Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. And I will yield for a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. I must say, Senator, I don't think there is an individual we have in the Senate who is not the descendent of immigrants. So shouldn't we all be able to identify with our family stories and bring those to bear to solve this challenge and actually restore a framework? Just let me take one piece of this. The process for being able to have an asylum hearing has a backlog of about 6 years. That is a piece that we can find a rational way to address. The Dreamers--we can find a rational path to bring the Dreamers fully into our society, as you have laid out in the past. We can proceed to, I think, find a deal on border security, what we pay. But there are many pieces that will never get solved unless people are sitting down, like you did with your Gang of 8, bringing people together, and saying: Let's iron this out. So that is my hope and prayer.

Mr. MERKLEY. I was not aware of that, no, and that is insanity.

Mr. MERKLEY. I yield in the nature of a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. Absolutely.

Mr. MERKLEY. I yield for the question.

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes. I think you asked me to recount the story. The story involved the fact that I read a speech by Attorney General Sessions. Attorney General Sessions was delivering this speech at I think it was called Freedom Park in Southern California, on the border. As I read the speech, I said out loud to people around me: It sounds like he is planning to separate children deliberately from their parents in order to have that trauma be a deterrent for people coming. I said: There is no way any American administration--not blue, not red--would ever deliberately harm children as a political policy strategy. A member of my team said: There is one way to find out. Go down to the border. I checked, and I had that weekend free, so I went down to the border. I go into this warehouse, and in this warehouse, there are all these basically what we would call in Oregon cyclone fence cages, wired cages. I stopped in front of one of them, and it had a group of boys, lined up from the smallest to the tallest. The smallest was just knee high to the grasshopper, as we would say, just a little tyke, maybe 4 years old. I see these kids looking out across the warehouse because in other cages inside that warehouse were groups of women or men. My impression was they were looking to see, where did my mother go? where did my father go? where is my sister? I said to the Customs and Border Protection agent: Were these children separated from their parents? He said: Yes. I said: Where do you do that? He said: We bring the family in through that door--the door was maybe 25 feet away--and we say: Children, come with me. Parents go with that person. And, boom, they are separated, and they stayed separated. What happened as that unfolded is the administration--this is under Trump 1--said they were keeping careful records of the children to be able to have a reunion with their parents, but they were not. So we ended up with extraordinary efforts, including tons of volunteer lawyers and researchers, trying to get children back unified with their parents. A few hundred, I believe, were never reconnected to their parents. They could never be found. Whether they returned to a small village in a faraway country, I don't know, but it was profoundly disturbing. I went outside, and the press had a little huddle. They said: What do you see? I said: Children being separated from their parents. Of course, the story immediately blew up. And then I went up the road. I heard that there were hundreds of boys being held in a former Walmart. And my team member is like: Well, we asked, but we didn't get permission to get in. I said: Well, let's go knock on the door. And so we go up. And he is doing a live feed--what is that called--on one of those social media--live Facebook feeds. I go up and I knock, and I say, yes, who I am, and we were in the area, and we heard there were a lot of operations here. Can you give us a tour? Can you have the executive director come out? And they got back to me. And by the way, I was--since I was doing a live feed, I said: Call me on my phone number. My phone number went out to the entire world at that moment. And so I enjoyed having hundreds or thousands of people, seemed like, called for weeks about this. But they didn't come out. What they did is they called the police to have me arrested. And the police declined to arrest me but did escort me and my staff member off campus. They did not want there to be a tour. And I had been told there might be--I think it was--1,000 boys, and there were some almost 1,500 boys in this. And because of the publicity of that live feed, the next week, the administration had to open it up to the press. And the week after that, I went back and took some legislators and saw it. But this vision of deliberately harming children in order to deter immigration, that is a horrific thing. And it did stop. The outcry was massive. It did stop, thank God. But all these other now circumstances are--people are being hurt in all kinds of ways right now.

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes, I will yield for another question.

Mr. MERKLEY. I had heard a reference to some kind of a payment program being tested, but I didn't know the details.

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you very much, to my colleague from Illinois. Thank you for being a champion. And I noticed that we have a Senator from Washington State? No, we do not. We do have a Senator from Oregon who has arrived. Would the Senator from Oregon like to ask a question?

