J.D. Vance

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, we are, unfortunately, in a world where COVID will be with us for the rest of our lives. That is not a good thing. It is not a thing to celebrate, but it is a thing to accept. What we do not have to accept and what we do not have to make part of our lives is the never-ending cycle of public health panic that greets the rise of a respiratory virus that there is very little we can do to stop or control. What we do not have to accept is airline passengers fighting amongst each other and fighting with flight attendants because the flight attendants are asked to enforce a mask mandate. What we do not have to accept is that we respond to a public health problem with panic and with fear. We know, of course, that the era of mask mandates caused a lot of problems. It caused problems for our kids. It caused developmental delays for school children. It caused a lot of rancor and a lot of division within our common American family. If people want to wear masks, of course, they should be able to. But if people don't want to wear masks on airplanes, on transit, they should have that option as well, and that is all that my amendment does. It is narrowly scoped. It applies for the next 11 months, and it applies to transportation cases. And I think it is reasonable to not ask the American people to reenter the era of mask mandates. My amendment does that, and I ask that my colleagues support it.

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. VANCE. Reserving the right to object, with respect to my colleague from Illinois, I heard a number of arguments that I somehow changed my tune. What I would say is I haven't changed my tune. The Senator from Illinois keeps making different arguments, and I keep needing to respond to each one of them. But to restate my fundamental problem here, I will note that one of the consistent criticisms of my hold on Department of Justice nominees is that this is unprecedented; that when Donald Trump was President, we let these nominees sail through, and now I am holding up these nominations to the Department of Justice. I would counter that what is unprecedented is not the hold policy but the Department of Justice attempting to throw its political opponents in jail. Now, much is made about the political prosecution of Donald Trump. I think that is unjustified, and it is, frankly, scary in the world's greatest democracy to have the political opposition leader prosecuted by the sitting President. That is pretty weird, not something that happens a whole lot in the United States of America--and thank God for that. But you don't even need to make it about the current President. You can run down any number of everyday conservatives, people who have been prosecuted, investigated, harassed by this Department of Justice. It should be enforcing the law. It should leave the politics to this Chamber and to the electoral process. I will continue to object so long as the Department of Justice conducts its business in a highly politicized way. If Merrick Garland or anyone else is listening, please get back to the business of enforcing the law, get out of politics, and then and only then will I release my hold policy. Because of that, I object.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to address a few points that my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, made. I will restate a few of the things I have said. First of all, he made much about my hold policy being focused on Donald Trump. And, of course, I do think it is preposterous--banana republic stuff--that the President of the United States is trying to throw his opponent in jail in the middle of a Presidential election. But this isn't just about Donald Trump. This is about a pro-life father of seven who was harassed and arrested in front of his children like a common criminal. This is about parents who are investigated by the FBI for peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights at school board meetings. This is about a Department of Justice that seems far more interested in politics than in justice. So long as that is true, Senator, I will certainly continue to implement my hold policy. I want to say a second thing, which is that all I am asking for--all I am asking for--is that my distinguished colleague from Illinois or any other Senator invoke cloture, force a cloture vote, and then force a vote on the Senate floor. I understand that is not easy for a Senate that votes one to four times per day, but the American people--most of them have much harder jobs than we do. I think sticking our thumbs in the air or down to the ground is not too much to ask for people who--as my distinguished colleague said, we asked for this job. We ran for this job. We work pretty hard for this job. I think expecting us to vote on cloture and vote on these nominees on the record is not too much to ask. Third point that I will make: I have come to really appreciate and look forward to these exchanges with my colleague from Illinois. I will say this, that I think his criticism and I think his concern come from a very legitimate place. He has made this argument a number of times, the argument that there is something unprecedented about what I am doing. What is it--85 nominees were approved during the Trump administration through unanimous consent or whatever the number is--I don't know; I am going off of memory here--and now we have somehow stopped it, we have changed it. Well, certainly I have changed it. I have changed it because the Department of Justice has changed. When Donald Trump was President, he was not trying to throw Joe Biden in prison. Joe Biden is President, and he is threatening to throw not just Donald Trump but a whole host of political opponents in prison. That is unprecedented. That is a new thing. Therefore, the way we respond to it must be unprecedented as well. I acknowledge something the Senator from Illinois is pointing out here. In years past, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have made an argument that most of my fellow conservatives don't agree with but I do agree with. It is that for the Department of Justice or any local law enforcement to work--whether it is State, Federal, or county, city--it needs to have legitimacy; it needs to have the trust of the people. I have talked to a number of people just in the last few months who have told me that they have witnessed things in their community, but they wouldn't call the Department of Justice because they don't trust the Department of Justice. I know Senator Durbin and others might say: Well, look, you are a conservative