Mark Warner

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment. Vote on Amendment No. 2847

Mr. WARNER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, for too long, stablecoins have operated in a regulatory gray area, putting consumers, markets, and national security at risk. The bipartisan GENIUS Act brings much-needed oversight and standards to the $250 billion stablecoin market. It also creates guardrails for responsible innovation and will enact sensible consumer protections for payment stablecoins. As an early supporter and negotiator of the final version of the bill, I pushed for provisions which clearly preserve State consumer protection laws in the negotiated rule of construction in section 7(f)(4). This provision is commonsense and furthers the goal of ensuring that consumer interests come first.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I agree with my colleague from Hawaii. I ask unanimous consent to move the 12 o'clock vote up, to start it now.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I was absent on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, for rollcall vote no. 299. Had I been present, I would have voted nay on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 49, David Fotouhi, of Virginia, to be Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank my colleague. I agree with her comments about how we need to not just pay lipservice to our veterans or the fact that for 70 years, America has used soft power through organizations like USAID in ways that have been incredibly important and have kept our country and the world safer. I thank the Senator for her comments and, frankly, the others who have been on the floor. We have been talking about, I think, unfortunately, the myriad ways the Trump administration is undermining our security and, quite honestly, making Americans less safe. Now, as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I have some additional thoughts to add about the way this administration is endangering our national security with its reckless, sloppy mishandling of classified information, by firing people who keep our country safe, and by abandoning and alienating the very allies whose support is crucial for our security, prosperity, and global influence. Now, let me not go way back in time. Let's just look at what we have learned in just the last 24 hours. Yesterday, we learned that President Trump apparently had a meeting in the Oval Office with a self-described pro-White nationalist, proud Islamophobe, and conspiracy theorist who has called 9/11 an inside job carried out by the U.S. Government. The Presiding Officer is from Pennsylvania, where many of the victims of 9/11 took brave actions and Flight 93 crashed. Many of the victims of 9/11 were in my State as well when the Pentagon got attacked. So the idea that someone and that any administration would let anyone with these kind of views--and it is not just that 9/11 was an inside job; she questioned Governor DeSantis's wife's breast cancer. If anyone would have let that kind of individual within 100 yards of any White House in the past, we would have all said: This is beyond belief. But according to press reports, the President is actually taking staffing advice from a person whose rhetoric is steeped in hate, misinformation, and dangerous conspiracy theories. First, yesterday, we learned that the President dismissed several members of his National Security Council staff because this person, who is so far out that even the MAGA crowd thinks she is extreme, Laura Loomer, told him to do so. Some of these staff are actually well known to Republican Senators because they worked for them. So I implore my colleagues to just judge for themselves whether they think it is good for our national security to have these staff members thrown out of the building at the behest of a podcast host who, as I said, has actually accused First Lady Casey DeSantis in Florida of exaggerating her struggles with breast cancer. This same individual has claimed that school shootings are staged and suggested that the deep state used an atmospheric research facility in Alaska to create a snowstorm over Iowa. This is whacky even for MAGA world. Yet this individual is in the White House giving staffing advice to the President, and it appears the President is acting on that advice. If that wasn't bad enough--and this was, again, the last 24 hours-- the Senate Intelligence Committee received notification that--in the middle of the night--the President has fired the Director and Deputy Director of the National Security Agency. Gen. Timothy Haugh and Wendy Noble are career officials who have spent decades working to protect our country, serving under both Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Wendy Noble joined the National Security Agency in 1987, working her way up to become the top civilian leader of the NSA. And throughout his distinguished career of more than 30 years in the Armed Forces, General Haugh has exemplified the very best of military service: dedication, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to our country. Again, this morning, we learned that these firings, too, were done at Loomer's behest--an unprecedented politicization of our intelligence community. I ask my Republican colleagues: How much longer will this go on before you find the courage to speak up and say ``enough''? How much longer will we permit this administration to politicize, attack, and hollow out our intelligence