Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, retaining the floor, I yield to the question that is being posed by my colleague from Massachusetts.

Mr. MERKLEY. I yield for a question to be posed by my colleague from Massachusetts.

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I see that my colleague from Massachusetts is here and has gotten half of her question out. If you would like to continue the question, I would invite you to give me a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. I thank so much my colleague from Massachusetts for the question of how the price of goods around the country is linked to Trump's authoritarian undertakings. It kind of boils down to this--and a colleague came to the floor and used this term a little while ago, a colleague from New Hampshire. She said: In an authoritarian structure, the authoritarian believes that the people are accountable to the authoritarian, and in a democracy, the leader believes that the leader is accountable to the people. That is the difference. So if you are in a situation where you have an authoritarian for the President, first thing they do is try to erode the checks and balances of the constitution to concentrate more and more power in the Executive. Of course, we see that in all kinds of ways we have been discussing. Then they proceed to try to change the rules for elections so they can rig the next elections. Then they start to attack any form of dissent--suppress freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of speech and due process. We see that. Then they say: Now we want to free the military. But in all of that is this sense that the people are simply pawns for the authoritarian President. Then, in that setting, it becomes just fine to do a bill that savages healthcare for the people to fund tax breaks for billionaires. It becomes just fine to do a bill that savages child nutrition to do tax breaks for billionaires. It becomes just fine to run up debt over the next 30 years $30 trillion to fund tax breaks for billionaires. That is the way the authoritarian personality is connected to the policies that emerge from bills that authoritarian champions. They are not bills by and for the people; they are bills by and for the powerful. I see that my colleague from Connecticut has come to the floor, and I would be happy to yield if you have a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. I will yield, absolutely.

Mr. MERKLEY. I really appreciate the question from my colleague. It is quite an interesting moment right now because unless there is a decision that has been made while I have been speaking--and that is certainly possible due to the amount of time--there has not yet been a decision by the district judge to dissolve the second temporary restraining order. So the National Guard has not been federalized and able to deploy. But it was going to depend on what happened at midnight last night, in which the district judge had said: I want to see if the circuit court decides to do an en banc panel. That is a fancy way of saying, instead of 3 judges evaluating the situation, a panel of 12 judges--the chief judge and other judges from the Ninth Circuit, selected randomly--would examine the decision. If that was going to happen, my impression was she was going to hold off. The other thing that was unfolding was that the Seventh Circuit, putting Illinois--and Chicago has been really affected by this. The Seventh Circuit made a decision in support of the district court there, but that looked like it was going to the Supreme Court. And they may do a shadow docket decision very soon, at any moment, which could also affect what happens. So my guess is soon. If none of those happens, my guess is that soon, in fact, the second temporary restraining order will have been dissolved, and that will give the ability for the National Guard to be in their mission. I think there has been a lot of effort put into saying: These are our Oregonians. These are our soldiers, our folks. We have gone and supported them as they have gone on missions to Iraq and missions to Afghanistan and missions elsewhere in the world. We go and we welcome them home, and we think that they will have a very deep understanding that whatever they are instructed to do, they will not deliberately do provocative things. The thing that would really sour the situation--I am putting up a little picture here that I know you can't see, but it is a picture of one of the Federal agents, not the Oregon National Guard, walking up and spraying a protester straight in the face. She had gotten out of the way as she was requested. She was sharing her opinion in a vocal manner but not in the way of anything--she had moved as requested. When people see that and other things where agents start assaulting peaceful protesters, that is where things get dicey. So far, the Portlanders have said this is what Trump wants. He has almost instructed people, these other Federal agents, to come and provoke a riot. In fact, they even staged a fake riot last week, which was an extraordinary thing that should trouble every American. He asked the protesters to back up several hundred yards, and they did that without conflict. So there was no tussle. There was no breaking the line. There was no throwing of things. They backed up. But behind the line of the Federal agents--probably Federal Protective Service--were videographers. The goal was to tape a fake riot. After they had been backed up, on command, the Federal Protective Service threw down the flash-bangs, which sound like gunfire. They threw down tear gas with big pluming smoke that was very irritating, and they fired pepper balls at the crowd. Well, the net result of that is the protesters scattered while being videographed so they would look--so that Trump's team could say: Look, there was a riot. I just can't believe that our government would stage a fake riot like that. It was carefully preserved and recorded by Oregon Public Broadcasting. So I am confident in saying what happened. I don't think anything like that will ever happen with the Oregon National Guard. I think they will be extraordinarily careful to execute their mission in a professional fashion and to provide a little bit of encouragement to protesters: Get out of the way of the car--or do things like that. That is my belief of our Oregon National Guard. There is also the Oregon National Guard from California. The President said he is going to send some from Texas. That could still be possible. I just hope all are well-trained, and that it is a redline that you never attack a peaceful protester. So far, the Portland protesters decided to engage in joy and whimsy. They have just frustrated the hell of the Trump team because they want riots. No, there is the ``pastries and pajamas'' team, and there is the Puppy Dogs for Peace team, a wedding taking place, a Unipiper doing the bagpipes on his unicycle, and there are folks putting down candles on the ground and flowers in the air and just basically doing the cha-cha slide. I have no idea how to do that, but maybe I will learn down the road here. But this type of joy and whimsy has been a terrific way to respond to Trump trying to provoke violence and failing to do so. I think the Oregon National Guard will be extremely professional.

