mr. rubio: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rubio: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session for the en bloc consideration of the following nominations -- executive calendar 840, executive calendar 841, executive calendar 842 and 843. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the nominations en bloc. the clerk: knocks, sheryl a. linden of south carolina to be united states attorney for the district of south carolina. sonia k. chavez of new mexico to be united states marshal for the district of new mexico. scott e. crackle of nebraska to be use marshal for the district of neck. j.c.rafferty to be united states marshal for the northern district of west virginia. mr. rubio: i ask unanimous consent that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc with no intervening or action or debate, the motions to reconsider be conside

mr. rubio's statements? >> i think that's absolutely silly. the economy is growing at 2.8% a year.ges are rising for the first time in a decade, the purpose of the tax cut is not to dull out welfare although democrats, although mr. rubio is a republican but rather create an environment where people can work, succeed and prosper. if you think american workers by working getting higher wages an consequently prospering is a bad thing, then are with mr. rubio. i really think -- he'll on silly sauce of some kind. stuart: why do you think he did it? a personal dislike of the president? >> you're overwhelming mr. trump's approval rating. if democrats lose the house in november, it'll be very happy for mr. trump to do anything beyond that other than things he can do unilaterally and as a con chemical weapons i wouldn't be surprise if rubio is angling for a primary challenge. stuart: okay, understood. i want to talk to you about the market. look at the futures, for example, futures today. we are going to be down again roughly 60 points on the downside. seems like lately we continue to move

mr. rubio: thank you, madam president. there's a lot of coverage over the last couple months and years really, but certainly over the last few days about the topic of china, z.t.e., trade. and i had a lot of questions about it both from the hallways and the press, constituents back home and even family and friends who inquire what all the ruckus was about. i thought it was a good opportunity to lay out to my constituents and broadly for the american people about what's at stake here. the fishes thing i would -- the first thing i would encourage everyone to do is separate the issue of trade with china and the issue of z.t.e. which is a phone company based in china. they are the the fourth-largest cell phone company in america up until very recently when they struggled to stay in business. we'll talk about that in a moment. but let's talk about those two things separately. they are not necessarily interrelated. on the broader topic of trade and china, the united states has an enormous imbalance in trade, as we do with other

the only reason that i can think that mr. rubio said that was because maybe because trump talked about the second tax cut plan. maybe he is putting it out there so they can help push something new and also make the individual cuts permanent, or do something before collection. >> but it's bad timing because number one, the republicans need unity. it's not a time for marco rubio to be walking around saying it's injustice with this tax cut. >> he didn't say injustice. but okay. ladies, thank you. the fallout from a lot of this, and how is it affecting people's views?i more than you think, especially in regard to november. we will be back after this. and cardiovascular risk? i asked my doctor. she told me about non-insulin victoza®. victoza® is not only proven to lower a1c and blood sugar, but for people with type 2 diabetes treating their cardiovascular disease, victoza® is also approved to lower the risk of major cv events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. while not for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. (anno

mr. evanina: i am not. senator rubio: it's an idea to manipulate south images nike something sound like a person did something they didn't do. they are realistic. the quality of these fakes is rapidly increasing due to artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithm are paired with facial mapping to insert a face into a video and produce a very realistic video of someone saying or doing something which they didn't. this is widely available on the internet and people used it for all sorts of nefarious purposes at the individual level. i think you can only imagine what a nation state can do with that technology. foreign intelligence agencies could use deep fakes to produce a fake video of an american politician. using the racial epithet or taking a bribe or anything of that nature, they could take a fake video of a soldier massacring civilians overseas or use it to do a conspiracy theory of some are kind. a fake video of a person discussing some sort of impending disaster that could so panic. imagine a compelling video

