mr. blumenthal: madam president. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: i have seven requests for today's meeting of the senate, they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president. before i begin the remarks that brought me here today, i want to say a word about richard trumka, a hero to all of us who care about working people and a good friend to many of us. i'm proud to call him a friend. and proud to have been with him as an ally in causes and principles that are so important to the present of america and the future of america. i'm proud to have been with him on picket line and platform, to have stood with him and behind him in supporting the rights of working men and women to decent pay, fair treatment, and safety on the job. he came from america and he never forgot where he came from. his life is a lesson to so many of us who seek to emulate

mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. the stated purpose of this amendment is a pretext, a pretext for restricting reproductive rights and interfering with women's decisions about whether to have an abortion. for all of us who care about people with down's syndrome, we ought to listen to the national down's syndrome society and devote more resources to research at n.i.h., to funding better settings and care for people with down's syndrome and better opportunities for their employment. there are ways to serve that community without this protectionual restriction of reproductive rights. i urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. the presiding officer: question is on the amendment. mr. inhofe: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the presiding officer: there are 49 yeas, 50 nays. the amendment is not agreed to. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: i call up my amendment 3292. the pre

mr. blumenthal -- ms. blumenthal. >> i want to focus on a program that means a lot to me. mr. currie and ms. krause mentioned in their testimony, and if you could help me with that? that is the coronavirus economic relief for transportation services. as you highlighted, none of the $2 billion provided by congress has been allocated. you know the treasury faced a huge challenge setting up the program to set up industry where the agency had no experience and where there were many small stakeholders. you pointed out that treasury is working to learn from this experience with the payroll support program and other pandemic relief programs, to communicate clearly, for instance, and that is encouraging. but i want to be clear. the relief congress provided was vital to prevent dislocation and disruption in critical infrastructure, and no matter what sector we are talking about, a, prevented job loss. we all rely on, you know, it kept them afloat. my question is that climate change and many other challenges make this world much less predictable and we need to get better at responding t

mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president. am here to talk about the build back better proposal and the budget resolution that we will shortly take up. but let me just respond briefly to my good friend and colleague from iowa's remarks on the interview that was conducted with jeffrey rosen on saturday and the previous interview with rich donoghue. i agree completely that the fact and the evidence are what's important here. and this investigation is supremely significant. and i hope that we will join in a bipartisan basis to follow the facts and the law where they lead and encourage voluntary cooperation bill the witnesses and collect all of the documents and other evidence that is necessary to fairly and fully present the truth to the american people. they deserve to know what we have heard so far, which amounts to a chilling and shocking picture of the president seeking to corrupt the department of justice and overthrow an election. that much has been clear from the evidence that we've seen. but i agree that we should not tal

listen to what senator richard blumenthal has surmise on our air that there might be a criminal referral from the inspector generals office, here is what he said about mr. pak's testimony. >> there are details that come to the front that might not be surprising but are important, every one of these injuries produces very important information, but also leads us to additional witnesses, and we know also that there is a pattern here. trump has surrounded himself by acolytes who do his bidding and enable him to launch these kinds of him proper pressure campaigns. >> two things he said there that are important and relevant to things that you studied about donald trump one is not surprising buzz important, which could be the title of a book on donald trump, and the fact that he has surrounded himself, as you have written about, four years, with acolytes and sycophant. >> not just acolytes and sycophants, ali, it's people that he can corrupt. oftentimes people who take the ball for him, or do his bidding, i think what's interesting now is with pak's testimony on the other evidence surrounding that, the taped phone calls to raffensperger where he was asking t