Republican from Ohio. Of course you talk to the sorts of people who are skeptical of the Department of Justice. But I would ask him to extend the same courtesy to my voters that I would extend to all voters across this country whether they like me or not. When people don't believe that law enforcement can be trusted, public safety will suffer. Our Democratic colleagues have made this argument in the past, speaking about other prosecutors and other communities, and I actually think they are right. Whether you agree with the reasons why a given community is mistrustful of law enforcement, mistrust of law enforcement destroys one of the foundations of the Republic. You cannot have application of law if the people don't trust the people who are doing the application. That is what is different about the situation we find ourselves in. I don't like that the Department of Justice has become what it has become. I don't like--again, set aside President Trump. I am pro-Trump. A number of my colleagues are anti-Trump. Set aside the concerns about the Presidential election. What about parents who are protesting at their school board meetings for their kids? Should they be investigated by the FBI? Since they are being investigated by the FBI, doesn't that suggest that something is broken at the leadership of the Department of Justice? I think the answer is yes, and I think that answer threatens the foundation of law enforcement and equal justice under the law in this country. I will continue the hold policy so long as a broken Department of Justice cares more about politics than it does justice. Because of that, I object.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Madam President, in reserving the right to object, let me address a few of my distinguished colleague from Illinois' comments. First of all, while it is true that my hold policy regarding the Department of Justice is not focused on any particular nominee, I do think this particular nominee is particularly troublesome, and let me just talk about why. Ms. Perry is a figure who served as the chief ethics officer in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office during the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax. You may remember that from a few years ago. This is when a person accused people of engaging in a false hate crime, took a ton of State resources to investigate it, and it turned out the entire thing was fraudulent and meant to gin up publicity for Mr. Smollett. Everyone pretty much agrees that Ms. Foxx, who was the State's attorney at the time, engaged in some pretty unethical behavior, and Ms. Perry effectively rubberstamped it. Is she the sort of person who could be entrusted to impartially administer justice in the Biden- Garland Department of Justice? I don't think she is. So I will be voting against her nomination. I also object to giving a streamlined confirmation process for her. Now, the Senator from Illinois is apparently hell-bent on coming before the Chamber every single week to litigate what I think and believe is a corrupt and politicized Department of Justice. He makes much--and he makes much every single time we engage in this exercise-- about the fact that the Department of Justice has never had this kind of hold policy placed on it before. I agree. This is a new and unique circumstance. What is much different about the Trump administration Department of Justice and the Merrick Garland-Joe Biden Department of Justice is that Donald Trump never tried to throw his political opponents in prison. This is crazy, banana republic stuff, and I will not stand for it. I will continue to hold these nominations, and I will continue to push back against the politicization of justice. Finally, let me just say that what I have asked for and what I will continue to ask for is that these nominees go through regular order. The Senator knows well what everybody else knows, which is that, as one Senator, I cannot prevent the confirmation of these nominees however much I might like to. What I can do is force us to go through regular order. I asked for a vote, Senator Durbin. You can invoke cloture. We can vote on cloture. We can then do a recorded vote. That is what we have done with many, many nominees, and because of the corruption of Merrick Garland's Department of Justice, it is what I ask with this nominee and with any in the future. Because of that, Madam President, I object.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Madam President, reserving the right to object. I will continue my hold on unanimous consent for Department of Justice nominations so long as I feel like the Department of Justice is being used for politics instead of justice. My arguments on this point have already been made, but I will repeat them for the benefit of anybody who hasn't heard me before. From a Catholic pro-life father of seven who was arrested in front of his children like a common criminal for exercising his First Amendment rights to parents who were investigated by the FBI for exercising their First Amendment right to protest at a school board meeting to the leader of the opposition and the likely challenger to President Joe Biden, former President Trump, we have a Department of Justice that has run amok with a focus on politics instead of on justice. Now, my colleagues make some good points. I agree with my colleagues that U.S. attorneys play an important role. I agree with my colleagues that we need a Department of Justice that is fully staffed to do its job. But I don't think the solution to the politicization of the Department of Justice is to let these guys through on a glide path. I think it is to provide proper consent, proper advisement, and proper scrutiny of each one of these nominees which we can't let them do if we allow them to sail through unanimous consent. I will continue this hold, but let me just make one final point before I allow my colleague to respond. I am the new guy, and I recognize that I am a little naive when it comes to matters of the procedures of the U.S. Senate. But I have had a lot of jobs in my life; and yesterday we passed one vote and today we have passed zero votes. The time that we have spent debating whether we should have unanimous consent over these nominations, we could actually use to vote on these nominations and end this charade and call it out for what it is. If we believe that these nominees must go forward, let's just have a vote on it. Allow me to scrutinize them. Allow my colleagues to vote them up or down. That is a totally reasonable thing to ask of this Chamber and to ask of this leadership; and because of that, I object.

