Richard Blumenthal
Senator for Connecticut · Democratic · United States
“I want to thank my partner in this effort, Senator Moody. This amendment really is about fairness. It is a minor adjustment to the bill that promotes competition by holding the big conferences to schools that want to compete, and it levels the playing field in a way that I think is important to the future of college sports.”
Senate28 September 2026Source ↗
“He is in a photograph of the wedding party. That picture haunts me. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. And the picture of a man who has, in effect, been complicit in abducting and reeducating children, separating them--and not just a few but literally tens of thousands, as many as 35,000, maybe 50,000 or more--separating them…”
Senate14 September 2026Source ↗
“In fact, Donald Trump made $1.4 billion, including 636 million from his meme coin, but nearly a million Americans lost billions of dollars--more than $3 billion--while he was making his huge profits. Corruption has consequences. It has costs.”
Senate14 September 2026Source ↗
“Just this morning, ProPublica reported that Donald Trump, Jr.'s, lavish wedding in the Caribbean was, in effect, heavily bankrolled by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. His name is Umar Kremlev. Umar Kremlev is also involved in an organization that reeducates Ukrainian children who have been abducted.”
Senate14 September 2026Source ↗
“The fact is that it was the result of corruption as $1.4 billion of it came from crypto. The point of this legislation is, essentially, to end that corruption. We will vote tomorrow on a crypto bill that is, sadly and tragically, riddled with loopholes that enable him to continue this same self-dealing and self-enrichment.”
Senate14 September 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I am here, thinking about all the Americans who are working on manufacturing plant assembly lines, of all the Americans who are teaching our kids in school or who are patrolling our streets as police or who are working in our hospitals--all of the hard-working Americans who are just working to get by, to make ends meet, to…”
Senate14 September 2026Source ↗
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“Madam President, 2 weeks ago, House Republicans failed to advance the Take Care of America's Veterans Act. That failure in the House was the latest example of broad bipartisan opposition to the Republican proposal to cut more than $50 billion--that is $50 billion--in benefits for disabled veterans over the next 10 years. This controversial proposal continues to divide Congress, and it also is dividing the veteran community. And it is something we could have easily averted if my Republican friends had engaged in a serious and substantive conversation about the process, a conversation not only with Democrats but with the veterans service organizations. They pursued a take-it-or-leave-it approach.”
Senate29 July 2026Source ↗
“Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.”
Senate29 July 2026Source ↗
“This resolution is necessary now to give the Senate the ability to hold President Trump accountable on behalf of the American people to go to court and have our day before a judge who will assess the facts of this case and second guess me or any of us and rule and uphold the rule of law. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution to restore the dignity of the executive office and to assure enforcement of the Constitution of the United States of America. And so as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 807; that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“The American President is supposed to work for us, for the American people, for everyday Americans, not for his own self-enrichment, and that is what the emoluments clause is really supposed to guarantee-- that the President of the United States works for the United States, not for himself. As I mentioned, I tried to enforce the emoluments clause myself by filing a lawsuit on June 14, 2017. The United States Court for the District of Columbia held that we didn't have standing. I disagree. I think we do have standing under the law, but I respect the court's judgment; and so we are charting this path forward.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“It is not only offensive as a matter of self-enrichment, but it is a threat to our national security--exactly the same kind of threat that our Founders sought to prevent as a result of the emoluments clause. Not only has President Trump violated flagrantly the emoluments clause, but he has effectively slapped a ``for sale'' sign on the door of the Oval Office. He accepted a gold-plated desk clock and engraved gold bar as gifts from Swiss business executives before slashing Switzerland's tariff rate. He hosted a private gala dinner featuring a tour of the White House to reward top buyers of the Trump cryptocurrency meme coin. Attendees of that dinner included Chinese billionaires, CEOs, and investors with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“In other words, an investment by the UAE wealth fund, controlled by the ruling family of the UAE, for 49 percent in World Liberty Financial, $500 million. And then magically--magically--President Trump approved sales of $1.4 million in military equipment for the UAE. And in addition, the sale of highly sophisticated advanced chips necessary for the UAE to build a data center that could rival ours in the United States--our national security compromised as a result of payments to World Liberty Financial--the Trump--and, by the way, Witkoff--family crypto business. This kind of self-enrichment has made a very wealthy Donald Trump even wealthier. He made $2 billion last year--$2 billion in income--1.4 billion of it from crypto.