John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I understand the Chair has an announcement for the Senate.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Welch.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, earlier this morning, I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu here in the Capitol. We had a good discussion about Israel's security and about the imperative of the return of the rest of the hostages, who have been held in Hamas captivity for well over a year. I enjoyed a candid, personal discussion with the Prime Minister and was pleased that both Republican and Democrat colleagues were later able to join for a bipartisan conversation. After a number of my Democrat colleagues boycotted Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to Congress last year, it is good that Democrat leaders chose to attend this meeting. It would have been even better if Democrats had chosen to support the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, and we had been able to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Senate had passed this legislation in response to the International Criminal Court's illegitimate targeting of Israeli leaders. But, unfortunately, 2 weeks ago now, all of my Democrat colleagues-- all of them save one--voted to block this legislation. The Democrat leader actually celebrated the fact that Democrats had blocked this legislation, even though allowing the ICC's rogue action to go unchecked could put not only Israelis but Americans in the ICC's crosshairs. That is right. Responding to the ICC's illegitimate targeting of Israeli leaders is not just about protecting our ally Israel; it is also about protecting our own citizens, our own servicemembers in particular. Just a few years ago, the ICC opened an investigation into American servicemembers, despite the fact that, like Israel, the United States is not a party to the ICC and, thus, is not under its jurisdiction. It was good to hear this morning that President Trump will impose sanctions in response to the ICC's targeting of Israeli leaders and to protect American servicemembers. I am grateful that we have a President who will stand up for our citizens and for our ally Israel, as he has made clear already, including with his decision to prohibit funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. This agency not only has a history of anti- Israel sentiment but has a number of workers with ties to terrorist groups and actually, if you can believe this, had workers participate in the October 7, 2023, attack. I was also pleased by President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the so-called Human Rights Council at the United Nations, which unfairly targets Israel. And I am grateful that President Trump is taking a strong stand against one of the greatest enemies of peace in the Middle East--Iran. Iran has spent decades fomenting unrest and terror, including providing funding and training to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis; and the President's recent national security memorandum was a welcomed statement that Iranian aggression will no longer be tolerated. The President has restored the maximum economic pressure campaign to bankrupt Iran's nuclear ambitions and its terrorist proxies. It is good to see this kind of leadership. I want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for meeting with us and assure him of the United States' continued support for Israel, and I look forward to working with President Trump to defend our allies and to protect our Nation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 20. Vote on Motion

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, again, I am going to send a cloture motion to the desk on a nominee that came out of the Ag Committee 23 to 0. I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, tomorrow, the Senate will be voting on the nomination of Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I could talk about the extensive experience, policy experience, that has helped prepare him for this position, but Mr. Vought has an even bigger qualification for this position, and that is the fact that he has already held it. That is right. Mr. Vought has already served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget in President Trump's first administration, and so there is no question that he will be able to hit the ground running. As Director of OMB, Mr. Vought will have the chance to address two key economic issues: cutting burdensome government regulations and addressing excessive spending. Government regulation has a direct effect not only on our economy but on Americans' pocketbooks. Regulations can drive up Americans' energy bills. They can drive up the cost of housing, of a new car, of appliances. The list goes on and on. The history of the past 4 years under the Biden administration is a history of burdensome new regulations. Republicans are determined to alleviate that regulatory burden for the sake of economic growth and to improve the lives of hard-working Americans, and I know that Mr. Vought will make getting rid of burdensome regulations a priority. I know that Mr. Vought is already also committed, I should say, to addressing our spending problems. Our country is currently on a dangerous spending track, with debt held by the public set to hit a staggering $52 trillion by 2035. That is not sustainable. Identifying ways to rein in our spending and to target government waste has to be a priority, and I am confident Mr. Vought will help lead that charge. One of my top priorities for the Senate at the beginning of this year was processing President Trump's nominees. I am very pleased to say that Mr. Vought's confirmation will bring the total number of nominees confirmed since the inauguration to 13. That is roughly twice as fast as nominees were confirmed at the start of the two previous administrations. The Senate will take up additional nominees next week, and we will maintain an aggressive pace to get the President's full team in place as soon as possible.