mr. rubio: thank you, madam president. there's a lot of coverage over the last couple months and years really, but certainly over the last few days about the topic of china, z.t.e., trade. and i had a lot of questions about it both from the hallways and the press, constituents back home and even family and friends who inquire what all the ruckus was about. i thought it was a good opportunity to lay out to my constituents and broadly for the american people about what's at stake here. the fishes thing i would -- the first thing i would encourage everyone to do is separate the issue of trade with china and the issue of z.t.e. which is a phone company based in china. they are the the fourth-largest cell phone company in america up until very recently when they struggled to stay in business. we'll talk about that in a moment. but let's talk about those two things separately. they are not necessarily interrelated. on the broader topic of trade and china, the united states has an enormous imbalance in trade, as we do with other

mr. rubio: mr. president, i want to begin -- and i want read an excerpt of an article that ran on october 8, 2012. it was in "the new york times" and the article opened with the following, this is a quote, a house committee issued a blacklisterring bipartisan -- blisserring report that had stolen intellectual property from american companies and could potentially spy on americans. the house intelligence committee said after a year-long investigation, it had come to the conclusion that the chinese businesses huawei and zte were a national threat because of their attempts to extract sensitive information and because of their loyalties to the chinese government. the story continued said by allowing these companies to do business in the united states would give the chinese government the ability to easily intercept communications and allow to start online attacks on critical infrastructure like dams and power grids. end quote. this was from a report, a bipartisan report, in the year 2012 in the month of

trade policy from abroad and now from within his own political party mr trump's former presidential primary rival senator marco rubio of florida said tuesday that he would push for legislation to prevent sanction waivers for chinese telecom giant z.t. as mr trump had suggested the a twitter senator rubio tweeted early yesterday suggesting that the trump administration quote unquote surrendered to china on z t e an amendment barring any sanctions waivers for chinese telecoms was attached to a bill in the senate banking committee meanwhile germany's economy minister peter all meyer warned that they trade war that starts over steel and aluminum could quickly escalate to involve cars textiles and food a temporary exemption for the european union companies from the new u.s. tariffs on metals will expire on june first and all the wires says europe will insist that the threat of sanctions be dropped before agreeing to begin negotiations with the u.s. in brussels the. hughes trade commissioner said she does not expect the exemptions to continue after june first. civil servant striking in france went on a nationwide strike o

trade policy from abroad and now from within his own political party mr trump's former presidential primary rival thundered marco rubio of florida said tuesday that he would push for legislation to prevent sanction waivers for chinese telecom giant z.t. as mr trump had suggested the a twitter senator rubio tweeted early yesterday suggesting that the trump administration quote unquote surrendered to china on z t e an amendment barring any sanctions waivers for chinese telecoms was attached to a bill in the senate banking committee meanwhile germany's economy minister peter all meyer warned that they trade war that starts over steel and aluminum could quickly escalate to involve cars textiles and food a temporary exemption for the european union companies from the new u.s. tariffs on metals will expire on june first and myers says europe will insist that the threat of sanctions be dropped before agreeing to begin negotiations with the u.s. in brussels the used trade commissioner said she does not expect the exemptions to continue after june first. civil servant striking in france went on a nationwide strike on tuesday t

senator marco rubio a longtime rival of mr trump said on twitter that he hopes that this isn't the beginning of backing down to china and that the problem with that he is not about jobs and trade it's about national security and even espionage even though maybe saying that the national security of the u.s. would be at risk is maybe some sort of overreacting but the original band was not related to any kind of protectionism that we have seen there are there were reasons like i just mentioned of doing business with north korea and iran don't you go first with the analysis from the frankfurt stock exchange which. iran has given europe sixty days to confirm the status of its international nuclear treaty he iranian parliament's website says the e.u. must pledge the treaty will remain in force even after the u.s. withdraws iran also wants the european union to uphold all economic agreements but that may be difficult due to u.s. sanctions against companies that do business with iran this will be a topic at talks tomorrow between iran's foreign minister and his e.u. counterparts in brussels legally

mr. rubio: thank you,

mr. rubio: thank you, madam president. there's a lot of coverage over the last couple months and years really, but certainly over the last few days about the topic of china, z.t.e., trade. and i had a lot of questions about it both from the hallways and the press, constituents back home and even family and friends who inquire what all the ruckus was about. i thought it was a good opportunity to lay out to my constituents and broadly for the american people about what's at stakeer