Agencies? If we go back to the beginning of the administration, I guess we maybe shouldn't be surprised because one of President Trump's first acts in office was to fire some of the most experienced agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including top leaders in counterintelligence, cyber security, and counterterrorism. Now, in a move that was even hypocrisy by modern political standards, a few weeks ago, in his joint address to Congress, President Trump boasted about the recent capture of the architect of the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul Airport in which 13 American servicemembers were killed. This welcome achievement was the result of extensive investigative and intelligence work, but when President Trump was boasting about this, he made no mention of the fact that just a few days earlier, he had literally fired--fired--the FBI leader responsible for overseeing that investigation. I ask anyone who is listening: How is America made more secure by that? How is America made more secure by firing the staff responsible for overseeing the safety and security of our country's nuclear stockpile? How is America made safer by firing the people responsible for responding to cyber attacks like Salt Typhoon or the Chinese that have literally infiltrated all of our telecom networks? How are we made safer by firing the researchers and scientists responsible for preventing diseases like Ebola from reaching our shores? Now, this is in addition to firing hundreds of intelligence officers, who have received specialized training and been subjected to extensive security vetting--at, I might add, considerable expense to the taxpayer--so they can actually carry out some of the Nation's most sensitive classified work, often in spite of great personal danger, as the 140 stars carved into the CIA's Memorial Wall attest. Can anybody tell me how firing probationary officers without cause and apparently without regard for merit or accomplishment, recognizing that in virtually every one of these cases, the taxpayers spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars getting them a security clearance and then putting them through training? How is that making us safer or, for that matter, a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars? I believe this administration just simply doesn't take protecting our national security very seriously. How else do you explain their sloppy, reckless behavior with classified information? It has been more than 10 days since we first learned that President Trump's top advisers were using an unclassified, commercial messaging app to discuss details of a planned military strike while U.S. pilots were flying into enemy air defenses. And the remarkable thing is, it has been 10 days, and no one has been held accountable. I can assure you, the men and women flying those planes were in danger if that information had been disclosed. One thing I know--and I saw this last weekend when I was down in Virginia Beach in Chesapeake, VA. That region is called Hampton Roads, and it is where the Norfolk naval station is. It is where the USS Truman, the aircraft carrier which the planes launched from to attack the Houthis, is home-ported. Folks in that community knew, and they let me hear it. They knew that their friends and loved ones' lives had been put in danger because of the sloppy, careless treatment of this classified information. They also knew very well that if any rank-and-file enlisted military or intelligence officer had so carelessly jeopardized our national security, they would have lost their security clearance and their jobs, no questions asked. The remarkable kind of irony and hypocrisy here is that a nearly identical event involving a Homeland Security employee who accidentally included a journalist in an email chain with even less sensitive information resulted in that employee being punished immediately. So a low-level employee, the rules apply to. The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Advisor-- they bear no responsibility? No one has been held accountable. Not Waltz, who initiated the group chat. As we have now come to find, this one Signal chat was not a one- off; it was a series of at least 20 of these chats, which we don't have full background on. Not Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who gambled with the lives of our fighter pilots by sharing the details of weapons, targets, and timing nearly 3 hours before military operations were scheduled to begin. And sure as heck not Tulsi Gabbard, who, as Director of National Intelligence, is charged with keeping our Nation's secrets safe from our adversaries but appears to have boldly lied about this incident before my committee. But what is so frustrating is that this is just part of a pattern for this administration, which, during its first few weeks in office, exposed the name of CIA officers over an unclassified email. Those men and women can't serve abroad anymore. The same group, driven by the DOGE bros, publicized the classified head count and budget of a U.S. intelligence Agency and posted online the location of a classified government facility. We spend a lot of money trying to keep certain things secret. And yet they post this as supposedly a property up for sale. All of this sloppiness is deeply damaging, not only to the morale of the men and women who serve in the military and the intelligence community, but it is deeply damaging to the intelligence relationships upon which