Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I have had the real pleasure, over the last 14 years, to work on some great bipartisan projects. Probably, my favorite is the Feed the Future Program. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee says he is proud of the Feed the Future Program because it helps to save lives, promotes self-reliance, and opens up new trade opportunities. Numerous of my colleagues know this is one of the programs that does extraordinary things. For example, for every $1 the U.S. Government spends on Feed the Future, it unlocks $6 of private investment. The program has shown to expand and diversify export markets that are critical to farmers and agribusinesses, and these programs lessen the reliance on humanitarian aid and strengthen local communities. It is one of the most intelligent investments we do, and it deals with 735 million people around the world who are facing hunger. This program has wide bipartisan support in this body, and my amendment simply says that we will reduce the development assistance funding in this rescission by $785 million to restore this widely bipartisan-supported program. Mr. President, you are struggling to find that button.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I would like to call up my amendment No. 2887 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO Congressional Review Act legal opinion dated May 28, 2025.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following motions to commit for the bill H.R. 1 be placed in the Congressional Record: A motion to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session, with changes that-- (1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and (2) would-- (A) provide medical debt relief for the over 100,000,000 people in the United States affected by medical debt by reducing the tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy within this legislation; and (B) ensure big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay a fair share in taxes. A motion to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session, with changes that-- (1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and (2) would- (A) create a report by the Government Accountability Office to Congress studying the health and economic impacts of cutting Medicaid funding, by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes, provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit over the period of the total of fiscal years 2025 through 2034; and (B) ensure big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay a fair share in taxes. A motion moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session, with changes that-- (1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and (2) would-- (A) disallow lower coverage rates, reduced benefits or decreased affordability for children and pregnant women receiving coverage through the Medicaid Program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, or the private insurance markets established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; and (B) ensure big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay a fair share in taxes. A motion moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session, with changes that-- (1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and (2) would strike any provision that cuts Medicaid payments for mental health care; and (3) would ensure big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay a fair share in taxes.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. I am grateful for the recognition. I know we have been talking here for quite some time about an incident that is unprecedented--I would imagine in generations here-- that a U.S. Senator, today, in a Federal building, going to ask questions to a Federal official in the executive, is forcibly handled, identifies himself as a U.S. Senator, and is pulled out of the room. Doors close, and as we saw from another camera, he is forcibly driven to his knees and thrown upon his face with his arms wrenched behind him and handcuffed. It is such a breach to have one of our Members of this body treated in such a way for, as one of the officials from the Department of Homeland Security says, for being ``disrespectful and performative.'' Well, if that is a reason for people to be thrown on the ground, forcibly handcuffed, most of this body would have had that experience. This is something far more serious when we see that overstep of power. I have seen this with LaMonica McIver, doing her oversight authority, being caught up in a storm of officials going to arrest a mayor who then the judge said clearly was wrongfully arrested. We have seen this in the overstepping of the bounds of propriety. But this act of violence against a Member of this body demands a response. We have seen what happens when government abuses their power, when they engage in violent actions against their citizenry. Indeed, we have seen this in its extreme cases, time and time again, throughout our history, unfortunately, in the labor movement, in the suffrage movement, in the civil rights movement. We know that when State officials in Alabama met John Lewis and marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met with such violence that the intention there was to suppress our freedoms. We are in a time now where we are seeing protests planned all across the United States of America, with hundreds of protests coming this weekend. As Alex Padilla, himself, has asked: If they can do this to a U.S. Senator, what does that say to the average American who wants to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to protest, to petition their government, to speak up? More than this, Alex Padilla, in this body, has come in a very unusual way. He is the son of Mexican immigrants--a short-order cook and a woman who cleaned homes. In this environment, where we have seen our immigration enforcement officials not going after criminals or gang members or people that are somehow threatening us but going to separate families, taking away a mother from her children, taking away people dropping off their kids at school, going to work sites or places like Home Depot where people stand looking for work, going after agricultural workers--this is a moment where we see good-faith people peacefully protesting and having the courage to stand up to the most powerful person in the world, the President of the United States. Yet, again, we see an example where that President is willing to abuse their authority in an act that is ensured to be an attempt at intimidation. If Alex Padilla, a U.S. Senator, can be dragged from a room in a Federal building for asking questions, thrown upon the ground and handcuffed, what does it say to the traditions in our Nation that are one of the reasons why we are all here? Because our government does have its limits--it is not unchecked power. The President is not the King. Insulting him is not a crime. Look, I have been disappointed, as I have seen in joint statements and I have seen this in State of the Union Addresses, behavior from people that I don't find justifiable within the Chamber. I remember when a South Carolina Congressman heckled the President of the United States. I heard it in one of Trump's addresses--people yelling things at the President. Is that, in a democracy, sufficient provocation to arrest Senators or Congress people who are ``disrespectful,'' as Alex Padilla was accused of being, as if that is a justification to be thrown upon the ground and violently handcuffed? We have certain exalted ideals and principles in a democracy. In fact, fundamental to our democracy, written in our founding documents, over 200 years old, was this ideal of certain inalienable rights of the people. Our Bill of Rights enshrines--before even the ratification of our Constitution by States, it was demanded that we have a Bill of Rights that guarantees certain principles before a government. Our design of our government was to provide checks and balances because of how much our Founders feared excesses and abuses of power. These are constitutional principles now that, today, in the most dramatic of fashion, are under attack. We, as a Nation, have elevated the ideals of the ability of American citizens to speak truth to power, to protest, to stand peacefully and forcibly in defiance of abuses of power. And, today, in this body of 100, we have seen one of our Members, the son of Mexican immigrants, the son of a short-order cook and a woman who cleaned houses in the most noble of fashions--who invested themselves in our common dream, who invested themselves in our ideals, who raised an extraordinary young man who has lived his life in service of others, starting in Los Angeles, starting as a city councilperson in that very city, a graduate of MIT--face an indignity and an assault and violence that should not be tolerated on anybody in this body. That is an executive overreach by the President of the United States, and it is happening within a pattern of conduct--a mayor in Newark arrested, rebuked by a judge that the authorities of the executive were overstepped; LaMonica McIver, a Congresswoman, brought up on charges as she was caught in a storm of officials rushing to arrest--wrongfully arrest--that mayor, who is now suing for that wrongful arrest. We see, time and time again, a pattern being created of an executive overstepping its authority and, in this case, using violence against an American citizen who also happens to be a Member of this body, a U.S. Senator. I have strong, strong concerns about the fear and intimidation that this President seeks to create in our society--the fear and intimidation of a President that seems to equate defiance, dissent, and protests with somehow being unpatriotic or being un-American. Well, leader after leader in our history says that when there is injustice, when there are abuses of power, when there is a Federal Government overstepping its bounds, it is incumbent upon the citizenry of the United States of America not to be complicit, not to be silent, not to do anything. In this Nation, we bring strong voices that know that the true checks of the power of the executive are not just the judicial branch and the Congress. The true checks on abuses of power will always be the power of the people. I believe that our Founders spoke to this. I believe that there are extraordinary words from our past, and I would like to read some of them: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a quote that so guided our Framers--that the President of the United States is not a King. The great difficulty lies in this: ``You must first enable the government to'' stand for justice. