Cynthia M. Lummis
Senator for Wyoming · Republican · United States
“Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July…”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 119 (Tuesday, July 21, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 21, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4198] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] PRIVILEGES OF THE FLOOR Ms. LUMMIS. Mr.”
“Senator Barrasso and I are riding along the parade route, the same parade route Wyoming has watched for generations. And as we came down the street, I could hear it from my constituents over and over: Pass the SAVE Act, Senator. Pass the SAVE Act. Not once. Not from just one corner of the crowd, all along the parade route.”
“Senator Barrasso and I are riding along the parade route, the same parade route Wyoming has watched for generations. And as we came down the street, I could hear it from my constituents over and over: Pass the SAVE Act, Senator. Pass the SAVE Act. Not once. Not from just one corner of the crowd, all along the parade route.”
“It is the plainly stated view of most people in this country, arrived at through a basic, widely shared sense of fairness: That girls who train and compete deserve a level playing field where they can compete safely.”
“It is the plainly stated view of most people in this country, arrived at through a basic, widely shared sense of fairness: That girls who train and compete deserve a level playing field where they can compete safely.”
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“Maybe most of all, it has been 100 days of costs--costs going up and up and up because of tariffs; costs to working people because programs vital to them--Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, housing, SNAP--are being threatened or even already taken away to some extent, and it will be a greater extent once we see their reconciliation bill. So Donald Trump promised a golden age on the day he took the oath of office. What Americans are learning instead is it is fool's gold. Americans got corrosion, erosion, and rot--corrosion across this administration, erosion across this economy, and rot within the foundations of our democracy.”
“Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans are highjacking the government, raiding the public's piggy bank, and picking the pockets of the American people to enrich themselves. These billionaires are using the [[Page S2639]] government to even make more money. It is despicable. We have never seen anything like it, the level of corruption and self-dealing, in America before. MAGA grifters are getting rich off meme coins, and the White House lawn has been turned into a Tesla dealership. It makes Americans cringe. This is not the American way. This has not been a hallmark of our history.”
“Democrats are holding the floor late tonight to expose the disaster of Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. We will be speaking for several more hours. This week marks the 100th day of Donald Trump's second term as President of the United States. It has been 100 days from hell, and people are fed up. One hundred days in, the legacy of Donald Trump's second term is already set: chaos, corruption, costs. It is chaos, one fiasco after another. One minute, Donald Trump and his people say one thing, and then they say it is the opposite, and then they say something else entirely. Nobody ever seems to know which way is up, and many of them just lie outright to the American people. It is corruption.”
“One hundred days in, he is not deterring Xi Jinping; he is backing down every time he says he is going to stand up to him. At the end the day, these first 100 days have shown that we are weaker, the world is less stable, and Americans are less safe. I have to say that 100 days is more than enough time for my Republican colleagues to have seen enough, to stand up to this President, and to restore the role of this Senate and return our position of strength to the world. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader. Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I thank my colleagues, the ones I have heard so far--Senator Blumenthal, Senator Coons. I know Senator Klobuchar will be great as always, as will Senator Baldwin. But I thank them all for coming.”
“We have long relied on a global network of allies and partners to keep us safe and strong, to make us prosperous, and to build our role in the world. China doesn't have that. They have nervous neighbors, client states, countries that can't count on them and view them as predatory. Yet now, through the actions of President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE, and the silence and the collaboration of Republicans in this Chamber, even our closest, most trusted allies, like Canada, question whether they can count on us. Back to the Reagan days, Republicans have talked about ``peace through strength.'' What we have seen from Donald Trump in 100 days is weakness through chaos. One hundred days in, he is not stopping Putin; he is preparing to sell out Ukraine and Europe to Putin.”
“I was recently in the Philippines, a nation that faces more natural disasters every year than any other country on Earth--more typhoons, more earthquakes, more volcanos. For decades, they have relied on the United States and the help of USAID, volunteers, nonprofits coordinated through our government to respond to these disasters. It has built a long and close partnership of trust. Gone. I was recently in Taiwan, a country looking to decide whether they can rely on us should China make real their threats to reunite Taiwan with the mainland by force. Can they trust us? Well, what I am going to say is that in 100 days, President Trump has shown weakness in Europe and created openings for China.”
“He is going to take over the Gaza Strip and make it ``Mara-Gaza.'' He is going to turn Canada into the 51st State. One of my Republican colleagues has said: Don't pay so much attention to what he says; look at what he does. Well, lots of our partners and allies have looked at what he has done by imposing tariffs on trusted allies and partners and recoiled. An election in Canada last night where Trump was the issue elected a new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who ran on a platform of standing up to America, of standing up to Donald Trump. Look, folks, the actions he has taken in slashing foreign aid, in abandoning decades-old, bipartisan programs around the world that save lives and that help other countries to trust us and rely on us, have weakened us abroad and created openings for our pacing threat, the People's Republic of China.”
