wealthiest in this country. and we'll be seeing more of that in the months ahead when we begin to see the trump tax plan, the trickledown tax plan that's being worked on as we speak. because we know, we know that although candidate trump campaigned on the idea that he was going to be on the lookout for working people, that he was going to shine a light on the forgotten americans, everything he's done since then is a betrayal of that promise. just down the hall here during

the inauguration, the folks who were sitting behind president trump as he gave his remarks were certainly not the forgotten americans. they included elon musk, the richest person in the world, and all the billionaire tech titas. so when president trump in that inaugural address promised a new golden age for america, he was looking at the cameras, but he was talking to those tech titans sitting right behind him. and to provide that golden age for the billionaires and powerful in america, they're following a manual and an instruction book called project 2025. now, people might remember that during the last presidential

campaign, candidate trump was asked repeatedly about project 2025. people said, is this your plan that's being put forward? and his response was, and i quote, i have nothing to do with it, unquote. you know why he said that on the campaign trail? because he knew it was unpopular. if you look at the contents of project 2025, the american people would recoil at what's in there. and candidate trump knew that. and so when he was asked, he said i see nothing, i have nothing to do with that. so surprise, surprise, surprise when one of the key architects, key authors of project 2025 russell vought is nominated to

be the head of the office of management and budget at the white house. so before i speak to why it will be so dangerous to put russell vought in that critical position, i want to say a few words about what omb is all about. because it's not a well known agency. people hear about the department of justice. they hear about other important federal agencies, the department of health and human services, but what is omb? omb is the office over at the white house. it's in the executive office of the president. and it is the command and control center for the budget of the united states government. it oversees the budgets of every federal agency of the federal government. they feed their information, they feed their budget requests

up to the office of management and budget. as the office of management and office that makes the final decisions and signoff on all of those federal agency budgets, across the government. so as i say russell vought will be in the cockpit of this decision-making, overseeing every federal agency in our government. so let's learn a little bit more about russell vought because we will be voting on that nomination later today. so what does he think about the federal employees all of those agencies that omb will oversee with respect to their budgets? here's what he said about g. employees -- about government employees, and i'm quoting here. he wants them to be -- this is

his quote -- be extra matically effective -- traumatic effectively. when they wake up in the morning, we want them not to go twoshg because they are increasingly known as villains. we went to put them in trauma, unquote. again referring to hardworking federal employees who do good work on behalf of the american people every day. we want to put them in trauma, he said. and if anybody doubts this quote, you just have to go online because it's on videotape. it's on videotape for the whole world to see. in fact, he didn't try and deny those words. at the confirmation hearing we had in the budget committee that i serve on, we asked if he wanted to apologize for those statements. and his answer was no. he refused to apologize. that's what the person who is nominated to be the head of omb

thinks about the federal employees throughout the federal government that are going to be under that omb budget process. now, at that budget hearing, the senate budget committee hearing, there is another very revealing moment. because i and senator murray asked whether or not he would commit to complying with american law, specifically whether he would comply with what's known as the impoundment control act. now, again this is a law that many people are not familiar with, but it is essential to the framework of our constitution, the implementation of that framework, and checks and balances within the government and the power of the purse that is designated for congress under article 1 of the constitution.

and what the impoundment control act says is that once congress is duly enacted a law, passed the house, passed the senate, been signed into law by the executive, by the president, the presidents don't get to cherry-pick that law. presidents don't get to decide, you know, i like that provision in the law and so i'm going to implement that, but i don't like that provision so i'm going to ignore it or discard it. it's not a la carte. our laws are not a la carte. they're not for presidents to decide what parts they want to follow and what parts they won't. this came to a head back in the 1970's when president nixon started exercising what are called line item vetoes. congress would pass a piece of legislation that would require that certain amounts of funds be spent on certain projects, and president nixon took a pen and said look, i don't like that particular program.

i'm going to cross it out. and i don't like this one. i'm going to cross it out, even though it had been part of the law passed by congress and signed by the president. and so that was challenged and it went to the supreme court. and the supreme court struck down president nixon's action. and the congress then passed the impoundment control act to create a federal statute essentially codifying that requirement, that presidents follow the law with respect to budget implementation. so when we asked reduce vought at the hearing -- asked russ vought at the hearing whether or not he would follow the impoundment control act, you would think all of our colleagues would care about what answer he gave. because at that hearing he refused to say that he would comply with the impoundment

control act. again, you can go see the c-span tape and get the transcript. he weaved and donned and -- dodged and never said he would comply with the law. and maybe that shouldn't surprise us because he's done this before. you see, this will be russ vought's second tour as the head of the office of management and budget if he's confirmed by the united states senate. and on his first go round in the trump administration, this issue came up. that was when president trump in his first term withheld critical funds appropriated by congress on a bipartisan basis for the people of ukraine, to help the people of ukraine. that was done through the duly

authorized processes of government. but president trump wanted to hold on to those moneys. he did not want to obey the law. he didn't want to disburse those funds to ukraine. that created a huge issue, crisis in governance. so at that time i wrote to the gao which is the congressional watchdog. they're designated to look out to see whether or not these laws are actually implemented and followed. and i got back a response. i wrote them in december of 2019 about this withholding of funds for ukraine. and i got back the letter on january 16, 2020, with their answer. and in this letter gao says, and i quote, faithful execution of the law does not permit the

president to substitute his own policy priorities for those congress has enacted into law, end quote. pretty standard definition of what everybody would normally understand to be the requirements of the constitution. and since the trump administration and russ vought violated that, the gao concluded, therefore, we conclude that omb violated the impoundment control act. simple, declaring sentence saying they violated the law. and the person who was the head of omb when they violated that law was russ vought, the person nominated for another tour of duty as the head of omb. so the whole idea behind the

impoundment control act, as i've discussed, is the president is not a king in our system. we have a system of checks and balances. and under article 1 of the constitution, the first article, congress has the power to appropriate funds and direct the use of those funds, and we do it through bipartisan debate in both houses of congress. so when russ vought refuses to promise he will comply with the law, what he's saying is he will not respect the constitution of the united states. and if we witness what's been happening just in the first 17 days of the trump administration, we're seeing this disrespect for the law in action by the white house, including by omb, and russ

vought has not gotten there yet but his fingerprints are all over the action just taken. omb, office of management and budget issued a state, the president issued an executive order and then they issued a statement that, quote, temporarily paused all activities related to the abolition or disbursement of -- to the obligation or disbursement of all financial funds. end quote. immediately upon them taking that action, we saw community organizations all over the country all of a sudden not able to receive really important resources they use to support priorities in our country. so i began to hear, for example, from firefighters in the state of maryland, volunteer

firefighters. i also began to hear from those groups that provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, to organizations that help remove lead from our water so our kids don't get lead poisoning. initiatives to improve the health of the chesapeake bay, my state of maryland. now at the time it was claimed that medicaid was exempt from this order, but states at that time were locked out of their medicaid payment portals. so to my colleagues on the republican side who say this is part of the normal process of transition in government, this is not normal. and elon musk taking over federal agencies is not normal. so as i said, i heard first from a lot of volunteer fire

departments in my state of maryland because there's a federal program, grant program that helps them purchase equipment so that when firefighters go into a burning building, they have protective equipment and safety equipment that lets them breathe in a room full of smoke. we heard immediately from a housing agency in maryland that helps hundreds of families find safe, affordable places to stay. they were suddenly locked out of the portal for the department of housing and urban development. an organization in prince george's county, maryland, that uses federal grants to help survivors of sex and labor trafficking reclaim their lives saw their funds in jeopardy. a nonprofit in baltimore county that uses federal funds to provide food, housing and emergency assistance to families in need, they also saw their funding cut off.

in montgomery county, maryland, there's a nonprofit that uses this federal grant money to run programs for permanent supportive housing to take care of senior men with disabilities. many of these elderly gentlemen have experienced extended bouts of homelessness and they currently have a place to live with dignity. in a small neighborhood with the care they need. if they lose their money, they lose their support, they will all end up in shelters. so, mr. president, i'm pleased that the courts looked at that action that was taken through executive order. they looked at that omb memo cutting off the flow of funds for essential community programs, and the court said no, no, no. you can't do this.

we need time to determine what all the facts are here, and two courts issued temporary restraining orders on that action. one a court in rhode island, a federal court. and one here in the district of columbia. but this administration is still at it in many different ways. they're still issuing executive orders. when in fact they can't do what they want to do with executive orders, president can't do what what they want with their powers. i was talking about what was happening with the agency for international development, a pretty small agency that plays an essential role in our foreign

policy, in our national security policy. elon musk l sent out a tweet saying that he was putting a.i.d. in the wood chipper. this is an organization that saves lives overseas, and one of the things they do is help other countries combat infectious diseases so we can stop them overseas before they come to the united states because, of course, infectious diseases recognize no borders. as part of that, they cut off funding for the pepfar program which is a bipartisan initiative first launched by george w. bush. it's a program in africa that has saved over 25 million lives from hiv-aids. put it in the wood chipper, that's what they want to do. so i am grateful that the courts

have intervened and halted at least for now these illegal actions. but, mr. president, we should not rely on the courts of the united states to do work that we should be doing here. we should not be insisting that they have to fight all of our battles for us. we need to be pushing back here in the united states senate. we are not a government for elon musk, by elon musk. we are a government of the people, at least last i checked, the constitution begins we the people. so this is a reminder of why these nominations are so important, because the person who we're considering for the head of omb wants to ignore that

law. but that's only part one of the plan outlined in project 2025 to allow for the elon musk takeover of the federal government and allow for these other illegal actions to be taken. i spoke about the impoundment control act, but the other part of project 2025's plan is to get rid of a lot of the merit-based federal workers who do the business of the u.s. government every day in agencies across the federal government, whether they're food safety inspectors, whether they work at veterans hospitals, whether they work for the faa. these are people who are doing the nation's work on behalf of the american people.

and what project 2025 wants to do is to convert many of those merit-based civil service positions in our government to political cronyism-based positions. so rather than have people selected into the merit civil service system based on their knowledge, based on their experience, based on what they know as opposed to who they know, russ vought and project 2025 want to convert about 50,000 to 60,000 merit-based civil service positions into political cronyism positions. now i think it's really important that everybody understand that when a new president comes into office, the

president of course has the prerogative and authority to bring in lots of people at the top of that administration. of course many of them are cabinet officials or other officials who are subject to the advice and consent of the united states senate, but there are tens of thousands of others who are currently civil servants. but when a new president comes in, they get about 4,000 political positions. 4,000 people. but what we're seeing here from project 2025 and russ vought is what's called section f plan. schedule f. what does schedule f do? it would implement this idea of giving the president, or claiming to by executive order convert these 50,000 to 60,000 merit-based civil service positions into just politically

based systems, positions. so why do we have a merit-based civil service in this country? i think it's worth going back and looking at the history because we had the merit-based system since the late 1800's. it's that system that donald trump and russ vought want to tear up. so why did we develop the current system? it used to be that these federal systems were based on the spoils system, spoils of political victory. so when a new president came in, that president could just bring in whoever the new president wanted. if you wanted to be in charge of a harbor or run a post office, you didn't get there by knowing about ships, in the case harbor

or a mail system in the case of a post office. you got it by helping the president get elected. and then the president would say you helped me get elected, you're going to get this job, even if you're not qualified. so, mr. president, if these desks, these 100 desks in this chamber could talk, they would be screaming a warning to us about the dangers of going down the road that russ vought and donald trump and elon musk want us to go. here's what senator henry clay of kentucky said during that debate back in the 1800's about the existing spoil system that was in effect then. here's what he said, and i quote, it is a detestable system. and if it were to be perpetuated, if the offices

honors and dignities of the people were to be put up to public scramble to be decided by the result of every presidential election, our government and institutions becoming intolerable would finally end in despotism. end quote. that was the warning from henry clay about that old spoil system that trump, musk, and vought want to go back to. here's what senator daniel webster of massachusetts said back then, quote, quo the power of giving offices affects all who are in and all who are out. those who are out endeavor to distinguish themselves by warm personal devotion to the president, while those who are in resolve not to be outdone in partisanship. a competition ensues not of patriotic labors, not of rough

and severe toils for the public good, but of complacence of indiscriminate support of the executive measures of subcertificate veteran is i and gross -- subservants. we don't want them to take a test to get a political job. we want them to take a test that shows they've got the qualifications to get it. here's what a senator from new york said. worthiness can no longer gain access to office. but it can can eel come by favor of some man had a has climbed up until he is in a position to reward his followers. again warning of the peril of

politicizing the hiring of federal employees that conduct the everyday work of our government. finally, senator charles of missouri said, and i quote, under such a system, it cannot be otherwise but inexperience and rascality. you are no longer surprised at the frequency of mail robberies which were perpetrated in post offices. you see the smugglers in the ports lying in wait to take advantage of the inexperience of new officers or the aid of dishonest ones. unquote. and even the great author mark twain got in the action here and commented on that -- that system that we had, the spoils system based on politics, not marriage penalty tax here's what -- not merit. here's what mark twain said. and i quote, we will not hire a

blacksmith who never lifted a wedge. we will not hire a schoolteacher who does not know the pall bet. but when you come to our civil service, we serenely fill great numbers of our minor public offices with ignore rape uses -- ignoramuses. unquote. in his inaugural address in 1881, president james gar field said, the civil service can never be satisfactory until it is regulated by law. for the good of the service against the waste of time and obstruction to the public business caused by the inordinate pressure and for the protection of civil servants against intrigue and wrong, unquote. in other words, again, this is president garfield warning that

the system that had been in place was a danger to the public good. so president garfield provided a warning to the country. it didn't come soon enough. they hadn't enacted the legislation to fix the problem yes. and six month after that inauguration, president garfield was shot and killed, assassinated by a man who worked on the garfield campaign but who was disappointed over not getting a spoils job. president garfield's assassination/death shocked congress into action so they finally created the civil service process to be insulated from politics, at least with respect to all the jobs under the top political jobs, which

presidents have the right and authority to hire. they created through the pendleton act what we call the merit-based civil service where you have due process rights, that you can't be fired because of your political affiliation and you don't get based on who you know, you get hired based on what you know e and -- what you know. and so this is the system that russ vought and president trump and elon musk want to destroy through schedule f, an executive order -- schedule f. now what the good news is i think at least three lawsuits have already been filed to try to enjoin this illegal action. but it should tell us a lot that the person who has been nominated to head omb, the person who said in a he refused