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes. Thank you for the protocol. Thank you for asking me. And, yes, I would yield for a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. I thank my colleague. As long as that discussion is not taking place in the hours that I might be sleeping tonight, absolutely. And I do feel like this is so fundamental to our Nation. That is why everyone who has come down to the floor, everyone here who has asked questions today and made solid insights as they prepared their question, we are collectively ringing the alarm bells. We are ringing the alarm bells because authoritarianism is not down the road or around the corner or next month or next year; it is here right now. And it has been so astounding to hear all of the mentions that have been highlighted by individual Senators about how this tyranny is taking shape. And in every possible way around the world where authoritarians have developed a strategy, they are all being done here. It is like, all of them: Rig the next election. Yes. And then proceed to pressure the newspapers. Yes. And pressure the broadcasters on what they can put out. Yes. And weaponize the Justice Department. They are doing it. And the list goes on and on. And for us in Oregon, certainly, the one that is on everyone's mind is striving to have a pathway to legally send in the military when there is no rebellion, no insurrection, and no invasion. And that one terrifies me. The administration is hell-bent on getting a judicial thumbs-up, a green light, to be able to move troops where they want in this country when none of those things are happening.

Mr. MERKLEY. I am checking to see if any more colleagues would like to ask a question. Would the Senator from Michigan like to ask a question?

Mr. MERKLEY. Before you go any further, can you just say these magical words: Would you yield for a question? And I will say that I will yield for a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. I will yield for a question, yes.