our security depends. The intelligence we gather to keep America safe is frequently contingent on friends who tip us off or have access to sources that we lack. Israel, one of the best sources of intelligence in the Middle East is, according to public reports, furious that the Signalgate breach exposed a sensitive intelligence source on the ground in Yemen. I have got to tell you there is nothing that requires Israel or, for that matter, any of our allies to share this kind of intelligence with the United States. These are relationships that depend on mutual trust. And the truth is, other countries--and I have already started to hear-- may now be reluctant to share information, knowing that the Trump administration can't be relied on to protect sensitive sources and methods. Whether it is the President's bellicose threats to annex Greenland, the trade war that he has launched that is melting down the market and robbing people of their retirement funds, or this sloppy, reckless mishandling of America's classified information, the one thing that is true without a doubt is that America's credibility around the world is being severely endangered. Already, longstanding allies like Canada, Australia, and Portugal have said they are reconsidering buying American-made F-35 fighters because they no longer feel they can count on the United States or, for that matter, American businesses to stand by our commitments. Does anyone realize--I have got to believe my Republican colleagues realize this--how unimaginably foolish and shortsighted it is to have a policy where you piss off Portugal, Canada and Australia like this. How does that make us safer? The amazing thing about these relationships is, even if they reverse course, as they have done so many times, that trust you can't put back in the bottle when the trust has been broken. We have already heard that from the Prime Minister of Canada. I fear that we will feel the ripples of the erosion of trust from our workforce, American businesses, and from our international partners for many years to come. Make no mistake about it. All of these actions will make America less safe, and unless we stand up and take back the powers that were granted in the Constitution to this body, unless we stand up and demand that our intelligence community not be politicized and still able to speak truth to power, unless we stand up and say to our friends around the world--70-years-plus of allies that have kept our world safe--if we allow these actions and others to go unabated, we are shirking our duty, making America less safe and making the world less safe. In a moment, Mr. President, I am going to yield the floor, but I see my friend the Senator from California. I just want to commend him. He was chair of the Intelligence Committee in the House before he came to this Chamber, and he has suffered for speaking truth to power, for standing up for the rule of law, a level of attack and abuse, oftentimes personal, that no American-elected official should have to stand for. If we allow that kind of behavior to continue, as well, we are less safe. Let me remind you, especially the folks listening: This is not a partisan issue. We have seen Republicans Members of the Senate threatened to the point where they had to hire security for their family because they decided to speak truth. Our country is better than this. We just need some of the good Americans who we work with on a day-in and day-out basis to find their voice and say: On these matters of national security, there is no partisan divide. There is no MAGA version that makes our country safer. We will have a chance to debate and talk about this and amendments like this tonight. I hope our colleagues will find the strength to finally speak truth to power themselves. I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1310 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in a good-faith effort to try to move the evening along, I have such a no-brainer amendment that it should pass by voice. We all know we care about national security in this Chamber. My amendment simply says: Let's not send classified information over nonsecure commercial applications. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, how much time do I have left?

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President and colleagues, let's not obfuscate. We all know that if any lying military officer or any lying CIA officer had tweeted so carelessly this classified information, they would be fired immediately. Now, we can punt on this or we can send a message to the men and women of the intelligence community--who, frankly, need a little bucking up after the NSA Director got fired today--and the men and women of the military that we respect classified information and keep it valuably secret. Vote for this amendment. Thank you. Vote on Amendment No. 1310

