mr. rubio: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to consideration of the following nomination: executive calendar 912. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, kelly higashi of the district of columbia to be an associate judge of the superior court of the district of columbia. mr. rubio: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate, that if confirmed the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, that no further motions be in order and that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the record. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the question is on the nomination. all in favor say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed. mr. rubio: i ask unanimous consent that the senate

mr. rubio: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. rubio: mr. president, my home state of florida is once again experiencing an environmental and economic catastrophe, a real crisis. it's a crisis whose cause extends back decades, decades of bad decisions, decisions made on things people didn't think about, neglect, and myopic water management. nowhere is that crisis more acute or more apparent than at lake okeechobee, the liquid heart of the everglades and our surrounding coastal communities including the city of stuart, which is on the verge of seeing conditions very similar to what they experienced in the year 2016, and that's what this picture here is about. what you see there is algae, thick, toxic algae that is gathering underneath that bridge back in 2016. now, this really goes back decades. you know, the historic florida everglades, the headwaters began in lake okeechobee. this massive lake, reservoir right almost in the center of our state. what would happen is when rainfall would come in and the water would overflow, it would just cont

mr. rubio: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. rubio: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rubio: in my home state of florida, we have a rich history in manufacturing, hand rolled premium cigars and for those would aren't familiar with it, a hand rolled premium cigar is not the same thing as a cigarette. number one they're an expensive product, and they are consumed very differently from a cigarette or some other tobacco product. i would say they're more like wine than they would be like a cigarette for sure. the interesting thing about the cigar industry and its history, not just in florida but in this country, is that almost exclusively, the manufacturers of premium hand rolled cigars are small family-run businesses. by the way, so, too, are the retailers that sell it. this is not the kind of thing you go and buy at 7-ele

mr. rubio: mr. president, we were sitting in the cloakroom between the last two votes that happened in the senate and everybody's phones started buzzing at the same time that's because everyone receives these alerts from the national weather service. and the alert said flash flood warning until 9:15 p.m. this evening. and i thought it was ironic because i was headed down here on the floor to speak about flooding, and in particular flood insurance, which is a threat so many different states across the country, so it was an ironic moment that reminds us of what that means to us here, but what it means to the people in the real world who are impacted by this. the house earlier today passed an extension of the national flood insurance program and it extends it for four months. it will expire november 30 of this year. i'm here today to tell you how critical it is the senate act on this as soon as possible. it will expire july 30, six days from today if we do in the take action. let me preface everything

mr. rubio: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: the events of the last 36 hours, particularly the issue that now dominates the media coverage in america and our political debates here on the floor cause me to come here today to the floor of the senate to speak for a few minutes to my constituents back in the state of florida but anyone else who clearly should care about this issue across our country for it's one that impacts our nation in ways that i don't think have been fully vetted or are clearly understood by enough people. the idea that the russian federation at the command of vladimir putin interfered in our election is something now most americans are familiar with. it's been the topic of ongoing conversation, discussion, debate, argument, and dispute pretty much since the fall of 2016 and to the present day. it has morphed into something that has become domestically more of a partisan issue. hard to believe if you were able to get in a time machine and go back just five years and tell someone that russian interference

mr. rubio: mr.president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of calendar 1017 through 1029 and all nominations placed on the secretary's desk in the air force, army, and navy, the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order, that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the record, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. rubio: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my remarks follow senator van hollen's remarks earlier today on the same topic. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rubio: one of the interesting developments in our public debate in america today is russia and the elections

mr. page. >> senator rubio, though, offering a more even handed assessment this morning saying while he doesn't believe this new information proves quote anything about collusion, it also doesn't prove that the intelligence community was spying on the trump campaign. jon? jon: gillian turner in washington. thanks. >> you are welcome. jon: president trump reacting to this news while at his weekend get away in new jersey, tweeting that the newly released documents show the mueller investigation is a witch hunt. this as the president continues defending what he calls a quote great meeting with putin last week and after he invited putin to the white house this fall. democratic senator menendez says president trump has to be tougher with putin. >> it depends if you challenge him. now we're going to give him, you know, a red carpet treatment and invite him to washington. to me, that's beyond comprehension. you can speak to adversaries, but at the end of the day, you have to do it in a way in which you challenge them. the president seems to want to be chummy with putin instead of challenging him. jon:

mr. page. >> senator rubio offered were just when he said while he does not believe the new information proves anything about collision also does not prove the intelligence community was spying on the trump campaign. mike? >> gillian turner, leading us off live from washington. many thanks. >> the president sharing his thoughts on this. from his weekend getaway in new jersey pay tweeting the newly released documents show the mueller investigation is a witchhunt. while also continuing to defend his quote - great meeting with the russian president, vladimir putin. laura ingle is following all this from berkeley heights, new jersey. hi laura. >> hi arthel. president trump tweeting on a variety of topics today.most recently this afternoon a blasting department of justice as he maintains the pfizer released -- fisa documents prove that they were spot on. says as usual they are ridiculously, heavily redacted. but confirm with little doubt the department of justice and fbi misled the court. witchhunt rigged a scam! another tweet reads, looking more and more like the trump campaign for president was i