Mr. MERKLEY. I so appreciate the point that my colleague from Michigan has been making. And if we think about the fundamental difference between a democracy and an authoritarian government, one way of describing that difference is that in a democracy, elected representatives of the people, like folks who are gathered here right now, work together, bringing their diverse life experiences, their knowledge of their individual States, and together find a strategy that will address their collective challenges so that each and every part of the country is represented and things are addressed that are important to every part. That design of the programs and how they will operate and how they will fund happen in a democracy, in a Chamber like this. In an authoritarian President--an authoritarian system--it is all happening on the Executive side. The Executive is saying: Here are the programs that are going to be funded; here are my priorities and what I will do. Here are the grants I will cancel and the ones that I will redirect. Here is the way we will run these programs. And that is exactly what the Trump administration is trying to do. They are trying to move the responsibility we have under the Constitution to design programs, decide how much they should be funded, resolve questions about how they will operate, and move that responsibility over to the Executive. And the head of the Office of Management and Budget, he was very upfront about it. He said: I believe in a unitary Executive, where all power rests with the President. And that means the President can cancel programs at will. And I was shocked when I heard him say this. This is before we had the hearing in the Budget Committee, probably about the same time you were holding a hearing on Russell Vought. And I said: You know, that has already been adjudicated by the Supreme Court. There was an effort in 1996 to do a line-item veto and allocate to the President the ability to say ``these programs go forward, these programs fail,'' and the Supreme Court said: Hell no; you can't do that. The Constitution assigns the responsibility to the legislature to decide what gets funded, and the Executive has to implement that plan. And when the question of impoundments came up at an earlier date, where in a different strategy Nixon said: Hey, I think I will just not forward the funding; I will impound it so certain programs won't be funded--again, that had gone to the Supreme Court. And again the Supreme Court said no. But Mr. Vought sat in my office, and he said: Well, I believe we will get this issue through the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will back the unitary Executive, strengthen the Executive powers of this country. I just shook my head. I am like, that can't possibly happen. But what happened just a short time ago? A piece of this went to the Court and in their shadow docket. The question was, Could the administration slow-walk funding to the last 45 days of the fiscal year and then bring over a request for us to undo that funding--it is called a rescission-- and then, because it was a 40-day, 5-day grace period, pause, the fiscal year expires and the funding authorization goes proof, and suddenly the President has killed the program. And the Court, in their preliminary response, said: Yeah, we think you can do that. So Russell Vought certainly seems to have a better grip on where the Supreme Court is. But I just feel like we have to do everything we can, therefore, legislatively to stop that. Our spending bills need to say that if we have a bipartisan spending bill, that decision to undo that program can only be done by a bipartisan bill in the future, which is the way we do rescissions now. We have money that is left over from a program or this program, and we say that money can be brought back in, that it is not needed, but we do it in a bipartisan manner, not in a manner that gives the power of the purse to the President of the United States. This is a collective effort that all of our Republican and Democratic colleagues should be involved in. I mean, collectively, we need to be defending our role in the Constitution. And this is central to the separation between authoritarian power and a democracy. I have been on the Senate floor to ring the alarm bells for a long time--since somewhere around 6:25 yesterday--and I want to thank the people who have been here with me the whole time, people who made this happen. My Team Merkley staff, and I see a few of them--quite a few of them are here. I appreciate the support. I thank the Capitol Police who had to stay through the night and the Democratic and Republican floor staff who had to stay and go forward without being, if you will, the center of attention. They had to make sure everything went right, and they did. The Senate pages who have come and gone through the night--but I think it is cool that you were here. Every now and then, when I was a little lonely, I would look over, and I would see some heads peeking around the corner over on this side and this side. That was great. The page program is extraordinary, and I hope all of you will think about how you find a path in life to build a better world. There is no better mission for a soul on this planet than to find a way to build a better world--a million ways to do it. The Senate Doorkeepers, thank you. I so appreciate you all. Senate Parliamentarians, oh my goodness. I don't know what kind of flowers I can possibly bring, but I will be in your debt for a long time. Thank you. The Presiding Officers. So many of my colleagues from across the aisle had to come. And I know how hard it is to sit in that chair. I did my 100 hours in that chair, plus quite a few. And I know it is awfully hard to be there and not even be able to respond when maybe someone disagrees profoundly. Yet you are here making it possible that I could carry this conversation, ringing the alarm bells about authoritarianism. It couldn't have been done if you all hadn't come and held the floor, so thank you. All of you colleagues who came to give a little dissertation and ask a question and sometimes a longer dissertation, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that so much. We are in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our Republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution. Our Nation has spent 250 years striving toward a vision of equal justice. Of course, we had our Declaration of Independence. It took a few years to get our Constitution that we now have in place-- 1787. But we have been striving toward this vision in which everyone is empowered in this country. I always think about how the foundation of the law is carved into the facade above the Supreme Court pillars, and it says ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' You know, the very first political act I took was when I was a junior in high school and I read an article in the evening paper--back when there was often a business paper in the morning and a labor paper in the evening--in the Oregon Journal. The article said that Vice President Agnew had been convicted of bribery, convicted of taking $100,000, the article said, and he had been given a fine of $10,000. I was like, what? For the rich and powerful, they get to keep 90 percent of their proceeds? So I fired off a letter to the Oregon Journal and said: This is not right in a nation that values equal justice under law. And