to commit the -- refused to commit to comply with the law during his hearing would be advancing schedule f. and why do that because it's all part of the plan to put in place lackeys who will do your bidding no matter what, who won't put the interests of the country first but who will answer to the political call, exactly what senators back in the late 1800's warned against. but that's what they want to do. they want to take us back to the late 1800's spoil system and as i said, they not only want to bring in 50,000 to 60,000 political cronies for these positions, one of the first acts president trump took was to get rid of the inspectors general. so you bring in your lackeys, you get rid of the independent

inspectors general, and that just gives elon musk carte blanche to do what he is currently doing right now. so this has nothing to do with more government efficiency and everything to do with setting up the executive branch of the federal government to respond to the desires of the folks who were sitting right behind president trump right down the hall in his inauguration, elon musk and the billionaire tech titans and others like them. and one of the things that the billionaires want are even more tax cuts. they don't like the fact that, as very wealthy people, they have to make a contribution to the public good, or they want to reduce the contribution they have to make, and we know that

republicans over in the house of representatives have been down in miami with president trump planning exactly what form all these tax cuts will take. well, i don't think we real lay have to guess at it because we've seen this movie before in the first trump administration. they enacted their trickle-down tax policy, big tax cuts for the wealthiest in america, tax cuts for big, very profitable corporations, and they made a lot of promises back then as to what the result would be. for example, they promised that giving tax cuts to very rich people and these corporations would end up generating so much additional economic activity that weld recover the -- that we would recovery the cost of the revenues lost by giving those very wealthy people a tax cut. not even close. not even close. deficits went way up. as i said, is serve on the

senate budget committee. i ask experts from both parties who come testify on different issues about whether or not that tax cut paid for itself, and the answer is always no. because it didn't. now, they also promised that these tax cuts to very wealthy people would end up generating additional activity at the corporate level. so the idea was that you give a corporation a big tax cut, that corporation will invest more of its savings that it has into plant and equipment and grow the economy. well, that didn't happen either. what happened was those companies engaged in huge stock buybacks, which disproportionately benefitted these huge stockholders. you know what else they promised? they promised that if you gave these big corporations tax cuts that they would use some of the savings to increase the wanings for their employees.

after all -- the wages for their employees. after all, profits of corporations are generated by the hard work of their employees. so the idea was, okay, you have more money, you got this tax cut. at that time president trump and his administration promised that workers would see an average of a $4,000-a-year pay increase. did not happen. did not happen as promised. so here we are again, and the musk folks are going through federal agencies, russ vought is working to install himself again at omb, and all of this is a prelude to another round of big tax cuts. and, again, these are going to come at the expense of everybody else in america because even as we gather here, we've been seeing various plans come out of

the house of representatives' republican caucus. they're talking about dramatic cuts to medicaid, which is a program that serves tens and tens of millions of people, including our seniors and people with disabilities. they're talking about dramatic cuts to food and nutrition programs and many, many, many other cuts to important investments for working americans across the country, all to help pay for or offset the costs of those tax cuts for the wealthy. now, i think we've also heard president trump talk about all the money he's going to collect in tariffs. i want to say something about tariffs here. because i support strategically targeted tariffs to protect critical american industries, but an across-the-board tariff,

that is nothing more than an increase in sales tax on americans. americans pay that at the end of the day. and i can tell you that elon musk is not going to feel the impact of an increase in sales tax, the tariff increase, on his bottom line, but working americans are feel it around their kitchen tables. we will see grocery prices go up, we'll see other prices go up. in fact, if you think that this is somehow a freebie that is only paid by other countries, let's remember that last time, after china retax deductibleated with their own -- after china retaliated with their own tariffs, we -- the congress passed a bill that provided $28 billion of taxpayer money to farmers who were no longer able to sell as much product into china because of the retaliatory

tariffs of china. we all end of paying, the american people ended up paying $28 billion. so don't tell usness he'll not a cost -- so don't tell us there's not a cost to consumers and american taxpayers for all of this. there is. we'll have a lot nor say in the coming days about some of the accounting tricks we're already hearing are going to be played through this tax cut process that will hide at least on paper the impact on the deficits, but right now we're hearing about directing the congressional budget office, which is our independent referee on budget issues, to assume that big tax cuts on top of the current law won't generate increased deficits. well, of course they will. so more on that later. so, mr. president, i want to end

just by talking a little bit about why this is such an important moment. i started by talking about the first 17 days. in that first 17 days we have seen president trump hand over to elon musk huge powers, and is he'll using -- and he's using that entree given by the president to conduct illegal option ofs across the effect. courts are very busy today. it's like whac-a-mole, hearing cases, putting tro's, temporary restraining orders, on cases. but as i said, they shouldn't have to do that. the courts shouldn't have to do that. you would think that members of the senate would stand up and respect the constitution of the united states and article 1. what are my republican colleagues going to do when we have a democratic president that says, i get to cherry-pick the laws of the united states.

i'll just implement what i like and ignore what you passed into law. that's what's at stake here. that's the danger when russ vought, who's going to be in the cockpit at omb, the command-and-control center for the budget of the u.s. government, refuses at a budget committee hearing to say he'll comply with the law. it's no wonder that the republicans did not want to hold the vote on russ vought in committee in public. they wanted to have it behind closed doors here in the capitol. that's why democrats on that committee didn't show up because we think the public has a right to know what's at stake here. and that's what we're debating now here on the floor. so i urge my colleagues to recognize that the person that donald trump has nominated for this position is somebody who

said he wanted to visit hardships on the federal employees throughout the federal government and a person who refused to say that he would follow the law. colleagues, i urge a no vote on russ vought to be the director of the office of management and budget. and i yield the floor.

thub thune mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. thune: earlier this morning i met with netanyahu and we discussed the return of the rest of the hodges who have been held in hamas activity for well over a year. i enjoyed a candid personal discussion with the prime minister and was pleased both democrat and republican colleagues joined for a conversation. after a number of my democratic colleagues boycott net net's address to congress last year, it's good they chose to go to this meeting. it would have been if they joined the countercourt act and

have been able to tell that they -- to the international criminal court illegitimate targeting of israeli leaders. but unfortunately two weeks ago now all of my democratic colleagues, all -- all of them, save one, voted to block this legislation. the democrat leader actually celebrated the fact that democrats had blocked this legislation even though allowing the icc's rogue action to go unchecked could be not only israeli but americans in the icc's crosshairs. responding to the illegitimate targeting of israeli leaders is not just about protecting israeli, it is also about protecting our own citizens. our own servicemembers in particular. just a few years ago the icc opened an investigation into american servicemembers despite

the fact that like israel the united states is not a party to the icc and thus is not under its jurisdiction. it was good to hear this morning president trump will impose saksz in response to the icc's targeting of israeli leaders and to protect american servicemembers. i'm grateful that will we have a president who will stand up for our citizens and for our ally israel as they have made that they will -- this agency not only has a history of anti-israel sentiment but a fum of -- but a number of workers with ties to terrorist groups. he had workers participate in the october 7, 2023 attack. i was pleased by president trump's decision to with draw the united states from the so-called human rights council at the united nations which unfairly targets israel. and i'm grateful that

president trump is taking a strong stand against one of the greatest enemies of peace in the middle east, iran. iran has spent decades fomenting unrest and terror, including providing funding and training to hamas, hezbollah, and the houthis. and the president's recent national security memorandum was a welcome statement that iranian aggression will no longer be tolerated. the president has restored the maximum economic pressure campaign to bankrupt iran's nuclear ambitions and its terrorist proxies. mr. president, it's good to see this kind of leadership. i want to thank prime minister netanyahu for meeting with us and assure him of the united states' continued support for israel. and i look forward to working with president trump to defend our allies and to protect our nation. mr. president, i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

afternoon. house democrats have made clear will for with anyone so problems hard-working american taxpayers

life better for everyday americans particularly as it relates to the high cost of living and work with anyone in this town the american people and we will continue to the real with the american people before everyday americans because are working for elon musk out of

control billionaire puppetmaster by delay need access social security numbers about edges, birth dates bank account information of millions of americans? what are they doing with that in mind house republicans stopping the? they're not solving them because they are not working following far right orders. that's why we are protection act. to shield people from the

control permanently and make sure financial confidential information of the american people is protected. sean cemented his central understanding appear as a democratic leader alongside and pete regular, i'm sure you know that.

the data protection act. the presidential administration i was a political appointee in the department of the treasury during a true time of economic, swearingen january nine facing a great recession and auto industry and bankruptcy in the face millions of americans and housing and security and in the insurance sector. a group of us came together in

the previous administration under george bush kept his people are. we work together to address this and an initiative relief program federal money of taxpayer money from true devastation but no one was poking around. no one was seeking to get access to taxpayer data or financial information that has to do with the wires and complication of goods and making a difference about an alarming and

potentially illegal actions in place to the american people. unbelievable and wrong so taxpayer data protection act will seek to make sure payment systems don't have reckless interference in those who have access and have a special appointee. it needs to be security clearance, the credentials doesn't have a conflict of interest.

we love our country and we want what is best for our country and you hurt our leaders say it. we have to focus on what american or facing. rising costs, homeownership making systems work for people. we got fantastic employment, we are focused on state of questions and concerning behaviors of elon musk. a colleague i am introducing the bill with, a very accomplished member -- i would ask to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise today with grave concerns about the

nomination of russell vought to be the director of the office of management and budget or more properly known as omb. if confirmed, this would be mr. vought's second time in this post, and based on his past performance and his radical views, i believe it would be reckless to confirm his nomination. most americans will be unfamiliar omb and the work that it does, but omb touches every major government policy and every cent of federal spending. omb sits at the center of the budget process, overseeing everything from the initial development of agency budget requests all the way through executing funding appropriated by congress. omb also plays a critical role in the regulatory review process and ensures that agencies,

reports, rules, and testimony are consistent with administrative -- with the administration. all of that to say that every investment in the american people, infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, small businesses, health care systems, you name it, goes through omb. that role as a central clearing house of all executive branch spending and regulation comes with significant authority and requires a high level of trust as well as fidelity to the constitution and law. unfortunately, the trump administration's omb has already broken that trust with congress and the american people. and the constitution. while not yet confirmed as omb

director, mr. vought's influence over the agency can be felt even now. because in part he played a central role in developing the trump administration's policy agenda in project 2025. and also because of the way he ran the agency as director and deputy director during the first trump administration. as senator peters, the ranking member of the senate homeland security and government affairs committee pointed out during mr. vought's confirmation hearing, there are numerous examples of omb flouting the law during mr. vought's previous tenure. the nonpartisan government accountability office found that omb broke the law eight times while mr. vought's leadership by

directing certain federal agencies to continue to operate during the 2018-2019 shutdown. gao also found that under his leadership, omb violated the law by withholding vital security assistance to ukraine that congress explicitly provided putting our national security at risk. the trump-appointed inspector general for the department of housing and urban development found that omb under mr. vought's leadership inappropriately delayed disaster relief funding for puerto rico following the devastation of hurricane maria. with the level of natural disasters that are unfolding, no senator, republican or democrat, should empower someone who delays and denies disaster relief. his record is troubling and has

set the stage for the actions taken by the trump administration in its first few days in office. last week the acting omb director issued a memorandum instructing federal agencies to freeze funding that had been authorized and appropriated by congress until it could be determined that the programs align with donald trump's ideological views, views espoused in project 2025. again, a manifesto that mr. vought helped write. president trump's omb just days into a new administration has wasted no time in usurping congress' congressional authority over government spending. by withholding funding previously approved by congress on a bipartisan basis. this illegal action initiated through omb demonstrates just

how important and powerful the omb director position is. with mr. vought at the helm, everyone should fear that omb will zealously pursue a radical agenda that includes withholding funding from americans based on their religion, their thoughts, their appearance, or political affiliation. in evaluating federal spending for ideological purity under federal funding freeze, the trump administration casts a wide net, skruft nicing funds for grants for law enforcement, veterans care, disaster relief and mitigation, and even the 988 suicide prevention lifeline that has proven to be extremely effective in dealing with the epidemic of suicide we've seen in the nation over the last few years.

even for a time medicaid funding was held up, and that funding is not just for low-income americans. it's one of the major sources of funding for nursing homes throughout the country who are taking care of the parents of working men and women all over this country. to shut those funds off means literally to push those people out of those homes. even now the administration appears to be holding funds, for example, to fix an interstate bridge in rhode island that closed due to a catastrophic engineering fault that was detected. it seems as if the administration is now concerned about woke bridges as well as other woke issues. even now that a federal court issued a temporary restraining order to block the funding

freeze, i continue to hear from rhode island agencies and organizations that are struggling to access federal funds that have already been awarded with no answers from the administration on what the problem is and how they plan to fix it. i fear that this funding freeze is emblematic of this administration's more broad ly process of putting out directives with little to no thought or coordination, without anticipating and more importantly, without caring about the negative impacts that reckless orders like this could have for the american people and american businesses. it's important to emphasize that the trump omb does not have the authority to freeze funding. back in 1974, congress passed

the impoundment control act which effectively makes it illegal for the president to ignore the law and not spend funds which congress has appropriated. the constitution gives congress the power of the purse and the impoundment control act, it is an important tool in retaining the authority by clarifying that the president has no inherent power to reject congress' will when it comes to lawfully appropriated spending. the impoundment control act has never been found unconstitutional by any court of law. it is the law of the land. yet both the president and mr. vought have said that they believe the impoundment control act to be unconstitutional. and mr. vought has not only repeatedly refused to commit to following the law, but has

publicly pushed the president to break the law and impound. neither the president nor his unelected omb director can pick and choose which laws they like and which ones they're going to follow. and neither the president nor his unelected omb director can pick and choose which components of congressionally passed funding laws they want to implement. to be clear, this isn't just a matter of policy disagreements or overfunding priorities. democrats and republicans have and will continue to have disagreements over where we should prioritize federal funding. but we resolve those disagreements in congress in a bipartisan manner, working together to pass appropriation laws that benefit the country. it is this or any other administration's obligation to follow these laws.