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison talked about the urgency of the people to check the power of the executive. Here is Jefferson: The abuse of power is not a new thing. It is the consequence of power evidence. Jefferson was suggesting the urgency for us as a citizenry to be vigilant against the abuses of power. As I said already, the words of Jefferson: When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Donald Trump seems to want to make protesters afraid of him, dissenters afraid of him, those who disagree with him afraid of him. He seems to want to have law firms come to heel because of threats to their financial well-being. He wants to make universities come to heel because of their fears of losing Federal grants. These are signs not of a healthy democracy but one under assault. Another quote: Emergencies have always been the pretext upon which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. A President that tries to precipitate a crisis or make people believe that there is a crisis in Los Angeles--one that cannot be handled by the local police, the city police, the county police--and in the farce of some serious emergency, sends in Federal troops. This is a President that is abusing our traditions and, as we saw today, a President whose administration, in my lifetime, took the first violent action against a Member of this body who was standing up to ask questions. I quote George Washington: [I]f Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter. That is how important our first President thought of as the ability for the people of this Country to stand up and speak truth to power. The right to free speech, the right to petition your government, the right to assemble--these are vaunted, sacred principles in this country. And, today, if those principles are stripped from a U.S. Senator in their own State, in a Federal building; if a U.S. Senator cannot exercise their right of speech, their right to question their government, the right to provide checks and balances--even after they identified themselves, they are forcibly removed from a room in that Federal building, forced to kneel, and then thrown upon their face, then having their arms wrenched behind their back and handcuffed. As Alex Padilla said: If they are doing that to me, just imagine what they are doing to laborers and farmworkers and others who do not have the stature of this office. What will this body do? This is the test before us right now. What will this body do? Where are the voices of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle? True tests of leadership are not easy. To stand in a storm, to stand for principle against politics, to stand for patriotism against partisanship, to stand up for what is right--that is what this moment calls. For us to normalize what we saw today, normalize a U.S. Senator being violently grabbed and handcuffed with no charges filed, if we say nothing now, our silence is complicity in that behavior by the executive. It is an erosion of our democracy, of our principles. I heard the authors of this book, ``How Democracies Die,'' speak with fear and worry about our current state of affairs in America. One of the signs they pointed to about a democracy in peril was violence. But it wasn't violence of a political sectarian nature. Yes, that is part of it. But the worst type of violence that shows the erosion of a democracy is when the state itself uses violence unjustly against its citizens. That was the horror of Donald Trump pardoning people who beat police officers in this building. The horror to me was not the Presidential pardon power; the horror to me was that the very people who beat into submission police officers in order to unjustly install a President, in order to prevent the peaceful transfer of power--that very same President was saying: Hey, it is all right. I am going to call you patriots and absolve you of your convictions by a jury of your peers. Some of you who even pled guilty to your crimes, I am going to say that is all forgiven. The danger in that is a President saying: If you commit violent acts to my benefit--in this case, to unjustly install me in my position-- then that is OK. It is encouraging violence within our society that erodes our democracy as a whole. This is the crisis we are in. This is a moment that is a test of this body. This is a crossroads in this body. A Member of this body in a Federal building, trying to ask questions to a Federal official after identifying themselves, faced violence from his government that tried to silence him as he tried to ask a question. This has precipitated for us a greater question: Are we a vibrant democracy that protects our fundamental rights, that checks power from abuse, that demands that no one is above the law, whether it be any American citizen and especially those who serve in public office? What will our democracy be tomorrow? Will we normalize this kind of violence, this kind of attack on a Member of this body by the administration for the sin that they themselves have said is just disrespectful behavior--asking a question at a press conference? This is a day of great challenge and great trial. This is a test of this body. How will we respond in this moment? Will this body simply allow the administration to continue in this manner this pattern and practice that they are establishing where the rights of American citizens to speak truth, to protest, to speak up, to call out, to question, to be in dissent--are those sacrosanct principles or will we allow them to be violated even when it is a Member of our own body? At the end of the Declaration of Independence, these brave men who saw the abuses of power of a King; those revolutionaries who gave birth to this great democracy; those imperfect geniuses who grappled with the great ideals of their time, that set up a nation not ruled by Kings and Queens, not a theocracy where there is some divine right of someone to rule over us, decided to vest the power in this Nation with the people and created a government organized around the principle of the suspicion of concentrations of power and created three branches of government to provide checks and balances and then gave to the people of the United States of America certain fundamental rights--the First Amendment to our Constitution, enshrining those rights--those rights that have allowed generation after generation to use them to make our Nation more perfect, to speak up to the wrongs and the ills of government, to challenge leaders who had gotten corrupt and had gone wrong; generation after generation standing on the principles of our Constitution. And here we are in 2025 where those ideals are being tested, where that Constitution is being strained, where a Member of this body speaking up and asking questions at a time of trial in his community is not met with answers to his questions but is met with violence. That is wrong. But when wrongs continue--or, as our Founders called them, usurpations of our inalienable rights--when those go unchecked, when such actions go unanswered, it paves a road toward tyranny, and in our day and age, they are signs of our weakening commitment to democracy. Our Founders knew something so well, and as they pledged themselves to break with a King, to break with a central powerful person, to break through a world where you must go before the dear leader and bow in submission, where the vicissitudes and the whims of an individual leader wreak havoc with the community--those people who broke with that course of human events and established this Nation knew one thing for sure: that if we were to make this Nation work, we had to make an unusual commitment to each other. They ended that Declaration of Independence with that commitment--we must mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. There is no honor in what happened to one of our Members today when he was taken violently and driven to his knees. There is no honor in what happened today when an American standing up to ask questions to a person in authority was met with violence. There is no honor in what happened today when a Member of our body was thrown into handcuffs. There is no honor in that. But where we can show honor, where we can honor our traditions, is not being silent in the face of something going wrong. The truth of the matter is, our Nation has seen wrongs before, but the way we dealt with them was by having others stand up and call them out to help us to correct course. When those marchers were met with violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, that was not the end of the story. The end of the story happened days later when they made it over that bridge; when they got to their destination; when they presented their grievances to their government; when this body itself, hearing from the people, passed new laws and legislation to protect the people and their rights--in this case, their voting rights. Bad things happen. Mistakes are made. Power seeks more power. Our country is not bereft of demagoguery or hate or powerful people who want to suppress dissent, people who equate opposition with being un- American. We have seen that all. But so far, we have seen people in those times having the courage to stand up and stand against it, who have called it out to demand redress, to fight for justice. This is a moment that demands that tradition. This is a moment that demands not just people on one side of the political aisle, not just one party, it demands us coming together and pledging a deeper, more sacred honor--that we will defend this democracy, that we will uphold the Constitution and stand together united against anyone--especially using violence--who tries to suppress the fundamental rights of another American, especially a senior U.S. Senator from the great State of California. I yield the floor. (Mr. CURTIS assumed the Chair.)

