mr. wyden: mr. president, a few minutes ago, i got off the phone with jasmine tulle, who is an oregonian living with an inoperable brain tumor. and as the shutdown lingers on, i want to share her story because she had been bearing the unthinkable consequences of her illness, and i'm going to start today, mr. president, by asking how can a country as rich and good and strong as the united states of america let jasmine tulle suffer this way? she is a 30-year-old mother of two young children. she lives in lake county. a rural community in south central oregon. she is a public servant, an employee of the u.s. fish and wildlife. she has been living with an inoperable brain tumor. the cancer has caused related debilitateing conditions. she is just in and out of hospital emergency rooms. her digestive system is impaired. with the invaluable care provided by a home health worker , she takes in liquids and nutritional infusion you through tubing that is plugged into her abdomen. because she lives in a rural

mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i have keep in mind to the floor today to -- i've come to the floor today to discuss the nomination of william barr to be attorney general. today i want to make clear that i will be opposed to this nomination for several reasons. i'm just going to outline some of my key concerns that really haven't been much addressed over the last few weeks. i'm specifically concerned about his view that the president of the united states is effectively royalty in his book. and he seems to believe that the president is unaccountable to the laws of our nation or to the normal constraints imposed by the congress. so today i'm going to focus on what i consider to be mr. barr's dangerous views on surveillance and his contempt for surveillance law and the fourth amendment. it's my view that this is not a partisan issue. there has been for some years a bipartisan coalition here in the senate that has battled to protect the privacy and constitutional rights of americans. but mr. barr's views, aft

mr. wyden: mr. president, a few minutes ago, i got off the phone with jasmine tulle, who is an oregonian living with an inoperable brain tumor. and as the shutdown lingers on, i want to share her story because she had been bearing the unthinkable consequences of her illness, and i'm going to start today, mr. president, by asking how can a country as rich and good and strong as the united states of america let jasmine tulle suffer this way? she is a 30-year-old mother of two young children. she lives in lake county. a rural community in south central oregon. she is a public servant, an employee of the u.s. fish and wildlife. she has been living with an inoperable brain tumor. the cancer has caused related debilitateing conditions. she is just in and out of hospital emergency rooms. her digestive system is impaired. with the invaluable care provided by a home health worker , she takes in liquids and nutritional infusion you through tubing that is plugged into her abdomen. because she lives in a rural

mr. putin and will not authorize aggressive countermeasures against the russians. >> so this is interesting point. because at one point democratic senator -- a democratic senator asked -- it was wyden. he asked the cia director gina haspel and dni coates about the reports of the private trump/putin meetings. the response is interesting. >> donald trump met privately with vladimir putin and no one in the u.s. government has the full story about what was discussed. director haspel and director coates, would this put you in a disadvantage position in terms of understanding russia's efforts to advance its agenda against the united states? >> this is a sensitive issue. an issue we ought to talk about this afternoon. look forward to discussing that in a closed session. >> okay. so that's interesting. that wasn't a straight up no answer. that was a we'll discuss this in a closed session this afternoon. it was a simple question, bill. does the president's conversations with these -- with putin not witnessed by anybody else, without an ambassador, without a, you know, without somebody else in the room, interpreter, translators, put u.s. intelligence agencies at a disadvantage? no would have

quorum call: mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today, mr. president -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent to vacate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: mr. president, i come to the floor today to talk about larry wineberg, who was beloved by many oregonians, one of our original owners of our wonderful basketball team, the portland trailblazers, the owner who won the eternal gratitude from the people of my state as he guided our trailblazers to their first title. and he passed away last week at the age of 92, and he was a soft-spoken man who was never one to drone on. so in that spirit, i'm going to keep these remarks brief. the first matter we want everybody to know about larry is he was a wonderful family man. i met him for the first time in the early 1980's. i was a young member of the other body, in the house of representatives. larry could have made our first conversation about politics.

mr. wyden: mr. president, a few minutes ago, i