mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i appreciate what the democratic leader just said about the flavored e-cigarettes, and i, too, commended the trump administration yesterday for taking this action. it's a big deal in our high schools in ohio and other venues as well, and this will help keep a lot of young people from engaging in this, which is bad for their health and certainly just like cigarette smoke, it also leads to addictions. and so i commend them for that. the democratic leader also talked about the fact that president trump has been tougher on china than any previous president in modern times certainly, and that's also true. and let's all hope that the chinese government comes to the table in the next few weeks as they get back to their discussions, ready to actually address some of these issues -- particularly the issue of their subsidies, which are contrary to our laws but also the international rules and the technology transfer, the taking of our intellectual property. these are changes in the s

mrs. portman and the lieutenant governor and we have ther statewide elected officials, local officials. want to have a great time and support what i call the freedom agenda. being here and being part of a movement in the protects ry that freedom and liberty. thank you and god bless each and you. one of a lot thing a talk about is encouraging women to get involved in public service, running for office or working on a campaign. to lieve it is important have more women involved in the political process. we as a party nk should do to empower more women or to get office involved in politics? question andrrific the number one impediment for any women not running for office is nobody has ever asked them to do it. i love you but you wake up every morning and see a senator mirror. women have to be told you would e great for the on commission or mayor or school board, what about congress. ave you thought about ever upping your game from olunteering or driving seniors to polls or getting involved in believe policy and running yourself? i think that it is very daunting for some people, men and wome

mr. portman said you don't want to leave this out here too much longer and he went ahead and did it.point to that period to say it's a quid pro quo, what do you say? >> no. i don't think they can really make that case. and, look, the one thing that the president did is he asked the ukrainian government to try to take a look at some of the corruption over there and that included the fact that we do know because he admitted it, that joe biden actually threatened to withhold a billion dollars in aid unless they fired the prosecutor who was looking no his son's job with a ukrainian energy company. now, that is a legitimate inquiry. brian: interesting. so the quinnipiac poll came out. they asked people should president trump be impeached? only 37 percent said yes. 57 percent said no. now, today, the dni goes up to capitol hill and answers the question about the whistleblower, the anonymous whistleblower. he or she heard this call. reportedly 90% of the complaint, well-written according to adam schiff, is about the phone call. what does this do to the battle that you think will be epic and

senator portman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, we appreciate you come back. and you are here at a time where there is without question a crisis at the border. it's humanitarian, a drug crisis, immigration crisis. just to put numbers around it if you could help us just so people can understand what's going on, my sense there are now over 100,000 people coming to the border. my sense there is a era about a 75% increase compared to last year in the number of children showing up at the border. about if a 400% increase in the number of families come to the border. not only higher numbers but more families with children. is that accurate. >> that's exactly correct. >> it's overwell. and we appreciate your service and the service of the men and women of cpb. and border patrol who are trying to deal with this issue. many of whom are being pulled off the normal jobs as i understand it to deal with the humanitarian crisis. is that correct? >> that's very true. i mean the processing and care of families and children is much more intensive. and to have 40% ever our borde

portman, there becomes a point in time that up to accept the to truth and the facts. reporter: do you support the whistle plore coming before and testifying before congress? mr. mccarthy: i don't have a problem of the i would like to see a lot of questions. who this individual is. he i.g. says it is political bias, he or she. but everything the whistle plore brought forth was nothing that the whistleblower witnessed personally. take the players out of it. put yourself in a situation that you would be in a jury and someone is going to come forth saying i heard this and i heard this. and another person says i witnessed it all ap it was contrasted to what the person said and never witnessed anything, where would you wathe? and all we ask is that the democrats give the same respect they give to this president of the united states. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org >> president trump reacted too testimony from the acting director of national intelligence on the whistle wlore complaint. the director

other elected officials -- senator portman and governor dewine and congressman turner at bottom of the steps of air force one. nan and i looked at him in the eye and said, mr. president, please call the senate. please call senator mcconnell and ask him to bring the senate back. please promise, senator mcconnell that you will sign the bill. the president said he would do something. later that day nan and i and , others joined the president at the hospital as he met with families, with some people who were in their hospital beds, injured, some with very serious injuries. a number of people who came back that had a less serious injuries. we know that 40 gunshots were fired in those 31 seconds. after the president left the room, the president and all of us left the room, where the six dayton police officers were heralded as heroes, which they heroes 31 seconds , from the first shot until they killed the shooter saving dozens more lives, after the president left that room, i said to the president, the most -- he said, we are going to have the biggest honors ever and congressional medal ever, the biggest congressional medal ever for these heroes. i said mr. pres

mr. chairman. thank you, ranking member peters comp establishment of the meeting, senator portman come preshift opportunity to appear before you today. it is a a sincere honor to sere as acting secretary and represent dedicate men and women of the department of homeland security. really do believe that dhs has a most compelling mission income but to safeguard the american people, our homeland and our values. as acting secretary i intend to work with this committee and have been in the last six weeks in serving as an advocate for the do from to chew our people have the resources and authorities they need to carry out their critical missions on behalf of the american people. as were highlighting the president 2020 budget of what you point out a few of the key areas where there's critical investment across dhs and the multi-missions that we carry out. i want to ensure this committee we will not lose any momentum on our multiple missions from cybersecurity to disaster responses. we see what's happening this morning with the floods in oklahoma, the attorney of the touchdown in in the street and we'll stay on to