they printed it. They are long out of business. I would like to get a copy of that. Long out of business. But the vision Trump is putting forward is unequal injustice. It is a huge assault on the foundation for our Nation. What we have is a nation in which the Founders--and many of you spoke so eloquently to this--a nation in which the Founders said: We do not want to have a King. We want to have government that flows up from the people, not down from a monarch. So they put together their best ideas. They wrestled with it at the Constitutional Convention. They went through many versions of what the Senate would look like and even what our terms would look like--at one point, 12 years; at one point, lifetime. Right now, I wish it was a little less than 6 years myself. But the challenge we have is that that vision of a separation of powers, of checks and balances, is being steadily destroyed by President Trump. In the book that I was using as kind of a framework for discussing these issues, it says that most people even today think it is still that republics die with men wielding guns. It is essential that we understand that is not the way most republics die today. Most republics die because someone is elected who starts working systematically to reduce those checks and balances. Then perhaps they are aided by a rubberstamp Congress, and perhaps they are aided by a Supreme Court that vests more power in the Executive's key decisions, and, of course, it takes that aggressive authoritarian personality. We have all three. We are fully in the authoritative moment right now. The President believes that he is the King of this country and that he can control everything, regardless of what the law says or what we send him. We have to collectively--and it should be a bipartisan effort--collectively say: Hell no. We took an oath to the Constitution, to the division of government by and for the people, not government by and for the powerful. And we are going to keep fighting to restore that vision. Today, so many of you highlighted so many pieces of what is going wrong in our country in terms of erosion--a President who wants to tell universities what they can teach and is holding research grants over their heads; a President who wants to tell law firms who they can give pro bono help to and has forced them to--various firms--chuck up a billion dollars to do pro bono work on the places and organizations that Trump wants them to spend it on; a President who is using every tool available to try to get court decisions that will allow him to use both the National Guard and the troops to be able to go where in the country he wants them domestically even if there is no insurrection, no rebellion, and no invasion; a President who is weaponizing the judiciary to go after person after person coming off his enemies list. Whoever it might be that is next--one of us may be next. One of our colleagues has certainly been publicized by Trump as being on Trump's enemies list. And this is just not to be allowed in government by and for the people. There is the crushing of due process. And I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Illinois about due process and all of the challenges regarding immigration and due process. Let's find a way to finally pass an immigration bill after coming so close so many times. Senator Durbin, I know you are retiring, but let's get the immigration fix done before you leave us, with all of your expertise. The group of 8 that you put together before did incredibly fabulous work, and this is way past due, that we have that foundation of law with many pieces of improvements for justice. We saw on day one of this administration Trump down there in the Rotunda with the billionaires standing behind him, and from that moment, it was apparent that is what his government was about--by and for the wealthy and the powerful. If we had any doubts, then it was resolved when he put forward his version of the bill, which he called the Big Beautiful Bill and we often called--many of us--the ``Big Ugly Betrayal.'' Only an authoritarian President who believes that the people answer to him rather than him being accountable to the people would come up with a strategy of decimating the healthcare through the ACA to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Only an authoritarian President would say: Let's demolish Medicaid and, between Medicaid and ACA, have 15 million people lose their healthcare--235,000 projected in my State. Only an authoritarian would say ``Let's cut child nutrition to fund even more tax breaks for billionaires'' and then, of course, on top of all that, put forward a plan that runs up $30 trillion in additional debt over 30 years--probably the most fiscally irresponsible bill ever to pass through this Chamber. That $30 trillion of additional debt will so compromise our efforts to take on the foundations for ordinary families--for healthcare, for housing, for education, for good-paying jobs--the four foundations that give families a chance to stand on their feet and thrive. So we all have taken an oath to the Constitution, so let's all work together in every possible way to ring the alarm bells because it is a fact that if we do not ring the alarm bells, well, the longer you are in an authoritarian state, it becomes more and more entrenched. So we have to fight it in every possible way. I am so proud of the 7 million Americans who took to the street in every one of our States at those 2,700 different locations all across the country to say ``No Kings.'' They were ringing the alarm bells. They were saying that it is absolutely unacceptable to have an authoritarian government. And that is the largest demonstration in U.S. history. For each of those 7 million, they have families, they have friends who knew that they were doing this, who are becoming educated about the challenge that we are facing right now. We have to recognize that the next election is absolutely critical if we are going to save our Republic because the strategy of an authoritarian is to rig the elections, and the more time they have, the more entrenched it becomes. Already, here is Trump trying to do a national voter registration file that can be more easily manipulated for the elections next year. Here is President Trump trying to do massive gerrymandering in a whole bunch of States in order to offset the balance between Democrats and Republicans that are representing the House of Representatives. Here is President Trump saying he will do everything possible to stop the use of vote-by-mail across the country because--we know why--because vote- by-mail has such integrity. It can't be manipulated on election day like precincts can. In precincts, you can move your location. You can put them where there is no parking. You can understaff them. The machines can break down. You can send intimidators. You can proceed to put out fake information about your location. You can put out information that the election was last week when it is really this coming Tuesday. You can't do that in vote by mail. And when we have the majority, we must pass the For the People Freedom to Vote bill and lock down the integrity of our elections, so we will not worry for a generation about the people having a fair voice in our government by and for the people. I am proud to be colleagues with all of you in this effort. Thank you very much. I yield the floor. (Applause.)