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I just want to first thank my colleague from California for stating so plainly about the character of the individual we are talking about. We have justifiable disagreements in this body. We have strong-held beliefs in this body. We have real debates and arguments in this body. But it has been generations and generations and generations since there has been violence in this body. I stand with my back toward the Chamber where there was the caning of Sumner during the slavery debates, and a House Member came over and beat a U.S. Senator within an inch of his life. You see, there is this decorum here where we have this mutual respect, and we understand violence is absolutely unacceptable. And if there is anybody that shows that kind of decency and that kind of peace, my colleague from California put it so plainly--Alex Padilla, like many of my colleagues, even across the aisle--he is one of the people of true character here. I think that is why today has hurt so many of us personally is because of what this breach of this body actually means to all of us. We know of dangers of violence in a democracy and the insidiousness that violence presents or that fear of violent reprisal presents. Jefferson said it so eloquently: When people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears [its] people, there is liberty. What is so disturbing when you see a Member of this body thrown to the floor, a knee on his shoulder, arms being wrenched behind him after he has identified himself as a U.S. Senator is literally what Alex Padilla said. I am going to pull from what I know he has already said publicly, but this is what he also has written privately. Alex Padilla says: If [this is] what they do to a . . . Senator with a question, imagine what they [are doing] to farm workers, day laborers, cooks, and [the] other [of the] nonviolent immigrants they are targeting. You see, Alex Padilla knows something about this country, which is that we are all, as Martin Luther King so eloquently wrote in those letters from the Birmingham Jail, when he was jailed for his nonviolent civil disobedience--what Alex Padilla knows is what King said so eloquently; that we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied to a common garment of destiny that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, that when you have a President that so exceeds his constitutional authority, that he begins to do things to infringe upon the fundamental rights and securities of other Americans, it is a threat to all Americans. This is why right across the way--I can almost see it looking through these windows--why the Supreme Court, with nominees from both parties, with three Donald Trump appointees on it, ruled 9 to 0 in support of the due process rights of someone in our country that was not even a citizen of this Nation--because in the Constitution, using the words ``any Person,'' knowing that if you erode the due process rights of anybody in this Nation, it is a threat to the due process rights of everyone in this Nation. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Understand what we saw today: A U.S. Senator forcibly removed from a room in a Federal building--a Federal official forcibly removed from a Federal building after he identified himself as a U.S. Senator. But after he was out of that building, they did not stop there. They drove our colleague to his knees and then forcibly shoved him upon his face, wrenched his arms behind him, and Alex Padilla writes: If they do that me, what are they doing to farmworkers and cooks and domestics? What are they doing to other people? What does that mean if they are using the violent force of government unjustly against him? This is a breach. This body has not seen such a breach in my lifetime or longer where the executive has treated an honorable Member of this body in this way. That should be enough, but our colleague correctly points out that if we are in an environment where that is happening to a U.S. Senator, what does it say--if the Government of the United States is unjustly taking violent action against a U.S. Senator, dear God, what does it mean for other Americans? That is what Alex Padilla asked today. Now, I will tell you this: This is not an isolated incident. That is the challenge. We have already seen the actions taken against a mayor, a local government official who himself was forcibly handcuffed, dragged into a police vehicle, held for hours as a prisoner, and then, when he finally got before a judge, that judge reprimanded this administration for an abuse of their power. Alex Padilla sees this with the violation of the due process rights of individuals going on in this country. Alex Padilla sees this with a mayor in America unjustly incarcerated, handcuffed, held. This is the challenge we have in this moment. I love this quote by my favorite author, James Baldwin, who wrote this letter the night authorities came and arrested Angela Davis. He said: If they come for you in the morning, then they will come for me at night. This administration, in its abuse of power, in the audacity of handcuffing, of violently assaulting, of forcibly pushing to his knees and onto his stomach a U.S. Senator--what does that say? We all gather right there as Senators to raise our hand and swear our oath to uphold the Constitution, but we are not the only ones. Members of the Supreme Court do that. They are not the only ones with Members of this body; administrative officials do that as well. We are bound by the laws of this land. The terrifying thing for every American should be a government that is not restrained by the law, a government that misuses its power--and not just its power; its power to use violence unjustly against its citizenry. That is when we slip away from our democratic ideals, from our constitutional principles, and slide towards an authoritarian government that wants to make its people heel before them, kneel before them. That is what I physically saw with my own eyes--a Member of this body being driven to his knees for asking a question, for standing up to speak truth to power. What was the response? The response was violence--being dragged out of that room, being forced to his knees, being thrown prostrate, and being handcuffed. Here is the thing that frustrates me the most: Is this another day where the lead stories will be about the actions of this administration? We have seen a week where it is violating a tradition that has gone back before I was born where the Federal Government activating Federal troops in a community goes through--in fact, I know the statute: title 10, section 12406--that they should go through the Governors, work in coordination with them. But, no, this was a provocative incident, moving military troops at the expense of taxpayers into a community where even the leader of the police department says this is wrong. All of this, from the beginning of our week to this unprecedented action of violently removing a U.S. Senator from a Federal building, from a room, thrown upon the ground, driven to his knees, and handcuffed--this is all purposefully being done in our country by a President that has a different view of his authorities as President; that if a judge criticizes him, he believes it is wrong. He drew reprimand from the Supreme Court for his calling out Justices whose opinions he disagrees with. This is a President that doesn't believe in the checks and balances of our Constitution. But the frustrating thing about all of this is that it is distracting us--this dangerous, violent distraction--from the bill we should be discussing on this floor about the ripping away of healthcare from millions of Americans, the cutting of food stamps for millions of children, the cutting of services for disabled Americans, the cutting of support for our senior citizens. This monumental moment, the biggest transfer of wealth from working people in America to millionaires and billionaires; this moment that should be dominating our attention and our focus; this imminent bill that is being debated and discussed here in the Senate right now that has such incredible consequences, putting $2.4 trillion more of debt in our country and raising the energy costs on the average American by hundreds of dollars; this bill that would raise the premiums of people in our Nation by hundreds of dollars; this bill that merits debate and discussion because it is so violative of our common values; this bill that takes food away from the hungry, healthcare away from the sick, and takes working people and makes their challenges harder, all to give more tax cuts to billionaires and drives up our deficit by the trillions--that should be the central conversation in our country. But this President, almost as if he knows the unpopularity of his bill, the betrayal of his bill, is misusing, abusing his powers and trying to change the conversation in the most despicable of ways; abusing his authority, treading on our traditions, violating our Constitution, and now perhaps one of the greatest violent assaults on a Member of this body by the executive. This is not metaphorical; this is literal. A Member of this body, after identifying himself, was physically and forcibly dragged out of a room in a Federal building, and then, when the doors were closed--you can see it on the camera--the Federal Government, the executive branch, taking a Member of this body, a Member of the U.S. Senate, a coequal branch of our government, and driving that man to his knees, slamming him upon his face, and wrenching his arms behind his back. That is what we are talking about in this body right now. This is a dangerous time in America. When the President from the Oval Office says almost daringly ``Do not protest my parade,'' warns people about protests--and this is the thing the President of the United States doesn't understand about this country: When a President is violating norms and traditions and violating our Constitution, dissent is not unpatriotic; protest is not un-American; silence is unpatriotic. This is a time where protest is justified. Peaceful protest is necessary and vital. This is a time where speaking up and exercising your constitutional principles--like freedom of speech, like freedom of assembly, like the right to petition your government--is demanded by our democracy. When you have a President that so flagrantly violates the checks and balances--so much so that the authorities today kept a Senator from stepping forward and asking questions to an executive official and is met by violence--this is exactly the time that our Founders saw that we must stand up and speak up and protest peacefully and let our voices be heard because silence in a time like this is complicity. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have to see this. It doesn't take that much mental acuity to understand that if this was the Biden administration or the Obama administration and an official used their security detail to put another person in this body--to put a Senator from the other side of the aisle on their knees and in handcuffs, we would see outrage. This is not about left or right; this is about right or wrong. And today, we saw a deep, grave wrong heaped upon not just this body but, as Alex Padilla wrote so eloquently, upon the ideals. Because if you could do this to a U.S. Senator, then you can do it to another American. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I want to thank the Chair. Clearly, the voices of my colleagues and I are calling this what it is, which is a crossroads for this body. One of our Members--it matters not what their party--who was in their State was forcibly removed when he was asking for accountability from the executive branch. He was taken out of that room forcibly by multiple men, who then--even when he identified himself, even when he was pulled out of that room, he was then forced to the ground, pushed upon his face, his hands wrenched behind his back, and he was put in restraints. This is a crossroads for this body. This is not a partisan issue; it is one about who we are as a body. Will we let the abuses of the executive branch physically take a Member of this body and drive them to the ground and put them in restraints? And why? Why? Well, we are starting to get answers already. Here is Tricia McLaughlin, who is the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. This is her statement. Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem. Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers' repeated commands. @SecretService thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately. The statement concludes that: Secretary Noem met with Senator Padilla after and held a 15 minute meeting. We know this is not true because we hear with our own ears on the tape Senator Padilla identifying himself; further ``disrespectful political theatre'' is not a justification to remove a U.S. Senator in their own State at a public press conference and violently push them out of the room, drive them to the ground, put them on their stomach, and handcuff them. Disrespectful behavior? This is our democracy. You have a right to speak up. You have a right to free speech. You have a right to stand and do the job that you swore an oath in this Chamber to do, to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. And one of your jobs is to provide a check and a balance to the administration. One of your jobs is to give accountability to the administration. I know the other 99 Members of this body, and if disrespectful behavior is a justification for violent reprisal from the administration, how many Members of this body--how many Members of this body--would be subjected to that? This is a farce of a justification and, therefore, we are at a crossroads. Will my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--will my Republican colleagues--justify the treatment of one of the Members of this body, justify the violence against one of the Members of this body, justify a Member of this body being thrown upon the ground and put in handcuffs--for what? For disrespectful behavior. If you think it stops with one, you are inviting it for the all because it does not. You are inviting it for every Member of this body. If the Obama administration or the Biden administration said that a Senator on the other side of the aisle was being disrespectful and threw that Senator violently onto the ground and put him into handcuffs, this body would be full of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle condemning what the Biden Justice Department did or the Obama Justice Department. This should not be about partisanship; this should be about patriotism. This should not be about tribalism; it should be standing up and being a leader in this moment. This is wrong. This violence is wrong. But let me be more personal. I tried to understand why this particularly upset me, and I think my colleague from Delaware spoke to that because of Alex Padilla's reputation in this body of being a kind and gentle person. We all know him, the goodness and the decency that he has. He is not one of the louder Senators. He is not one of the performative Senators. He has a reputation, as my colleague from Delaware said, on both sides of the aisle for being a gentle man. But I think what was really hard for me to see was that a Member of this body was driven to his knees and made to kneel before authorities. That is what got me. I think when I saw him driven to his knees forcibly, something there got me. You see, we know Alex Padilla's story. It is an unusual story for this body. His family came here as Mexican immigrants. His father was a short-order cook. His mother cleaned homes. They did those jobs that don't always come with esteem or respect. They did those jobs where, when people see them, they sometimes look down on them. They did those jobs that are often marginalized despite their dignity. They raised their son to serve. He went to MIT. They raised their son to work hard, to show grit, to rise. They got to watch their son become a city councilperson in L.A. They got to watch their son ascend to be the secretary of state for California. They got to watch their son come to this body. And this son of Mexican immigrants who cleaned homes and served food, this man with equal dignity in this body, today, was driven violently to his knees as if made to kneel before the authority of the executive because he was so-called disrespectful. That should offend the consciousness, not just of the other 99 Members of this body, it should offend the conscience of this country because if you can make Alex Padilla forcibly kneel before this executive, when does it stop? He is a U.S. Senator. And if you can force him to kneel to his knees violently, when does it stop? What does it say to other Americans who want to speak up? What does it say to other Americans that want to exercise their constitutional duty? What does it say to other Americans this weekend when they want to peacefully protest? What does it say to other Americans from humble backgrounds who know poverty, that if a U.S. Senator who stands up to do his job can be made to heel, driven to his knees, violently handcuffed, what does it say? What message does it send? Everybody in this body should see that this is a crossroads. They treated a Member of the U.S. Senate violently after he identified himself; dragged him out of the room, threw him upon the ground, and put him in handcuffs. Every Member of this body should object to that. Why? Because the statement was that he was disrespectful. That is unacceptable. That is offensive. That is un-American. So why is there silence right now? Why aren't my colleagues saying--I don't care if it is a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent, when you drive a man to his knees in the United States of America, that is wrong, that is wrong, that is wrong. This is a test. This is a crossroads. This is a day in which the character of this body will be defined. Alex Padilla, a man of infinite decency, generosity of spirit, who, whether you disagree with him or not, is so well-liked in this body, who today, in a time of understandable outrage in Los Angeles, went to be with his constituents to get answers. And when he walked into a room and saw a Cabinet Secretary and raised his voice to ask questions, he was met with violence. They heaped upon him indignities. They drove him to his knees and then to his face and they put him in cuffs. Well, they didn't just assault the physicality of Alex Padilla, they did not succeed in assaulting his dignity. I know he rose off that ground with the same dignity he had before they threw him upon it. What they assaulted today is the dignity of this body. What is in question now is a truth of who we are and what we stand for. This is an abuse of power. This is a violent act unjustifiably taken on a Member of this body. The question is, Who will we be as a Senate? The question is, How will we respond? Will we defend this institution or will we yield to the tactics of authoritarian, violent leaders? I see my colleague here from Maryland. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. I would yield for a question while retaining the right to the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I never thought I would imagine having to stand here and discuss what I saw today: a U.S. Senator, in his own community, in the city in which he grew up, elected under the authority of the people, stepping forward to get answers to legitimate questions, and we see him being thrown to the ground after being removed from a room forcibly and put into handcuffs by multiple people. This, to me, is such an abuse of authority. It is a violent act. There can be no justification of seeing a Senator forced to their knees, laid flat on the ground, their hands twisted behind their back, and being put into restraints. If you see the video, at that point, he is not fighting; he is not pushing. But this is a pattern and a practice. This is not an isolated incident. I remind people that in my own community, in the city of Newark, we had a Congresswoman and a mayor at a facility. The mayor, invited into the gate; the Congress people, invited into a conference room; and then the mayor, asked to leave, who did leave; and then numerous agents run out to arrest that mayor. Now, the judge in this case said it was outrageous and reprimanded the Trump administration for the arrest in and of itself. We see, time and time again, this administration trying to precipitate a response by the misuse and the abuse of force. This is more akin to authoritarian governments. When you see a democratic nation having their executive begin to arrest mayors, begin to arrest judges, begin to arrest a U.S. Senator who is simply asking for answers to their questions, to remove them from a room forcibly, to throw them to the ground, to put them in restraints, this is something that we should not tolerate. And by we--this is not Democrats and Republicans. This is we in this body. We have a constitutional obligation to provide oversight to the executive; a constitutional obligation to ask questions, to make inquiries; a constitutional obligation to check and balance the authority of the executive. So here we saw, before our eyes, a Senator in their district, in their State, asking questions, and we see him being shoved out of a room--but it did not stop there--shoved to the ground, shoved onto his belly, and have his arms pulled behind his back. This should outrage every U.S. Senator.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Out of the kindness and generosity of my colleague there, instead of asking for a rollcall vote, I ask for a voice vote. Vote on Amendment No. 1441

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, farmers already deal with so much uncertainty from prices. They should not have to deal with the uncertainty that our government won't follow through on its contracts. Farmers who apply for grant programs are awarded funding on their merits. They make legally binding agreements. As a result, they spend tens of thousands of dollars on projects in accordance with those agreements. But with little notice, President Trump stopped paying those contracts. No one is telling the farmers or even Congress here when or if this money will be released, as legally required. It is really unacceptable. Farmers operate on tight margins and cannot be left waiting for weeks and months without the funding they rightfully plan for and need to keep operating. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this amendment to prohibit Trump's USDA from continuing to illegally withhold funding from our farmers.