“Businesses say they need predictability in order to decide what to invest in, who to hire, where to grow. Other countries around the world say that they need to know they can trust us, that they can rely on us. And in the last 100 days, President Trump has shattered both of them. I am going to speak for a few minutes about foreign policy because so many of my colleagues in my caucus have stood to talk about the disastrous cuts led by Elon Musk and DOGE and the ways they have impacted Americans all over the country. But if you think about our reputation globally, statement after statement and tweet after tweet by President Trump has puzzled, concerned, even alarmed our allies. He is going to invade Greenland, a NATO ally. He is going to take back the Panama Canal.”
“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. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Lummis). The Senator from Delaware. Mr. COONS. Madam President, in 100 days, in 100 days, what can a President accomplish? In the last 100 days, President Trump has made Americans less safe, less prosperous, and less free. He has chosen to move us in a direction at home and abroad that is the opposite of what those who voted for him expected and that is aligned with what those of us who worked against him feared. What I have heard my whole life, whether in business or in foreign policy, as a lawyer or in my community as a local elected official: Folks need trust, and they need predictability.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We are hearing about VA supply teams now understaffed and behind on placing critical supply requests for medication and equipment; support lines for caregivers that have been reduced; Veterans Crisis Line employees fired and, after a public backlash, maybe some rehired, as we heard today in a hearing of the Veterans Affairs' Committee. But the impact is enduring because suicide prevention has to be done in the moment, and suicide [[Page S2638]] prevention training sessions have been postponed or canceled. Earlier this month, the Secretary announced he will be abruptly canceling the VA Servicing Purchase Program, known as VASP, on May 1.”
“These human impacts include world-class researchers who are looking into how to predict stroke risk among veterans; enrollment of veterans into clinical trials for advanced cancer delayed because of the VA's hiring freeze; openings for new clinics that have been delayed because the VA can't hire the necessary staff to open their doors; the VA mental health staff forced to conduct counseling sessions in open cubicles without privacy, basic privacy, for the veterans who are talking about their innermost doubts and fears; service lines at VA hospitals and clinics that have been halted; beds in operating rooms at VA facilities that have been suspended.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“President, I am honored to follow the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee and to be followed by another distinguished member of that same committee and to focus on these first 100 days. The focus on the first 100 days of an administration, I think, comes from [[Page S2637]] the time of Franklin Roosevelt and his 100 days in the midst of deep depression, despondency, and despair on the part of the American people, and the whirlwind of activity that he brought to addressing our Nation's depression. And there are dramatic differences between those 100 days and the 100 days we have seen from President Trump. First and foremost, our economy was at near full employment, at a time of solid prosperity, 100 days ago, and we are now sliding toward exactly the kind of economic downturn that F.D.R. helped to address.”
“standing overseas, the administration is facilitating China's global rise. That is why, as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve the vital programs that we need to keep our country safe. I am committed to speaking up for American families and small businesses that have been shouldering the burden of higher costs because of President Trump's trade wars. So I know he is not listening, but I call on President Trump to reverse course, to spend the next 100 days fulfilling the promises that he made during his campaign--promises to make our Nation safer, to make it more secure, to make it more prosperous. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr.”
“These cuts represent a serious strategic error on behalf of the United States because for less than 1 percent, about 1 percent of our annual budget, America has been able to build partnerships around the globe that have reduced the threat of illness and the spread of disease, including here at home, because thanks to these programs around the world, we have nearly eradicated polio, we have cut malaria deaths by half, and we have saved 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS. And these successes strengthen America's reputation on the global stage, they help counter our adversary's influence, and they help us here at home, because it means that diseases like bird flu don't reach America's shores, where they are now. It means that we can track those diseases. So whether it is through its mismanaged trade war or deliberate weakening of U.S.”
“They are inviting local officials to all-expense-paid trips to Beijing to discuss further cooperation. China is now replacing a canceled American program for child nutrition in Cambodia, and Beijing just announced an early childhood project in Rwanda, where the United States recently cut our program. They are even moving in, picking up the PEPFAR Program that we have walked away from in Africa, after saving millions of lives.”