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“What we do know is costly modifications were required to ensure the installation of multiple top-secret systems to get the plane flight ready, and now it has to go back for more work because, in fact, the security system right now is inadequate. But we know taxpayers are going to foot the bill--a benefit to the President probably in excess of $1 billion. That jet barely scratches the surface of emoluments going to President Trump. In 2025, President Trump and his sons took about $500 million for a 49 percent stake in the Trump family crypto business, World Liberty Financial, invested by the MGX Fund Management Limited, which is an investment firm in turn backed by a UAE sovereign wealth fund at the initiative of Sheikh Tahnoon, the UAE's national security advisor and the brother of UAE's President.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“I know a lot about the emoluments clause because I sued Donald Trump under the emoluments clause during his first term, and we won at the district court level. In fact, we prevailed in that lawsuit, but then we were told that we had no standing. Under the Federal laws of procedure, a party in court, to successfully invoke the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, must have what is called standing, which is not just aggrievement but personal involvement and harm. And the court said, in effect: You are individual Members of Congress--there were more than 250 of us--but you are not the body; you are not the Senate; you are not the House of Representatives, which brings me here today because I want the U.S.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“I hear again and again and again from my constituents in Connecticut about their concern that the right to vote may be restricted. I say to the people of Connecticut right here and now: I will fight this bill because it is wrong, because it eviscerates voting rights, and because it threatens our democracy. I yield the floor.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“citizens who are eligible to vote don't have the requisite documentation that would be required under the SAVE Act. To solve the delusional nonproblem, the SAVE Act would deprive real citizens of the real right to vote--21 million of them. Married women, younger voters, voters of color--they are the ones who are going to be impacted. I don't know how they would vote in Connecticut or elsewhere, but they have a right to vote, and we should not be fooled by this wolf in sheep's clothing, a measure that masquerades as preserving democracy. We should not let our voter rolls be purged by a measure that has false pretenses. We must protect the right of every eligible citizen to vote. The best way to do it is to say no to this bill, and I ask my Republican colleagues to join me in saying no because this issue is larger than any one of us.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“And, now, again--as there has been throughout our history--there are efforts to suppress that right for political reasons, for political gain. That is what we have in the SAVE Act, an effort to erect obstacles and to require documentation that, very simply, Americans-- many of them--don't have. This measure is a solution--supposed solution--in search of a problem. There is no widespread voter fraud. Undocumented people, noncitizens, almost never try to vote. And I am using the word ``almost'' because I am tempted to say ``never.'' But, of course, you can't rule out a negative. You can't prove it. But the fact of the matter is, widespread voter fraud, even significant voter fraud by noncitizens, is an imaginary, delusional issue. Some 21 million U.S.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, of all the thrills of living in a democracy, none is more meaningful than walking into a voting booth and casting a ballot. I can remember the first time I did it when I came of age. I can remember, always--and I see it again and again and again--new citizens walking out of the courtroom after the naturalization ceremony, with their certificates of citizenship in their hands and handing it to the League of Women Voters person who is doing voter registrations. It is the thrill of their lifetime to be registered. Of all the rights we have, voting is perhaps the most meaningful and the most practiced. It is foundational to all the others. It is the way we preserve the others. And that is why the fight for voting rights-- and blood has been spilled in the effort to secure it--is a storied bedrock of our American history.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, earlier today, I was unable to vote on Executive Calendar No. 80, David Perdue to be Ambassador to the People's Republic of China, due to my attendance as ranking member at a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on mental health care for veterans. I would have opposed Mr. Perdue's confirmation had I been present for the vote, rollcall vote No. 215. ____________________”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“My Republican colleagues, who have been almost entirely silent, please do the right thing. Our country has made a sacred promise. Our duties as Members of Congress is to keep our promises. I yield the floor.