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, my colleague from Oregon has laid out the situation very well. An authoritarian President emboldened by a rubberstamp Congress, emboldened by a deferential Supreme Court, is sending military troops against American citizens who are peacefully protesting in city after city. This is un-American. It is a fundamental violation of the purpose of our military, which is to defend us from foreign powers, not to be a tool in a President's hand to attack people who disagree with his point of view. That happens in countries that don't have a President but have a King--that have a dictator. That is not our tradition here. Our whole entire Constitution is about government by and for the people, not by and for a man at the top of the executive branch, using the military against his own citizens. By law, federalizing the National Guard is quite limited. It can only be done, unless it is done in partnership with a Governor, if there is an invasion or if there is a rebellion. At the time these laws were written, it was well-understood exactly what those are--an invasion, just what you picture: a military force on our border about to cross that border and attack the United States of America, or they have already crossed the border. That is an invasion. Or a rebellion--a rebellion: a large group, well organized, well weaponized, that is trying to overturn the Government of the United States of America. At the very start of our Republic, there was a rebellion called the Shays' Rebellion. A whole group in the northeastern part of our country were very upset about the challenges they were facing as farmers. They got organized. They had weapons, and they were shutting down the courts that were doing foreclosures on their farms. And they were seeking access to a Federal armory. Shays' Rebellion--a large group, well organized, weaponized, trying to overturn the government. The last time we saw a rebellion in the United States of America was when President Trump, in his first term, organized a mob to attack this Capitol to prevent the votes from being counted in the electoral college. That would meet the test of a rebellion. But peaceful protesters holding signs of concern about the policies of this President or the actions of one of his Agencies--that is freedom of speech; that is freedom of assembly. That goes to the core of who we are as Americans. Obviously, there is nothing approaching an invasion or a rebellion in the city of Portland. Senator Wyden and I were outside of ICE a couple weekends ago. I saw three women in a group holding a couple of signs. Right now there is a group called Paws for Peace. They are getting together with puppy dogs and dogs. And the ``paws'' is P-A-W-S. Creative, Portland-style protesting to say they are not happy with the administration. I don't think a bunch of folks holding their puppy dogs constitute a well-organized, well-armed group trying to overthrow the government. Then there is another group that is called Pastry and Pajamas, and they are out there in the morning handing out pastries to people. They are in their pajamas, encouraging peaceful protesting. They may disagree with the administration, but what they are exercising is as American as an apple pie or an apple pie pastry--making their voice known. But Trump decided he wanted to create a riot in Portland. Why does he want to create a riot in Portland? Because he wants a violent encounter in order to justify putting the military in our cities--in other words, put the military into the cities to create a riot, then use that as a justification for the military being in the cities. That is an extraordinary risk to our Republic. That is an extraordinary risk to people--a government of, by, and for the people-- and not just in Portland but in L.A., in DC, in Chicago. What the instructions appear to be to his Federal agents is to provoke violence by attacking peaceful protesters. The Oregonian, a major newspaper in our State, did a report in which they said their staff witnessed the Federal agents attacking peaceful protesters. I thought that was a very unusual article. It wasn't the newspaper reporters saying people present at the protest alleged that the Federal agents attacked peaceful protesters. No, it said: Our staff witnessed this. Then there is Oregon Public Broadcasting. Oregon Public Broadcasting was down there with videographers. What they witnessed was this: The Federal agents asked the protesters to move back several blocks, and they did. And there was no conflict between the protesters and the Federal agents. Behind this line of Federal agents were videographers. Why were the videographers right behind the line of Federal agents? Well, a very interesting thing happened. After the protesters moved back--not just one block or two blocks but three blocks--and the Federal agents have a line across the street with the videographers right behind them. Upon command, the Federal agents threw down tear gas. They threw down these bang-snap devices that sound like gunfire going off--flash-bangs, they are called; it sounds like gunfire--and pepper balls. And, of