Mr. BOOKER. OK. I just ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I would like to call up my amendment No. 1441 and ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 25 hours.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Yes. Yes. Yes. You and I both know, in a bipartisan way, we created some of these programs principally to keep America safe. Many of us remember that dramatic hearing when Trump's Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, sat before the American people, and they were discussing the budgets for USAID and the State Department. James Mattis knew the power of those programs to keep us safe. You mentioned infectious diseases. We live in a world where infectious disease anywhere is a threat to public health everywhere. So pulling our scientists out of the fight against Ebola and pulling our scientists out of the drug-resistant tuberculosis fight makes no sense. Then, in terms of our safety, he just simply said: If you cut these programs, buy me more bullets because our fights are to spread democracy. There are nations in Africa, for example, where the Chinese are trying to influence a different way of life. That is why so many African countries now won't criticize China for things that the rest of the world says are bad. It is because they owe them so much debt that they are so engaged, and they are so overplaying the fact. Chris Coons said something. I think it was Chris Coons who said something painful earlier about Myanmar--this horrific thing. America is the most generous country on the planet. When there is a crisis, we lead the rest. I have sat in meetings in a bipartisan way with Ambassadors from other countries, where we had the moral authority to tell them: You are not doing enough. In the Myanmar crisis right now, as Chris Coons said, Who is standing there? Not Americans. We don't have the capacity anymore to help with a crisis like that, but the Chinese Government is there. Again, it is what defines us. I keep saying this is not a left-right moment; this is a moral moment, and we tell our truth with what we do with our resources. Here is the thing: When you poll people and ask them how much money we spend on USAID, they say: Oh, it must be 10 percent of the American budget or it must be 5 percent of the American budget. It is around 1 percent or less. A penny of what tax dollars you send down to Washington goes to help us to make sure that around the globe we are countering the hard power of some countries with the power of our light and our soft power. We have been the envy of the world, where people see and know how special America is because we live with the value of every major religion. We are going to love our neighbors. We are going to be there for you in your times of need. We all know, with a terrorist group far away and through the most horrific attack, that in a lot of these countries terrorist groups are trying to counter the democratic governments there. Look at the Sahil region. Look what is happening. When I was in Niger, I was shocked to hear what they were talking about--of instabilities in the north, threats of terrorism in the north. I am going to go for 7 more minutes and stop, but I want to use these last 7 minutes to return one more time to the people of my State and, actually, other States who demand that we do things differently and who ask for help. Before I do, I just want to thank Mike Lee today. He is my partner in antitrust--a specialty of my friend Amy Klobuchar. I don't know if you got my text--you got it?--where I said to you: Uh, I am kind of going to the floor to hold it for as long as I can, and I may not make our first subcommittee together on antitrust where we have a lot of common ground. So I am sorry I missed it today, but I know my friend will fill me in. So thank you. I want to close back where we started about us and about why I am here. I believe that there is an urgent crisis in our country that we are not talking about. It is not a left-right crisis; it is a right-wrong crisis. It is a moral moment again in America that is going to define our character about who we are and what we stand for. There is a threat to the bedrock commitments we have made to each other as a country. People are threatening that bedrock commitment of Social Security. They are calling it a Ponzi scheme. They are making up absolute lies about it. I read American after American who said that that is their lifeline. They told stories that they don't get their Social Security payments or they get caught up because nobody is answering their calls. Of the rural Social Security office, I read States red and blue where they are closing Social Security offices. If I now have to drive 100 miles or 150 miles at 93 years old, it doesn't make sense. One of my colleagues stood up here and said it is already cutting benefits if you can't access the folks. I stood here because it is a threat to these bedrock commitments--the bedrock commitment we have made in healthcare in this country. We won the defense of the Affordable Care Act, but my colleagues know, when you start talking about Medicaid, that is not 20-plus million Americans. It is 70, 80, 90 million Americans. It is our elders in nursing homes. It is our children with disabilities. It is our moms giving birth who are still giving birth in the country with the highest maternal mortality rates in the industrial world. It is a moral moment. Who do we stand for? Senator Schumer shocked me when they said they were going to use some kind of budget gimmick to push this through. You shocked me, Chuck. I thought this was going to come down to the Parliamentarian, but it doesn't sound like it now. It is just going to get dumped with the math that I read. The Manhattan Institute criticized it on the right. AI criticized it on the right. So what are you doing? What are you doing, America? You are going to rack up trillions and trillions of dollars in debt that our children and our children's children are going to have to pay for in passing the bucks that will grow. Are you doing that to help people get more access to healthcare and more access to retirement security and more access to the things we believe in? I think of ideas like universal childcare and paid family leave. No. We are doing that in order to renew the tax cuts that I read of conservative budget folks, moderate budget folks--all across the spectrum--who said it will blow up our deficit, and the benefits of those tax cuts--not all. Let's not use hyperbole. But most will go-- most will go to the richest people in our country, who I promise you--I celebrate people who brought their ingenuity and their expertise and their grit and their tireless work who have built wealth in this country. It should not be us versus them, but I am telling you that those folks do not need another tax cut. The corporations that came here, and you all remember, that said: We would like a 25-percent rate. The people I read said that when we kicked it to 21--not even what they were asking for, which was for 25-- it exploded. It is one of the main reasons it exploded our debt. We read from conservative groups who just said that all of these promises that we would grow our way out of our deficit didn't materialize. All of the promises that were made, Trump, for those who don't remember and weren't here when I read it, was going around, telling folks: Oh, my tariffs--this is 2017. The money that I get will be what we will use to pay down the debt. The math that they did would account for about 1/750th of the debt at that time, but he used that money to try and compensate the farmers who he was hurting with his tariffs. This is a moral moment and people are getting hurt and people are afraid because of the threats to Medicaid cuts. There are people writing in who said $880 billion would devastate me, but even small cuts to services--my whole family's fragile architecture of our finances--if you just pull out the transportation money that my disabled child uses, that will crumble my financial world. So, when you talk about the bigger cuts, we know the math. Many States that expanded Medicaid have a trigger, that if it goes below 90 percent, all the Medicaid Expansion goes off in that State, and millions of Americans will be hurt. That is not right, guys. That is not right. So these are the choices before us--our veterans and the VA. I am mad at you now as you made me get very emotional with your story. We read John McCain's story. We read the stories of the poems of the unknown soldier looking over us and saying: What are you doing to the Gold Star families? What are you doing to the veterans? Are you living up to your promises that you made? Well, right now, there are cuts of tens of thousands. There are 80,000 veterans who work for the VA, but there are even more because about 20 percent or so who are Federal workers are also veterans. We read stories from veterans in America who are shaken by what is happening, who are losing their jobs. Yet all they want to do is serve. They are not what they are being called. They are not leeches. They are not criminals. They shouldn't be degraded for wanting to serve their Nation. This is what we are talking about: Our veterans, our seniors, our healthcare, our financial security going forward. I asked the question to all those people who voted for Donald Trump who believed in him that he would lower your grocery prices. I ask you: Look at your financial self. Are you better off than you were 72 days ago financially? The answer, for most people who believe in him, is no, because he didn't set out to do anything to lower prices. He set out to rename the Gulf of Mexico, to threaten Canada, to say I am going to take over Greenland. He has done a lot of things--140 Executive orders. Many of them actually drive up your costs, make it more expensive to enroll in the ACA, reduce a lot of the tax credits there. He has increased your costs. He has taxed your bedrock services. The stock market tumbles. Your 401(k) accounts are less. Inflation is up. Consumer confidence is down. These are the voices we brought into this Chamber, the voices of all of our constituents--red States, blue States--the voices of Democrats, Republicans, Republican Governors, Democratic Governors. We brought all of the people who are saying no, this is a moral