i want you to listen to tho -- what you're seeing from the tom cottons, the marco rubios, thank you, mr. president. we 100% believe you should have canceled this. they were skeptical the meeting wouldn't end up in anything, anyway. >> are you confident in a denuclearization if confidence is acquired? >> we'll see what happened. a phase-in may be a little necessary, it would have to be a rapid phase-in, but i would like to see it done at one time. >> now, again, the president didn't give away the candy store there, but just the idea i'd like to see it done, a phase-in. especially on capitol hill people saying, wait a minute, this is why this stuff has to be written in boldface, in caps and underlined beforehand when you have an unpredictable president. >> the reason the presidential advisers on capitol hill is mainly when these summits take place, they're like plays and they're scripted. it's essentially a photo op where president trump would read his lines and president jong-un would read his lines, but they're totally scripted by. even president trump doesn't read from a script. that m

thank you, senator rubio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thank you for taking time to speak with me yesterday. i appreciated the call and the conversation and as i told you, one of the biggest challenges we are grappling with in new hampshire is the opioid epidemic, and how to respond to that. and i have been very concerned about making sure that those small states like new hampshire, like west virginia. i understand senators capito and manchin asked about this. are able to get help because the overdose rate, not just based on our population, but because of the high overdose death rate. new hampshire ranks third in the country right now. first when it comes to fentanyl overdoses. that we have additional impacts that are not felt in some of the bigger states. so i am hoping that you will commit to working with me to ensure and with the committee to ensure that those states that are hardest hit by the epidemic because of not just in terms of population, but based on overdose death rate, will get some additional assistance to help u

senator marco rubio a long time rival of mr trump said on twitter that he hopes that this isn't the beginning of backing down to china and that the problem with that he is not about jobs and trade it's about national security and even espionage even though maybe saying that the national security of the u.s. would be at risk is maybe some sort of overreacting but the original band was not related to any kind of protectionism that we have seen there are there were reasons like i just mentioned of doing business with north korea and iran don't you go first with the analysis from the frankfurt stock exchange. and just briefly film star selma hayek has called for male actors to take a pay cut as a way to reduce the gender gap she made the call during an interview with the confit festival becomes the day of the dozens of female movie makers staged a protest on the red carpet calling for equal pay and a picture. for you go below going on a couple of blog going on a com thank you so much for that ok we're going to turn our attention again to the mideast where with more than half the votes counted in

so, that's good. >> thank you, senator rubio. mr. secretary, a few broader questions before i go into more parochi parochi parochial i'll ask specific, but we had an opportunity in indian affairs to hear from the president's nominee for assistant secretary to bureau of indian affairs, a woman that i feel is imminently qualified, a woman who can move into places where perhaps she's not invited and make sure that the voices of our native peoples are heard. i'm very, very pleased that you have provided that support to her. but those of us on the committee yesterday shared that we thought she had a pretty hard job. you've noted the deficiencies within bureau of indian education and your efforts to try to address some of the back log issues with our schools, making sure that our native children receive a quality education must be a priority. there's other areas, of course, that we all feel very strongly about where we don't feel that either this administration or the previous administration or the previous administration before them did r

rubio. >> thank you, mr. secretary for being here today. so there is a program that china is undertaken called made in china 2025, the plan is to dominate the ten biggest technologies of the future, one of those ten is the pharmaceutical industry and in particular bio pharma. in fact, it was the second largest investment in china last year. and the way they do it is two-fold, one, they block off their own market to foreign competition and they do this in other industries, they're doing it now with bio pharma, but the other one is frankly they steal intellectual property and they do that through a number of methods, the foreign domestic partnerships they require, as a pharmaceutical industry you do business in china you have to partner with one of their clients. they have a track record of stealing for intellectual property. if you are not paying for the research, it's an incredible advantage. the other is they buy small companies including here domestically that have key research components of other industries, with he should anticipate the