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues who are in support of Senator Kaine's, I think, thoughtful approach on how we can put an end to this tariff war with Canada. I have got to tell you that one of the things about working with Tim Kaine for 40 years is he always keeps a hugely optimistic view of things. Boy, do I need a dose of Tim Kaine optimism today because we have seen in our national security domain a reckless disregard for classified information and no one, so far, held accountable. What a message that sends to our allies and to the men and women who work in our military or in our intelligence. If they did the same behavior with the so-called Signalgate, they would be fired. I need Tim Kaine optimism today because the long-awaited Republican budget resolution adds $6 trillion to the deficit--$4 trillion in funny math and about another $2 trillion for tax cuts. That then brings us to not my words but to Peter Navarro's words, whom I happened to meet with on a Sunday, who said that these groups of tariffs will add $6 trillion in revenues. Who do you think is going to pay for that? Candidly, it is going to be the people who buy the Presiding Officer's cars at those great dealerships in Ohio. It is going to be folks in Virginia. We had one of our brewers in yesterday who has already laid off 20 percent of his staff because he imports malted pilsner from Canada. What we are seeing with Trump is not ``America First.'' What it is going to be is ``America Alone.'' I say to anybody--and I spend way too much time in a SCIF, I know--but ``America Alone'' is not an America that is safer. Then the notion or idea that we have picked on our longest best friend in many ways--I am a little biased; my mom's parents were from Canada. But the notion that this President is trying to turn Canada into an enemy is beyond belief. You know, I talked with the senior Canadian leader just the other day. He said: Mark, you know, even if, tomorrow, Trump says, ``Never mind,'' as he has gone back and forth a dozen times, or says, ``No harm, no foul,'' the damage we will have done to the relationship between America and Canada will take years to recover from. Senator Shaheen just mentioned airplane flights are down 75 percent. America's national anthem is booed at hockey games. We had another person in who ships whiskey--Virginia bourbon--up to Canada. If all the tariffs are off tomorrow, which they will not be, it will be years, if ever, that Canadians will be buying American bourbon. So, in dreamland, $6 trillion of tariffs, you know, is the largest tax increase in American history. I believe it actually goes beyond World War I. Of the so-called ``Liberation Day,'' the only thing that is liberating is this administration liberating Americans from their savings because the market is down. They are liberating businesses from their supply chains because of so much disruption. They are liberating consumers from their hard-earned money because this is going to translate into increased costs. This isn't partisan. This isn't Democrat-Republican. This is math. And no matter how much the President wants to strut on the South Lawn-- and I am glad to see at least the South Lawn was being used for an announcement today as opposed to another day of a Tesla show lot--who is going to bear the brunt of this? It is going to be Americans. It is going to be Canadians. It is going to be the people around the world. I am sure my friend has already mentioned this: Particularly from Virginia's standpoint, Canada is our second biggest trading partner. Virginia's businesses export approximately $3.3 billion worth of products to Canada. We import about $3.2 billion. Virginia's farmers sell about $430 million of goods to Canada. A lot of Virginia peanuts go to Canada. They are not going to be going. That is going to hurt our economy. As a matter of fact, in Virginia, 280,000 jobs in Virginia depend on trade and investment with Canada. I know, as Governor, I went--and I know, Senator Kaine, as Governor, you went--because Canada is one of our best partners. What would the reception be tomorrow if we showed up in Ottawa? This is not going to be just another economic policy. This is at the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, and combined with the so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world, it is the lifeblood of the American economy. I know Senator Van Hollen is going to say a lot of the same things that I was going to say. I would just say to the Presiding Officer again: I know he sells great cars, but I am not sure if even folks in Ohio are going to be able to afford $2,000 or $5,000 more per car just because of ill-suited tariffs. So I would hope that folks on both sides of the aisle will actually stand up to ``America First.'' Reject this misguided tariff strategy. Reject this demonization of Canada. Recognize that ``America First'' doesn't have to be ``America Alone.'' The only thing that could make my day actually better at this point, beyond that little dose of Kaine optimism, is if the Senate finally comes to its senses tonight and endorses Tim's resolution, and we put an end to this misguided economic policy. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I may join my friend and colleague from Massachusetts, one, to celebrate the Senator from New Jersey's endurance, his willingness to continue to make his case in as clear terms as possible. Not having been here last night at 6:30, I do wonder, when he started this speech-a-thon at 6:30, whether the bob and the weave and the move were quite as strong or was he firmly attached to the podium. The fact that you are going on more than 12 hours now and you look like you have hours ahead and hours before you sleep and knowing that there are other Members who have a question, including the majority leader, I just want to be brief with mine. You have talked a lot with great passion about the damage done domestically. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee and now vice chairman, I have been aghast at the sloppiness of this administration time after time after time in terms of their treatment of classified information. In the first 2 weeks of the administration, strangely, a couple hundred CIA agents' identities were revealed on a nonclassified chain. These probationary employees, these new employees--the American Government had spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on each of them. You have to get a security clearance. You have to get them trained. Unfortunately, these folks can't deploy abroad. They can't deploy undercover because their names were carelessly put on an unsecured channel. You say, well, that was just a one-off. Well, what about a week or so later? The DOGE boys print a whole list of Federal properties that should be for sale. They quickly take it down a few hours later, realizing they once again have screwed up. But in putting up that list, they put on classified dark sites that the American Government, again, spends millions of dollars to protect. More recently as well, the DOGE boys, either ignorantly or maliciously, either one--just plain stupid--put out the list of a classified Agency, its budget, total head count--again, all classified information. Senator, one thing I can tell you, and I know you know this as well, if this had happened to a line intelligence officer or a line military officer, there would be no question--your butt would be fired. As a matter of fact, we got information yesterday that there had been a DHS employee who had inadvertently--inadvertently--put a journalist on a chatline. Guess what happened. The guy was fired. So when it came to this incident now called Signalgate or the Signalgate fiasco, where you have the leading members of this administration debating where and how we should bomb the Houthis, including specific information of who will be hit and when, I was-- Senator Booker, I was down in Hampton Roads this week, and these were the communities that surround the Norfolk Naval Station. The Norfolk Naval Station is where the Truman, the aircraft carrier, has been deployed from. It is the aircraft carrier that the flights that attacked the Houthis flew off of. I can tell you one thing, Senator Booker: These people were pissed off that there had been this level of carelessness about their loved ones, that if it had gotten in the wrong hands, it would have cost American lives. So, Senator Booker, as you put down the litanies of all of the challenges that have been raised by this administration, I will ask you a simple question: Do you agree that this pattern--not a one-off--

Mr. WARNER.--this pattern of sloppiness endangers our national security?

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I was absent on Monday, March 24, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 137. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 41, Christopher Landau, of Maryland, to be Deputy Secretary of State.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I also want to thank my dear friend from Maine. She is moving back up much higher on all of our lists for being willing to step up and help correct this. You know, we all want what the President wants. The President wants our Nation's Capital to be the safest, cleanest, most welcoming city. DC gets 26 million tourists every year. In 2026, we are going to celebrate 250 years. We want to show off DC and the whole region. If we allow this mistake to take place, DC will lay off cops. It will close schools. It will shut down our trash removal. For those of us in the region who use the Metro, there will be dramatic cutbacks. Let's correct this mistake. Let's make sure that we show on our 250th anniversary the cleanest, safest city in America. This will be a giant step toward that.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I was absent on Thursday, March 6, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 110. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 18, S. 331, the Halt All Lethal Trafficking (HALT) of Fentanyl Act, rollcall vote No. 110.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of my colleagues'--Senator Heinrich and Senator Kaine--resolution. I appreciate their part of the presentations, but I strongly support this resolution. I want to also acknowledge one of many reasons we vote for this resolution is because it is also Senator Kaine's birthday. I think nothing would be a better birthday present for my friend of 40, 45 years than having this body make a firm statement about being against rising utility costs. The resolution--I know they both spoke on it extensively--would repeal President Trump's flawed and misguided national emergency declaration. We all know on the first day in the midst of signing Lord knows how many Executive orders, President Trump declared a ``National Energy Emergency'' and issued an Executive order titled ``Unleashing American Energy.'' Let me be clear. Frankly, I have some fights on this side of the aisle because I actually support all of the above in terms of our energy mix. Part of that does mean LNG--and for national security reasons, to make sure we ship it to our partners in Europe. It also means we need to bring more of these energy jobs back here to America. I was at a fascinating presentation yesterday with the CEO of Commonwealth Fusion. Commonwealth Fusion is a company out of Massachusetts, but they are making a major development in Virginia. We have been talking about fusion since the seventies. Those kind of jobs ought to be here in America, and they can provide an abundance of energy. But if you actually read the