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes, I yield for a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. The reforms that my colleague speaks of are incredibly important because we have a standard under title 10. Under title 10, which is the federalization of the National Guard, the standard is there has to be a rebellion and there has to be an invasion. A rebellion: a sizable group, well-organized, well-armed, seeking to overthrow the government. An invasion: a significant military force coming across to attack us. They are well-understood terms. Even with that title 10, I am very nervous because even though the law does not say to give deference to the President in title 10, two of the judges said you should give deference to the President, which I find absurd because what it means is these standards that were crafted in legislation here--I am sure broadly and intensely debated--and said no, it has to be a rebellion or it has to be on the verge of a rebellion and the understanding of what that would look like--and to say it is a rebellion just because the President says there is one and there is nothing, like that type of deference, that is throwing open the gates to say an authoritarian President can roll out the military under title 10. That is scary as hell. The Insurrection Act, in ways, is even scarier because it does have an explicit deference to the executive. So while it has a standard, it says that, interpreting that standard, there should be deference. I have read a number of analyses that say there is no way that the Supreme Court is not going to essentially say that the President interprets what is happening, given the language that exists there. That was written with the belief that we would always have a capable, responsible defender of the Constitution in the Oval Office and we don't. So reforming that act and closing that loophole absolutely is incredibly important to save our Republic.

Mr. MERKLEY. I note that my colleague from Oregon, following proper protocol here, has arrived on the floor. I would be happy to answer a question, should you have one. (Mr. SHEEHY assumed the Chair.)

Mr. MERKLEY. I would be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you so much to my colleague from Oregon for this question. It is very powerful to think about how fast the menace grew through the Jewish community in Germany and how, if one did not recognize that threat--and if I understood it right, the women in the family were the ones who said: We have got to get out of here--