Mr. VANCE. My position is that we should have a full Senate vote on each one of these judicial nominations, of these Justice Department nominations. My position is that we shouldn't let them sail through with unanimous consent.

Mr. VANCE. I would like a record vote for all Justice Department nominations in moving forward, yes.

Mr. VANCE. Senator Durbin, you know the Senate procedures better than I do, and you could certainly bring these folks up for a vote later today, and all of us would have to vote for them. Why won't you do that?

Mr. VANCE. I don't know that, but I believe my colleague from Illinois in that that is how it worked. What is different now, compared to then, is that we have a Department of Justice that has been weaponized against its political opponents. I understand much of what you said, Senator Durbin, and I appreciate your passion for this issue. My heart goes out to your friends who lost somebody to fentanyl. I, too, know a lot of people who have lost a loved one or a child to a fentanyl overdose. But what will facilitate the effective administration of justice in this country is for the American people to see the Department of Justice as being focused on justice instead of politics. That is what this is fundamentally about. Do we have a Department of Justice that has the trust of the American people? Senator Durbin, I don't think that any of my Democratic colleagues could look at public polling and not admit that the Department of Justice has lost a substantial amount of public confidence just in the last year. How can we have an effective administration of justice if we fill the Department of Justice with people who are perceived, rightfully or not, as political actors by the people who receive that justice?

Mr. VANCE. OK.

Mr. VANCE. I have two responses to that, Senator. First of all, you appreciate as well as I do that we have had zero votes today. I don't control how many people we vote on. In fact, I believe you do under the Senate procedures and the Senate rules. If it is so important to confirm these folks, bring them up to the floor for a vote.

Mr. VANCE. Yes. As the Senator from Illinois, I assume, knows well, I am not the only person who is holding some of these nominations. I am happy to grant consent to vote on the ones where I am the only hold, but where I have other colleagues, I can't release the holds for other colleagues.

Mr. VANCE. Senator, I am here representing my colleagues. They object. I am not going to release their holds on their behalf.

Mr. VANCE. Madam President, as the Senator knows well, my colleagues have been given no notice, and they have no sense that this is being done. I am not going to release their objections on their behalf as the Senator from Illinois knows well. I am happy to release my own objection, but I am not going to release theirs. Therefore, I object on their behalf.