moment, not left or right, right or wrong. So I have tried over the last 25 hours and 1 minute to center the conversation back on what will we do in good consciences. People who are saying, I served this country, I risked my life, shouldn't I be able to keep my job? People are saying this country once made itself the envy of the world because we invested in high-quality education for every child. I don't like what is going on, the end of the Department of Education. People are saying I worked harder than I ever have, but the prices on everything in my life are getting higher. People who are saying that the America I learned about in school, the one where people's rights are protected, the people are saying why are we yet again going through another healthcare battle, threatening millions of people. People are saying that I am worried about the financial security and the future of my country. The voices of folks. So I end by saying simply this: Where I started was John Lewis. I don't know how to solve this. I don't know how to stop us from going down this road. Chuck Schumer has now told me that they are greasing the skids to do these things. I am sorry, but I know who does have the power--the people of the United States of America. The power of the people is greater than the people in power. It is time to heed the words of the man I began this whole thing with, John Lewis. I begged folks to take the example of his early days, where he made himself determined to show his love for his country at a time when the country didn't love him, to love this country so much, to be such a patriot that he endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on Freedom Rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this. He would not just ago along with business as usual. He wouldn't know how to solve it. But there is one thing that he would do that I hope we all can do, that I think I did a little bit of tonight. He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the sole of our Nation. I want you to redeem the dream. Let's be bold in America, not demean and degrade Americans, not divide us against each other. Let's be bolder in America, for the vision that inspires with hope, that starts with the people of the United States of America. That is how this country started, we the people. Let's get back to the ideals that others are threatening. Let's get back to our Founding document that those imperfect geniuses had some very special words at the end of the Declaration of Independence. It was one of the greatest in all of humanity, the Declaration of Interdependence, when our Founders said we must mutually pledge, pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. We need that now from all Americans. This is a moral moment. It is not left or right, it is right or wrong. Let's get in good trouble. (Ms. LUMMIS assumed the Chair.) My friend, Madam President, I yield the floor. (Applause, Senators rising.) Madam President, thank you to the pages. Thank you to the Parliamentarian staffs. Thank you to the clerks. Thank you to the doorkeepers. There were so many people who make this place special. I kept you up all night. I kept you up 24 hours. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, everybody. (Applause.)

Mr. BOOKER. God bless you. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. He was forced to say that. Look at you defying. The Senate and the House should be checks and balances on the President of the United States. The Senate and the House should not allow business as usual in this moment. When the President is insisting that no one has the power to check and balance him, when a judge does it, when a judge decides on the soundness of his legal observations to have a ruling and then the President of the United States doesn't appeal the ruling, like most people kind of do, but starts to drag and insult and threaten that judge with impeachment--and some people, astonishing to me, in our government, said: Oh, that is right. We should impeach this guy. That is not a question of left or right. That is a question of right or wrong. We are normalizing this behavior. We are letting him do things that Republicans and Democrats should say together are wrong. So I want to say--I am going to stop soon.

Mr. BOOKER. So this bothers me for two reasons, and the first you have already mentioned, is this is the point of the bipartisan work that we do. I talked about Chris Murphy and the bipartisan gun bill that lots of people here worked on with Senator Cornyn and others and how upset my State is that some of that community violence intervention money that I worked so hard to get in that bill is being clawed back by a President. There are people in this room, I know so many of you, and I know on the other side that have done such great work to work with our colleagues, to find common ground, and get really important programs passed that bring resources to families, and it is being clawed back by our President--not with consultation, not with a hearing, not with a discussion of even why you would target Alzheimer's research. That is a violation of the separation of powers, and I wish my Republican colleagues would hold more hearings about that. These are programs they like. I saw them with USAID. I worked with Marco Rubio on some of those programs and those investments that have now been cut and clawed back. So it is a separation of powers issues. It is an offense to the common goals we share in this community of leaders. But the second reason it bothers me is an article I read hours ago by Fareed Zakaria. He talked about what is happening to a nation that cuts so dramatically what is one of the best taxpayer investment dollars in biomedical sciences. If you are an investor and I told you there is an investment that for every dollar you invest, you would get $5 back for your economy, folks would be invested in that vehicle. Well, that is NIH funding. Every dollar you invest--who would cut a profit center? It is not just a profit center though. The outcomes and discoveries could change the lives of people who are suffering in your Nation and around the world. But he is attacking them. I read about all these universities from around the country. That shows you how magnanimous I am trying to be. I even read stories from USC--I am sorry, a rival. And all of these universities are cutting their post-docs, cutting their Ph.D.s, because they don't know. As Donald Trump threatens the direct costs, they are stopping. And Fareed Zakaria said: So painfully to all Americans with American pride, as we are doing that, China, when they had the Cultural Revolution, they first went after their universities. Now in modern China, their government is doing the opposite. They are trying to out- America us. They are massively increasing their investment in scientific research because they know if they get ahead of us on quantum computing, all of our subs can be located and God knows what could happen. Any kind of cryptology they could break. They know, if they could get ahead of us on scientific research, the power and advantage that will give them. They are doubling down. What are we doing in America? We are tolerating a President that is cutting the funding that will predict who defines the future and what values will define those futures. Will they be democratic values or values of the country competing with us to beat us? And right now we are giving them a head start. The final reason that question bothers me is because my father died of Parkinson's, and he had Parkinson's-related dementia. I know what that is like. I know the pain families are enduring. I remember the time my dad and my mom were in the movie theater, and my mother just shook my world. It was in Georgia. And so many people here in this room have had the same experience. We are in a movie theater, and my mom leans over to me and said: You need to take your dad to the bathroom. I never imagined--in my years of my dad, as a 2-year-old and 3-year- old, taking me to the bathroom--that one day I would have to take him, in this Atlanta movie theater in the middle of a movie--which I was like, OK, it is time for me to do this ritual that so many families know. I pick my dad up, and he is shuffling with his Parkinson's. I am not seeing any light in his eyes. I am letting him hold me, and he is shuffling to the bathroom. We get to the bathroom, and his hands are shaking. He is standing in front of the urinal, and I realize I have to unbuckle this man's pants. So many families know this. And my ego--I am sorry. I was leaning over saying: Wait a minute. I am in a public bathroom leaning over. I am unbuckling another man's pants. Please God, don't let someone come in. As if God heard my call, someone walked in. I heard the person walking, and I am like, please keep walking. I heard the feet walk past me and stop, and the man turns around and says: ``Oh, my God, Cory Booker.'' And then I look up at my dad, and I see the clarity in his eyes. He is 100 percent there, and he is grinning and loving my mortified embarrassment. Alzheimer's is devastating to so many American families watching the loved one of their lives diminish, and we are cutting funding. Donald Trump is cutting funding democratically, bipartisanly approved? So forget the separation of powers. It is important--so important. If that doesn't get you, then maybe think about the competition with China. If that doesn't get you--if those two don't get you, America, think about the millions of Americans struggling with Alzheimer's, the struggles of those families. This is a moral moment, America. This is going to define the character of our country for years and years to come. Has the Senate called a hearing on your bipartisan funding, Senator? No. Have we done our oversight responsibility? Have we checked, as I read from the Federalist Papers, as our Founders wanted us to do--it is to check the executive, to be the check of the executive. That balances our governmental powers. No, we are not checking the executive. With Signalgate, I have heard from Republicans that serve in Congress--535 with us--I know other colleagues have heard. They are mortified. You talked about that. They are mortified about that. And, again, it is not partisan. The Biden administration made foreign policy mistakes. Obama made foreign