Mr. MERKLEY.--to save their futures and, therefore, your future. Why? Why do we have to have a world where the powerful engage in these assaults based on race or religion or ethnicity? I sometimes hear Rodney King in my head--``Why can't we just all get along?''--after he had been badly, badly beaten. The fact is, it seems like we have a long ways to go to erase prejudice from our hearts, and when people gain positions of power who carry that prejudice in their hearts, it often becomes open hatred and amplifies the ability of others to more openly discriminate or engage in provocative acts. So, anyway, I hope the generations to come will find a better path. But in your question on securing liberty, this most important message--and I will have my team put it back up--is the alarm bells are now. The authoritarian actions are not down the street. They are not around the corner. They are not something to worry about 2 months from now. They are here right now. All the basic characteristics of authoritarian control are present at this moment in the United States of America: stealing the power of the purse so that the President makes decisions of what programs are funded; taking and ignoring due process, which is our guarantee of freedom from an authoritarian state; attacking the issue of liberty for the press to be able to write what they want and not be compelled through using licenses or mergers as a way to coerce them to put up what the government wants; the President telling the universities that they need to shape their education the way the President wants and support his political agenda--are you kidding me?--and so forth. And then weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after an enemies list. So it is here now. That is the main thing. And what do Americans do to secure liberty?--what you did on Saturday, what you did on Saturday, with 7 million people taking to the streets. It was the largest demonstration in the history of this country, saying: No Kings in the United States of America. Our Presidents are not Kings. Our laws are not suggestions, and our Constitution is not optional. That outcry, both inside a Chamber like this but, very importantly, in the streets, is the outcry that tells the rest of the country: This is not OK. This is not acceptable. This is breaking the law. This is shredding the Constitution. This is attacking our freedoms, and we the people will reclaim our Constitution, our separation of powers, and our freedom. That is why the action of demonstration and the action of speaking out are so important at this moment. It needs to work toward the next election where people of any party, if they believe in our Constitution, campaign and win on the basis that they are going to secure for the next generation--our generation and the next generation--the freedoms and the characteristics of our Constitution and make sure this doesn't happen again.

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you so much to my colleague from Oregon. And I so appreciate so many folks coming down to echo and amplify that we have to ring the alarm bells now so the American people will be very clear as to what is going on. I see my colleague from Rhode Island, and I would be happy to yield to him for a question.

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

Mr. MERKLEY. I say to my colleague from Rhode Island that, when an authoritarian President starts collecting data in this fashion, they probably have a plan for it, and that plan is not going to be one to enhance liberty for the American people. One of the things that I am deeply concerned about--and I am not sure if this is the same database you are referring to--is a collection of voter registration databases--is that the same? Yes--from across the country.

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

Mr. MERKLEY. I appreciate that clarification of the question. It is absolutely concerning. You can imagine the many ways in which it can be weaponized. Any hostile agent from outside the United States can use that data in all kinds of ways. What happens if, suddenly, your Social Security benefits aren't there or the files regarding your disability benefits or your age and birth records? Who all knows what can disappear or be modified? Banking records are possibly included if you had banking transactions to pay your taxes. It could be incredible amounts of stuff. We have had fairly protective practices of these databases, which is why, when DOGE went in with laptops, there was a lot of resistance. Some people who provided that resistance got moved aside physically to enable DOGE to access. Then there is this other database effort, which is the voting registration database effort and the idea of collecting that. They have been pushing the secretaries of state. Many States have said no, and they are going to court; they are resisting. Well, thank goodness they are because a national registration voter database can be used just like a State can purge names from it, which several States have done, saying: Oh, these names look the same. Maybe it is like you have two Jack Ryans or, more commonly, it is done to Hispanic names, where they say: Hey, there is the same name in Georgia as there is in Mississippi, so we will purge this name. I mean, it is hostile purging, and people don't know that they are no longer registered until they go to the polls to vote, and then it is often too late. So I am very, very concerned. I want our States to maintain their own independent voting registration databases because that would be a phenomenal way to manipulate the next election. I used to--and I say ``used to.'' Months ago, in February, people in my townhalls would say: Aren't you worried about an effort to postpone the next election or declare an emergency? And I would say: No. I just can't imagine that taking place. Now, I can imagine that taking place because we have seen emergency measures abused. We have seen the President assume powers he does not have. For example, tariff power is not delegated to the President. It has always been done by law here in this Chamber and down the Hall. So when the President is that authoritarian--taking powers the law doesn't grant, arguing it in court, and the court giving him more power; and his consolidating information on voting, I am very, very worried about that. I want to encourage the secretaries of state in every State, whether you are in a blue State or a red State, to hold onto your data, protect it, back it up, double secure it, and tell the Feds to keep their hands off.