. >> thank you senator rubio. mr. secretary, a few broader questions before more specifics but i had mentioned earlier that we had an opportunity in indian affairs to hear from the president nominee from the secretary of indian affairs to be imminently qualified a woman who can move into places where perhaps she is not invited to make sure the voices of our native people are heard and you have provided that support to her but those of us on the committee yesterday shared we thought she had a pretty hard job and you have noted the deficiencies within the bureau of indian education and your efforts to try to address some of the backlog issues with schools to make sure native children receive a quality education. there are other areas of course that we all feel very strongly about we don't feel either this administration or the previous administration or before them did enough when it comes to providing to be able to meet our responsibilities to our native people and from a public safety perspective. this is where we fee

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator rubio. >> thank you, last week there was a florida media investigation. that revealed there was a pensacola area doctor who pled guilty to seven counts of tax fraud in 2015 working as a va subject matter expert. evaluating toxic water exposure claims. we contacted the department for additional background and we're told the doctor was not a va employee. instead worked for a va contractor. and we were told the va sent notice to the business to stop using this provider from conducting the exams on behalf of the va. i'm glad they took these steps. but there are questions people are asking. and i have questions about the va's contracting practices when it comes to subject matter experts. can we get a brief understanding of the hiring policies for providers contracted through the va by a third party vendor. >> i'm going to turn to my colleague mr. murphy. the company is called lhi. this doctor was working for them as a contract physician. in the contract, we spell out in great detail the medical requirement for a doctor. first priority is quality physicians doi

turns out marco rubio thought the problem with zte, mr.sident, isn't about jobs and trade, it's national security and espionage. he no fan of normalizing corporate relations with this concern. lo and behold, later on in the day we learn it's part of a granded strategy to get the chinese to ease up on their own tariffs that were targeting farmers. i would assume soybean farmers. i don't know. this much i do know, the markets are confused. but fortunately, these market stars are not including scott shellady and fox business' susan lee. all right. so, scott, from your vantage point does this look like worth trying to strike a grand bargain in helping the chinese? what do you think? >> i think in the art of the deal, and he wrote the book, i'm not saying that this is perfect but, yeah, you have to let the other team think they've got something to give what you want. you both have to leave the table mildly satisfied. so if this is what he's got to do, and i don't necessarily think it's about putting people back to work in china. over 25% of the

. >> i just want to say, my name's amina rubio, and i just want to thank you so much mr. sheehy, and supervisor fewer, for your support and your time to take time out of your busy day to listen to all of us here. it's a really, really important matter, and i just want to say there are two people here that aren't able to speak, and i wanted to say that there's a young man who committed suicide when he got his pass throughs. there's an elderly woman who was reaching for the window. the window was taped off, and she died trying to get enough air into her apartment. so i just wanted to thank you so much for your time, and i'm asking you to call for a full investigation by dennis herrera. thank you. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. good afternoon. thank you for having this hearing. my name is jay fisher. i'm a resident at 65 pala street. i'm a veritas tenant. i'm here tot about habitability and the greater picture for veritas tenants. we've heard a lot today about bad actors, and i want to say that -- speak to that -- last month, i received a lette

conservatives like marco rubio and tom cotton say there is no middle ground, mr. president. walk away. it's a flawed deal. >> that deal was a very bad deal for the united states. it gave all kinds of concession, it gave billions of dollars in sanctions relief, and it didn't ultimately stop iran from getting a nuclear weapon. >> listen here the former secretary of state john kerry says withdrawing would be a drastic mistake. >> to play your hand and get out, take away some leverage, give them an excuse to go do other things, that's good negotiation? please. it doesn't make sense. the president calling this the worst agreement negotiated ever, et cetera, clearly doesn't make it the worst agreement negotiate ever. i challenge anybody to find an agreement that's tougher than the one we have in place now. >> the politics of this, the president seeing secretary kerry so aggressive out there in recent days has pushed the president. we've seen this on twitter. the most important part of this is the substance. this is the president of the united states about to walk away from a signa