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“These VA employees are the ones delivering healthcare to the people we love and revere. To my colleagues across the aisle, I just want to remind you in closing that this is a moment that will define you, your career, your reputation. It is a moment of profound historic challenges that has been recognized with massive marches here in the Nation's Capital, in Connecticut, around our State--New London, New Haven, Westport, New Britain. I have been to many of them. Veterans are one of most powerful voices in our country, and I urge them to use those voices and their faces to say: We need the PACT Act. We need veterans' healthcare. We need to fulfill our promises. As VFW commander Al Lipphardt said at that hearing, apply pressure and stop the bleeding. These heartless and heartbreaking cuts, firings, freezes are un- American.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“I challenge the Secretary of the VA; I challenge the President of the United States; I challenge my colleagues across the aisle: Instead of saying yes blindly to Elon Musk, when he says ``Slash and trash the VA, fire those thousands of people, and end those programs,'' look at them not as waste but as an investment. Yes, if there is waste, let's eliminate it. But as the national commander of the VFW--Veterans of Foreign Wars--said to us in one of our hearings, when he was wounded in combat, the surgeon who took the shrapnel out of his arm did it with a scalpel; he did not cut the arm off with a chain saw. Let's give up Elon Musk's chain saw, and if there is waste, do it with a scalpel. These first 100 days have been disgraceful and shameful, cruel and dumb, deeply un-American.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Now, I know very few of my colleagues have heard about VASP, but it is a program that enables veterans to get some very temporary, short-term help so they can avoid eviction from their homes and the homelessness that we are all ashamed to acknowledge continues to exist in the greatest country in the history of the world. Our veterans are on the streets without shelter because they lack homes, and here is a program designed to keep them in their homes, and the Secretary is canceling it. With housing more unaffordable than ever and veterans losing their jobs, I am at a loss--total, absolute loss--to understand how he can cancel a critical program that helps veterans undergoing financial hardship to stay in their homes.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“The approach of this Secretary of the VA, of Elon Musk, and Donald Trump is ``Fire first, plan later''; ``Fire first, evaluate later.'' I am disappointed that so many of my Republican colleagues are seeking to minimize or diminish the human impacts of these cuts, because I am hearing from veterans, just as I am from people in Connecticut and all around the country. I went to Michigan just last week to talk to folks there. Those human impacts are heartbreaking because these actions are heartless, and they are impactful not only on the incomes of these people but on their self-worth, their sense of dignity. They have devoted their lives to caring for veterans, and now, with the sweep of a hand, they get the back of a hand from Elon Musk, who has never ever even thought about wearing the uniform of the U.S. military.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“That is why I have proposed the Putting Veterans First Act, which would put those veterans back on the job--all of them from the VA--and put those veterans back on the job from the Federal workforce, and make sure that anybody who is terminated in the future gets a right to a personal, individual evaluation, and not just fired because Elon Musk wants to meet certain numbers or apply an algorithm or have his tech bros pick out randomly, arbitrarily names from the list. There are 83,000 of those VA jobs on the chopping block.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“And make no mistake, every one of these days has been a time of crisis for those veterans. Since day one, the administration has systematically shortchanged and betrayed veterans with its policies. They have not only fired that 2,500 in reckless mass terminations of probationary employees--our young workforce, starting out on jobs, our VA future, and some of them dedicated multiyear employees who have just been promoted and, therefore, are in those new positions on a probationary basis. They have been promoted because they were good at their jobs and dedicated and hard-working, and they have been fired.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“For our veterans, it has been 100 days of chaos, of cruelty, stupidity, anxiety on their part, and apprehension, and 100 days of decisions made about their healthcare and their benefits. They were promised healthcare, and they were promised benefits. And now this administration is breaking those promises, not by coming to Congress and asking for a rescission or changing the PACT Act, which we passed in a bipartisan way, but simply by firing the people who were supposed to approve those claims for PACT Act benefits for veterans who have been exposed to toxic chemicals or burn pits. And this is an administration that has fired already 2,500 of those dedicated VA employees, close to one-third of them veterans themselves, thousands from the Federal workforce, generally, close to 30 percent of them are veterans as well.