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Vought nomination be waived.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are getting now close to the time to vote on the Vought nomination, and it has been a 30-hour discussion, conversation, some of which I think is perhaps instructive. I mean, I would make an argument, honestly, that through multiple administrations, Congress has bequeathed and given up way too much power to the executive branch. But I think, with the all-night vigil-- and a lot of speeches were made over here--there was a lot of high rhetoric, I would argue, about attacks on democracy, attacks on the Constitution. I think it is important when you make those arguments that there be at least some amount of self-reflection because, over the last 4 years, there have been a lot of times when the executive branch went around the Congress or tried to rewrite the laws Congress had passed in ways that increased spending, and I can use a good example. Under the committee of jurisdiction, the Commerce Committee, which is where I spent a lot of my time over the past few years, there was a program called the BEAD Program, which was designed to extend broadband access to people in rural areas of the country, unserved areas of the country, and it passed almost--well, about 3 years ago. I didn't vote for it at the time. But that provision in the bill was designed to deliver broadband services to unserved areas, rural areas of the country. We are now 3 years into that program, and there hasn't been a single dollar spent or a single household connected through that program, and it was a $42 billion funding program--$42 billion and not a single dollar spent. Why? Because the administration decided to add conditions to it, conditions that made it unusable to a lot of the telecoms--at least certainly to the telecoms in my area, and I think I represent probably as rural of an area as you will ever find. What were some of those conditions? Well, they said you had to use union labor. In South Dakota, we are a right-to-work State, so we don't have a lot of that. You had to meet climate conditions for your subcontractors, your suppliers, and everything else. You had to comply with certain climate requirements. Then there was an issue about rate regulation. Now, rate regulation, interestingly enough, was specifically banned by the statute. The statute said: no rate regulation. So what the administration did is they added to the law--in all of these ways--in a way that made it virtually impossible for anybody to use. So here we are, 3 years later, 3 years after that law passed this Congress, and not a single dollar has been spent, and not a single household has been connected. Why? Because the executive branch decided they wanted to do some things with this law that Congress never intended. I didn't hear the complaints about that or all-night vigils. Another thing I will point out is the student loan program. Now, as we all know, the student loan program, of course, is authorized again, funded by Congress, and that is a subject of ongoing litigation--I think we all know that--but it is hundreds of billions of dollars. It is actually increasing spending. It is not cutting spending but increasing spending--and, again, totally outside the parameters of what Congress intended for the program. The law is pretty clear, we believe. And I think when you sign agreements--there are a lot of financial agreements that students enter into on the student loan program. Essentially, what has been said by the previous administration, the executive branch, the attack on democracy, was that that is not going to apply and we are just going to forgive them all. We will wipe out all of the agreements. We will go around the law, circumvent the law. And folks on this side of the aisle applauded when that happened--again, action taken by the executive branch outside the parameters of what Congress intended when that law was passed. I will use one other example, and that is the Thrifty Food Program. I serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee, as does Senator Grassley and a lot of other of our colleagues. In the 2018 farm bill, there was a provision in there that allows the Department of Agriculture to use this program for sort of inflationary increases. The Thrifty Food Program is based on current food prices, food composition data, consumption patterns, and dietary guidance. But, interestingly enough, what the Department of Agriculture decided to do was go around 45 years of precedent and do something that had never been done before and dramatically increase the program by $250 billion--$250 billion. It wasn't an inflationary increase that was based on the cost of this program over time. It was something that had never been done before, and the Government Accountability Office busted the administration for doing it. But they used, very cynically, the 2018 farm bill as the basis for USDA's action. But Congress never agreed to permit a quarter-of-a- trillion-dollar increase in spending. So, again, I mean, these are decisions made by the previous executive branch, which happened to be the executive branch of a different party. And everybody had sort of a different reaction at that time. So I am certainly somebody who is not deaf to what I am hearing out there about some