mr. page. reporter: senator rubio saying while he doesn't believe this new information proves quote anything about collusion, it also doesn't prove that the intelligence community was spying on the trump campaign. mike: gillian, many thanks. arthel: we'll bring in steven mulroy, a former prosecutor and law professor. steven, what do you find significant in these documents and why did the government release them now? >> well, it's actually significant that they were released at all. it's highly unusual for documents of this nature. we are basically talking about a counter espionage investigation by the fbi. so you would never see these documents released in the first place. but president trump decided to declassify them for the news memo, the house republican memo to be written and released. as you result there was a freedom of information act request that led to their release. that's probably the most of surprising thing to me. with respect to whether they show some sort of conspiracy by the fbi, i have to say that i don't see all that much that's surprising in there. it's not surprising for an ap

mr. page. >> reporter: senator rubio offering an evenhanded assessment this morning saying while he does notormation proves anything about collusion, it also does not prove that the intelligence community was spying on the trim campaign. -- trump campaign. >>> a new poll found half of those questioned disapprove of the president's conduct during the helsinki summit with russian president vladimir putin. 50% disapproved. 33% approved. 18% had no opinion. >>> a day of remembrance for a man shot and killed by police. the family now wants to spread a larger message about police use of force. >>> lots of sunshine across most of the bay area this weekend. we are talking about a warming trend in linda. i will have your full forecast coming up. >>> a standup with police trends deadly in southern california and now police say it all started with a feud between a manned and -- a man and his grandmother. dog: seresto, seresto, seresto. jake... seresto, seresto, seresto. whatever your dog brings home to you, it shouldn't be fleas and ticks. seresto gives your dog 8 continuous months of flea and tick pro

mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator rubio? >> thank you both for being here. mr. bolten, as i saw your written testimony, on the path that you outlined, it is by and large by consensus, but there's one point i want to disagree with and detail it. but your plan, as i understand it, and as many have argued, we need to detail the problems you have with china. you have accurately talked about them on investment, the ip theft, the transfer of technology subsidize and production and force them to have computing services and facilities located within china. the requirement on apple, for example, to place the cloud there and the like. the second part -- you have detailed those right. the second is giving them a deadline to change the things and telling them how to see the changes. and the third is, here's a list of things we want you to do if you don't meet it by the deadline. the fourth is working with our allies and, in particular, i would imagine canada, mexico and the eu, three of the four large export markets by giving them exemption by the 232 tariffs. i would agree

mr. mueller, come over and talk to these guys? sen. rubio: if i was the ruler of a country where my opponents were either dead or in jail, i control the media, i control the elections, i control every little lever in the nation, i would be comfortable allowing you doing certain things because i could control the outcome. whether they are predisposed, so to speak. i most certainly can guarantee you that they would be fully prepped. far as questioning people in our country, he would be able to come here and harassed. it would. -- it would be part -- providing him the long arm. he intimidates all over the world and a mystically. if you are one of these things -- people who want to take it and all over the world and every morning you wake up to the news that someone else who is taking was found dead, string old poisoned, fell out of the building window that miraculously broke while they were leaning on it, and all these things, it is intimidating. i think there was a message embedded in that as well. jill: senator warner, i will let you have the

mr. putin has done. >> thanks, senator cardin. appreciate it. marco rubiospeaking now in washington on these developments. let's listen in. >> our number 1 objective is to get it passed in the senate first. today alone, i've had a flood of members offering to be involved with the majority leader. he wants to bring it to the floor. we are trying to figure out how to get there without burning five days of debate. so positive about it. we have work to do. >> [question inaudible] >> people recognize the need. it serves as a catalyst to take action about the future. you know, people will continue to argue about all of these other things regarding 2016. we don't want to see this happen again. so hopefully we can build a strong majority, which i think we already have, to get this passed and into law. >> is the message that congress doesn't believe the president would impose the -- >> no. it's irrespective of the president. when these interference things go on, by the time we figure out whether it happened and go through the congressional process and imposing sanct