course, you suddenly have a cloud of smoke. You are hearing what sounds like gunfire, and people are retreating from the tear gas. And they were taking videos of that, trying to say they were disrupting a riot; they were dispelling a riot. This is like ``Wag the Dog,'' where a totally artificial war is reported, only in that case, it happened overseas. This is the first time I know of in American history that a President has staged a fake riot to try to convince the courts or one of his news stations that serve him so well that something is there that isn't there; that a riot is there when it is not there. Any true-blooded patriot of the United States of America should be terrified that we have a government faking a riot to try to be able to justify sending troops into our cities. That is what we face right now. This picture to my right was witnessed by the news media. They put this up. You have a woman who is talking to two officers. She had not disobeyed any command they had given her. There was no physical confrontation. A third agent walks up holding pepper spray in his hand and, after a few seconds, fully unleashes it straight into her face and to the man standing next to her. That is the type of assault from these Federal agents occurring on peaceful protesters, recorded by the news media and reported. This is not something from some bystander who happened to put the scene up on TikTok, who didn't witness the entire thing or understand what was happening, but from the major news media. Here is a case in Chicago. A pastor in the traditional motion of praying and blessing is standing outside the building, by himself--no obvious resistance to any kind of command--and he is shot in the head from agents on top of the building. He reports that he was hit twice in the head and, I think, five times on the body. Wow. These folks are unleashing rapid-fire attacks, apparently with pepper balls or, as he described it, some kind of ammo that releases some kind of chemical taking him right down to the street by this attack, for praying--an attack by Federal agents on a pastor praying in front of a building. This is an extraordinarily dangerous moment in which an authoritarian President is proceeding to attack due process, to attack freedom of speech, to attack freedom of the press, to weaponize the Department of Justice, using it against those who disagree with him, and then seeking to get the court's permission to send the military in the streets to attack people who are peacefully protesting who disagree with him. We are at the moment right now where we are awaiting a decision from a panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit. The district judge who adjudicated the effort by Trump to federalize the Oregon National Guard said: There is nothing close to rebellion. There is nothing close to an invasion. So the standard is not met. Then President Trump said: I am going to send the federalized force from California and Texas to Oregon. In fact, 100 agents arrived from California. The same judge said: The same standard applies. Regardless of what happened that federalized those folks in California or Texas, the question is: Is there a rebellion or invasion in Oregon? And there is not. So she put a temporary stay on it. The Ninth Circuit said: We are going to take a look at this. So we are going to freeze things in place. Those Oregon National Guards and those 100 from California are going to stay at a training ground until they make their ruling. Their ruling--they held a hearing today--may be tomorrow. It may be days from now. We don't know. Of course, that will be appealed to the Supreme Court. There are legal scholars who are saying: Here is the challenge. Although there is an objective standard in the law, we have a Supreme Court that has already invented things that are not in the Constitution, interpreted things in a way that was totally different from the way they were considered at the time the law was written. So the Supreme Court may say--in spite of the fact that there is an objective standard for federalizing the National Guard, the Supreme Court may say we are simply deferring to the President. Are you kidding me? This is a fundamental issue in the United States of America, that the military might be used against American citizens. There is a standard in the law. Supreme Court, wake up. Do your job in the framework of the Constitution and in the framework of the laws that were passed. Quit inventing things to create an authoritarian state. Why am I so worried that our Supreme Court has gone so far off track? Because, last year, they found invisible ink in the Constitution. They had a case, Trump v. the United States of America. In that case, the question was: Is the President above the law? Is the President immune from any potential criminal prosecution for acts that he deems acts of the government? I thought, well, absolutely not, of course. Our Founders were terrified that a President would become a King. If they wanted the President immune from prosecution, they could have put that in the Constitution. Can you find that in the Constitution? Can any of my colleagues on the