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“We must stand with Ukraine. We now have more than 60 cosponsors of a Russia sanctions bill that I have been proud to lead with Senator Graham--it is bipartisan, evenly divided in cosponsorship--to send a message to Vladimir Putin: We are going to hit you, and we are going to hit you hard economically if you continue to stall and string along America, if you continue to play the President. But Donald Trump has been a seemingly willing partner in being played by Vladimir Putin, his bro, his role model, perhaps. Nobody has a stronger right to claim credit for preserving our freedoms in the past and now than our veterans, and they have been betrayed by this administration.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Basic fairness and due process rights that involve also the President intimidating law firms with threats that they will be denied access to security clearances or even to go on to governmental property, and intimidation and threatening our universities, supposedly in the name of anti-Semitism--nobody hates anti-Semitism more than I do, but I despise using anti-Semitism as a pretext or a guise simply to attack people or institutions because they disagree with a public official. We live in a time when the rule of law is under threat, perhaps as never before in my lifetime, and the cause of freedom, all around the world, is in jeopardy. Ukraine has been betrayed. This Nation has switched sides to the enduring and deep detriment of our standing in the world, our reliability as a partner and ally. The harm may be irreparable.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“It is unmatched for its meanness and stupidity--the harm and hurt done to everyday Americans in real life and realtime; the harm in tariffs already having effect on the uncertainty of businesses about the future, their inability to plan, to invest in new manufacturing, and the fear of people that they will be jobless and lose the dignity of work and be hit with higher prices for everything from groceries to gasoline, to housing; the harm done in healthcare already, our federally qualified health centers deprived of funding, NIH research grants for curing cancer, for diabetes or hypertension canceled or frozen; in education, the uncertainty and loss of funding for special education and other programs that benefit children and the neediest and most vulnerable of our districts, in rural areas as well as urban; and, of course, the damage to our fundamental freedoms, women's reproductive freedoms, the suspension of title X grants, and the assault on women's healthcare--other freedoms: the basic due process of people who should have a right to receive notice and the opportunity to be heard before they are deported, before they are detained, before they are imprisoned or put on a plane to be imprisoned out of the country.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“There are many, many other differences, but the whirlwind of activity here has produced chaos. That is the operative word: chaos. The turmoil and turbulence have produced confusion and, yes, anxiety, deep fear, and apprehension about the future of this country. And the poll numbers only reflect not only the downward spiral of our economy but of our confidence in the future. This administration has been cruel, and it has been dumb.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Second, in those first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration, there was a whirlwind of congressional activity, inspired by the President, with his proposals for new Agencies and programs and investments. Congress was a partner. In this administration, President Trump has acted unilaterally by Executive order--illegally, unconstitutionally, and unchecked, except by courts that have been a bulwark. In those first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration, F.D.R. appealed to our ``better angels,'' our willingness to give back, to be generous to our fellow Americans. He later inspired us with the call to ``a rendezvous with destiny.'' In this administration, which is plagued with corruption, crypto theft, and Musk exploitation of Agencies, it is a downward spiral, a race to the bottom in an appeal to self-indulgence and self-enrichment.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Let me just say about labor rights and union activities at the VA, labor organizing and collective bargaining actually expedite conflict resolution. It reduces legal costs. It actually saves money through collective bargaining, not to mention the waste, fraud, and abuse that it helps the Department uncover and address. Those negotiations have allowed the Department to bar criminally bad actors from receiving settlement funds and being reinstated. There is a lot more to say on this topic, but let me just finish by saying that I hope we can work together. I hope the chairman and I can work together in a bipartisan way to put together our two resolutions and devise one that will pass muster on both sides. Because of the shortcomings of this resolution, I object.