mr. putin >> democorts are calling hearings of the national security team. that appearsunlikely. even though there's consensus i singress that russia interferedi how can we stop it and marco rubio indicatedinks things could only get worse. >> because one thing the russia have done in othery countries put out incomplete information, altered information and or fake information. and if it's reported it's done strategically it could impact the outcome. talking about fak sething -- imagine producing a video that has mer senator warner sayg something w never said on the eve of an ection, by the time i prove it's fake, even though itooks real it's too late >> a 29-year- russian woman living in dc was arrested forac russia ago isn accused ofin work on behalf a f ror thent wotra pparentlytre pr yes of wfaux caha uaibetr tre friends?oagnse was what the h rtne,rs partners,frel ways always? pr domise? the president has said he'll reaccess the trade relationships brexit.e eu and the u.k. after who kno long that will taking even though he plans to reassess ings, the.s. isn't waiting to lunch tde disputes over tariffs, fileases through the world trade organization against china, canada, mexico, turkish

mr. president, is support legislation that i've introduced together with senator rubio, bipartisan legislation. very clear, it says to vladimir putin, if you interfere in another u.s. election and we catch you, russia will automatically face very stiff sanctions to your energy sector and to your banking sector, that there will be a huge price to pay. it's called the deter act. the whole idea is to make sure that vladimir putin knows that the costs of interfering in our elections far outweigh any benefit he may think he gets. so i hope, mr. president, we will stand together as republicans and democrats to do what the president of the united states won't do, and that's to protect the integrity of our elections. let's learn from the past. let's work together for the future. thank you, mr. president. mrs. murray: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. just yesterday the world watched as president trump standing in front of the american flag side by side with vladimir putin not only betrayed the dedicated men and women of the u.s. i

mr. president, in 2016. the russians did indeed as clinton you did but what they're up to now can jeopardize our democracy. and we're just a stone's throw away from them changing vote totals. senator -- senator rubio knows this better than i because he is on the intelligence committee, but they are already infiltrateing voter registration files. it would not be much of a leap to have some votes flip through cyber attacks. so we have a chance in the coming days, working together, not against each other, to find solutions to this problem. i'm sure whatever we come up with will not be perfect, but at least we tried. and one thing i cannot live with is not trying. i have known dan coats for well over a decade. secretary pompeo. the entire national security team. senator burr, senator warren, senator rubio, they all tell us the same thing. our critical infrastructure is under attack by foreign powers, russia being the leader, and the question for us is what do we do about it? i'm hoping next week that the president will call the congress together in a bipartisan fashion to come up with some preventative measures to protect our infrastructure when it comes to the november election, and that we as a nati

mr. putin over his own intelligence community -- committee. thank you very much senator warner and senator rubio. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: next, a look at the way russia is seeking to increase its influence in the democratic world. the panel includes a former ukrainian finance minister. >> we are going to get started. we had a wonderful session with sen. warner: are in my name is john hurts. i run the center at the atlantic council. we are the ones that put event.r today's senators warner and rubio gave you a very strong perspective of the problems defined from washington. i will take a broader international scope. we have a panel. you have i.s. in front of the year. we have natalie to rescue. i am going to ask eileen who is a cyber-esque for -- cyber expert to frame the problem for the -- from the global perspective. eileen: i want to join in thanking the atlantic council and the transatlantic commission on

rubio. >> thanks for holding this hearing, mr. chairman. it's a complicated issue because it really involves two separate stories. let me back up and say that we have all -- i say there's been a general consensus in american politics and american debate about the value of the global economic order, the rules-based trading system and i do think while this is a committee that focuses on foreign policy, that it is difficult to ignore that while free and open global trade has incredible benefits, it does have downsides. there are losers to trade, even agreements that are great, and not enough attention has been paid to the fact that people have been displaced over 30 or 40 years and that has created some of the domestic blowback against some of the trade. that said, by and large, america is generally a winner, particularly when we are interacting with countries who follow the rules and that's where these dispute resolution mechanisms exist and you have a hope that they would work. when these countries also happen to be geopolitical allies with

mr. putin over his own intelligence community. >> a perfect ending for this really interesting panel. thank you very much, senator warner and senator rubio. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] >>> today nasa administrator jim bradenstein and two former nasa administrators talk about the nation's space program on the 60 t 60th anniversary of that agency. from the center for strategic

mr. president. >> the whitehouse press searetary later tried to ify he was saying he was aknot tg my more questions d also tonight marylandannt democratic senator chris van d hoand marco rubio teamed on a bill to automaticon sas russia if it interest neerns upcoming elections. >> a little girl shot and lled. >> and tonight her mom talked about the pain of losing her daughter. >> the people that killed her i want justice for my baby. it.'s the latest on the search for hekillen and update where police found the car inv sved inhooting. >> also ahead tonight if you take the red line big changes on theteay. well you how huge repairs came pact your commute the rest of the summer hi, caitlin. >> hi there, jim, getting a break from summer heat and humidity still warm. high temperature upper 80s without that muggy feeling in eethe air f better. picture perfect out there eaier. 88 high at reagan anll88 dues and 888 bwi just about seasonable. let's do itw. again tomorro beautiful forecast for thursd friday, and then the first look at th forecast coming up when fox news at 10 first look at th forecast coming up when fox news at 10 returns. turns. this is customizable streaming tv for y