jinping of china now members of mr trump's own political party are saying the madness has to stop in frontal opposition as u.s. senator marco rubio the florida republican who says congress will take steps to prevent z t e from being able to do business in the united states all of this continues as a trade war tit for tat with trying to continues here to help sort of a third all out is radio and t.v. host steve wallace ok steve you've got to explain what the deal is with z t it's a national security concern and a corporate security concern which is why we have these sanctions and they violated it but explain the circumstance well. has long been suspected it's a chinese multinational telecommunications company have long been suspected of espionage using the routers and other technical a technological equipment to spy corporately and national government agencies as well and when they were found to be in violation of u.s. sanctions as you mentioned by doing business with and shipping technology to iran in north korea well the commerce department last year imposed severe sanctions seven years they were going to forbid for dealing with

mr. trump's message, tweeted yesterday, drew condemnation from lawmakers onth ides of the aisle. florida republican senator marco rubio said he hoped the president wasn't, "backing down to china." stocks jumped early today on hopes of easing trade tensions between the u.s. and china, but finished mixed. the dow jones industrial average gained 68 points to close at 24,899. the nasdaq rose eight points.d e s&p added two. one fennel any char against governor eric greitens for invasion of privacy with a woman he admitted to having an affair with. they plan to refile with a special prosecutor. greiten faces charges related to alleged use of nonprofit donor list to solicit campaign donations. the white house says first lady melania trump has been hospitalized after a procedure for a benign kidney condition. dureokeswoman said the pro was successful with no complications. late today the president went to visit mrs. trump at walter reed hospal, outside washington, where she will likely stay for the rest of the week. former senate majority leader harry reid is recoveringr rom surgery ncreatic cancer. reid's family said doctors

just a written question regarding legislation senator rubio and i have introduced called the deterrent act. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you mr. director for being here. and i caught just as i walked in you talked about your visit to west virginia. so that was going to be my first question was talk about that division in clarksburg, great work they are doing there, not just on the nicks system but on a lot of the background checks, et cetera. i didn't know if there is anything you want d to add about that facility. obviously we are very proud of it in west virginia. and the good work that's done there. >> i'd be happy to. i really enjoyed my visit out there. all i covered so far about what's out there are questions about nicks, but of course as you know there is a locality of very important work that's being done out there. everything from ncic to ucr, e nibors that does crime, codoes, a lot out there. the public access line that takes calls from the public. it's a thriving facility with great people working really, really hard. i was really impressed by what i saw out there. >> thank you. and we a

mr. evanina, welcome. delighted to have you here today and appreciate the service that you've provided. first i want to associate myself with senator rubio's comments. i think the and emphasize one point. he talked about the deep fake, being able to create an alternative reality. if you add to that the power of social media, it's a perfect storm of disinformation because you can create the false reality and then you can circulate it in a way that's hard to counteract to find, to see. if somebody puts a negative ad about you on television, you can put up your own add to rebut it. in this case you're chasing smoke, e-mails, facebook, twitter, it's difficult. this is a very serious challenge and that brings me to your comment on page -- on question 16 of the prehearing questions. you said i remain concerned we may still be underestimating russian capabilities and plans to influence the 2018 midterm and future elections. that's a chilling statement. could you elaborate on that a bit? >> thank you, senator. i would say that i don't think anyone in my profession or the intelligence community will underestimate the potential of the russian federa

mr. gallagher mentioned zte. this is a company that congress thinks is a threat. administration is nearing a deal with china on this. marco rubio twitter suggesting that china is outnegotiating the united states. do you think this -- >> i wasn't watching marco's twitter feed this morning. i can't comment on that. but i'm not a party to the administration's talks. there are concerns with zte from our intelligence community and those have to be taken into consideration absolutely. >> i want to go back to the leadership issue because there was -- >> i figured you would. >> there was a report this weekend that the white house and mr. mccarthy and you pushed back on this. wanted you out of the speakership. we have talked to people who have pushed back on that and also again brought up concern about the farm bill, the discharge petition, and i'm just wondering are you -- how certain are you that you are going to -- can you say confidently you will be here throughout -- >> look, obviously i serve at the pleasure of the members. those are the people that drafted me in this job in the first place. i think we all agree that the best thin