policy mistakes. Reagan, when I was growing up, I was hearing about the Iran-Contra scandal. I am not going to be one of those people that says we are pristine, perfect Democrats. We made mistakes. We made failings. We let them down. We have reckoning in our own party that we are dealing with right now. That doesn't say that you should be one of these people that says: Well, Biden did it. No. You should be a leader of character that says there is something wrong here. In fact, you could point to real problems in the national security of our country and the laws that we established. One of those law is very simple. You are supposed to preserve records. How can a Signal chain that disappears not be a violation of the law of this land? Is there a hearing on that--the head of the Intel Committee? Not a hearing at all. Where are the checks and balances spelled out in the Constitution? We are derelicting our duties here in the Senate. We really are. And the consequence of that is the very national security of our country. How many times do you think--do you think this was the first time they created a Signal chat or is this a pattern of practice? You are a really rational man. I keep looking at you, Mark. You are my leader on these issues, or Jack Reed. No. This indicates a real problem, and the Senate--the U.S. Senate-- should get to the bottom of it. (Applause.) This is a moral moment. I keep saying it is a moral moment. Who are we going to be? What is going to define us? It is time not for the typical tribalism--time for leaders to start standing up and say: You know what? We can go a different way. We can imagine a different country. That is why I pointed out the new leader of the Democratic Party of the House side. We are a different generation. There is a rising generation of people. I talked about my friend who wrote this great book, ``Abundance.'' There are a whole bunch of new ideas out there about the future, the possibilities, about the hope, about the greatness of America--not greatness that is braggadocious, not the greatness that says ``I am better than you,'' not the greatness that says ``Only I can fix things.'' It is not the America we want. We want an America that says ``We the people,'' an America that says ``E pluribus unum,'' an America that says that history shows that rugged individualism and self-reliance are important values. But rugged individualism didn't beat the Nazis. It didn't take us to the Moon. We did that together, America. We need bigger visions that can unite us beyond our narrow partisan desires to get a real mandate. You know what a real mandate should be? It should be government efficiency. It really should be. God, I heard from so many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle that said if they formed a commission of former executives in this body--I see you, Maggie Hassan. It was hard, but I had to cut 24 percent of my budget, one out of four employees. It was really hard. It would cause a lot of pain. But we had to reduce my government. There are a lot of people--executives, on both sides of the aisle: Pick me. Pick me. Let's form the most exciting team possible, because Jack Reed knows that the military of the United States of America can do things more efficiently. There is a little bit of waste over there because they haven't passed an audit. Where is Maria Cantwell, of the Commerce Committee? There so many ideas about how to create profit centers in the American Government. You have talked to me about them. You are brilliant on some of these ideas. I look around here, but I can look to the other side of the aisle. The man, the farmer sitting over there, the guy who has been so good to me, Chuck Grassley--I forced that man to hug me when we passed. I forced you to hug me, sir. I have pictures. You can't deny it. I don't know how you will get reelected now. You hugged this Black dude from New Jersey. You are so sweet to me still. We passed a big bipartisan bill because of people like him, like the Presiding Officer. I met with you. You still have big ideas. You still have big ideas that aren't partisan. If President Trump, from his inaugural address to his first speech before the joint session of Congress, had said: Enough. There are big ideas in this country. I want the best. I want people to come together. I am tired of us talking down at each other. It is time for us to come together and imagine ways to create real abundance in America for all Americans. I trust the genius of America, the kindness and the decency. But this President doesn't do that. He violates all of our common senses of decency. Don't say it doesn't happen, folks. Don't say that. I listen to him. I listen to how he talks about people. We have a government now, as I said earlier, that isn't: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. We have a country now where a President says: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for Donald Trump. You are seeing who gets the special treatment. Some law firms are really threatened right now with being bankrupted by Donald Trump targeting them. Others have decided a different path. I am hating them because they said: We are going to go to Trump and offer him what he wants. We are going to give him tens of millions of dollars of free pro bono work. I wish they would bring that free pro bono work to Newark. A lot of people need lawyers--folks in my city. What are the standards here of our government? Do you want a merger? Well, maybe you should put a lot of money in Donald Trump's meme coin. I read the document. There is something called emoluments. And we sit by and act like it is no big deal. He made millions and millions of dollars--from whom, we don't know. We haven't held one hearing of oversight to know who is giving him millions of dollars for that meme coin. Is it the Turks, the Saudis? Is it the Chinese? Is it the Russian oligarchs? Do we know? Should we know? Yes, America. Stop falling into tribal lanes and closing your eyes to things that should not be normalized. Why are we normalizing these things? They are wrong. They are patently, on the face of it, wrong. If you use Signal to discuss a military attack, the time of the attack, the weapons that are going to be used, and you do it on a commercial app and decide to include a reporter, there should be accountability. Am I crazy? (Applause, Senators rising.)

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Senator Murphy, that is correct. You have been one of the most articulate voices for this decision--I shouldn't even call it a decision--this reckless trashing of USAID, this vilification of the proud men and women that stand in Ebola outbreaks, that stand in terrorism, that stand against hardships and ethnic cleansing, that stand against malnutrition. You are so good at pointing out that those are American interests and that not to do that makes this a more dangerous and unsafe world, a world where countries like ours want to lob missiles into Yemen, post- facto of crises. So I hear you, Chris Murphy, and I answer your question with a simple understanding that what you are saying is right. And I am going to tell you that I have got so many others to read, but we are way behind schedule of where we wanted to be at this point. We are way behind at about 16 hours and 24 minutes. And so, to obey my staff, as Senators are told to do, I want to move quickly to just the housing issues. So I want to move quickly to housing and start, really, with the theme of affordable housing. Again, we keep returning to the economy and how the Trump administration is making things worse in every area, especially for people struggling. And so let me be clear that, for decades, under Democrat and Republican Presidents, it has become increasingly difficult for working-class Americans to afford a home. In recent years, this nationwide housing affordability crisis for so many Americans has nearly reached a breaking point. The crisis now impacts nearly all Americans, shared across all demographics. Regardless of partisan identification, race, age, gender, education, or whether you own or rent your home, we in America are in a housing crisis. According to the Center for American Progress, 80 percent of Americans living in rural communities believe housing affordability is getting worse, while 72 percent of residents in urban areas feel the same way. In October 2024, the Center for American Progress found, no matter your ZIP Code, the goal of homeownership in America is drifting further out of reach all across the country. Over the past two decades, housing costs have dramatically outpaced income growth in the United States, increasing the rent burden, heightening barriers for homeownership. The Housing Price Index, a gauge of how selling prices for single-family homes have changed over time, was more than 50 percent higher in July 2024 than it was in July 2019. According to the Brookings Institution, the U.S. housing market was short 4.9 million housing units in 2023 relative to the mid-2000s. Decades of policy at the Federal, State, and local levels have all contributed to this reality. Let's not blame some rank partisanship; it has been decades in the making. There are far too few homes in the United States, and there are far too few homes being built in the United States. The cost of housing keeps rising. Rents continue to skyrocket. Median home prices are on the rise, which makes it harder and harder for families to make ends meet. The vast majority of young Americans are hard-pressed to save for the chance of one day having enough for a downpayment to buy a home. Almost half of all renters in America struggle to pay their rent. Almost half of all renters are struggling to pay the rent, devoting more than one- third of their income to housing costs. Since the pandemic, rents have jumped more than 12 percent year over year. Hidden rental fees and other expenses on already cost-burdened tenants continue to mount as landlords assume more and more power and leverage, leaving tenants and prospective home buyers with nowhere to turn. Last year, NPR methodically walked through the supply shortage that is impacting our country. But before I read this article, I see that my colleague, my friend, the extraordinary leader from Maryland, is here, and I think he has a question for me first.