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“The VA also made it easier for veterans to seek mental health care while reducing wait times for that care in new appointments. Claims that the VA has been placing more barriers for veterans to receive care in the VA and through community care are simply untrue. Since 2019, the VA has made enormous improvements in customer service and has become more welcoming to veterans through historic outreach. If we listen to veterans, as I do every weekend because I go home every weekend, what I hear is customer satisfaction rising and happiness with VA healthcare. Sure, there are criticisms, and we need to meet those criticisms. There are shortcomings, and we need to improve VA healthcare to address those shortcomings. But VA trust has increased to the point of 80.4 percent this year--an alltime record and an increase of 25 percent since 2016.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“It fails to call for restoring the VA's skilled professional workforce that is necessary to provide sufficient healthcare, particularly mental health care. I should also note that prior to Secretary Collins and DOGE, wait times for care--before they took over and seized control, wait times actually decreased in 2024 while the number of new patient appointments increased by 11 percent. So this idea that somehow the VA was wholly failing before this administration is exactly the opposite of reality. The time to process each claim actually decreased. The VA processed 116,192 veterans' appeals, representing a 12.5-increase over last year's record. Those are claims for disability and compensation. Additionally, under the previous administration, veteran homelessness reached record lows--a 55.6-percent reduction since 2010.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“Reserving the right to object, let me first say I appreciate the work of my colleague, the chairman of the VA Committee, where I am the ranking Democrat. Chairman Moran and I work together in a very bipartisan way on a lot of legislation. I would like to support his resolution, but we received it only about an hour ago, and so I have been unable to check with my colleagues on this side as to whether there is any objection among them. Second, although I would like to support it, I have to say no, not because of something it has but what it lacks, and that is, it fails to mention anything about the Trump-Musk assault on the VA and its workforce and particularly the negative impacts of those actions on veterans' mental health and suicide prevention.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“We can be bipartisan in our praise and in our criticism, but we need to stand up to the Musk-Trump slash-and-trash regime that has been so harmful to our veterans. And we can't go about it with business as usual. These draconian, indiscriminate cuts are doing harm to our veterans as we speak, and to avoid action is not only inappropriate, it is injustice to our Nation's heroes.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“Madam President, I want to respond very quickly by saying, first of all, I think we share a lot of goals, but we need action. The VA is in crisis impending right now, in real time, affecting real lives in real time, people who need mental health care now, who need the Veterans Crisis Line now, who need those counselors and psychiatrists now. What I am asking is unanimous consent for a resolution that calls for restoring the VA workforce to meet that crisis and to doing right by our veterans. It shouldn't be partisan. It isn't partisan. I have been critical of the VA under Democratic administrations, under General Shinseki when he was there and the delays were unacceptable, and nobody was more direct or critical than I was.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“As if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of my resolution, which is at the desk. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon table with no intervening action or debate.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“We need to, as he said, ``apply pressure and stop the bleeding.'' I am joined on the Senate floor today by two of my colleagues who have been integral to this fight, Senator Sanders and Senator Duckworth, who will be calling for passage of their own resolutions aimed at reversing damage from the Trump/Musk attacks on veterans. I hope that our votes on these resolutions send a message. I hope we will have unanimous support for my resolution and for theirs, that we will keep faith with our veterans, and we will leave none of them behind. Madam President, first, I ask unanimous consent that the text of my resolution be printed in the Record.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“What we are seeing right now is the DOGE tech bros under Elon Musk operating with that famous chain saw that he has displayed, and they are doing it to the detriment of our veterans and to those who are being fired. As Mr. Lipphardt said, these veterans are now being told their skills are no longer useful to the government. We are losing people who are genuinely committed to the mission and find a continued sense of purpose in what they do. These dedicated, patriotic veterans--the ones who work at the VA, the ones who are served by the VA--are deeply disserved and damaged by these actions. As Mr. Lipphardt said, finally: We need to stop the bleeding.