Mr. VANCE. My apologies. Will the Senator repeat that.

Mr. VANCE. Senator Padilla, I would be happy to do that as I am the only person holding 266. As I have said repeatedly, I want these nominations to have a vote so as to be scrutinized by the full Senate, and I am the only Senator holding 266, Ms. McGrath. I am happy to release the hold there and have the--excuse me--not release the holds on the unanimous consent request but certainly to bring this before the full Senate for a vote.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. The Senator from Illinois knows well, I cannot and will not give consent to the confirmation of new officials at the Department of Justice. My objection is not specific to the qualifications or the particular individuals that have been nominated. My objection is, instead, to the fact that we live in an era where the Department of Justice is used for politics as much as justice. And that is unacceptable. The DOJ is, and always has been, defined by its most consequential investigations and prosecutions. This DOJ is thus defined by its selective prosecution of the leader of the opposition--the man running against Joe Biden to become President of the United States. Of course, I am speaking of Donald Trump. Now, this unprecedented double standard selectively prosecuting Donald Trump, leaving the President and his family completely untouched, is a reason why the Department of Justice's public confidence has completely collapsed. A recent NBC News survey showed that 35 percent of the American people approve of the Department of Justice, which is a radical decline from where it was just a couple of years ago. It is the constitutional duty of this body to provide advice and consent to high-level DOJ nominees. My real fear here--I don't want to be here, I don't want to be objecting to these nominees--but what I like much less is the fact these nominees will be used by the Attorney General for politics over justice. My colleague might say--and he might say this to Senator Tuberville, who has a similar hold on Department of Justice nominees--that this is extraordinary, that what we are doing as Republicans in objecting to the unanimous consent of these nominations is extraordinary. And I agree it is extraordinary. But what is more extraordinary is this moment in time where the leader of the opposition is being prosecuted by the President of the United States, and the Department of Justice again and again and again is using its powers to go after people from pro-life activists to members of the community who are just exercising their rights. I would love to live in a country where the Department of Justice does not engage in selective prosecution. I would very much like if the Department of Justice focused on the work of law enforcement instead of politics. Until it does, I will object to these nominations. I will object to giving unanimous consent. For these reasons, I object.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, all of us have lived through the failed experiment of mass mandatory masking. Today, I want to ensure that we do not subject the American people to this tyranny again for the sake of nothing. We have recently seen a seasonal uptick of COVID cases across the country. This is not something to worry about. I don't like this fact that COVID is here to stay. Seasonal upticks in a respiratory virus are exactly to be expected. They shouldn't cause panic from our leadership or from our country, and they shouldn't cause us to reimpose a policy that has failed time and time again. Many are now calling to bring back mask mandates and regulate social gatherings. I have heard some of my friends on the opposite side of the aisle saying that no one is trying to do this, but let's just recapture and summarize the last couple of weeks in August. Lionsgate studios asked its employees to wear masks at their filming facility. Last week, Kaiser Permanente reimposed a requirement of staff and visitors to wear masks at its Santa Rosa, CA, facility. Schools such as Morris Brown College in Atlanta, and even local public schools here in the DC area, have reimposed mask mandates. Now, it is not just that masks--according to randomized control studies--do no good; it is that they could actively cause harm. We know a generation of school children have suffered significant speech and developmental disabilities because this country panicked instead of using its brain and forced toddlers and small children to wear masks. We cannot return to the failed policies of the COVID pandemic. I am not mad that we screwed up. I made mistakes. Many people in this body made mistakes. What I do think that we should avoid is repeating the mistakes in 2023. Let's learn from the mistakes that we made instead of just doubling down on them. This policy does not set anything for an unlimited period of time. It says that for the next 15 months, the government can't force you to wear a mask on planes, on public transit, or in public schools. Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to force and enforce a mandate against our people. It is not setting a policy that we cannot deal with pandemics in the future. If something else comes--God forbid--then let this body deal with it at that time. But now, let's heed the message from the American people, and let's learn the lessons of the past couple of years. Mandatory masking was a failure. It had costs for very little benefit, and we shouldn't repeat it. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2738, the Freedom to Breathe Act, which is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, let me offer a couple of thoughts in response.

