mr. ayotte: sad's military? -- to assad's military? mr. earnest: we have talked about efforts currently under way to deconflict our military activities with russia in the skies over iraq and in syria. there have been a number of consultations about that. but those consultations have stopped short of any sort of formal military cooperation. i don't anticipate that that will change. reporter: i wanted to ask you about iraq. there's been three car bombings in the last 24 hours or so. over 90 people killed. daiish is claiming responsibility. are you worried that daiish is trying to claim baghdad again for a possible assault as we saw 1 months ago? -- 18 months ago? mr. earnest: the united states strongly condemns the multiple attacks in and around baghdad today. initial estimates project more than 80 iraqi citizens have been killed in those attacks. many more have been injured. these attacks demonstrate that terrorists carry out these abominable attacks without regard to innocent civilian life and in order to stoke tensions between these commu

mr. president? -- ms. ayotte: mr. president, you have ten g.a.o. reports that have found this to be duplicative and wasteful. for some reason we need just a special office just for catfish but no other fish species. the usda normally inspects meat and poultry, not fish. and so to waste taxpayer dollars in this way just lacks common sense. and i would say to my friend from mississippi, i know that he's made an argument on the budget committee, but the budget committee's opinion basically says there's no direct spending. we all know that a lot of the domestic spending is discretionary spending. discretionary spending will continue on this program. g.a.o. itself has found that this could cost an additional $14 million a year to run this additional -- this duplicative program. and by the way, the one and a half million that has been cited has not been confirmed by g.a.o. we followed up on it. so to my colleagues, let's not be bottom dwellers. let's get rid of duplicative and wasteful spending. when you have 20 g.a.o. errors stacked up, if we can get ri

ayotte: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. ms. ayotte: mr. president, i rise today in support of what, frankly, is an egregious example of why folks get very frustrated with washington and what happens here. and that is what has been described as one of washington's most wasteful programs, the duplicative usda catfish inspection program which was slipped in the farm bill in 2008. mr. president, all other fish, all other fish species are inspected not by usda, but are inspected in this country by the f.d.a. yet, added to the 2008 farm bill was a provision to create a special office within the usda for the one species of catfish. we know they are bottom dwellers, but this was really something that was done to protect domestic catfish producers, and it was really something that is wasting taxpayer dollars. in fact, there have been ten g.a.o. reports, ten of them, each finding that this inspection regime set up specially for catfish, but no other fish species, is duplicative and a waste, waste of taxpayer dollars. in fact, the good government gro

ayotte: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: today the senate passed an amendment to provide more than $1 billion to help combat the spread of the zika virus. i support this effort. i think it was a good bill and i commend our leaders in the appropriations committee for reaching this bipartisan agreement. however, i join my colleague from maine, my colleague from west virginia, and all of those who are disappointed that the opioid epidemic is not being treated with the same degree of urgency. now some on the other side of the aisle have said it's their preference to deal with the opioid epidemic through the regular appropriations process. well, let me just say that i am not encouraged by the results so far. and with a -- all due respect to my colleagues, an extra million dollars here and there for a few programs, which is what we're seeing in the appropriations process, that is not going to address the nationwide crisis that, as senator king has said, is going to kill tens of thousands of americans this year. and while

even mr wimitt romn will look long and hard and say for the good of the country and keeping the senate -- because that conservative candidate could get out the conservatives and help save kelly ayottedangered senate races that without some conservative getting the conservatives out, donald trump doesn't save the senate. he flips it to the democrats. >> jeffrey, how does donald trump prevent not just the exodus but potentially a mass exodus from the republican party? you see so many people who are in these different stages of acceptance and some people refuse to accept. >> well, he does it the same way ronald reagan did it when -- excuse me voice here, victor -- when john anderson who was one of ronald reagan's opponents in the republican primary of 1980 abandoned the republican party, declared himself to be a third party candidate, insisted ronald reagan was too much of an extremist and so they left. that's what evan is talking about. it is the same thing. we've heard this before. you can go all the way back to the goldwater campaign when governor romney's father refused to deliberately support the nominee, barry goldwater and sab tack db sabotaged him. this is what goes on with th