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“And it is not a matter of eliminating waste because we know the way to eliminate waste is to go line by line, item by item carefully and thoughtfully--or as Al Lipphardt, the national commander of the VFW, told us--and he was describing a wound that he sustained while in combat during the Vietnam war: I am thankful that the medics who treated me chose not to take my whole arm for the sake of efficiency. It took a trained eye, a skillful hand, and human intuition to fix me up and get me back in the fight. In my experience, those operating with a scalpel have a better chance at saving limbs than those who operate with a chainsaw.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“World-class researchers performing research on mental health and substance abuse disorders among veterans have been terminated. Most devastating of all, Veterans Crisis Line has seen a recent increase in call volume largely from veterans who were either terminated from the Federal workforce or who were concerned about losing their benefits or both, because at least a quarter up to a third or more of the Federal workforce are veterans, and they need that mental health care. Amidst that flood of cruel actions taken by the administration, I am proud that my Democratic colleagues have been united in our resistance to these relentless attacks on veterans. It is not only on mental health care, it is all healthcare. It is not only on healthcare, it is on the PACT Act for veterans who need that screening, benefits, care.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“And the VA's newest staffing goal--that 83,000 number that I mentioned before--is going to be cutting employees at a time of ever-increasing demand, even in the short term. All these cuts will do is to harm veterans. There is no elimination of waste or fraud or abuse. In every Agency and in every program, there is some waste, but the way to eliminate it is not to slash indiscriminately and draconian cuts as a way to do it. While we wait for these 83,000 employees to be axed by Trump and Musk, we already see the impact. Employee assistance programs and mental health support contracts for the VA workforce have been canceled. Staff at vet centers--VA community-based counseling centers-- have been fired. VA mental health staff are being forced to conduct counseling sessions in open cubicles, putting veterans' privacy at risk.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“Now, they have taken a wrecking ball to the VA in order to save money that then can be used for tax cuts going to people who need them least--the ultrawealthy, the billionaires and millionaires--at a time when veterans who need healthcare most will be deprived of it. The reason is quite simply the staffing shortages that they have purposefully created--2,400 already; on the chopping block, another 83,000--without a plan or a strategy, admitted to us by the VA itself. They are making it up as they go along, but they know they want to slash and trash the VA workforce.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“Madam President, I am here today in the hope that our colleagues will join me in condemning actions taken by President Trump and Elon Musk that are devastating to the healthcare of our veterans, as well as their disability benefits under the PACT Act, and most especially, deeply harmful to mental health care and suicide prevention for veterans, and to engage in this call for action restoring the doctors, counselors, psychiatrists, all who are essential to veterans' healthcare and have lost their jobs--thousands of them. The plain, staggering fact is that Musk and Trump are kneecapping the VA healthcare system at a time when the VA projects a 59-percent increase. That is right. In this fiscal year going to 2032, a 59- percent increase in inpatient and outpatient mental health care is projected.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“They are cruel, reckless, and careless. They play fast and loose with America's credibility around the world. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on S.J. Res. 37 and join us in trying to save the American economy and our credibility around the world. I yield the floor.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“We already have one of the highest costs of living in the country. Taxing these goods will put an undue financial strain on individuals and families across Connecticut but, most important, on people who can least afford a higher tax--our middle-income and lower income members of the workforce, working people in Connecticut who have to buy stuff depending on their paychecks--for groceries, for gasoline. A tax on those products will hit them in the pocketbook. It will hit their families. It will hit them at the kitchen table, when they go to the drugstore to buy pharmaceuticals, when they have downpayments on homes, on furnishings--across the board. So I am not here to make a speech; I am really here to make a plea: Mr. President, please reconsider. These tariffs are fundamentally misguided. They are dumb.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“Some of the largest State industries--including aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, medical devices--all rely on trade with Canada to remain profitable. These industries source key production imports from Canada, including aerospace parts, critical minerals and metals, basic chemicals, and petroleum and coal products. In return, we export billions of dollars of goods to Canada. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people across Connecticut--jobs, employment--who all stand to see their livelihoods threatened if this tax is allowed. It will ripple across Connecticut. It will reverberate through the country to the Presiding Officer's State, to Virginia, New York, Maryland, colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The cost of living in Connecticut will rise drastically.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“Consumers in Connecticut already face some of the highest electricity prices in the Nation, with an average cost of 28.16 cents per kilowatt- hour, compared to the national average of 16.26 cents per kilowatt- hour. Connecticut and New England as a whole get a significant share of our electricity from cheaper Eastern Canadian hydropower. The 10- percent tariffs proposed on energy resources from Canada will directly impact and drastically increase those electricity costs. ISO New England has estimated that this tax would add $66 million in annual consumer costs. I hope President Trump will listen to the people of Connecticut and New England when it comes to electricity costs. Do not impose these tariffs. The harm to Connecticut is far from limited to just energy prices.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“In 2024, Canada was the United States' second largest trading partner, with $761.2 billion in total trade--the largest single U.S. export market for goods. Every day, nearly half a million people and billions of dollars in goods and services cross that border. But I want to focus on Connecticut for the moment because Connecticut demonstrates what will happen to America as a whole, and I represent the people of Connecticut. This regimen of tariffs will be catastrophic for Connecticut. Friends in Connecticut, listen to what these haphazard tariffs will do. Canada is Connecticut's single largest trading partner, accounting for 20 percent of our total trade in 2024, including 13 percent of our exports and 25 percent of our imports.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“What began as a recession, what started as a Wall Street problem, became a global depression because the world failed to realize that, even then, our economies were connected and that tariffs could hurt all countries when all countries adopted them, when a trade war ensued. And a trade war now is what we face. Canada has long been one of our Nation's closest allies and trading partners. We have a bond with Canada that goes beyond simple economics, although, frankly, our relationship with Canada supports millions of jobs, protects the competitiveness of American businesses, and ensures our long-term economic prosperity.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“Careless, cruel, reckless--that is what these tariffs are, particularly as directed to Canada. Let's be clear. The tariffs proposed by President Trump are a tax. They are a tax. There has been no tariff ever imposed in the history of the United States of America that has ever lowered prices. These tariffs will raise prices. They threaten not only higher costs for everything from gas, to groceries, to rental housing, but they also deeply threaten a recession. I have been reading a book called ``Freedom from Fear,'' written by a great historian, a professor at Yale named David Kennedy. ``Freedom from Fear'' is about the events and the misdirection and mistakes that led our Nation to the Great Depression.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague from Maryland, who has described so well the reasons we should oppose these tariffs. I thank my colleague from Virginia, Senator Kaine, who has demonstrated once again his leadership that makes him such a great Member of this body. I want to begin--and I hope the Presiding Officer will forgive me-- with a four-letter word. It is a word that I say to my children that they should never use: ``dumb,'' D-U-M-B. These tariffs are dumb. They are also cruel, and they are stupid. They are imposed in the name of, perhaps, building manufacturing in this country, which they won't do, or in the name of raising revenue to cut taxes for the wealthy, which is adding insult to injury, or simply for vengeance. So much of what this administration does is for the purpose of vengeance and vanity.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“But every attack on the CFPB, including this CRA, is an attack on consumer protection, commonsense safeguards that make sure that Americans can avoid being exploited by big and powerful institutions. Overturning the overdraft rule is yet another giveaway to these big banks and the billionaires who control and run and own them. I have said before but it bears repeating: President Trump will always help his billionaire friends at the cost of helping you. Today, I urge my colleagues to vote against this attack on the CFPB. Vote no on S.J. Res. 18. I yield the floor to my great friend and colleague from Massachusetts Senator Warren.”
Senate26 March 2025Source ↗
“They deserve nothing less than the gold standard in healthcare, as well as full and complete benefits of the PACT Act and in every other respect, the respect and responsibility that we have. To disrespect them is un- American. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”
Senate26 March 2025Source ↗