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, I know we are on a short timeline, but let me just offer a couple of points in response, and then I will let this body go on with its business. No. 1, Senator Markey mentioned the tragic number of Americans, over 1 million, who lost their lives due to COVID. And I agree that it is a tragedy, and I wish that we hadn't lost them. But we lost them in spite of some of the most aggressive masking policies in the world. If mandatory masking were going to save our citizens, it would have already done so. That is the first point. The second point is that this legislation doesn't prevent any of our citizens from wearing masks. If you would like to wear a mask, of course, you have the right to do so, but the Senator talked about freedom. What I would like is for the freedom of a school child to not be thrown out of the classroom because he doesn't want to wear a mask. I would like the freedom of airline passengers to be able to go and visit their families and not be thrown off an airplane because they refuse to wear a mask. Freedom is fundamentally about respecting that you might have a different view than I do, respecting that, accepting it, and not using government mandates to force our fellow citizens to do exactly what we want them to do but to let us all figure this out together. The final point that I will make here is I heard some pretty alarming rhetoric from my friend on the other side of the aisle. We are about to have some serious respiratory problems. We always do in the fall, and maybe it will be worse this fall and this winter than before. But I think that what our children most of all need--and I am the father of three kids under the age of 7--they need us to not be ``Chicken Little'' about every single respiratory pandemic and problem that confronts this country. We are going to have people who get sick from viruses. It has always been thus, and the way to respond to it is with calmness, resolve, and strategic thinking, not by pretending the world is ending because what has always happened is going to happen once again. We cannot repeat the anxiety, the stress, and the nonstop panic of the last couple of years. That is what this legislation is about. End the mandates; end the panic; and let's get back to some common sense. I yield the floor.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, my objection is not specific to this nominee. I think the Biden administration is not sending its best to the Department of Justice. Many of the nominees are unqualified. Some of them seem actively corrupt, and some, I assume, are good people. But the problem is not this specific nominee. The problem is the fact that the Department of Justice has been corrupted under the Biden administration, and there needs to be some reckoning with the American people and with this body and with the nominations process before we allow these nominees to glidepath to the confirmation process. Let's just talk about a tale of two leaders in this country right now, one a Democrat and one a Republican. Of course, for the President of the United States, his son Hunter Biden has multiple Federal charges, multiple Federal investigations that implicate directly on the President's business dealings and may very well implicate the President directly and plausibly could lead to some significant problems for the President in the Presidential election. Yesterday, the plea deal that the Department of Justice cut with Hunter Biden fell apart with minimal scrutiny from the Federal judge in that case. That is how the Department of Justice treats the Democratic leadership in this country, with kid gloves, even in the face of very serious corruption. Let's ask ourselves how they treat the former Republican President in the face of a classified document scandal, where, literally, the claim is that the President of the United States mishandled the documents of his own administration. Now, nobody doubts that President Trump had the right to declassify documents at issue in this case. The argument is that he didn't, and, therefore, they want to throw him in jail. Is that really what we are doing at the height of the Presidential campaign--trying to throw the former President in jail, the likely leader of the opposition, in prison, because he didn't cross the t's and dot the i's on the classification or declassification process? This is a ridiculous scandal in our entire country. Look, whether these nominees are qualified or not qualified, we should have the vote and make that determination as a body. It is not, at the end of the day--as I have learned in 8 months--all that difficult and all that hard to vote. But we have to stop giving these nominees a glidepath until Merrick Garland commits to using the Department of Justice for justice and not for politics, as it is being used today. So I object.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, on rollcall vote 200, I voted nay. It was my intention to vote aye. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote, since it will not affect the outcome.

Mr. VANCE

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 4 minutes equally divided prior to the next rollcall vote.

Mr. VANCE. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 838 and ask that it be reported by number.