this is congress' constitutional role, and i will remind my republican colleagues that we should not, we must not cede our obligations under the constitution to any other branch of the government. and i've been astounded quite frankly that so many of my republican colleagues seem willing to let this administration walk all over this congress on this issue. and i have no doubt that these funding freezes are a test, a test of our obligation to defend the constitution of the united states, to play our role in the constitutional scheme. trump and his acolytes are counting on a congressional majority and compliance supreme court stacked with justices that are willing to ignore decades of

precedence to sanction this law breaking. as elon musk and ramaswamy wrote in "the wall street journal" last year, quote, mr. trump has previously suggested this statute, the impoundment control act, is unconstitutional and we believe the current supreme court will likely side with him on this question. i want to be very clear. i don't believe for a moment that donald trump has any idea what the impoundment control act is or does. right-wing activists like mr. vought do. they are fanning the flame in hopes of overturning the law so they can radically reshape the federal government to their world view. and what is that world view? rather than serving the american people, they seem to want to punish americans. punish them for holding different political views, punish them for being low

income, punish them for being sick or homeless. in particular, they want to further erode trust and belief in government so they will make the government less efficient by pushing out the people who answer the call to serve the country and their fellow citizens as federal employees. in a recent speech, mr. vought put it this way. we want the bureaucrats to be extra matically effective. when they wake up in the morning we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. now, there's a common adage here in washington. show me your bucket and i'll -- budget and i'll tell you what you value. we haven't seen president trump's budget yet, but back in 2023, mr. vought produced a budget plan entighted -- entitled a commitment to awoke and weaponized government which was designed to assist house republicans in their new

majority. in it, mr. vought called for extending the trump tax cuts for the richest americans and paying for them by cutting domestic funding by $3.5 trillion. for example, medicaid would be cut by 2.1 trillion. food stamps by $400 billion. and eliminating the affordable care act tax credits would also be included in the mix. i think it gives a pretty good indication of where the trump administration's priorities lie. and it's certainly not with the afternoon american. -- average american. there's another reason why i'm troubled by mr. vought's nomination and that is his disdain for congress as an institution. despite having drawn a number of paychecks as a congressional staffer, he has shown little contempt for the congress. as i noted earlier when mr. vought served as the acting

director of omb during the first trump administration, he was integral to the 2019 effort to withhold almost $400 million in military aid for ukraine. an event, as my colleagues will recall, that led to trump's first impeachment. mr. vought's contempt for congress was unfull -- was on full display when he provided a subpoena to produce documents and testify in the impeachment inquiry. he also want so far to turn to twitter to call the house of representatives inquiry a sham process and to say that he had no intent to comply with the subpoena. mr. vought has also refused to cooperate with the inspector generals, have advocated the president exercise emergency powers to circumvent congressional decisions. this is not an individual this congress or any congress should

put its faith in. he has shown us who he is and how he views this institution and our constitution. and as such we should not confirm his nomination. and that, mr. president, i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. alsobrooks.

are quorum call: quorum call: mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the democratic leader. mr. schumer: my colleagues continue to make the very strong -- the presiding officer: senator -- mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: my colleagues to make, starting yesterday afternoon through the night and now on into the afternoon here, my colleagues continue to make extremely strong, a strong and powerful case against mr. vought

becoming the head of omb. as i have said before, you couldn't have a person, a worse -- a person with the worst ideology in the most poifrl position in the government -- powerful position in the government and the damage he will do to the american people is enormous, and we will see it week to week and month to month if god forbid he gets confirmed. i would make a plea to my republican colleagues, you know that this man's views are so hard right that even most of you don't agree with him. and yet, to go along and vote for him because of pressure from the white house or somewhere else would just be misserving your constituency whether they believe liberal, conservative, rural, urban, suburban, red or blue. this man is a slasher. he has shown no respect for people and their needs. his goal is simply to cut everything almost without regard to how important these programs

are so that he can cut taxes on very wealthy people. to put him in such a powerful position as omb, to put the man who is the architect of project 2025 as head of omb, to put the man who has one of the worst ideologies in the worst position is just a real dereliction to what america needs and america believes in. i strongly urge my colleagues to reconsider and vote no. i'm proud that every democrat will vote against this awful, awful choice. and now i had yield five minutes of my postcloture debate time to senator warner. the presiding officer: the senator has that right.

the senator from delaware. ms. blunt rochester: thank you mr. president. i hoped i'd be standing here today talking about lowering costs for americans or tackling the housing crisis, or as the former secretary of labor in delaware, i thought i'd be standing here talking about jobs and the economy. unfortunately the actions over the last two weeks have cast a long shadow over our work and our discourse in this body. and instead of speaking about lowering the cost of goods or housing crisis or jobs, i stand before you armed with the voices of delawareans. instead today i am speaking about the actions of the trump administration that are sowing fear, confusion, chaos, and in homes and in workplaces across america and around the world. but know this, i stand before you filled with a spirit of love

for my constituents in my great state and also for my country. like many of my colleagues here today, my goal is to highlight how these things that are occurring are impacting my state, but also to instill some hope. in the tradition of my faith, there is sort of like a prescription. there are some things that you should not forget. the first is that trouble don't last always. the second is it won't last always if we walk together and don't get weary. and then the third is that joy comes in the morning. so i am speaking to you, america, as we face these precarious times, at a moment when instead of having a president to bring us all together, many feel divided.

but if we hold on together, the morning will come. i was first elected to the house of representatives in 2016 and began serving in 2017. it was after finding and marrying and then losing the love of my life to blood clots. my husband charles went on a business trip, played a game of basketball, ruptured achilles' tendon and at the age of 52 this vegetarian who will worked out every day left my life. i remember that pain, had a heartache like it was yesterday. i understood viscerally what the words heartbreak really mean. but almost a year after charles's passing, it was the fall of 2015, i was only sort of just on auto pilot in the grocery store, and i saw a dad

with three kids in front of me put back grapes because they were $9. it snapped me out of my own pain and it made me realize how blessed i am. i'm going to be okay, but a lot of other people were l hurting. a lot of other people were struggling. and i decided at that time, having never run for anything in my life, to run for the house of representatives, and i won. today i stand before you and i see that dad and those kids, and i think about all that we've been through over the past couple of weeks and ask, have these actions made his or his children's lives better, more prosperous, safer, or at peace? i venture to say no. let's recap just a small portion of the past few weeks in the trump administration 2.0.

last week the administration sent a memo. here's the memo. from the office of management and budget directing critical agencies to freeze federal tax dollars, the taxpayers dollars, from being spent on critical services and programs approved by congress. this blatantly unconstitutional directive had and has the potential to cause massive harm to delawareans and has sown nothing but confusion and chaos for all americans. police and fire departments up and down the state of delaware could go unfunded. military families stationed at dover air force base to lose access to critical programs. construction projects with shovels in the ground could go unfinished as workers are laid off. community health centers may be unable to provide critical primary care. as a matter of fact, just

yesterday as i gave a speech before the national association of community health centers, the health centers in the state of florida were closed. opioid overdoses could rise as prevention programs end. children of working families could go hungry when free lunch programs stop. these are not partisan programs. in fact, many of these are popular bipartisan initiatives. they are exactly what the vast majority of americans want our government to be funding. but with the stroke of a pen, president trump tried to defund programs already signed into law, making delaware and every other state across the country less safe, less healthy and less stable. to make matters worse when the pressures mounted from the people, members of this chamber, the attorney generals around the

country who fought in the courts, federal judges stepped in and halted the freeze and then the administration doubled down on their decision. here's what the white house press secretary karoline leavitt posted on x. quote, this is not a rescission of the federal funding freeze. it is simply a rescission of the omb memo. why? to end any confusion created by the court's injunction. the president's e.o.'s on federal funding remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented. let me be clear, if the president wants to have his federal budget reflected in his priorities, he is able to. he should submit a budget proposal to congress like every other president has done. beyond this unlawful budget

freeze, this administration and an unelected and unchecked billionaire have threatened and in some cases delivered on massive civil servant layoffs and unconstitutional firings. because of this, almost 1,500 calls alone have come into my office about, quote, elon musk taking over the government, end quote. in delaware, there are thousands of civil servants who have dedicated their lives to public service. people who care deeply about insuring we have meals for seniors, services for veterans and educational opportunities for our children. this past year's budget was debated, negotiated, agreed upon, and on a bipartisan basis. i remember it clearly as negotiations lasted right up until almost christmas day. while i was still a member of the house, we worked to avoid a

harmful government shutdown. that brings us to this moment. tonight this chamber will vote on the leading architect of project 2025. the actions we are seeing are part of the blueprint. the funds are critical taxpayer dollars used to conduct vital services that our communities rely on. yet, this administration is dising regarding the law -- is disregarding the law and the constitution. why? some say to give tax breaks not to all, but to billionaires. or as i call it, reverse robin hood. from usaid to the department of labor to treasury to the thought of abolishing the department of education, everyone will be impacted. let's take a look at what could be on the chopping block if those things that we already

approved don't go into effect. public safety grants for law enforcement and homeland security activities will cease. disaster relief as many communities are struggling after severe natural disasters. most recently in florida, georgia, north carolina, and california. infrastructure projects, our roads, our bridges, our ports and more, public transit could be halted, including projects already under construction. combatting fentanyl, the crisis that we see right now in our communities of substance use disorders, this could be impacted. biomedical research, there will be immediate pauses on all funding for critical health research, including research on such important diseases like cancer, alzheimer's, and diabetes. head start and child care could be affected.

funding for head start programs that provide comprehensive early childhood education for more than 800,000 kids and their families could be cut off. teachers and staff would not get paid and programs may not be able to stay open. even in our k-12 systems the programs for children with disabilities, the children who have needs will be impacted. and as the former secretary of labor in delaware, i can tell you our higher ed and our job training programs could be affected. from student loans to pell grants. health services, federal funding for community health centers that provide health care for over 30 million americans will be immediately frozen, creating chaos for patients trying to get their prescriptions, a regular

checkup, and more. these health centers that are trusted by so many are concerned and fearful that they might not be able to provide the care that they know their patients need and deserve. small businesses, the small business administration would have to halt all of their services to small businesses that might be in ravaged communities like north carolina, texas, and florida. our veterans who have served us so mightily. federal grants to help veterans in rural areas access health care and grants to help veterans get other critical services, including suicide prevention resources, transition assistance, housing for homeless veterans could be cut off. needless to say, this freeze would cause devastation in our communities. last week my colleagues in

delaware, as part of our congressional delegation, senator chris coons and congresswoman sarah mcbride joined with myself, our governor, our mayor, our attorney general kathy jennings, our governor matt myer and over 250 other statewide officials and leaders to talk about what we were hearing from delawareans. these folks in state and local government, education, the nonprofit sectors were concerned about this directive and we assured them that we are working to address their concerns together. again, i just want to say that again. over night 250 organizations and partners got on a zoom to talk about the impact and what we can do together. we had spoken to our attorney general, cathy jennings, about her prompt legal action against

this unconstitutional directive and are grateful for her partnership as well as all the attorneys general across the country who are fighting back in the courts. and the phones in our offices have been ringing off the hook of the we are hearing from delawareans that are nervous about how these things will impact their everyday lives. i'd like to share just a portion of what my team and i have heard. first, from our attorney general, cathy jennings, she provided a statement. for delawareans federal funds are not just money on a balance sheet, they are public safety, they are health care, housing, and heating. they are preschool and infrastructure, they are the medical research that gives our loved ones a glimmer of hope when they get sick and conventional treatment fails. this is not a game.

these are promises that the united states made to americans. breaking those promises is stunningly different to millions of peoples' lives including millions across the country who voted for president trump. the impact in delaware has not just been seen as hypothetical. on tuesday, february 4, the delaware department of natural resources and environmental control received an e-mail from the u.s. department of energy requesting receipt of his earlier directive to cease federal funding. so eight days after issuing the omb memo, six days after trying to walk it back, and four days after being told by a judge to cease and desist, the trump administration is still creating confusion and uncertainty regarding our ability to draw an

obligated federal funds. that's not all. as of yesterday, as of february 5, the delaware department of health and social services still could not access grant funds to protect children from lead paint poisoning. let me repeat that. one week after the administration supposedly rescinded its omb memo and four days after a federal judge told them to cease and desist, the trump administration was still withholding funds that keep 5-year-olds safe from lead paint. not democrats, not republicans, 5-year-olds. this kind of gamesmanship is no way to run a government. it is immoral, it is illegal, and it is going to hurt people. the second is a letter from our

governor, matt myer, the governor. honorable members of the united states senate, i write to you today, not as a blue or red state governor but as a public servant. i am deeply concerned for the well-being of the people of delaware and our nation. president trump's recent executive order freezing federal funding has the potential to place an unprecedented strain on our communities, our institutions and our citizens who rely on these critical resources for their daily lives. this funding freeze has already reverberated throughout our state, creating chaos at the thought of jeopardizing essential programs that serve our most you'll have unusual populations. federal grants supporting health

care, education, infrastructure, and public safety are at stake. potentially leaving our agency scrambling to provide the services our people need and deserve. this topic is not a matter of political ideology but of governance, responsibility, and duty to the american people. the federal funds in question are not mere numbers on a budget sheet. they represent meals for children, medical care for seniors, and security for families. a prolonged freeze on these resources will only exacerbate economic instability, stifle job growth and erode our people's trust in their government. i'm going to say that one again. a prolonged freeze on these resources will only exacerbate economic instability, stifle job

growth, and erode our people's trust in their government. i urge this senate to act swiftly and decisively to mitigate the potentially devastating impact of this funding freeze. whether through legislation, whether through bipartisan negotiations or direct engagement with the administration, we must ensure that our states have the resources to serve the people effectively. delaware cannot afford to wait. the american people cannot afford to wait. i implore you to put aside political divensz and -- differences and work together in the best interest of the citizens who have entrusted us with their futures. the time to act is now.