left side of the aisle or the right side of the aisle show me that in the Constitution? It is not there because our Founders were that worried about the President becoming a King. So they did not give the President immunity from prosecution. But the Supreme Court did because they thought that is too big a burden for the President to bear. They thought: In our judgment, we think it is a good idea to give the President protection, so he doesn't have to stay up late at night worrying whether he is creating a crime or not. Well, let me tell you, the Constitution says policy is written here-- written here in the U.S. Senate and in the House of Representatives down the hall. That becomes policy when the President signs it. Policy is not the purview of the Supreme Court of the United States. They are supposed to be defending the Constitution. The pastor said: It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my head. He was shot seven times with pepper balls in the face and arms and torso without warning, a Presbyterian pastor. That is what our country is coming to--an assault on anyone who stands up and exercises freedom--freedom--to share their opinion. Aren't there 100 Senators here who stand for freedom? Why is there not one Senator across the aisle standing for freedom here on the floor of the Senate today, not one? Why? Why is there not one Senator standing up and saying that there is no clause in the Constitution that makes the President a King--immune from prosecution for crimes committed under their law? Why is there not one Senator across the aisle saying that we will not stand for the attack on due process? the attack on free speech? I assure you, if there were a President saying to FOX News that ``you have to take a program off the air'' that the President doesn't like, every Senator across the aisle would be standing up and saying that that is a breach of free speech. I would be standing up and saying the same thing, just as I am now, because it shouldn't matter whether it is a right-leaning or a left-leaning network. They should be able to put on air what they want. That is what freedom of the press is. So we have seen 9 months of this President making this country sicker and poorer; 9 months of personal corruption, selling access to himself through his crypto enterprises; 9 months of covering up the Epstein files that he doesn't want released because his name is in them; 9 months of slashing healthcare for families to fund tax breaks for billionaires; 9 months of cutting nutrition for children to fund tax breaks for billionaires. A bill passed this body that runs up $30 trillion in additional debt, over 30 years, to fund tax breaks for the richest Americans. It is a families lose, billionaires win vision, and it is the wrong vision here in a Republic where we celebrate government by and for the people. A Republic that is exercising appropriately would be families thrive and the affluent and the powerful pay their fair share. That is the vision that all of us should be pursuing. The fact that this horrific bill came out and passed--the ``Big Ugly Betrayal of Americans Act''--that slashed healthcare in order to fund more riches for the richest among us shows you it is not working right. What is really not working right is that the President of the United States is deploying military forces, hoping to establish that it is OK to do so; that it is OK for them to accept orders to go out and attack our cities, to attack peaceful protesters; that he will get a court decision that gives him this power. Colleagues, let's be 100 strong behind the vision of freedom, the vision of rights for Americans and say: Hell no.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 3927 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, back in 2021, in the NDAA, we had a clause that said Federal military police who were responding to a civil disturbance need to wear visible identification, including an individual identifier, which could, in fact, be a number or a name, and the name of the armed services, but there are three points of confusion that exist in this 2021 law. The first is, what is included in civil disturbance? So this amendment clarifies that it includes crowd and riot control and arrests at protests and demonstrations. Second of all, what about security contractors that serve the Federal police or Federal services? It says, yes, those are covered. Third, that when you are going to a civil disturbance in support of the Federal Government, it also includes whether you are going in support of local police, to clarify that distinction. That is all it is--three simple things--and it is so important to engender trust in America that we have this type of basic provision but clarified so we understand exactly when it applies. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, let me just note that that provision now creates a conflict with the 2021 law that does require an individual identifier. So this amendment resolves that conflict and ensures there is trust by having that trust-building name or number on the uniform as well. I encourage an ``aye'' vote. Vote on Amendment No. 3927