of the decisions that are being made by this new administration and their willingness to look at and evaluate programs, perhaps reprioritize them based upon their priorities. I think that is something a lot of administrations do. And I think there is probably a lot of the program spending decisions that you all are concerned about that I would probably agree with. But I just don't think that coming down here and launching what are ``attacks on democracy'' or, you know, trying to seize power from the Congress really matches with the facts of what happened the last 4 years. And I will just use those three examples, but I think they are three pretty glaring examples of what happened the last 4 years. Then the final thing I will say, because I think everybody here knows. We have had this conversation a number of times. But it wasn't that long ago that there was a letter--2017--from a lot of U.S. Senators on both sides--Democrats and Republicans; and many on the Democratic side of the aisle who are still here today--that basically said: We are mindful of the unique role the Senate plays in the legislative process, and we are steadfastly committed to ensuring that this great American institution continues to serve as the world's deliberative body. Therefore, we are asking you to join us in opposing any effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate as we consider legislation before this body in the future. The legislative filibuster--part of the Senate's heritage as an institution--the way the Founders intended for it to operate. And in 2017, there were 32 Democrat Senators who signed that letter, a number of them who are here today. And I think you probably know who you are. Well, it didn't take very long when you had a little change in the power, where you had the Democrats, everyone who was here at the time-- some of you weren't; some of you are new--voted to get rid of the filibuster. You voted to change the rules. You know where it was going, and some of you have been very public about it, and you have been very public about what you would do if that happened. The issue at that time was whether or not to federalize elections, which, again, has constitutional issues, given the prerogatives of the State legislatures to set the conditions under which elections are held. So if you have got a history of arguing here there are all these attacks on democracy, all I am pointing out is that that was a very different standard in the last 4 years in the last administration, and particularly as it pertains to the legislative filibuster. That is an issue--I don't think anybody here can argue--that is more connected to this institution than probably anything else. It gives voice to the minority. It requires collaboration and bipartisanship to do anything consequential. And at the time, everybody thought it was a good idea to preserve it. A couple of years changed, the political winds in Washington changed, and all of a sudden it was time to get rid of it. So we are going to vote on this nomination, but I think it is important to point out in the debate how many times an argument was made here on the floor by Members on this side about attacks on democracy. And going around and circumventing the authority and the power of the article I branch of the government--the Congress, the Senate of the United States--by an executive branch, and yet here are three pretty, I would say, glaring examples of something done by the previous administration. Former Mayor Marion Barry once described his political philosophy as situationist. And I think when it comes to politics, we all have our views informed and changed, perhaps, overtime. But these are some pretty striking, I think, and glaring examples of the inconsistency that is being applied to the current administration when, in fact, the previous administration--the administration of a different political party--came to some very aggressive conclusions with respect to how they wanted to modify and change and alter laws passed by this institution, the U.S. Senate. Madam President, I think it is time to vote. Let's proceed with the vote.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I move to proceed to legislative session. Vote on Motion

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that all votes going forward be 10-minute votes.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to table the motion to reconsider.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 18.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 17.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, how long was the last vote?

Mr. THUNE. For the balance of the votes, Mr. President, we are going to ask Members to stay in their seats, Senators to stay in their seats, and we are going to move through this just as quickly as we possibly can. So we will have the clerk call the roll, and with people in their seats, we can do this in 5 or 10 minutes.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I am going to move here to go into legislative session in just a minute, but I am going to point out that these next noms that are coming up are bipartisan noms. We are coming up on the Department of Agriculture Secretary, whose nomination was reported out of the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously, not a single dissenting vote, so it seems like we might be able to expedite this a little bit. I don't know how long that last vote took, but we are going to keep grinding away here, and hopefully we can do better on this next one.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. So I would ask that we proceed to legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 16. Vote on Motion