the third is from dr. tony allen, president of delaware state university. our hbcu, a premier hbcu in the country. and i will read some excerpts from his statement. on the federal grant pause, the short-term risk is upwards of $10 million for dsu, which would significantly impact our ability to operate through the end of the fiscal year. the end of this fiscal year. delays impact cash flow. in the long term, though, our our federal fwrant funding and -- grant funding would have

devastating impact on graduate research, research and faculty scholarship, not to mention the related contribution to the local community. finally, financial aid is a big mystery and could be over $75 million if not dealt with effectively. we have drawn down most of our financial aid for the year. we do have tranches that can be included before june 30. but dr. allen describes the impact on these pauses and grants and the loans and if this continues what it would mean, it would be significant. for context, about 71% of delaware state university students are pell eligible. this could have impacts not only for those students in this

present moment, but as dr. allen said, even the surrounding community to the school, whether they have the students there who can then go on to patronize different restaurants and shops and -- and be a part of society, the professors who are there, whether they will have the dollars to do the research that is necessary. this will have profound impacts on all of us. i also want to share a statement and information from our -- it's called the -- the delaware alliance for nonprofit advancement. we affectionately in delaware call it dana. and dana is headed up by sheila bravo, the president and she sent a few-page letter with some of the impacts and some of the

concerns that the nonprofits in our state have. delaware nonprofits have the following impacts to the following organizations and the people they serve should their federal funding be reduced or eliminated. as a person who headed up a nonprofit in delaware, i was ceo of the urban league, as a nonprofit, you depend on some stability, just like a for profit, like a big business, you need to know how -- what to expect from your budget, how to hire people and so how to even provide the services. these groups are impacted in -- on a daily basis in the leaves of delawareans. so providing access to the vulnerable population, including seniors, children, the

un-housed, those dealing with substance issues. this is a lifeline to serve these residents. any decrease or elimination in funding could be catastrophic. should these organizations close their doors, seniors would go hungry, people facing mental health crises would not have critical sentence. at-risk children would be vulnerable to abuse. justice involved individuals would be far more likely to reoffend and sexual assault survivors would be forced to deal with their trauma alone. please note that some of these stories below have been submitted anonymously for fear of retaliation for vocalizing

their concerns which is another big concern for folks. they are he concerned go their information, their private information is available to folks that don't even have security background cleernsz -- clearances or aren't even trusted what might that mean to them? anonymous, the two victims of crime act grants cover the personnel costs to two sexual assault therapists who serve as victims and survivors, including teens. the sexual assault services formula grant program covers the personnel and operational costs to the crisis helpline and the rape crisis service that includes four staff members listed on the grant. so imagine -- imagine a victim of sexual assault not having a

hotline to call in to, there not being someone there who is trained, understands and can provide the resources and the services. imagine that. what they said at the end of their comments to me was no funding, no service. another was impact life. they said to me, the laws of federal funds would significant impact or ability to continue offering vital programs such as harm reduction, pregnant and parenting women and building communities of recovery. as well as halt the building and renovation of two new recovery homes. now, i don't know about you, but i think every single person has been touched in this country by someone who has been a victim of

substance use disorders. and so the thought of these programs not being there is unconscionable. these programs are essential to the health and well-being of our community and the loss of funding would make it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to continue or supplement them, nearly 60% of our supplement programs are at risk which would drastically reduce our capacity to serve those in need. last year impact life served over 16,000 people in delaware. 16,000 -- that might not be a lot to some other states, that's a lot of people to the state of delaware. that's a lot of families that

will be impacted. without these crucial federal funds, we would be unable to provide the level of support and resources that our community relies on. leaving many without access to services they need for recovery and well-being. the delaware community reinvestment action council. quote, we will not be able to sustain tax representation impacting hundreds of low-income families awaiting a refund. so again here's an organization that actually helps individuals to get their refunds. it helps individuals to really take advantage of programs that have been in place for years to help strengthen our economy. and yet and still, this money --

because when those refunds go out, that helped support that family. that family can then buy shoes for their kids. they can then pay the rent. so, again, the impact is real. this one is from prevent child abuse delaware. we face the prospect of potential layoffs of at least two personnel of our team of nine. so they've only got a teach nine, and they're -- a team of nine, and they're dealing with child abuse. the perspective partnerships which are current any development with the the of public health and the department of education in the area of infant early childhood mental health consultation would likely not move forward. these are things that we already funded, agreed to, that these organizations are depending on to serve families and children.

community programs building protective factors for at-risk families would cease, and more children would have increased susceptabilities for abuse and neglect as more parents and caregivers experience adversity and stress, increasing their like layhood of injury. so imagine, not only are we going to cut the programs, but then we're also going to lay off or fire their parents, which would, i think, lead to more trauma and more stress and more economic hardship. and also lead into the child welfare system and the criminal justice system. if we say we're about second chances, if we say we're about making sure that our country is

one where bills like my clean slate bill -- which is bipartisan, which allows those returning citizens to have an opportunity -- why would we endanger these programs? then there's the way home. according to the way home, we service individuals coming out of prison that represent at-risk populations that are currently being targeted. with money being frozen across the board, their basic needs -- housing, transportation, and food -- make them extremely vulnerable to violate their probation and be placed back into prison. the delaware regional dream center, which also talks about their staffing needs. project new start, which also talks about 100% of the justice-involved individuals that they serve by their agency, it's provided by this federal

funding. and the modern maturity center in delaware. without the funding, the modern maturity center would the no be in the position to provide services. the administration of the snap program would have to be discontinued. this would remove the opportunity for seniors to apply for the supplemental food assistance at the modern maturity center, the fastest impact on the community will come through the nutrition services program, because every day the modern maturity center provides meals to approximately 2,000 seniors in kent county, delaware. without this funding, it could be discontinued. i could go on. the coalition for a safer delaware, delaware relies on it for suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, community violence programs. we passed legislation in a bipartisan way to deal with

safer communities. they need the money. and then the freedom center for living independent. again, they will feel the impact. our citizens with disabilities as well. the help initiative is also another one. i've told you how these misguided actions would impact families, workers,seniors, people with americans with disabilities acts and many others in my state. but we must meet these words with action. we must keep the pressure on. because we knee in this moment it is all hands on deck. delawareans know that i have a proven track record of working across the aisle. it has been my top priority in serving in the house to find bipartisan solutions and to work on behalf of delaware and the american people. and my top priority is to

continue to do that and have it front and center in the united states senate. it's why after seeking out the voices of delawareans and asking the president's nominees the questions that we needed to ask, i am so committed to making sure that we continue this fight. within the past few weeks, many promises have been broken, and we see the recklessness on display of these harmful things that -- and what they will do to our communities. so i stand here today to say that i am voting no on vought. i am voting no on vought. and i will do everything, everything in my power to stand up for the people of delaware and to deliver, even when it

feels dark, bright hope. thank you, and i yield back. mr. kaine: i yield to my colleague from kansas. mr. moran: mr. president, i appreciate the gentleman from virginia yielding. mr. president, i appear before the united states senate today to ask for support and for

adoption of a resolution honoring the memory of 67 lives that were lost in the tragic accident that occurred last week over the potomac river and to recognize the heroic efforts of hundreds of first responders who supported the rescue and the recovery operations in the aftermath. last wednesday, january 29, american airlines flight 5342 travelling from wichita, kansas, to washington, d.c., and u.s. army aviation brigade priority air transport 25 collided over the potomac river near ronald reagan washington national. there were no survivors. this collision is the deadliest aviation incident america has witnessed in years. the pain experienced by family, frentsdzs and loved oneses of

the victims. this loss is personal. it is kansas. this loss is personal. i've taken this flight many times. my wife and i have taken this flight, as have thousands of other kansans travelling from our home state to the nation's capital. since this crash, we've learned that, as expected, kansans were among the victims. and i extend my prayers and deepest condolences to the friends and family of all 67 victims from across the country and even around the globe. among the victims are husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters a, friends and coworkers. there are not words we know to express the devastating loss that families and friends of victims are now experiencing. even as we mourn the 67 killed in this tragedy, we are reminded of the american spirit of solidarity and support displayed over the course of the last eight days. i thought this spirit will

persist as we continue to mourn and to heal. i'm joined by several of my colleagues whose constituents are among the victims. their participation demonstrates that this loss is felt not only at home in conkansas but across the country. we're all grieving and together we can help bear each other's burdens. immediately following the crash, hundreds, hundreds of first responders from more than 40 local, state, and federal agencies responded to the scene. working tirelessly through the night and into the days that followed on rescue and recovery operations. the first responders from the district of columbia, from virginia, from maryland alopping with various federal agencies acted bravely, swiftly and courageously in harsh conditions. this resolution commemorates the victims and acknowledges their loved ones' deep loss and we will promise in this resolution to continue to help carry those burdens for them.

this resolution also expresses gratitude to law enforcement and to emergency medical personnel, to all the first responders who arrived to try to make a difference, and they did. mr. president, i yield to the senator from virginia, senator kaine. mr. kaine: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to join my colleagues from kansas and senator warner, i believe will be here in a few minutes, to support the resolution described by senator moran. this is personal to me in two ways. obviouslials the senator from virginia, many -- obviously as the senator from virginia, many of the victims on the american airlines flight and two of the three soldiers who were killed on the military helicopter flight deployed from for the belvoir were virginians so our community has been very touched by this. i was oan vigil on the riverbank

last night with members of the first responder community, and others who feel this wound very deeply. that is the first personal connection i have to this tragic vent. but i also rise as a kid who grew up in kansas, and my mother grew up in a town actually went to the same high school with senator marshall, not far from wichita, the airport from which the flight departed. and so as i read the stories of the 67 who died, the virginians and the kansans, they were stories that seemed very familiar to me. it is hard to find words to sum up the many feelings that i have and that others have, and i said last night at the vigil that i attended that when words fail and you can't find the words, usually there are words of ancient wisdom that do the trick, and i used a phrase from psalm 90 that i love.

teach us how short our lives are so that we may become wise. there were a lot of youngsters on that flight, but we're all young in the sense of our lives are short. the psalmist who wrote those words was trying to make a point. all of our lives are brief. all of our lives are temporal. all of our lives are mortal. in that realization, there can be wisdom. one of the bits of wisdom is the realization that we have to bind together, in good times, yes, but especially in bad times. we have to join in community to help those who are suffering. i have been very, very pleased to see the reaction, just as my colleague in kansas has seen, the volunteers in northern virginia, the red cross volunteers who have been out day after day, the first responders who did a difficult job in the middle of the night in fishery ied temperatures -- frigid in an

icy rivers. i see people coming together as we often do in times of tragedy, and that is heartening, if you can take anything hashtaging from a swigs -- anything heartening from a situation so drastic. i strongly support the resolution and i support with my colleagues the notion that we have to learn from this. the national transportation safety board is doing a study. their study will make recomme recommendations about how we can reduce the chance this will ever happen again. thank goodness air accidents of this kind are not common in the country, and yet this tragedy has to energize us to learn the lessons of it and make improvements so that we reduce the chance this will ever happen again. and i am very devoted in the memory of those who lost their lives to that mission. and with that, i yield the floor. thank you. mr. moran: i thank the senator from virginia. with your permissionmarks i would like to yield to the senator from kansas, senator marshall.

mr. marshall: mr. president. it's a truly humble moment to stand 00er with my senior senator from kansas, a couple gentlemen senators from virginia. i wish we weren't having to stand here together. it's been more than a week since that horrific night, but it feels as if it just happened hours ago. it doesn't seem possible. in the blink of an eye we lost 67 brave souls. each morning i wake up hoping it was just a night pair, that somehow it wasn't real, but we all know it was and it is. the psalmist writes in the 34th chapter, the lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. the lord is close to the broke hearted and save those who are crushed in spirit. it's time like these when grief is overwhelming, that we hold on

to the promise of scripture and the faith passed down from generation to generation, a faith that's carried kansans through heartship and loss. we remember 1955, a tornado levelled the little city of udall and 75 kansans lost their lives. another horrific plane crash in 1970 carrying the wichita state university football team and 31 souls were lost. the tornados, the storms, the floods, the wildfires, all these disasters have taken too many lives and left so many hearts shattered. and yet through it all, one thing has remained. our faith and the love and support of our families in our communities. that's what's carried us before and that's what will carry us now. but i do feel the hurt. we all feel that hurt. it's a pain that feels like a gut punch, an ache that

disappears when we distract ourselves only to return without warning. but i fear for the loved ones left behind because i know this pain never truly goes away. and i know like my colleagues have said, there's truly no words that can capture the depth of our sorrow that we all feel right now, and we can't begin to imagine the grief of these family members. but yet we want you each to know you don't stand alone, that we're with you. we stand beside you. we're mourning with you. our communities are wrapping their arms around you in prayer and support. and just to speak to the families specifically, we, too, are brokenhearted just like you in that we're also crushed in spirit. but yet there's hope. we want you to know this. that even in this tragedy, god is has not deserted us. he walks with us three these

darkest of valleys and he weeps with those who weep. we're praying for your strength. we're praying for god's comfort and peace to cover you all as we again we mourn together. and again like my senior senator expressed, i want to express my deepest gratitude for all the emergency responders and especially the divers who i really believe risked their own lives by jumping into a dark, fast, cold river in seven of survivors -- search of survivors. thank you so much for doing it and doing your job so well. your courage will not be forgotten. i'll close with this. and i said this the night of the tragedy. when one life is lost, it is a tragedy. when many are lost at once, it's an unbearable sorrow. it's a heartbreak beyond measure. again to the families, we're

with you and so is our father in heaven. thank you. i yield back. mr. moran: i yield to the senator from virginia, senator warner. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from virginia. mr. warner: thank you him first i want to thank my colleagues from kansas. i know you were there that night. i want to thank as well obviously my dear friend 40-plus years from virginia. we were at the airport along with friends from maryland and d.c. by 7:00 the next morning. and the remarkable thing is this is a route i take home every night. i have the luxury, frankly, of being the guy that my home is actually closer to the capitol than all other members.

i drive along the parkway each night. and i think i missed the actual collision by no less than seven or eight minutes. and yet we then saw a number of red lights rushing into national across the river in maryland. and we all know that the souls on american flight 5342 and those pilots in the army helicopter, awful, awful collision. echoing what my friends have said. we can't give you words that will get rid of that terror or that awful event. but we have seen over the last week how many young lives, so many folks from the skating world. they were kansans, virginians

and literally people from frankly around the globe. and the contributions to their friends and families that they'll never be able to fulfill is going to leave an ache in the hearts of those families that i can't nearly articulate as well as some of my colleagues. but i also want to acknowledge that even in these moments of tragedy, there are moments of grace and heroic actions. for folks who don't live in the capital region, the kind of messy bureaucratic multiple jurisdictions between maryland and the district and virginia. senator kaine and i were both governors of virginia. thanks to the poe tack -- potomac, it's the great divide. but in mommies like this, this tragedy, people stop being maryland, virginia, the district, federal.