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it is by way of real honor to bring the interns on their shadow day to track my participation in hearings and speeches and floor votes and conversation with other Senators because it is really hard for our interns to get a full vision of what we do as Senators if they are just in the office helping to answer the mail-- because a good share of what they do is writing responses to all the questions that Oregonians write about. I will never forget the time I spent with Senator Hatfield when I was an intern and had a chance to essentially be his floor monitor 49 years ago. At that time, there was no television on the floor, and there was no fax machine. Of course, there was no internet. There was no cell phone. So each Senator had somebody monitoring the debate, and my assignment was monitoring the debate on the Tax Reform Act of 1976. There were 125 votes on that. And I sat up in the balcony up here, in the staff section, with many other staff members. The bells would ring, and we would run down to where the reporters hang out outside the double doors now here. I and other staff members would hang out, waiting for our Senators to come out of the elevator, and brief them about the amendment that was being considered. Because there was no television on the floor, folks back in the office had no idea what was being debated and what folks back home thought about the issue. So I do appreciate the opportunity to help our interns get a fuller vision of the work we do here in the Senate. Government Funding

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, my reason for coming to the floor now is to weigh in on Senator Rand Paul's proposed budget. Now, if we could turn the clock back to the beginning of July, Senate Republicans passed President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Many of us consider it a big, ugly betrayal because its core message was that families lose and billionaires win. That was not President Trump's message during his campaign. During his campaign, he said he was going to be fighting for families. Then he gets sworn in just down this hallway in the Rotunda. Who does he have standing behind him? Champions for families? healthcare? for education? for housing? for investment in infrastructure? No. Billionaires. That revealed what he was really up to, and that entire bill hurt families. Why? To fund tax breaks for billionaires. Kicking 15 million Americans off their health insurance to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Slashing nutrition assistance for millions of children. Why? In order to give tax breaks to billionaires. Running up $30 trillion in additional national debt over the next 30 years. Why? To fund tax breaks for billionaires. It is pretty astounding that a single Member of this body would have voted for that bill running up $30 trillion in debt. Every single person who gave speeches back home that said ``I am all about being fiscally responsible''--what could possibly be more irresponsible than cutting nutrition for children and cutting healthcare for 15 million Americans in order to make the richest Americans even richer? It is like the worst possible reason for a deficit or a debt. Families lose; billionaires win. Now Senator Paul has introduced a budget resolution that compounds that. He says that over the next 10 years, we should cut an additional $22 trillion out of the programs that serve Americans. Now, if he had come to the floor and said ``We just passed a bill that runs up $30 trillion in debt to fund tax breaks for billionaires, and we are going to take away those tax breaks for billionaires in order to not run up $30 trillion,'' I would be right with him because that would be wise. But cutting fundamental programs for families and our national security? Now, any responsible budget plan is going to tell you when its cuts are going to happen. So where does Senator Paul, my good friend from Kentucky--where does he say those spending cuts will happen? Where will that $22 trillion come from that he is eliminating over the next 10 years? Well, he doesn't answer the question. He says: I am going to create a new category in the budget called ``New Efficiencies, Consolidations, and Other Savings.'' Not one damn detail. How convenient that is. I am just going to magically cut $22 trillion out of the spending over the next 10 years and not say a word about the damage it is going to do. This is kind of a replay of what we saw in the reconciliation debate when our Republican colleagues used magic math and budget gimmicks and smoke and mirrors to slash programs for families and explode the debt. Don't we owe it to our constituents, don't we owe it to Americans to be honest about what is being proposed? So I will tell you where those cuts are going to come from, something of that size. Well, they are going to come from Medicare. They are going to come from Medicaid. They are going to come from child nutrition. They are going to come from border security. They are going to come from law enforcement. They are going to come from national defense. They are going to come from veterans' care. They are going to come from environmental protection and investments in infrastructure. Now, if you spread those cuts evenly over the discretionary budget lines over those 10 years, it cuts 38 percent of what we spend--38 percent. I am pretty sure some of my colleagues will say: Well, whatever you do, don't cut national defense and certainly don't cut support for our veterans. So then what are we talking about? We are talking about a 48-percent cut in everything else. OK. So voting for this Rand Paul budget, you are voting for essentially a 50-percent cut in Medicare, a 50-percent cut in Medicaid, a 50-percent cut in cancer research, a 50-percent cut on top of the cuts already made in child nutrition, and a 50-percent cut on investments in infrastructure. That is what you are voting for, and that is really beyond damaging to our Nation. You want to cut Medicare in half? Well, then, put that in the line, explain what it is, and then vote for it. That would show some courage. If you really want Medicare cut in half, tell the American people that. Have the courage of your convictions. Don't hide it behind this funny line called ``New Efficiencies'' or something of that nature. Well, there are obviously all these things you can find in the budget that need to be cut, and there have been some examples given. I am sure you can find some scientific research that most Americans would look at, even with full information, and they would say: Oh, yeah, we don't need to research that. But, you know, sometimes the insights in science come from the most unexpected places. For example, there has been some commentary about silly-sounding Federal grants like studying Gila monster venom. Why would you study that? Well, then you find out that what was learned there helped create the drug Ozempic. Well, that is pretty big medical insight that has huge applications in terms of a variety of diseases but also in terms of addiction and in terms of weight loss. You might say: Why would you study bird songs? Well, it turns out that the study of bird songs led to advances in hearing aid technology, allows people to distinguish sounds they want to hear from background noise so they can have a conversation in a crowded room. I am just saying that I am sure there are individual items that could be found that sound absurd, but you know what--those are little tiny pennies. It is not cutting Medicare by 50 percent; it is not cutting Medicaid by 50 percent. If you want to cut $22 trillion, cut it out of the tax breaks for billionaires. That is the real crime done by the families lose; billionaires win, big, ugly betrayal of a bill. Maybe that is the budget we should be voting on.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to my interns for their shadow days on the following dates: Flora Xia for October 1, 2025; Alexander Aguilar for October 7, 2025; Samuel Armour for October 9, 2025; Nidhi Nair for October 21; Maxwell Robben for the 23rd; Audrey Schlotter for the 28th; Malina Yuen for the 30th of October; Andrew Faris for November 4; Jeremy Zwick for November 6; Mrinmayee Kulkarni for November 19; and Inez Nieves for December 3, 2025.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I missed the conversation on the floor--

Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak--for 3 minutes for each.