mr. secretary, the work that was done in 2013, i negotiated a bill with senator rubio, senator hatch and senator feinstein, the first ag jobs bill that actually gave the secretary of agriculture the authority to house the farm program on immigration, which i think would be a step forward. i hope you will maybe look to that for guidance. final point, mr. chairman, i will make just to reiterate the points you've made on trade, we had a conversation with mr. light that you seer and the finance committee said his farmers and ranchers had his sympathy because he knew they would be the first people retaliated against if we don't have successful trade resolution, and i said to him we don't need your sympathy, we need you to act responsibly. and i know you will be a voice for responsible behavior when it comes to our trade policy. i hope you will count on this committee to help you do that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. just from a historical perspective, a bill very similar to yours was introduced in 1996 by a congressman from kansas as i recall and we lost it by one vote. if

rubio was asking. but i think that on balance, if the meeting can happen, it is a good thing. it would definitely be an achievement for president trump as well as mr. kim, of course, but it might lower the tensions that we've seen in the peninsula, lower the rhetoric, and start a dialogue, i don't think you're going to get a grand agreement, and if you did, i would be very skeptical the north koreans would keep it, but this is certainly better than war, which is the past that we've -- which is the path that we seem to be on, and if president trump can accomplish this, then i applaud his initiative. mike: delaware democrat senator is expressing concerns about this driving a wedge between the u.s. and our european allies. take a listen to this. >> well, i hope that we will see president trump end up proving himself to be a deal maker, not a deal breaker. but in this instance, i've heard from the ambassadors of our european allies that they are concerned that america first is turning into america alone. mike: judy, your reaction to that? >> well, i think we've seen this more with respect to the iran deal and the unilateral withdrawal from the iran de

mr. rubio: mr. president, when the story of the 21st century is written, there will be a couple chapters about vladimir putin's russia and most certainly chapters about radical jihadists, and perhaps a few chapters on some other things that we have yet to fully anticipate, which still remains over 80 years in the century, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of the story about the 21st century will be about the relationship between the united states and china. china, the most populace nation on earth, the second largest economy, soon to be largest economy on the planet is a country that cannot be maintained. it will be a factor both economically and geopolitically, as it should be for a nation of that magnitude and a culture that deep with such long history. however, there are imbalances developing in that relationship which i believe are threatening not just to our nation but ultimately to the peace, the security, and the stability of the world, and it is on that topic that i wanted to come

rubio, republican of florida. there's no evidence whatsoever that the money has been massively poured back into the american worker. mr. president, i couldn't have said it better myself. president trump and the republicans promised a middle-class miracle with tremendous raises for workers, but they once again haven't delivered. instead, the american people have been saddled with higher deficits and larger debt while corporations reward wealthy executives and shareholders. even republican senators are starting to admit it. so i've heard some commentators say, well, maybe the public says we don't like the president's tweeting, we don't like that he changes his story, we don't like prevaricating, but at least he's delivering. not with the tax bill, where so much of the wealth is going to the top. not on health care, where premiums are going up. the american people will have the right to protest come november, which i believe they will. i yield the floor.

mr. president, having said my piece about nafta, i'd like to turn to the main purpose i am standing here. last thursday i introduced a bill cosponsored by senator rubio entitled "the puerto rico economic empowerment act of 2018." the bill works to help the people in puerto rico as they continue to face a stagnant economy and recover from massive damage called by recent hurricanes. this bill will be a critical step towards resurrecting growth in puerto rico that directly targets relief to puerto ricans themselves and small businesses on the island. in briefings the bill provides the following -- first, the bill provides a payroll tax holiday for employees in puerto rico for two years, cutting their payroll taxes in half in order to give economic relief to the hardworking people of puerto rico who face an economy that has been stagnant and mismanaged for far too long. second, the bill provides equal treatment with respect to the federal child tax credit for puerto rican families with one or two children. not just for those who have three or more. this will provide more equitable treatment to puerto rican families with respect to the federal child tax c