President's Executive order, you will see he is not really about promoting energy security. He is interested in, frankly, only favoring certain parts of the energy sector. I think that is a huge mistake. I have the honor of having been the chair of the Intelligence Committee. I am now the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. One of the things we tried to do on the Intelligence Committee is redefine national security so it is not simply who has the most tanks and guns but who wins the battle for technology. If we are going to win the battle for technology and, particularly, in AI, that is going to require enormous amounts of additional energy in the United States. It is terribly important that the United States remains in its role now as being the world's energy leader. But the truth is, China has also made this kind of commitment. In certain ways, China--although they are still using, many times, coal-based power--they have made massive investments in renewable energy. Today, China is the world's top supplier of long-duration energy storage batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines. Just last year, China added 357 gigawatts of solar and wind generation. That is nearly 100 more gigawatts of renewable energy than the United States added. That is why Congress said: We have to catch up. In a very bipartisan way, with both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, we made a record set of investments to incentivize the build-out of a 21st century energy economy here in the United States so we can actually beat China in these fields. Unfortunately, the President's ``Unleashing American Energy'' Executive order is actually attempting to rein in or potentially reverse much of the progress that has been made. His Executive order actually calls for the pause of any disbursement of funds lawfully appropriated and obligated by the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That unlawful withholding of funds, which already has been rejected by the courts--I know my colleague from Virginia has already said this--really jeopardizes a whole lot of large-scale manufacturing projects around the country. I don't know if Senator Kaine mentioned, but a number of those projects are in Virginia. We worked years with our Republican Governor to try to get these projects funded. They include things in solar, in wind that are extraordinarily important. They were funded because they would support this growth of American energy. This is printed on both sides of the paper. I will cut to the chase. The fact is, what President Trump did on that first day by putting out this Executive order which denies the fact that America is already the energy leader in the world--we need to make additional investments in cutting-edge additional energies where China is making these investments--solar, wind, battery. I am a big advocate for small modular nukes, both efficient and fusion, which I have talked about. A lot of that comes from blending the infrastructure bill and the IRA. Why in the heck would we put a halt on all of that? Why in the heck would we cut back on cutting-edge energy investment in the United States? Why would we cut back on American energy jobs? I am all for the natural gas jobs coming out of the Presiding Officer's State. I am all for ``all of the above.'' Why restrain us though in areas where we have some catching up to do? I think about fusion again. We are going to spend about $800 million--hopefully--in some of this legislation. China is spending about twice that amount. If we want to truly create the ample sources of energy that is needed in the United States, if we want those jobs to be in America, if we want to think about a National security regime where we are the leader in the world in cutting-edge energy, then we have to support Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution to overturn this phony national energy emergency. If we don't and we give up on these projects that have been vetted--some for years--then we, frankly, are going to allow our national security to fall behind China, because I can assure you--I get classified briefs on a regular basis-- China is not giving up in investment in all these new domains. China is pedal to the metal on the ``all of the above'' energy strategy. That should be our strategy, as well. I urge all my colleagues to support Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution. I look forward to that vote later today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. I thank the majority leader for having my amendment. I would like to call up my amendment No. 130 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I rise in support of this amendment, which would prohibit any reconciliation bill that does not decrease the cost of housing for American families. I don't think there is any of us in this body that doesn't hear about the enormous rising cost of housing. Throughout the years, both under Biden and Trump, we kept saying: We are getting to housing next; we are getting to housing next. President Trump said, on day one, that he would come in and lower the cost of housing. He has done nothing of the kind. Instead, we have 3.7 million Americans who have a shortage of housing units, and 30 percent of all renters pay more than half of their income in rental cost. We have got to make sure we send a message to the American people that we are going to take on the rising cost of housing. One way we can do that is supporting my amendment.