people dropped everything and literally they were first responders from 40 different jurisdictions. that's remarkable. and everybody else has made mention whether they're divers or folks who went into that bitterly cold river and frankly what they've had to do in terms of recovery of the mains in the days afterwards, the emotional toll it's going to take on those men and women literally possibly for the rest of their life. but they did what was right. i also want to say we have the safest skies in the world. it's because we've got good pilots. we've got valuable air traffic controllers. clearly something went wrong here. and i think we owe it to the restoration of that confidence that the sky is safe and our

country. i want to applaud the brand new secretary of transportation who was with me, mr. duffy from president trump's administration, was with us that morning, 7:00 in the morning. and those families and those first responders deserve the answers to would went wrong here. i have great faith in the ntsb. we have -- senator kaine and i have worked with them on other tragedies in the past. they're going to do their job. they're going to find out what went wrong. and we're going to make sure that that kind of mistake is not made again. so i'll simply close by saying again condolences for the lost and their families. thank you for the first responders and for all who responded. i think it is totally appropriate and i want to thank just on a personal basis the fact that senator moran decided to put this resolution together and to bring us to the floor to

kind of get that affirmation. here we are literally eight days after this tragedy. thank you, jerry, for what you've done. mr. moran: i very much value the remarks of my colleagues from virginia and home state colleague from kansas. i would use this moment to thank all the folks in this chamber, colleagues and staff, people i work with and know, people i work with and sometimes don't know have been so gracious and kind in their care and concern for people in most instances they don't know. it is this reminder that tragedy brings us together. it's a reminder that the senate could use on a daily frequent basis, that there is more that brings us together than pulls us apart. but the expression of care and

concern for the people who were on this flight once again demonstrates that in the human heart, there's something that still exists about how we value and appreciate the lives of others. mr. president, i ask as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule 22, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 64 which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 64 honoring the memory of the victims of the tragic mid air collision between american airlines flight 5342 and united states army aviation brigade priority air transport 25 on january 29, 2025.

the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed. mo mourn. mr. moran: i ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection.

the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from michigan. a senator: mr. president, i rise today to oppose russell vought's nomination to be the director of the office of management and budget. mr. peters: as the ranking member of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee, i have worked hard and across the aisle to strengthen our federal government's effectiveness and providing services that americans rely on every day. to improve transparency in the way that government operates and to make sure that taxpayer dollars are always used efficiently. these are some of the most fundamental roles the federal government plays in the daily

lives of americans, and we are duty bound to ensure that they continue. but if russell vought is confirmed to lead the office of management and budget, i am concerned that he will throw these principles out the window and wreak havoc on the services that americans count on from the federal government every day. although it may not be the most well known agency, the office of management and budget or omb is a critical office in the executive office of the president with significant responsibilities ranging from developing and executing the budget approved by congress to improving agency performance and reviewing regulations. the actions carried out at omb affect the daily lives of millions of americans. and this little known agency controls nearly every action that other federal agencies take

directing agency policies as well as controlling their budgets. omb is charged with allocating federal resources that congress appropriates to agencies that protect our national security, help communities recover from natural disasters, and provide vital services like social security, medicare, and veterans services. this funding helps fire police officers and firefighters. it helps provide families with heating assistance in the cold winter months. and it helps towns and cities upgrade their roads and bridges. omb's work matters to every american. and we cannot confirm someone to lead this office who will not act in the best interest of every american. as the great american poet dr. maya angelou once said,

quote, when people show you who they are, you should believe them the first time. russell vought has repeatedly shown us and told us who he is. and he is someone who has and will continue to willfully break the laws passed by congress at the direction of the president, to fundamentally alter how the federal government works for the american people. the vought's disregard for the rule of law and his willingness to pick which americans are winners and losers under the trump administration completely disqualifies him from serving in this important role. i want to start by revisiting the p illegal and dangerous actions that russ vought took when he served as omb director

during the first trump administration. during his previous tenure leading the office of management and budget, vought brazenly and willfully flouted the laws passed by congress that direct how federal resources should be spent. on multiple occasions vought refused to disburse funds that congress passed on a bipartisan basis to address serious national security concerns and to protect the safety of our country. for example, vought directed the omb to withhold vital security assistance to ukraine, assistance that congress directed to be spent with bipartisan backing. this action put our you country's security at risk by extorting ukraine, a very valuable ally fighting to stop putin's illegal actions. this extortion wasn't to help

advance some official u.s. foreign policy or perhaps support our nation's standing and security around the world. no. it was an action intended to help president trump politically as he tried to discredit joe biden during the 2020 presidential election. and you don't have to take my word for it. the government accountability office investigated and confirmed that this was a violation of the law. on top of that, vought willfully delayed sending vital disaster relief to puerto rico as communities were struggling to recover from the devastations of hurricanes maria and erma. and again congress passed a law to provide this funding, funding that was desperately needed to help recover from these destructive hurricanes. and then again congress passed a law specifically requiring the

funds to be disbursed on time to people in desperate need. mr. vought delayed it, delayed those funds. he broke the law and he prolonged the suffering and the recovery of communities who needed immediate help. in 2021 the inspector general for the department of housing and urban development concerned that vought's refusal to send hurricane relief assistance was an inappropriate action and that it caused real harms for the people of puerto rico. the inspector general report stated, and i quote, brian montgomery, the former deputy secretary and act the secretary of hud said, recalled telling former omb director vought that omb's actions were tantamount to holding disaster relief funds hostage. when asked what he meant by the hostage statement, montgomery told the oig these demands slow

down the fund of aid that was desperately needed by people in a very desperate situation. the report also concluded that this violation of the law caused serious delays in getting assistance to victims. in addition to this devastating delay, the office of inspector general also detailed how vought and omb, under his leadership, stonewalled and failed to cooperate with our independent oversight investigation. again and again russell vought ran omb, he ignored laws passed by congress that directed how taxpayer money should be spent and failed, failed to cooperate with independent oversight investigation of his illegal actions. a 2020 investigation by the government accountability office found that under mr. vought's leadership, omb broke the law eight more times by directing

certain federal agencies to continue to operate during the 2018 shutdown. eight more times breaking the law, mr. vought, it's on the record here. and when i pressed him about these actions during the confirmation hearing, vought said, and i quote, we had a different view of the law. in the shutdown there were a lot of precedent. we found they aren't legal decisions. every time you have a different play call. gao will look at them. there will be different views between the executive branch and the executive branch. a different view of the law? while mr. vought cast this is just a difference of opinion, what he's really saying, let's be clear what he is really saying is that he does not need to follow the law. he thinks that he is above the law. each of these violations underscores his consistent obstruction of oversight and a

troubling tendency to prioritize political agendas over following the law, which endangers the safety and the welfare of our citizens. i have said it multiple times today, but i will repeat, russell vought has shown us who he is. we have a duty and an obligation to take him at his word and believe him. he repeated violations of the law, his repeated violations of the law have far-reaching implications on a nation that was built on the rule of law. when leaders and officials break the law with absolute impunity, the guardrails have fallen off and our democracy is deeply broken. mr. vought's actions have undercut transparent oversight. they have caused the most

foun foundational tenet of the rule of law to crumble. and he didn't stop after his time at omb was up. in the years since russell vought has been hard at work memorializing his playbook to break the law and give the president unilateral power as part of project 2025. he literally wrote the project 2025 chapter on the executive office of the president and how to use the omb to consolidate even more power with the executive branch. in his project 2025 chapter where he spells out the plain as day how he plans to violate the law again if he is confirmed, he wrote that he will recruit staff who are -- and this is a quote. he will recruit staff who are, quote, creative and fearless in

his or her ability to challenge legal precedents. mr. vought is saying lout and he's saying it clear, if we confirm him as director of omb, he will use every tool that he has to say what the law is. he, he gets to decide -- not congress, not the constitution, and not the courts. that's wrong, and it goes against everything our founders believe when they wrote our constitution and created a unique system of checks and balances. every member of the senate and every federal employee swears an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states as they execute their duties. i swore that oath when i joined the united states navy reserve and again as a member of the u.s. house of representatives and finally here in the united

states senate. the constitution gives congress the power to determine how federal resources are to be spent. article 1 of the constitution specifically gives congress the power of the purse. this is not some gray area. this is not unsettled law. this is written in our nation's most critical founding document. the constitution also requires that the president faithfully execute the laws that congress passes. again, faithfully execute. not that the laws should be executed and exercised by the president or russell vought's liking or alignment with the predz policy priorities or campaign promises. but congress, congress that wrote them. and i would hope that any official confirmed or who swears

an oath to uphold the constitution will do so. but unfortunately as i laid out previously, russell vought has a long history of breaking these very laws the constitution instructs him to actually uphold. we already ran through several key examples of how mr. vought routinely broke the law. but i'd like to do a little deeper dive into the history of these laws and why congress thought it was necessary to pass them in the first place. during the nixon administration, an administration that routinely stretched the law to strengthen presidential powers, the president also attempted to use impoundment. in 1970, president nixon began making deep cuts to programs that communities all across america depended upon to keep

families healthy, to keep them fed and educated and safe. in moments throughout our history congress gave the president specific and limited ability to not spend the full amount of that appropriation. president nixon, however, took the idea of refusing to spend appropriations to a whole new and disastrous level. nixon sought to reshape domestic spending and undermine lawful congressional appropriations by broadly withholding federal funding for a wide variety of programs that communities all across america depended upon, programs like food assistance, safe drinking water, child care funding, and programs to promote economic opportunity. president nixon just didn't curtail select projects or limited additional funds to larger projects. his administration tried to use the impoundment to terminate

whole programs that he opposed, programs that thousands of communities depended upon and that congress legally funded. in 1970 and 1971 nixon made deep cuts to the education, housing, and social services programs. in 1973 nixon withheld more than $400 million from the federal food stamp program that prevented millions of children and families from living in hunger. then nixon tried to withhold $8 million appropriated for water reclamation which is used to recycle water for safe drinking, for farm irrigation and restoring local environments. president nixon tried to paint his efforts to withhold federal funding as a way to check inflation when in fact this was an attempt to unilaterally reshape government without taking into consideration the priorities and the needs of

american communities that are represented by their members of congress. and that is why, that is why congress came together to take up and pass the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974. i think this is, mr. president, this is an interesting point. if president nixon was doing this, these laws passed unanimously in the united states congress. all republicans and all democrats in the senate passed them unanimously. apparently that was a time when republican members of the senate had a backbone to stand up to a president that was acting illegally. and even in the house it was almost unanimously. apparently republican members of the house had a backbone then to stand up to a president who acts illegally. the law says that as a general principle, the president may not refuse to spend funds that congress has appropriated. the impoundment control act also specifies a president may

request that congress rescind appropriated funds. but the law makes it clear that if both the house and senate do not prove a rescission request, agencies must disburse those funds within 45 days. the president cannot unilaterally decide to withhold funds that congress has appropriated. congress has clearly spoken on how and when the president can propose lawful rescissions. the impoundment control act is the law of the land and it provides transparent and democratic process to rescind funds, procedures that reinforce core principles and constitutional principles of congressional power. in case after case federal courts, including the supreme court of this country, have found that the president has no un unilateral power to cancel appropriations, again because congress, not the president,

holds the power of the purse. even be conservative judicial figures who might, you might expect would support broader executive powers, especially at this trying moment in our nation's history have rejected the concept of inherent presidential impoundment.rico. in the 1998 case, justice scalia wrote, quote, president nixon, the gandhi of all impounders asserted that his constitutional right to impound appropriated funds was absolutely clear. our decision two years later in trade v. city of new york proved him wrong. in a 2013 case before the d.c. circuit court of appeals, justice kavanaugh recognized that a president sometimes has

policy reasons as distinct from constitution reasons for spending less than the fum amount appropriated by congress for a particular project or program. but in these circumstances, got to hear this from justice kavanaugh, in these circumstances, even the president does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds. this further solidifies the argument that such a power does not exist within our constitutional framework. over and over, courts and legal scholars have been clear, the president has no constitutional impoundment power. and, again, in 1998 in clinton v. new york, the supreme court struck down a law that allowed the president to unilaterally cancel appropriations further reinforcing the principle that the president does not have that

power. in 1973 and 1974, the council of mental health center v. weinberger, arguments were rejected that the president has the constitutional power to refuse to release grant funding. the fact is that these decisions emphasize that the president of the united states has a duty and an obligation to execute the laws as passed by congress, which includes spending appropriated funds. this well-established legal precedent highlights that the push for impoundment undermines the democratic process by undermining the representative body of the american people. despite all of this settled law throughout vought's confirmation hearing, he doubled down on these plans. professing his intention to continue down the path of his first term by continuing to disregard the rule of law.