intelligence community inspector general, portman called president trump because he is the co-chairman of the senate ukrainian caucus and said ukraine really needs this money, mr. president. i implore you to release it. according to congressional sources that i talked with a short time ago, the president was concerned about whether or not the united states was going it alone here again with ukraine and whether or not any of our european allies were going to step up. i was told that during that phone call, there was no discussion between the president and senator portman about joe biden or rudy giuliani. in a statement issued september 12 after that money was released senator portman said, president zalenski is a long ally of the united states and i support his anti-corruption agenda. this morning speaking with prime minister johnson of the u.k., the president said there was no quid pro quo in his july 25th phone conversation with the president of ukraine. listen here. >> there was never any quid pro quo. the letter was beautiful. it was a perfect letter. it was -- unlike biden's. who, by the way, what he said, was a horror. ask how his son made millions of dol

mr. cory booker. thank you for joining us. i appreciate it. the last few days have been very momentous in this country. joanie ernst is saying i just need to take a look at it. rob portmanng i've been running around this morning. mike braun is saying i'm going to read it thoroughly. just haven't had the chance. >> willful ignorance? >> look, i don't know what's going on. i'm sure they'll get a chance to read it as they said they would. i think this is one of those moments where a lot of folks are going to have to make a decision as this investigation goes on. you saw this with the nixon investigation where immediately people fell into their defense of partisan positioning but as time went on and more evidence came out, you saw profiles in courage. republicans broke with their short-term partisan interests and showed a level of patriotism that ultimately forced nixon to resign because he knew he had lost their support. >> you think that will happen this time? >> this is pretty extraordinary. i used to say regularly when people would say isn't this shocking? i'd say trump has lost his ability to surprise me. but this is really surprising and shocking. i've been to the ukr

mr. portman: mr. president, i would like for unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: today six police officers from the dayton police department were awarded our nation's highest honor for law enforcement. these were the six individuals who stood tall at 1:00 a.m. on august 4 in dayton, ohio, standing up to a shooter, engaging him within 30 seconds of the tragedy beginning. nine people had already died. another 27 were injured. but by standing up to him and doing it so quickly and responding so effectively, they saved so many lives. they put their lives in danger because they were standing between the shooter and innocent civilians who were out that evening having a celebration, enjoying themselves, not imagining that this horror could be committed. these six individuals were well trained. as chief rick bealle of the dayton police department has told me, and he is a friend of mine, the training worked, and he is right. but it was mor

mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i'm on the floor tonight to talk about retirement security, something everybody cares about. who doesn't want peace of mind in retirement? when i'm back home, i hear about it all the time partly because a lot of people are worried about the costs they're going to have in retirement, including long-term care costs. a lot of people are seeing their parents, grandparents living longer, healthier lives yet they don't have the retirement nest egg to be able to keep up. we need to do something to help on that. social security is there. it's the safety net. it needs to always be there. but that's what it is, just a base amount. $1,200 a month is not very much which is the average for some folks in my home state of ohio. so you've got to have private retirement savings that adds to that. that can be savings you have in your bank account, but the best way to do it is through a 401(k) account at your work where

mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i'm here on the floor today to talk about a problem that's far too common here in washington, and that is the federal government shutdowns. they don't make any sense. and if we don't do something in 12 days, congress once again will face an unnecessary and costly government shutdown. we've got to avoid that. i've been through five different shutdowns since my time working in the george h. w. bush white house back in 1990. three shutdowns just over the last five years. none of them worked. i don't know anyone who likes them now because we find out that when you shut down government, taxpayers actually pay more, not less. it might seem like if you shut down government, that's good for taxpayers but it's actually bad for taxpayers. they foot the bill for backpay for federal workers for the days those workers weren't allowed to go to work. and they pay for other things, too, that they wouldn't have to pay for if congress did its job, got its spending bills done and didn't shut

mr. lankford: the permanent subcommittee for investigation just finished a major research project. i happen to sit on the committee, led by rob portman, who has done a phenomenal job trying to pull all the information together to try to study government shutdowns. government shutdowns are not new to us. we hear about them a lot lately, but in the last 40 years we've had 21 government shutdowns. 21. we've seen this issue over and over again, that when we get to a point of contention and argument we end up shutting the government down to be able to resolve it, so the point of discussion is not just here in d.c., it's all over the country. the question is, how does that really affect the country and how does that affect the united states government? the basic study that p.s.i. did to be able to go back and look at this was they found that the federal workforce in the last shutdown lost 57,000 years of productivity. if you spread out all the federal workers that were furloughed, the time they were furloughed and the time that was lost. the total economy lost about $11 billion in productivity during that time period. and the federal taxpa