Mr. WARNER. While I have great respect for my friend from South Carolina, and I do hope we can find some common ground on housing, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive and ask for the yeas and nays. Vote on Motion

Mr. WARNER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I join my last two colleagues, the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from California, in echoing some of their concerns, because I also rise today to oppose President Trump's nomination of Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. It has been less than a month since Donald Trump was inaugurated. It feels a bit longer for some of us. Yet already, we have seen this administration attack nonpartisan civil servants, illegally freeze Federal funding, and gut the independent oversight bodies that crack down and protect Americans from corruption. That would mean, now more than ever, the Senate needs to confirm nominees who want to make the government more efficient, yes, but who are also willing to work in good faith to advance their missions, regardless of political ideology. Unfortunately, I don't believe that Mr. Kennedy is that nominee, and I fear that he will serve as a rubberstamp to the chaos and disruption that the Trump-Musk administration brings. The past couple of weeks have made it clear that Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have a disturbing scheme to undermine the government's ability to operate, all in the name of efficiency. We have seen Musk take a hatchet to USAID, ceding soft power and, frankly, 70 years of bipartisan leadership in that domain, to China. We have seen that same attack to limit our ability to fight terrorists and, unfortunately, turn our back--which we have never done, even with Presidents of Democrat or Republican affiliation--turn our back entirely on the international community. We have seen Mr. Musk take a hatchet to the CFPB and leave consumers to fend for themselves, giving a pass to scammers and institutions that defraud Americans. We are starting to see Musk take aim at the Department of Education. We cannot allow this pattern to continue at the Agency tasked with keeping people healthy and safe. As folks in my State may remember, earlier this month, the President issued an illegal order to freeze all Federal spending. Fortunately, the funding freeze order was rescinded after a major public outcry and the threat of losing in court. Yet, even with the order rescinded, real people's lives were fundamentally changed. Across Virginia, for example, three community health centers had to close during the funding freeze, and now they won't be reopening because of uncertainty. They are not sure the money is even coming back. These health centers, which provide primary and preventive care for the underserved populations, feel they can no longer rely on the government contract or the government to keep its word or meet its obligations. In rural Buckingham County, a health center is having to put off replacing the only machine in the county that provides breast cancer screening. Who suffers? Well, it is not Mr. Musk. He is the richest man in the world. I imagine he and the young men who work with him get pretty good and timely care. But if we would just end it there, that wouldn't be all that we would potentially be putting Mr. Kennedy into. We have already seen some of the foreshadowing of what is to come if Mr. Kennedy is confirmed as the HHS nominee. Take the NIH for example--National Institutes of Health--something broadly supported in a bipartisan way. NIH is one of the many important Agencies that is tasked with advancing medical and public health research in the United States. And, literally, in the years that I have been here, it has been Republican Members who have often taken the lead in championing existing and increasing funding. Unfortunately, many of the medical achievements which started off as NIH grants, from cancer immunotherapies to heart valve replacements to medications for many health conditions, all started at NIH. Yet earlier this week, the Trump administration put forward a plan to cut $4 billion in Federal funding for research at hospital and universities, like those in Virginia which conduct some of our Nation's top research. This basically cuts the legs out of a lot of NIH funding. This illegal and shortsighted maneuver could decrease the kind of work that leads to medical cures and scientific breakthroughs. It could devastate a major research ecosystem in Virginia, eliminate 21st century jobs, and hurt countless American families who have been touched by cancer and other devastating diseases. I have no earthly idea why the President would choose to cede American R&D leadership in bio at this moment to China. But what I do know is that Mr. Kennedy will do nothing to stop it. What we need at HHS is a nominee who is willing to go in with a scalpel, not a hatchet, to make our healthcare system better. We need someone with the preparedness and experience necessary to safeguard a woman's right to reproductive care; to support healthcare systems in their fight against cyber attacks; that would protect both Medicare and Medicaid, and ensure that American families can count on good health insurance. Rather than focusing on any of these things, Mr. Kennedy, as you have heard from my colleagues, has expressed that he would like to gut our Nation's top health Agency. Specifically, he said he would like to oust 2,200 nonpartisan health experts at HHS. At his hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, I asked him a very simple question: Which ones? Which of these nonpartisan health officials have you got slated for the chopping block? I wondered, was it the folks who keep our food safe from salmonella? The individuals who examine medications we give our kids? He couldn't even answer the question who he wanted to cut. Now, I do appreciate Mr. Kennedy's concern with chronic illnesses and the obesity epidemic. I also agree that not enough Americans have access to healthy food. However, having met with Mr. Kennedy in private and having questioned him in the hearing, I don't believe he is the right person to tackle these complicated issues. I