i asked mr. vought during the confirmation process if he was familiar with the decisions that prohibit impoundment. he response was wholly inadequate when he stated, quote, i won't get into supreme court decisions regarding impoundment. we think the law in the book is unconstitutional. by advocating for the president's refusal to spend appropriated funds refusing to tell the committee whether there are any limits to this supposed power, vought seems to concentrate power within the executive branch at the expense of congress and the american people. confirming mr. vought will erode our nation's checks and balances and undermines the constitution we all swore an oath to protect and to defend. his actions disregard both the letter and the spirit of the law which is why he is wholly unqualified to serve in a position requiring enormous

public trust, a position that will literally be in the position to make life and death decisions for millions of americans. given his record of undermining democratic process cease, eroding the system of checks and balances and time spent violating the constitution of the united states, we simply cannot trust him in this role. and now even before he's confirmed by the senate, the trump administration has begun to implement russell vought's playbook, the playbook he has talked about and wrote about in project 2025. last week, omb implemented his playbook by withholding money to communities, to families, businesses and organizations when it froze all new and existing federal grants and loans. these actions have result in chaos and confusion and every member of this chamber -- every

member of this chamber has heard from thousands of their constituents who are afraid the resources they are counting on will not be delivered. these actions not only break the law, and wreak chaos and anxiety amongst our constituents, but they also inflict very, very real harm on families in michigan and all across our country. in my home state of michigan, communities and organization received $31 billion in federal grants and loans last year and the freeze has had immediate negative impacts. i heard from a mayor who needs the funding to pay for police, firefighters and public safety personnel who's worried he won't be able to pay first responders. i heard from dozens of communities who fear they will have to put their shovels down on construction projects to improve our roads and our bridges and improve street

safety and address chronic flooding issues before the freeze. i heard from michiganers who are counting on heating assistance during the cold winter months who are unsure if they can pay their energy bills. i heard from educators who are concerned that the freeze would interrupt 17 head start centers across michigan that serve our yengest children -- youngest children. if heard from veterans who face disruptions and confusion over critical services, i heard from colleges and universities who count on funding for research for alzheimer's and protecting our great lakes. i've concerned from those who are concerned the freeze will affect homeland security missions and law enforcement. almost immediately two different judges, one in rhode island and

one in washington, d.c., put in place temporary restraining orders to start to undo the freeze and start drifrg funding to it -- delivering funding. some funds continue to be held up. and omb and the department of justice continue to insist that they can block funding going to these communities. this is not what hardworking families across our nation want and it's certainly not what they need. our constituents need to know that the federal government can keep its word and stand by its promises. americans should feel confident that the services government provides are efficient and reliable and that they can count on them to be delivered. if we confirm russell vought to be just another one of president trump's cronies, the american people will pay the price. once he's back at omb, he will

only supercharge the trump administration's effort to unlawfully cancel programs that congress has authorized on a bipartisan basis and that americans are counting on. it's not a stretch to say that russell vought would do everything he could to give president trump even more power, especially when it comes to controlling the federal budget. if the president wants to block funding to blue states, russ vought will do it. if the president wants to defund firefighters, russ vought will do it. if the president wants to cancel medicaid benefits, russ vought will do it. if the president wants to deny victims of -- of a disaster, assistance that they desperately need, russ vought, we've already seen, will do it. russ vought's record on breaking the law and sowing chaos across government is quite frankly

frightening. if he's confirmed, he will quite litly be in a -- literally be in a position to alter the future of our nation and not in a good way. but he will also be charged with managing the federal workforce and his record on that front, well, it's just as abysmal. when he was at omb before, mr. vought pushed to replace nearly 50,000 nonpartisan career professional civil servants with political appointees whose only qualification is that they had political loyalty to the president. no other qualifications, just loyalty. the -- he attempted to remove qualified employ ease to have -- employees who have years of knowledge and experience, and if he had succeeded it would have

posed great threat to our national security. we have sieve servants who serve in agencies critical to our national security. others work day in and day out to respond to emergencies and to ensure that americans can get key services like social security checks and veterans' health care. he called, mr. vought called these hardworking dedicated public servants, quote, villains. he called them villains. there is no question mr. vought has no respect for the professional hardworking civil servants who work tirelessly each and every day to support the american people. president trump took action on day one of his administration to remove qualified, nonpartisan federal workers and replace them with his cronies by issuing an executive order.

under this directive, the president's political appointees can reclassify traditional civil servants into scheduled policy da rear positions that are functionally at will. all hiring, retention and firing decision for schedule policy career positions would be at the pleasure of the president's political leadership rather than the individual's qualifications or job performance. under vought's authority as omb director during trump's first term, vought recommended that 68% to 88% of its own workforce would be reclassified into this schedule f. while describing this conversion with omb staff into schedule f positions, he recalls saying those mowees were -- employees we don't believe in this laws

that make you less good at serving a particular president. all that mattered was serving a particular president. vought doesn't believe in civil service law. and i believe in those laws. they are the laws of the land. congress passed those laws so civil servants are better at their job of serving the american people rather than their job of serving the political pleasure of a president. civil servants, not the president or his political cronies are the ones who issue social security checks, provide care for our veterans, facilitate loans for small businesses and safeguard our homeland security from security threats. president trump took another step last week to remove qualified sieve servants -- civil servants when he offered

two million employees deferred resignations. it is likely another illegal plan to scare expert employees into leaving voluntarily out of fear they would otherwise be fired or retaliated against by the president so he can make way to install his cronies at all levels of the federal government. if this continues to happen, agentses -- agencies will lose vast institutional knowledge and civil servants will lose trust in their colleagues, whistleblowers will be afraid to come forward to report waste, fraud and abuse, taxpayers will foot the bill for mistakes and corruptions. foreign adversaries will take advantage of our unstable government workforce. in all of these roles we want to trust the employees that have the right skills and experience and are informed with accurate, reliable and create information.

russell vought is at the forefront of this effort to politicize our civil workforce. mr. president, as i bring my remarks to a close, i just want to underscore that russ vought's tenure as omb director and his proposal like project 2025 has demonstrated he is not someone with just differing policy views but disregards the rules of the game as outlined in the laws of congress and those we have enacted under the constitution. mr. vought's expansive views of the president's spending authority will destroy congress's constitutional authority, his disdain for hardworking civil servants who keep americans safe and he wants to attempt to turn all of them into political hacks, loyal only to the president, completely disqualifies him from holding the position of droesht at

the -- director at the office of management and budget. his attitude towards the rule of law is dangerous and it is deeply, deeply un-american. his lawless actions threaten our national security, they threaten our economy and the well-being of the american people and they threaten the future of our democracy. i urge my colleagues to take him at his word. russ vought has told us who he is and what he will do. he told us he will break the law. he will politicize the federal workforce. we cannot give him another chance to inflict marm on the american people. we must, we must oppose his nomination and if we fail to stop his confirmation, there is no question in my mind the american people will end up

paying the price. mr. heinrich: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from new mexico. mr. heinrich: mr. president, every single day millions of hardworking americans report to work to serve their communities and their country. they're known to our government as civil servants, but i want to be clear about who they really are. these civil servants are the more than 300 air traffic controllers at the albuquerque sun port and airports across new mexico who keep us safe in the air. they are the wild land firefighters. they are the fbi agents working to get drug cartels out of our communities. they're the rangers taking care

of our national parks and the civil engineers who manage and restore our watersheds. they are the federal customs officers and border agents who enable trade at our southern border and stop fentanyl before it enters our country. they are the inspectors and scientists who ensure the safety of our food and our medicine, and they are the countless workers who ensure our elders receive their social security checks on time. these are the unsung heroes in our federal civil service. the impact of their work touches every single person in our state and our country. they deserve our respect and our gratitude, not an all-out attack against them. but while these civil servants have done the kauaiest work of keeping our government working -- the kauaiest work of keeping our government works,

donald trump is single-handedly forcing a government shutdown and forcing the lives of civil servants into chaos. it's abundantly clearwater that donald trump and his team have taken his narrow victory as a license to run roughshod over all laws, norms, and even the constitution. trump and elon musk are attempting and unlawful has still takeover of the most basic federal government operations, functions that so many americans depend on. over the course of the last two weeks, trump has threatened mass layoffs of civil servants, closures of entire federal agencies. trump and elon musk's doge minions have forced access to the federal payment system. this system contains americans' private data as well as classified information and

processes government payments that make up more than a fifth of the u.s. economy. and i wish i were making this up, but it's true -- according to a report in "wired," a 25-year-old engineer from musk's doge group has gained access, direct access, to the treasury department's systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the federal government. this is someone whose only other experience is working for musk at other places, at spacex and twitter. this unelected, unvetted member of musk's doge team reportedly has administer-level privileges, normally access privileges to this highly secure system are reserved for high-level professionals with years and years of experience at the treasury department. this breach by elon musk's doge

minions may expose the system to irreversible damage, undermining our individual privacy rights and our country's economic and national security. and many of us will simply not stand for it. on top of this, trump triggered a vast and ongoing blockade of congressionally appropriated federal funds, the impacts of which are still reverberating across the nation. the masterminds -- air quote -- behind this whole mess are trump, elon musk and, yes, russell vought. trump's nominee to lead the white house office of management and budget. let's talk about mr. vought and his plans. mr. vought was the lead architect of the heritage foundation's project 2025, the blueprint for trump's dismantling of the federal government. he has spent years crafting plans to circumvent congress,

our constitution, and, of course, the law. let me read to you directly from mr. vought's statements in his own words. in a private speech last year at his far-right center for renewing america think tank -- air quote oz deny -- mr. vought stated again that he would blake to put career civil servants, quote, in trauma. mr. vought said we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. when they wake up in the morning, we want them not to want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as villians. we want their funding to be shut down so that the epa can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to

do so. he laid out how he would do this in his chapter of the heritage foundation project 2025 playbook for the incoming trump administration white house. he wrote there, the great challenge confronting a conservative president is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch. he went on to say that, success in meeting that challenge will require a boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy, meaning bending and breaking our career civil servants who carry out laws passed here by congress. as the omb director at the end of the last prescription drugs, mr. vought -- trump administration, mr. vought was the lead arc tech of the fiscal year 2021 budget proposal that called for $500 billion cut for medicare, $900 billion cut from

medicaid, $71 billion cut from social security. yes, social security. $76 billion cut from disability programs, zeroing out entire federal programs including the corporation for public broadcasting, the legal services corporation, community development block grants, and community services block grants, all to pave the way for trump to double down on his tax breaks for billionaires. at his center for renewing america think tank, mr. vought drafted a 2023 budget plan entitled "a commitment to end woke and weaponized government." this is the playbook that trump and musk are already running to freeze federal funding, dismantle and dismember federal agencies, and seize the power of the purse from congress, where the constitution put it. that plan called for extending trump's tax cuts for the wealthy

by slashing medicaid by $2.1 trillion, snap by $400 billion, eliminating the afford care tax credits that help folks afford health care comp. mr. vought shahs also openly admitted his intention to challenge the impoundment control act of 1974, which enforces congress's constitutional power of the purse. during his confirmation hearing last month, mr. vought says he believes the president can just overrule congress in deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars, despite constitutional authority and the law to the contrary. mr. vought said the president ran on the notion that the impoundment control act is unconstitutional. i agree with that. last time i checked, that was up to the supreme court and our court systems. mr. vought has already made clear how he views his role -- or i should say abused his role

as omb director to politicize the agency and bend it to the whims of the president. in other project vought wrongly stated that omb has the only tools that are powerful enough to override implementing the agency's bureaucracies. cha this really means is overriding the law duly enacted here in congress and signed by the president. mr. vought has also questioned the very ideas of independent federal agencies. in fact, in an interview last november with tucker carlson, mr. vought said, quote, number one is going after the whole notion of independence. there are no independent agencies. congress may have viewed them as such. the securities and exchange commission or the fcc, the whole alphabet sarns but the whole notion of an independent agency

should be thrown out. you can apply the concept of destroying independence at every agency. mr. vought has called omb a president's air traffic control system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync and with the authority to let planes take off and at times ground planes that are flying off-course. do we really trust a man hell-bent on slashing medicare, medicaid, social security, defying congress and destroying independent federal agencies to be an air traffic controller? let me be clear -- my constituents in new mexico did not vote for this, and my office has been fielding thousands of phone calls, letters, e-mails from new mexicans who are upset and angry, frustrated that president trump, elon musk and vought are

breaking laws and shredding the constitution in a bid to upend the basic he if you pleasings of our -- the basic functions of our government. here's a little bit of a taste of what new mexicans are telling me. arthur frommeeio rancho told me he is concerned about how trump and vought plan to dismantle the department of education will impact his son and millions of other students with disabilities. arthur said, i have a son who is autistic and nonverbal. with an individual education plan, dismantling the department of education will not only impact him, but it'll devastate all public schools and hurt students like my son who have disabilities. this will strip away any rights and protections from millions of students. trump and elon need to be sent a clear message -- education is a fundamental right, not a privilege for the wealthy. a constituent from albuquerque who

requested anonymity is worried about his job as a federal civil servant because of vought's agenda. he wrote to me, i am a u.s. forest service employee. most of us are now afraid of losing our jobs and of, among other things, the demand for loyalty. this makes it difficult to work in the manner that we wish to -- efficiently, effectively, and to do well for the land and all citizens. marissa from santa fe is hesitant to start family because the uncertainty caused by musk, trump, and vought. marissa vote to me, i am really terrified at the idea that so much of the federal government is being dismantled by someone who hasever -- who was never nominated to a position of power. i want to be able to start a family, but how can i do that without fear of knowing that this man and the gop are destroying any chance of that happening?