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes. In regard to your question, I am extremely worried about the Trump administration's effort to pave the path with the courts and with the discipline of the military and have them in the practice of being deployed to, if you will, in theory, quell unrest. But the law on title 10 is very clear. You need to have a rebellion, or you need to have an invasion, and it is very clear you don't have either of those. Even then, two judges on the three-judge panel on this court said: Well, let's kind of give a little more flexible definition of ``rebellion,'' and by the way, maybe you can give more deference to the President's evaluation. After all, they run the building. Once you say the President can simply declare there is a rebellion, then the standard set in law means nothing. You are just throwing open the doors to an authoritarian President who is deploying troops against the American people. We have already seen, with the provocative actions of assaults on peaceful protesters, how dangerous that is. And, then, of course, the Insurrection Act, as an exception to Posse Comitatus, is extremely scary because it explicitly has in the law a certain interpretation by the President, or deference to interpretation by the President. The core assumption was that a person in that position would always be a person who had high regard for the Constitution and for the boundaries and for the liberties and for the freedom and would defend it with their whole heart, mind, and soul. But that is not a person we have in the Oval Office today. So I do support efforts that a number of folks--and I believe you might be well involved in--are striving to plug some of those loopholes so that that power does not get deployed.

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you. I note that we have a Senator from Wisconsin. I would be happy to yield for a question, if she had one.

Mr. MERKLEY. I will happily yield. Thank you.

Mr. MERKLEY. I so appreciate the question from my colleague from Wisconsin. Part of the discussion earlier was you can detect a difference between a democracy and an authoritarian government in the following fashion: Are the decisions about which programs are funded, how they will operate, and how they are funded decided by the Congress or by the President? That is the power of the purse, and it is so clearly laid out by our Founders that you put it in Congress's hands because if you put it in the President's hands, you have a strongman--1 person, not 100 people in this Chamber bringing their diverse life experiences, their knowledge, their particular interests, and saying these things are important to our various parts of the country. You just have one man from New York deciding what is important, one man who hangs out with a group of billionaires deciding what is important. So an incredibly essential distinction between a democracy and an authoritarian government is the decisions about the programs, their design, and their funding are made by Congress. What we have seen is that the President and his head of Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, are attempting to take that power out of the hands of Congress and have the President decide which programs are funded and how much. Every time you hear the President say: I canceled these grants because they are out of sync with the priorities of the President, that is an authoritarian statement because it is not the President's prerogative to decide how to spend that money; it is the power of the people, through their elected representatives in the House and Senate. Then, in addition, Mr. Vought has coordinated a series of strategies to essentially cancel programs by slow-walking the disbursal of funds; by freezing the funds; by impounding the funds; by delaying until the end of the year and then submitting a request to legislatively have the funds undone but then the clock runs out on the year, and poof, the funds disappear. He has a fancy name for it: a pocket rescission. But think of it more like the carriage in ``Cinderella'' that hits midnight, and poof, the carriage is gone, and you only have a pumpkin. In this case, we only have a lump of coal when we hit the end of the year. Then there is a requirement under the law for the President to lay out an expenditure schedule so that we can see whether or not funds are being delayed, or frozen, impounded, and so forth, and that schedule has disappeared. That website has been shut down. So the President is hiding, and contrary to the law, what is required so that we can protect the prerogatives of our Constitution. These are the ways the President is directly attacking the power of the purse and trying to turn this--this is one of the ways. He is doing a whole series of other things, in attacks on freedom, on weaponization of the Department of Justice to go after enemies, sending the military into the streets. But this is a key one in terms of the checks and balances of our Constitution. He is trying to take the power of the purse and has made substantial progress in doing so.

Mr. MERKLEY. I see my colleague from Hawaii has arrived, and should she have a question--

Mr. MERKLEY. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. MERKLEY. If the Senator from Hawaii will repeat the last sentence of her question, I would appreciate it.