don't have the confidence that he will be willing to consider the science or consult nonpartisan health experts when necessary. I certainly don't have the confidence that he would ever be willing to stand up to Donald Trump or Elon Musk. Frankly, at least in Virginia, I am not the only one who feels that way. Let me take a moment to share some concerns I have heard from Virginians. Katherine, an ICU nurse in Charlottesville wrote: I cared for critically-ill and dying patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, while public health conspiracies were spread by figures like RFK, Jr., with no scientific or medical training. I have seen the potentially deadly consequences of spreading misleading health and safety information. Take Talia, an Alexandria resident who suffers chronic illnesses. She wrote: My ability to access effective treatments relies on accurate research and development of medicine. She fears, if nominated, Mr. Kennedy will cut progress in science and medical research. Another constituent from Nokesville wrote: My mother contracted polio at age 2. . . . She is now 92 and has spent her life dealing with the pain of post-polio symptoms. RFK, Jr.'s stance on vaccines is dangerous to people of all ages. A doctor from my hometown of Alexandria wrote: As a pediatrician for almost 50 years, I have seen many diseases nearly eradicated, thanks to vaccines. Mr. Kennedy would reverse that trend. In my care, I have seen children become profoundly impaired--unable to talk or care for themselves as adults--due to preventable infections. I have seen three children die from ``harmless'' childhood diseases like measles and chickenpox. I never wish to see that again. A cancer survivor from Virginia Beach wrote: Cancer survivors like myself count on public health initiatives and scientific research to ensure the effective long-term treatment and prevention of serious diseases. I do not believe Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.--a man who lacks any credentials and credibility in this field--will have those interests in mind. The writing is on the wall. This nominee does not have the right experience, credibility, or motivations to be running a government Agency of this size and importance. That is why I will be voting no on Mr. Kennedy's nomination to be Secretary and urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for 6 minutes, followed by Senator Wyden for 5 minutes, Senator Crapo for 5 minutes, and Senator Schumer for 2 minutes, prior to the scheduled vote.

Mr. WARNER

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise once more to oppose the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence. As I have said repeatedly, I have great respect for Ms. Gabbard's over 20 years of service to our Nation both in and out of uniform. I am, however, profoundly worried that she lacks the qualifications or judgment to be DNI. The job of the Director of National Intelligence is not a duty to be taken lightly. The incumbent serves as the principal intelligence adviser to the President and also bears the weight of responsibility to prevent another 9/11. The DNI must also represent the tens of thousands of intelligence professionals around the world who often toil in anonymity. They serve as America's first line of defense against terrorists, transnational criminals, and adversarial nations that wish to do us harm. She must also represent America to our allies as a trustworthy partner. Unfortunately, through her own words and actions, Ms. Gabbard has demonstrated she is not up to the task. She took the word of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad against the assessments of our own Department of Defense, State Department, and intelligence community when she denied that Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. She knowingly met with a Syrian cleric who had vocally threatened to conduct suicide bomb attacks against the United States. She sought to blame the United States and NATO--the United States and NATO--for Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. She publicly praised and defended Edward Snowden when he compromised our Nation's most sensitive collection sources and methods and then ran off to hide in China and Russia. Those compromises put at risk not only our intelligence but our men and women in uniform in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Just last week, even with repeated inquiries from our Republican colleagues, she refused to call Snowden a traitor. Speaking of China, when asked about TikTok at her confirmation hearing, she refused to acknowledge the threat posed by China owning a social media company that reaches 170 million Americans. All the way up until she was nominated to be DNI, she publicly advocated for the wholesale elimination of FISA 702, a tool we use actively in the intelligence domain, a tool that contributes literally 60 percent of the information that makes up the President's Daily Brief. That Daily Brief would also fall under her responsibility should she be confirmed. The environment facing a new DNI today is complicated and fraught with challenges. Not only have the traditional threats persisted from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, but we have seen increased threats from terrorism, cyber actors, and transnational criminal organizations. All the while, the intelligence community itself is under attack. Some of our own senior and experienced law enforcement and intelligence professionals are being asked to take political litmus tests, and those who are seen as insufficiently loyal are being fired or forced to resign. Whole Agencies are being eliminated and funding impounded, in flagrant defiance of the Constitution, which only gives the Congress-- us here in this body--the power of the purse. Unvetted, unqualified individuals illegally burrow into classified and sensitive information. This very action is jeopardizing our national security and violating Americans' privacy. These DOGE bros seem to have no restriction on them at all, and I have seen no evidence that Ms. Gabbard is prepared to deal with this onslaught. Therefore, I must oppose her nomination and urge my colleagues to do the same.