a public schoolteacher is also deeply worried about trump and vought'sment to dismantle the department of education and what this could mean for her students, fellow teens, and her -- fellow teachers and her financial security. as an educator for 22 years here in new mexico, i know firsthand the struggles that our families, students, and educators are facing in the classroom, and we really need access to the federal support that we get. whether it's title 1, special education, or grants, i don't know how we're going to operate our schools effectively without that. i'm also worried about my pension. as a public school educator, i'm supposed to be eligible for retirement in three and a half years, and i've dedicated my life to the students of new mexico. today i say to the thousands of new mexicans who have asked me to oppose mr. vought's

nomination, i agree with you. mr. vought is unfit to lead the omb. we should reject this dangerously unfit nominee before he dismantles the services that new mexicans rely on. we should reject him before he unilaterally overrides the laws that americans elected representatives have passed a. we cannot stand by and allow mr. vought, elon musk or even this president to disregard the safety and security of the american people and the law is on our side. in the last week, two federal courts have issued restraining orders on trump's directive i want to read a few short words from what the judges have said. the executive's action unilaterally suspends the payment of federal funds to the states and others simply by choosing to do so. no matter the authorizing or

appropriating statute, the regulatory regime, or the terms of the grant itself, the executive cites no legal authority allowing it to do so. indeed no federal law would authorize the executive's unilateral action here. the court continued by dismissing trump's arguments justifying the funding freeze declaring the executive branch has a duty to align federal spending and action with the will of the people as expressed through congressional appropriation, not presidential priorities. these court rulings represent battles won, but this war to defend the constitution and stability in this nation is far from over. and we won't stop until trump, musk, and vought follow the law and abide by the constitution. that means respecting federal workers. it means ending the unilateral and unlawful freeze of appropriated funds for projects

from the eastern new mexico rural water project to the red top water development project. i've said it before and i'll say it again. this is not a game. this is a nation of laws. and just like you, every one of us here in this body swore to defend the constitution. mass layoffs of federal workers. working to disband the department of education or the epa or the national science foundation, abusing the fbi, handing over access to more than one-fifth of our economy and the private data of every single american tax pair without -- taxpayer without any regard for the risk that you're creating for our national security. that is not defending this nation of laws. it's not following the constitution. it's not putting public service or even america first. it looks a lot like ter nye. -- tyranny. it needs to stop. we the people is the first phrase of the united states

constitution. and that is exactly who republicans in charge of the senate, the house, and the white house, the people who can stop this need to hear from you. so to all americans wondering what can be done right now, rise up your voice. call your member of congress. call your senators. call the white house. call the treasury department. comment on your republican representatives' social media channels. write op eds in -- op-eds in your local newspaper telling how they're impacted. make sure republicans know that we the people, that we the people are paying attention, that we will hold them accountable for following the law, upholding the constitution, and make sure to let your lawmakers know when you support the work that they're doing so that they continue to do it. and let federal civil servants

know that you support them and that you want them to keep doing their jobs and doing them well. i will continue to stand up to this chaos, to this lawlessness, and as part of that work, i will vote no on russell vought. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from massachusetts mr. markey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise tonight in opposition to the nomination of russell vought to be director of the office of management and budget, also known as omb. my colleagues and i have been holding the senate floor since yesterday to sound the alarm on

this dangerous nomination. russell vought is the architect of project 2025, the hateful, racist, sexist policy road map at the summer of trump's campaign. mr. vought has been working behind the scenes for years on policies to consolidate power, undermine the critical services that the federal government provides to the american people and undermine congress seapower of the purse -- congress' power of the purse. when vought was at the office of management and budget during the last trump administration, he demonstrated a complete lack of regard for our branch of government, the congress. he was responsible for illegally withholding and delaying billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated finishing. and is planning to ratchet up

this whole destructive power to a new level in 2025. and while vought was withholding the funding that he and trump don't like, he revealed a 2021 budget plan that showed us all the terrible things that he did like. that plan authored by russell vought proposed -- listen to this -- $500 billion in cuts to medicare, $900 billion in cuts to medicaid, $71 billion cuts to social security. and in those budgets, vought was able to find $1.4 trillion to continue the tax that trump gave, that big tax break to the millionaires and billionaires in our country, all paid for out of medicare, medicaid, and social

security. and right now russell vought is working behind the scenes and not even waiting to propose a budget. he is directing the agency to illegally cut billions of dollars in spending from programs that american families rely upon. someone else's name may have been on the january 27 memo that came from omb that froze all government spending, but make no mistake, it was authored by russell vought. everything we are seeing right now, the illegal and unconstitutional actions being taken to dismantle federal agencies, freeze funding, steal the data of american citizens is a push to further the project 2025 playbook. vought may be the one to have written the blueprint but now he and everyone else, including the president himself are taking

orders from one man, elon musk. all of this chaos is because the richest man in the world spent more than $280 million on buying this election. and he wants to reap the benefits from his investment. for donald trump, dei seems to only stand for defending elon's interest. now he and vought are planning to make omb stand for only musk's business. elon musk and his unqualified, unelected government arsonists want to be able to carry out their attacks on your privacy, your right, your friends and neighbors under the cover of darkness. because with every new day, we are seeing donald trump's deep pocketed puppeteer elon musk

attempt to dismantle the government services that keep our communities clean, healthy, and safe. and they're acting with impunity. i just came from the environmental protection agency, an agency created by congress, authorized by congress, signed into law by richard nixon. and one which the environment and public works committee on which i sit oversees. i was denied access to the epa to talk to musk, doge henchmen. no, you can't come in, senator. you can't talk to these young people rumbling around interviewing people who majored in physics and biology and chemistry, who are protecting the clean air and clean water and clean lands in our country. no, you can't come in. musk doesn't just believe he is above the law, he doesn't believe in the law at all. he believes that the united states constitution does not apply to him.

elon musk not bound by the constitution. and everyone knows that we have three branches of government created in the constitution as separate articles defining the powers of each. article 1 of the constitution is the congress. article 2 of the constitution is the presidency. article 3 of the constitution is the judiciary. but elon musk, he doesn't need to answer to any of those branches, not to congress, not to the courts, and certainly not to his newly bought presidency. it makes sense for trump to make elon musk a buddy, the guy who declared bankruptcy six times really need as rich guy around to bail him out. but it's almost as if musk believes that he has his own special place in the

constitution. separate from the first three articles. in musk world, our constitution contains an article 3.5 right after article 3 of the judiciary. and that new article that he believes exists and applies to him is a never before used provision in the constitution with unlimited authority to remake our constitutional order with musk as the unelected and unaccountable leader. now, in musk's world, articles 1, 2, and 3 of the constitution are toothless compared to the power reserved for him and him alone in article 3.5. right before article 4. he just slipped it in. article 3.5. in musk world article 3.5 goes

something like this. article 3.5, the muskocracy. his own separate provision in the constitution. section 1 of the muskocracy, establishment of the elon musk branch. the executive, legislative and judicial branches shall hereby recognize a new and supreme branch of government known as elon musk. this branch shall operate independently of the other three branches, unburdened by traditional constraints such as laws or ethics or the need for congressional approval. that's article, section 1. section 2, powers and responsibilities for the muskocracy. the elon musk branch shall wield absolute authority over but not limited to one, federal agency

reorganization, abolish at will clause is in that section, whatever he decides the. the musk branch may at any time eliminate, restructure or replace any federal agency by way of a single tweet. a lot of power that section 1 has. section 2, workforce optimization. all federal employees shall be subject to an immediate performance review determined by way of an a.i. powered metric called the hyper productive index trademarked. any agency deemed inefficient shall be replaced by a new office staffed entirely by a mix of x premium subscribers. tesla interns and spacex engineers working 120-hour weeks. this is the muskocracy.

and it just continues. data access. part 3. the musk branch shall have unrestricted access to all government personnel records, including security clearances, tax filings, and even embarrassing slack messages. all goes to elon musk under article 3.5 of the new united states constitution enacted on inauguration day in 2024. then we have legislative override. all bills must be reviewed and meaned upon by the musk branch before passing. a simple ha ha no tweet from the branch shall serve as an automatic veto. he didn't like it. just tweet it out. everyone will jump. make sure that doesn't ap. this is the new muskocracy

within which we are now living. 3.5, article 3.5 of the new constitution of the united states of america. judiciary review, the supreme court shall be replaced with a single x post where elon asks should this be legal? the most likely reply becomes binding precedent. it's the only way. you can just see how it's all playing on x. that's the new constitution of the united states, binding on the united states senate for sure. we can see that in the votes being cast out here by the majority. then we move on to section 3, administration and oversight. the musk branch shall be staffed exclusively by engineers or a.i.-powered bots and a small staff of interns selected through an online gladdator --

gladiator-style coding competition. how else would you run america in 2025, but have those superior, making all decisions for all of us? then section 4, checks and balances, all important, the checks and balances have always been the key going back to madison, jefferson. they got through that checks and balances, so did elon musk, in 3.5, the muskocracy, the provision operative in the donald trump presidency. checks and balances says, although the existing three branches may express opinions, all official government actions require verification from the musk branch, except those initiated by musk himself, which are self-verifying, because he's infallible. no one can question him. and any opposition to the musk

branch shall be met with immediate ridicule. come on. you can't question elon musk. it's the new constitution. that's how it is. everyone should just understand. and then section 5, succession and perpetuity. how does our country then operate into the future? well, in the event that the physical elon musk ceases to exist, the musk branch shall be transferred to an a.i.-trained on/off system for all of his tweets that are gathered tog together, and then neurolinked data and pass rogan podcast appearances, and that a.i. shall rule indefinitely, unless overthrown by a more innovative billionaire. isn't that really how we want our country to be running, under this muskocracy, article 3.5?

that's where we are right now. that's the country that we are living in. does he have power? oh, he has power. because let's not kid ourselves, right now elion wants us to live in the muskocracy. the trump administration is operating as if 3.5 is real, as if elon musk has spread authority to override the will of government, cease government property, hire and fired a will and bend government to his benefit regardless of the consequences. we can see article 3.5 in action right now. musk is obsessed with shutting down usaid, slandering its public servants, spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the agency's work and mission. if we don't stop him now, through legislation and lawsuits, he will not only

destroy our ability to address global crises that eventually impact us here at home, he'll go after the agencies that keep our food and water safe, our infrastructure repaired, and our communities secured. gutting usaid will cause immediate harm to our national security, place our citizens at risk, and disrupt lifesaving work. usaid helps protect children from starvation, prevents spread of infectious diseases, is critical in our global fight against aids and hiv. if we don't hold the line on elon musk'sablition of usaid and the trump administration's illegal actions, nothing will prevent him or trump from doing the same thing to the cdc, the environmental protection agency, the small business administration. he's bragging that he put usaid in the wood chipper. he wants to do the same thing for every other agency. that's why i'm voting no on every trump nominee while this

illegal and unconstitutional power grab continues, while this chaos continues, and this corruption continues. the fights before us will not be easy, and there will be many. the american people are relying on us to protect their rights, their pocketbooks, and their families, and that starts with protecting them from nominees whose only goal is to dishadn'ting the -- dismantle the programs that feed them, employ them and keep them warm in the winter, educate them and help them meet the ends that their families seek to achieve. we need to say no to the nomination of russell vought tonight, no to the illegal, unconstitutional muskocracy, and no to the costly or sick or unhealthy future donald trump is creating. i urge all members to vote no on russell vought as the administrator of the office of office of management and budget.

mr. lujan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from new mexico. mr. lujan: for the past two weeks, my office has receives thousands of calls. worried new mexicans are sharing stories and pleading for help and assistance. last monday, when president trump and russell vought illegally froze federal programs and grant money, allocated by congress, chaos erupted in new mexico and across america. a single mother of four in bernalea wrote to me, i will literally have to choose between feeding my children or paying for them to have private health insurance. i barely make it paycheck to paycheck as it is. this freeze would definitely put us over. please help our state. a senior from albuquerque told me, my savings have been wiped out by home health care costs

after one hospitalization. i'm unable to work and i'm living solely on social security income, most of which is eaten up by insurance premiums. i'm dependent on medicare health trea treatments. a family doctor said if the federal freeze on grants and programs were implemented it would put a family clinic that serves 50,000 new mexicans in immediate danger of closing, leaving thousands of patients without access to primary health care. this is to every rural health care center in america. i have story after story to share, but several of my colleagues have so much to add tonight. i will ask my republican colleagues to please say a little prayer, call your constituents in the next half-hour and talk to them because they're going to be impacted by this. vote no on vought. this is terrible for the people that we represent. i ask unanimous consent to submit my remarks fully into the record, and i yield.

ms. cortez masto: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from nevada. ms. cortez masto: mr. president, we know this, and this is a conversation i have quite often with individuals to talk about what's happening in my state when they ask me what's going on in washington? what's happening with the executive orders and the change in the administration? one thing we talk about, i think it is important because sometimes it gets lost in this conversation, is that when our system of government was created, about 250 years ago, it was created because the american people at the time decided they wanted a democracy. they didn't want a king. the united states of america was borne out of a revolution against a monarch, a king who sat on a throne and had really no checks on his power.

our froounding fathers built th nation on a foundation of democratic principles, supporting the idea that government is for the people. that's what the american people wanted. as part of that creation, they established three coequal branches of government. we all know, the executive, the legislative, the judicial. along with that, they created a system of checks and balances to ensure no branch had too much control over the other. as we all know, we work here in congress, that legislative branch is important, the first branch of government, coequal to all the others, but it writes and passes laws. approves presidential nominations, but also importantly the branch of government we all work in is about passing a budget and controlling the purse.

what does that mean? the money. we're the ones that decide how we spend this money, the budget for the federal government, where it's going to go, the appropriations for it, and that really is the power of congress that our founding fathers gave to us. now, the executive branch we all know founders gave the president the authority to veto, to implement, to enforce laws, along with the power to manage and direct government agencies. that's what the fourngs envisioned to ensure -- the founding fathers envisioned to ensure the government puts the american people first and no branch of government could become too powerful. those are checks and balances that have been tested throughout our nation's history. in 1974, president richard nixon refused to release funds for certain programs he opposed. in response to his own

constitutional abuse of power, congress passed bipartisan legislation called the congressional budget and impoundment act of 1974. this legislation reaffirms that once congress passes bills that deliver funding to the american pe people, the president can't delay or cancel those funds. unfortunately today, we have a nominee for the office of management and budget, we call it omb, who thinks this critical check on the president's power shouldn't exist. now, you've heard this, my democratic colleagues have been on the senate floor since 2:00 p.m. yesterday, to oppose russ vought. why? because russ vought is the coauthor of president trump's 2025 manifesto, and the chief architect of trump's strategy to seize the power of the

legislative branch. how are they doing that? on january 27, the omb issued a memo to effectively suspend congress' power of the purse by announcing a pause on all federal grants and loans. he shut down funding for practically every state and local program that receives money from the federal government. now, like all of my colleagues, i had heard from nevadans worried about accessing medicaid or their v.a. benefits or funding for law enforcement or housing and energy payments that keep the lights on for low-income nevadans. i've heard concerns about child care initiatives like head start that have no longer any funding, and programs to support seniors, like meals on wheels are concerned. i have heard from tribes in nevada. i just got out of my office meeting with one of our tribes, who are still having trouble

accessing housing funds and similar funds. groups that support nevada's domestic violence survivors don't know if they'll have the money to get critical resources to people in need. nevada literacy programs helping children learn to read have been threatened with a loss of funding. rural communities in nevada receiving federal grants, ranging from community development grants to wastewater treatment, several of those grants, that funding have been delayed or cut. trump's funding freeze shut down support for safety and security for kids and families in the historic westside of las vegas. president trump shut down 156 million in funding for solar energy in nevada. we were going to install solar power on hundreds of buildings, helping bring down energy cost for 20,000 hardworking nevada families. but president trump illegally

stopped these solar grants to nevada. that jeopardized thousands of good-paying jobs for laborers and construction crews in my state. while the trump administration claimed that medicaid wasn't affected by the federal funding freeze, the fact is the medicaid payment system did go off line in all 50 states. intentional or not, the omb order was reckless, causing confusion and chaos for many across the country, including doctors and health care staff who didn't know if they were going to get paid for the work they do. like my colleagues, my office is being flooded with these calls, including from nevadans concerned about their future benefits, from medicaid, medicare, social security. these are real americans who are being squeezed by this unconstitutional funding freeze, even though donald trump