Mr. BOOKER. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. You are putting it right. Donald Trump made commitments to America. We have quotes of him at rally after rally. He said: ``Grocery,'' that is a really great word, he said. I am going to bring down grocery prices. Well, grocery prices are up dramatically. The American dream, many of us see that as owning a home. Well, you said it: Home prices are already up, but with these tariffs, they can go upward of 10 percent or more. You can be sure that the Canadian lumber coming down here is going to be expensive. You can see Donald Trump making it more difficult to access healthcare, and this massive reconciliation is going to be a direct attack on working-class healthcare, on healthcare of expectant mothers, on healthcare of Americans with disabilities, on healthcare of the majority of seniors in nursing homes. I am about to go to my next chapter. It is all going to be about how Trump is rolling back commonsense protections for clean air and water. Elizabeth Warren said it very powerfully: He is reducing services, which is a service cut to people with Social Security. In so many ways, Americans should see these crises looming--these attacks--but ask yourself one economic question: With the stock market, which just had its worst quarter in years, and people's retirement savings, if they have it in 401(k)'s, is going down--ask yourself this question. I ask Americans, please, ask yourself this financial question: Am I better off than I was 71 days ago? Am I better off or worse off? And this is before he has even gotten going, because we see what is about to happen with this whole sham reconciliation process. They are already trying to change the rules to obscure what they are doing. This is what they are doing. Three things you should take home: Are we going to let them again--like they did with the ACA, with the Affordable Care Act--come after healthcare for 70-plus million Americans by doing their proposed $880 billion cuts? Are we going to allow them to blow a hole so big, in the trillions of dollars? They are going to push it out over 10 years. They are going to create such a deficit in our country that our children's children--they are stealing from our children's children and putting on a deficit that they are going to have to pay for. No. 3, are they going to let them do all of that to renew tax cuts that the Congressional Budget Office, a very independent Agency, says very clearly would give trillions of dollars of tax cuts that go disproportionately to the wealthiest in our Nation. That is the addition. That is what we know. And it doesn't account for the things he is doing to our allies. It doesn't account for how he is turning his back on NATO. It doesn't account for how he is praising Putin and calling Zelenskyy a dictator. It doesn't account for how he is giving advantage to China around the world, from the region in Southeast Asia all the way to Africa. It doesn't account for how he has already made it harder to enroll in the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't account for all the other things he is doing that we wake up and hear every day, not to mention trying to threaten Greenland, trying to threaten Panama, trying to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. All these things he didn't tell us he was going to do, didn't promise. He promised to lower your grocery prices; they are higher. He promised to be a better steward of the economy; it is worse than what he inherited it. Over and over, he is breaking promises and doing outrageous things, like disappearing people off of American streets, violating fundamental principles of this document, invoking the Alien Enemies Act from the 1700s that was last used to put Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Do we see what is happening? How much is enough? We have to stand and do something different not just in this body but in America because-- you know this--how we stopped him in his last term was the American people rose up, spoke up, stood up, rose up in the most extraordinary, nonviolent demonstrations and demands. So thank you.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes, I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I will give a short answer to your question, then, which is the irony--the irony that this President is remaining quiet about folks that are violating international law in many ways. So I think it is absurd, and you are right. It is another betrayal.

Mr. BOOKER. I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I want to thank the Senator for the question. I want to thank her for being my colleague. But more important than even being my friend, she is a spiritual sister of mine and was very kind to me when I was telling her that I was going to do this and gave me so much encouragement and prayer. And I just love you, and I am grateful. You read a litany of things. I had a whole section, a whole binder that my staff told me to skip to go to this one about all the things, going in deep, in-depth to all the things the Trump administration is doing to make housing more unaffordable, more inaccessible, more expensive, more discrimination in housing, which we know is still a problem, more challenges, more pain heaped upon rural areas, and more complications and problems for building affordable housing in all areas. It is so frustrating to me that this is a problem. We cannot lay the crisis of housing at one administration in the United States. We need to have bold visions and ideas to address this. I am so excited about this next generation of Americans that are rising up with bold visions. I want to give a shout-out to Ezra Klein. His book is a must read-- ``Abundance.'' This is a vision of doing great things again, of building housing, of redeeming the American dream. But to have a President that is dead set on, for the next 4 years, doing the kinds of things that you made a litany of and now, tomorrow, is going to bring tariffs that are going to raise the price even more on housing is outrageous. Where are his promises to make this country more affordable and more accessible? You heard the data that I read about how we have so many millions of Americans--close to the majority of renters now spend more than a third of their income on rent, which is the very definition that our government has of housing insecurity. So it should anger people in this country. Even if you own your home, have paid off your mortgage, you should be angry about what they are doing to the American dream and that there are no bold ideas coming from this administration to help. In fact, they are hurting it. They are hurting it. So thank you very much to my colleague. Thank you for giving me strength, as you did, and prayer. I thank you for the question that should anger people, that should inspire people, that should activate people, that should engage people, that should demand from us that we take our country away from those who want to do so much harm. I want to start by reading until someone--I know the prayer. I am going to keep going. I want to talk about environmental protections and how this country is becoming less safe for people with emphysema or with asthma because Donald Trump is rolling back commonsense environmental protections, threatening our children's future, and hurting our Nation's economy. Energy costs in America are continuing to rise, making it harder and harder for working families to pay their bills. At a time when we should be investing in clean energy, this administration is canceling projects that would create more jobs for Americans and lower energy prices. He claims he supports an ``all of the above'' strategy, but that is clearly not what we are seeing, and there is too much silence about it. All Americans, regardless of where you are born, deserve safe drinking water, clean air, and equal opportunity for a healthy and fulfilling life. President Trump promised America the cleanest air and the cleanest water, but on entering office, he immediately instructed the EPA--the Environmental Protection Agency--to cut a long list of commonsense environmental protections. This administration is rolling back efforts to reduce emissions from powerplants. He is letting polluters pollute our air more. That affects the health of Americans. It drives up the aggravating of the rates of asthma and emphysema, weakening rules that keep our rivers and water systems clean as well.