rubio or cruise any longer -- or cruz any longer. they have regained their artist because of it. it may explain why breitbart has fallen in prominence. mr. sides: thank you. i want to ask a question. back to comment about -- amber echoed this. none of this is new. many of these things are features of american politics. say it go as too far to is better now than it used to be. better than the air of yellow german -- than the era of yellow journalism. we have news outlets that strive -- objectivity that do not that did not exist in a world where newspapers had partisan affiliations. of dirtyr era politics, specific. you do not have to agree with the statement. way to put theht environment today in context? should we compare it to the 1800s? maybe we feel better? should we compare it to walter kwok right -- walter kwok right -- walter kronkite and it is worse? -- walter cronkite and it is worse? there is a lot of emotion in the debate that feels historical. what happened 20 minutes ago is the most important thing to happen in the history of american politics. maybe i am being constrained. maybe i should be more alarmed. how do we grapple w

mr. strzok: no. rep. raskin: august 8, 2016, marco rubio said donald trump was unworthy of being our president. was this attack part of a deep state conspiracy that you organized? mr. strzok: no. rep. raskin: speaker paul ryan said, i am not going to defend donald trump. was this outburst of moral courage part of a deep state conspiracy that you organized? mr. strzok: no. rep. raskin: rex tillerson called donald trump a moron. scott pruitt said he's an empty vessel. steve dinan said he's like an 11-year-old child. h.r. mcmaster referred to donald trump reportedly as a dope and idiot. karl rove called him a complete idiot. duncan hunter said he's an a-ho le. the director of the national economic council reportedly sent any mail describing trump as an idiot surrounded by clans. were all these characterizations of donald trump part of a deep state conspiracy engineered by you and your friends? mr. strzok: no. rep. raskin: were any of the statements part of a conspiracy you organized? mr. strzok: no. rep. raskin: although this conspiracy does appear to be i askelmingly republican, you about my hero,

mr. secretary, i have limited time, so i agree with senator rubio, there's got to be a cost to people when they attack the united states, not just attacking the united states, they've assassinated people on british soil, threatening our allies and intervening in western democracies a nexting crimea, ongoing hostilities in the dombask region of ukraine, and we passed legislation, which you had an exchange with my colleague senator carter about and this is the transcript that you said, you said, thank you for presenting the law. we really appreciate it. we think it makes good sense. the president signed it as well. we've passed sanctions under the law, and -- but we haven't used all of the sanctions. now, i was excited to see nikki haley come out and say that we were about to put on new sanctions. in fact, the rnc got talking points from the white house telling their pundits to say exactly what nikki haley said before the united nations that we were going to put on additional sanctions, but we haven't used those tools in our toolbox. they said nick e nikki haley was confused. she said i'm so

mr. strzok? >> no, sir. >> republicanin my committee. i can't vote for president trump and not hillary clinton. that's yours? >> no. >> republican comstalk from our home state of virginia. >> and senator rubiomp should not be our president. did you organize that. >> no. >> called donald trump a moron, scott pruitt, empty vessel when it comes to the constitution. steve bannon like an 11-year-old child. general h.r. mevery -- mc34567m mcmaster a dope with the intelligence of a kindergartner. he's an a hole but he's our a hole and an e-mail describes trump as an idiot surrounded by clowns. were all of these negative characterizations of donald trump part of a deep state gop conspiracy engineered by you and your friends? >> no. >> pretty much -- >> matt miller, jeremy bash, our experts on national security. i feel this was more of a hearing that gave us a sense how people feel about donald trump, and if donald trump was watching but too busy being extremely rude to theresa may and leaving some scorched earth at the nato summit, but had he been watching he would have been very, very angry, because there were a lot of really harsh things that were said by really important people about president d

rubio. kneeinger of them have been success -- neither of them have been successful. why should i have to fight these two members at all about an entirely local matter? mr. speaker, i have not asked only for statehood. i understand the house and the senate are essentially incremental bodies. so i have bills that would simply give the district many of the elements of statehood. examples would be a local prosecutor. what is the united states attorney for the district of columbia doing prosecuting local crimes? that's what he does. in fact, more than 90% of the business of this u.s. attorney doesn't have anything to do with federal matters. again, this is a holdover from before the district had what we call home rule. and that was 45 years ago that the district was given the right to govern itself. but that the congress could give the district. and then the district would choose its own local d.a. there are other examples. clemency. the president offers clemency, that means it never happens, for people in jail in the district. that's a state function. the district knows more about its own local residents who are incarcerated. that's the kind of matter that