promised to make their lives better. americans right now are being hung out to dry by donald trump and by russ vought, whose project 2025 was clearly, clearly the inspiration for this dangerous funding freeze. stert. russ vought is unfit to serve as the head of the agency that overseas our -- oversees our federal budget. he said that the impoundment act is unconstitutional. that's a lot of power. he thinks that the president should be able to withhold any funding they don't like, even though that goes against what the founding fathers wrote in the constitution. we passed the inflation reduction act that created

incredible jobs, union jobs and grew our economy in nevada and across our country. now president trump and russ vought are saying the president doesn't have to deliver all that funding to communities in nevada and across the country. many of those communities have already broken ground on projects that they were promised funding for. instead of focusing on the working families that donald trump said he was fighting for, he's clearly only interested in becoming as powerful as possible no matter how many laws he breaks. listen, you know something's wrong when firefighters who went to l.a. received e-mails from the trumps to encouraging them to resign. it wasn't an e-mail to say thank you, you risked your lives, we

couldn't do this without you. they sent a letter to these firefighters saying, well, it's time to resign. what kind of president thanks our firefighters by leaving their jobs and leaving our communities defenseless. he doesn't care about our safety and security. he only cares about his own. now my question for my colleagues on on the other side of the aisle what is next? what will be the next congressional power we cede to donald trump what will be the next crisis we'll have to compleen up when we -- clean up when we should focus on delivering for americans, we are supposed to represent the people of our states and fight for them and the people in nevada expect me to get them the support they need. that means working across the aisle. i will work with anyone to get

things done. but it also means standing up to anyone who will sow chaos, ignore the constitution, violate our laws, usurp our power. anyone who would like to do that and not tackle the issues that americans are dealing with right now. let me say, i don't know anybody -- any of my colleagues or anyone else who doesn't support streamlining our federal government. i am here because i was so frustrate with the bureaucracy of the federal government and support stream lining it and think we should do that every day, make it work for americans. i support it. but what we need is a thoughtful business strategy to do just that. that is welcomed. but burning the federal government to the ground, that's not a business strategy, that's just total destruction, and

that's not what the american people deserve. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: thank you, mr. president. i join my colleagues, i thank my friend from nevada for her great comments articulating why we want to have a budget process here that recognizes the united states senate, the house of representatives and to say that a budget process that tries to exclude us is not what our forefathers had in mind. that is one of the reasons why i strongly oppose this nomination to be the director of office of management and budget. the administration like everyone before it has had an opportunity to propose a budget, set overall policy principles and propose

spending and policies, and this administration does not have the power to wave a wind and release authorized funds. congress the administration together agree on appropriations. they agree together when we pass laws and what we want to do to govern. people should be able to rely on current laws until those laws are changed. that is how governing works and we're here to represent the people who want to see the senator and predict ability of laws that we have passed. regular review of programs and congressional oversight, as my colleague from nevada just mentioned, those are valuable things and we can continue to make reforms in thoughtful and transparent ways many we should not allow unaccountable political actors, though, to be unfetterred have access to our

constituents' most sensitive data without safeguards to how that data is protected, their rights and conflicts of interest, how that data might even be used against them. mr. president, i am for a very strong national privacy law to protect our consumers and one person i don't spying on us is the u.s. government. so i don't take lightly somebody getting access to accounts and information, storing it, moving it around, sharing it with other people. i don't care if they're 22 or 42, i'm not for the government doing this kind of thing without oversight. taxpayers -- i'm not even for the government spying on u.s. citizens, i'm not for that. but this is just data collection. data collection, who's it going to? what are they doing with it? how much are they going to use it? so taxpayers, they rely on us or

service and they don't want to believe that somebody is looking around at these accounts. even our own personnel management system was hacked by the chinese, how do we know there are safeguards with what these individuals are doing for our most personal information? but the havoc caused by this nominee's strategy is just absurd. today i met with a group of farmers who were talking about how they grow and process export products. they told me because usaid operations were shut down, their products were stuck on a dock in houston. they don't think they will ever get delivered and they sure don't think they will paid. is that we want to do to tell farmers to have a contract to grow products to have delivered and the shipment is on its way and now you are going to leave it on a dock because you think you have a bright idea of a way

to shortcut congress? over 1.8 million washingtonians rely on medicare and they should not have to worry that somehow that's not go to be paid for. that's what happened when the washington health care was knocked out of the portal. the portal eventually got turned on after the huge volume and outrage -- really outrage by the public forced the administration to say stop this silly attitude that you can stop payment yourself. they forced them to turn the portal back on and pay the medicaid bills. but washington state is also home to community health centers that serve the medically underserved population. part of me is thinking this is really an attempt to steal money from our constituents just to pay for a tax bill.

literally somebody thought they were going to come in here and make a very fast move and basically turn off payments to people who are really poor and in a very challenging situations and turn off their payments so they can take the money and put it into a tax breaks for the rich later on. that is it absurd. it's absurd. it's not even legal. we were told by some of these health care centers that they were blocked from transferring federal funds to those needed in their hospitals. in other words cutting or funding that would be helpful to saving lives. these health centers provide care to more than one million people in our state, over 360,000 of them, and there's children, agriculture workers, and veterans. and the fact that these medical systems worked to help all of us provide primary care is exactly why we shouldn't turn off a system. i got a call from someone in

pierce county to tell me his son who was degs diagnosed with m multiple mioma, they are scared they are going to lose cancer research dollars. she said, quote, this insane and cruel road that we are all on now with this new administration, end quote. these are the stories from my constituents. they want to know what's going on in their lives. it's not a parlor game. it's not a think tank exercise. it is their lives. from one of the hospitals in my state, island health care, the funding freeze means they couldn't fill a contractual agreement fie for surgical technology. they were under contract to pay mo later than 30 days after the

receipt of the equipment. there was technology to help them provide better outcomes through less invasive pro procedures, lowering the infection rate and shorten the recovery time, but they don't know, the funds are frozen and they may not even get the dmrefr ri of that care -- dlefr ri of that care. -- delivery. because omb created uncertainty, they created it without thinking through the consequences, multiple hospitals are worried about caring for their patients. olympic medical center serves about 80,000 patients. they said, quote, even small changes in the federal grant spending will have detrimental impacts to their facility and to their community. a federal funding freeze just exacerbates our ability to deliver care that has been authorized, appropriated and

promised -- promised to the operation of our health care system. how could people be so heartless to try to turn that off? andrea downs, the executive director for citizens against sexual violence and sexual abuse which is the only sexual assault agency for wouldbe island, she said the funding freeze impacts about half of their funding, portals not getting paid, no processing, no time. she quoted not being able to access grants for the remainder of this fiscal year would have a crippling impact on our organization, end quote. our wallia wallia tri-city base blue mountain heart to heart is concerned about federal grants they receive to support housing needs of people who live in the region. they are worried about the accountability of care that

comes with the medicaid funds. but probably nothing said it more clear to me than when i heard that elon musk and the doge wanted to get their hands on the faa. what should a man whose regulated by the faa, his launch facilities are under the faa's authority to keep us safe, they need to know and coordinate launch rocket times and to have people just launch a rocket whenever they want. we already know the painful experience of these accidents on the potomac of not having a system overseen by air traffic controllers, but mr. musk was fined and he didn't like it and went after the faa administrator who decided to step down. now mr. musk wants his hands on the faa to tell them what to do probably in retribution for the fact that they said it wasn't

safe to launch at that moment. this is a clear conflict of interest. mr. president, we can do better than that. we're here to work together. we're here to work across the aisle. we're here to pass a budget. we're here to appropriate. and as an authorizer to set authorization, it is not for a nominee to set a game plan and take money out of the lives of individual families that are counting on that payment or structural organization that are charged with serving our communities on something as important as health or law enforcement. and it sure isn't turning the keys over to somebody who's already been fined by the agency to try to then undo the agency's oversight of his own personal business. there couldn't be a clearer answer here. turn down this nomination, let's get back to working together,

working collaboratively. there are lots of ideas that we have to work on government efficiency. lots of ideas that could produce billions of dollars in savings, produce better care for our constituents and move our country forward. and, oh, by the way, let's not also continue to cut funding for all the authorized programs that these nominees basically said that they supported, that's why we vowed for some of them -- voted for some of them because they said they supported current funding whether it's the department of transportation or other places. but now the mastermind how to short circuit, pull out the safety blanket, give it to the rich is on the way for a vote here. please vote no. i thank the president and i yield the floor. i want to thank my colleague

from hawaii for last night. he and my colleagues coming to the floor and speaking all night. i think this is a conversation we've been trying to have to illuminate the damage that's happening to america from about 2:00 p.m. yesterday until now president i want to thank him. i think of him as one of the younger members of the united states senate, but i think when you do an all nighter, you realize that, you know, that maybe the years start to show a little early. so thank you so much for leading the charge on this all night yesterday.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: since yesterday afternoon, democrats have held this floor to ring the alarm bells across the united states of america about the nomination of russell vought to lead the office of management and the budget. russ vought may not be as famous as donald trump's other nominees, but as you've heard from so many democrats, radical russ is donald trump's most dangerous nominee. he is the mastermind behind project 2025 and following that script, he proudly breaks the law. he proudly violates the constitution. and he proudly seeks to gut programs for ordinary american families to deliver trillions in

tax giveaways to the richest americans. russell vought's dead of night directives to freeze government payments have already sowed massive damage across our nation, programs for health care, housing, and education and children. and then just today i learned that the bureau of land management is ordering small businesses to cease and desist all work for forest management, --. that is literally trump and russ vought playing with fire. the american people are angry about this sweeping authoritarian coup. they are calling our offices. 2,000 oregonians called my office yesterday. thousands of people showed up to

my nine town halls over the last two weekends. they're asking tough questions. how is it possible that donald trump could order dead of night directives that cut off funding for all the programs that help families get on their feet and thrive and get to the middle class? addressing child nutrition and affordable housing and health care? how is it possible that trump can break the law to fire 17 inspector generals who protect the american people from executive branch corruption? how is it possible trump can break the law to fire a member of the national labor relations board who protects workers' rights? how is it possible trump can dismandating usaid -- dismantle usaid which provides food, humanitarian aid and medicine around the world? how is it possible russ vought and president trump can send elon musk groupies to access sensitive programs, accessing our data regarding social security payments and medicare

payments and veterans benefits and the tax records of every sipping gal american -- single american? this breach of privacy by big brother government is an extraordinary threat to the security of every single citizen. now, radical russ has a three-part plan for america. gut programs for working families. borrow trillions from the treasury. give massive tax giveaways to the very richest americans. this is the robber baron script. take from ordinary families to give more to the best off. this is the opposite of what trump campaigned on, campaigned on helping families and now that he's in office, the campaign is giving way to instead project 2025 which is about government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the

billionaires. that's why the democratic members of the budget committee asked to delay the vote on sending his nomination here to the floor. because we wanted it find out. we asked questions about what he was doing already at the office of management and budget when he hadn't been confirmed yet, holding meetings and sending out directives. he wouldn't answer those questions so his file is incomplete. so we said hold off for two weeks. but the budget committee chair refused to hold off and make sure that the file was complete. and then we said well, at least hold the meeting in public so we can share our thoughts back and forth and the public can come in and witness it and see our arguments about why he should or shouldn't be voted to send to the floor and instead the meeting was held in private. so that was why we were so concerned then and as you've heard from 41 democrats over the

last 30 hours why we're so concerned now with the philosophy and actions of radical russ vought. we are working day and night fighting for working families, fighting for the constitution, and fighting to stop this sweeping authoritarian takeover. to my friends across the aisle, radical russ wants to steal the power of the purse, given to congress and given to president trump to decide what is and isn't funded. radical russ wants to steal the laws, give it -- give it to president trump to rule by executive order and presidential fiat. and radical russ has attacked the constitution before. remember, he is the force that said let's stop payments to ukraine that got president trump into trouble in his first administration. we here have taken an oath to

defend the constitution. for working americans, for all americans. join us in voting no because radical russ is dangerously unfit for public office. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the democratic lead leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, democrats have spent virtually every minute of the last 30 hours sounding the alarm about the dangers of russell vought. we feel it a mission to let america know that russell vought is a threat to social security, to medicare, to child care, to veterans benefits and so much more. he's the wrong man. he seems to care little about the needs of american families, at the wrong place, at powerful omb where his decisions will be felt in every corner of the country with the wrong agenda.

the horrible project 2025. there are three strikes against russell vought and he should be out. he's the wrong man in the wrong place with the wrong agenda. mr. vought's policies will hurt children and seniors, hurt veterans, hurt homeowners and so many of our other friends and neighbors. the only people who should celebrate russell vought are donald trump's billionaire friends when they get another tax break. i caution my republican colleagues voting to place the chief architect of project 2025 in charge of white house policy will come back to haunt them. if the chaos of the last two weeks is any indication of what's to come, russell vought will be a massive liability for donald trump, for republicans, and worst of all, for the

country. tonight i will vote no fervently, strongly, with complete conviction and urge my colleagues to do the same. i yield the floor.

mr.

the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the majority leader. mr. thune: mr. president, we're getting up now close to the time to vote. on the vought nomination. and it's been a 30 hour discussion, conversation, and some of which i think is perhaps instructive. i would argue -- i'd make an argument honestly that through multiple administrations that congress has bequeathed and given up way too much power to the executive branch, and -- but i think the all-night vigil and a lot of speeches paid over here, there was a lot of high rhetoric, i would argue, about attacks on democracy, attacks on the constitution, and i think it's important just -- when you make those arguments, that there be at least some amount of self-reflection. because over the last four years, there have been a lot of times when the executive branch went around the congress or tried to rewrite the laws that

congress had passed in ways that increased spending. and i can use a good example under the committee of jurisdiction, the commerce committee which is where i spent a lot of my time over the past few years, there was a program called the bead program which was designed to extend broadband access to people in rural areas of the country, unserved areas of the country. and it passed almost -- well, about three years ago. i didn't vote for it at the time. but that provision in the bill was designed to deliver broadband services to unserved areas, rural areas of the country. and we are now three years into that program, and there hasn't been a single dollar spent or a single household connected through that program. and it was a $42 billion funding program. $42 billion. not a single dollar spent. why? because the administration