“It is not just giving Vladimir Putin the chance to keep stringing along American negotiators, to continue to play President Trump as he is trying to secure a Ukraine peace deal, but across the globe, China is stepping in everywhere the United States is retreating. After the earthquake in Myanmar, the Chinese Embassy flooded social media with images of Chinese rescue workers responding to crises, instead of the United States because we weren't there at all because the three people we sent to assess the damage to see what we needed to do to help were fired while they were in Myanmar trying to figure out what we can do to help that situation. So China's image is being bolstered at our expense. Across Africa and Latin America, Chinese Ambassadors are giving interviews focused on the unreliability of the United States as a partner.”
“forward deployed forces, and it gives us that advantage because our adversaries don't have this kind of program. One of the reasons we passed it in the first place is because what we know from the data is that when women are at the table in a negotiation to end conflict, that the negotiations that are agreed to have a better than 30-percent chance of lasting 15 years or longer because women are at the table. It is an advantage that it gives us because China and Iran and North Korea and Russia don't have that role for women in their military. What Secretary Hegseth's action has done is not only showed his ignorance, but is now putting our military at a disadvantage because of that ignorance. Now what these kind of actions do is to create opportunities for our adversaries to gain influence.”
“He didn't even--he wasn't even concerned enough to go back and look at the history. This is legislation, and it is a law--it is not a rule--it is a law that we passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration. I know because I sponsored it. The House sponsor was our current Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. It had support from our current National Security Adviser, former Congressman Waltz, and it was bipartisan legislation. It is not some DEI program--some program that is designed to provide women an advantage in the Department of Defense. What it is is a program that gives us a security advantage. Every combatant commander who has come through my office has highlighted the strategic advantage that this program gives to our U.S.”
“research and academic institutions, against our international students, have also caused serious damage to our reputation as a global hub for STEM talent, not to mention those students who are graduating from our colleges and universities who we want to attract to stay in the United States because they are the next generation of talent. The policies of this administration have left us more vulnerable to the spread of deadly diseases like Marburg and Ebola. They have crippled our response to disasters like hurricanes in the Caribbean, as we enter what is expected to be an active hurricane season. And just today, the Secretary of Defense said he would end the Women, Peace, and Security program at the Department of Defense. Now, he mistakenly said this was a program that was put in place by the Biden administration. That is not true.”
“I recently met with a New Hampshire company called New Hampshire Ball Bearings. It is a company that makes bearings for the aerospace industry, and they do a lot of business with our Department of Defense. They are concerned because once the tariffs were announced, their only domestic steel manufacturer has increased its cost to be equivalent to what out-of-state companies--out-of-country companies are charging. But worse than that, they said that their lead time for steel that they use for the aerospace industry and for our Department of Defense has gone from 20 weeks to 2\1/2\ years. I mean, think about that. The lead time to get the steel they need to make the ball bearings has gone from 20 weeks--which is a long time in and of itself--but now it is 2\1/2\ years because of the tariffs. And the administration's attacks against U.S.”
“The administration and the President have raised and lowered and raised and lowered tariffs against some of our closest allies and neighbors, spiking costs for Americans and hurting our manufacturers and the defense industry. Instead of the promised golden age of America or golden age of prosperity and lower prices, of safety and security, of our enemies bowing to our demands, the resulting chaos has left us weaker and more vulnerable. From global financial markets to New Hampshire supermarkets, consumers and businesses aren't sure what to expect. They are looking at higher prices, at layoffs, at longer wait times, and at uncertainty, which many businessowners I have talked to tell me it is just as bad as higher tariffs because they don't know what to expect, and they can't plan.”
“We had disease surveillance programs that were in place to stop the spread of deadly viruses like Ebola, no matter where they broke out in the world, and the security contracts at detention camps that have been filled with ISIS fighters were still being paid. And if our Nation was attacked by a foreign enemy or if we were thrown into a global pandemic or even a global economic crisis, our allies had our backs. They had our backs because they knew that in their darkest hour, the United States would stand with them. Then, unfortunately, the Trump administration took over, and in 100 days, this administration has undone six decades of investments that have made the United States more respected and influential than any other nation.”
“When is it we will say ``no more'' to an Executive pushing his weight around with private law firms, private employers, with our universities, and telling them unless they do it his way, they will pay an enormous price in lost governmental funding or access to things that they need? Mr. President, in my view, 100 days of giving a lot of rope and a lot of license to the Executive is 100 days too many, but it is not too late for us, as Congress, to stand up for the separation of powers, the balance of powers, and the prerogatives of the United States Senate and the United States Congress. I yield the floor. [[Page S2636]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire. Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, 100 days ago, our Nation was safe and our economy was considered the envy of the world.”
“You have got an administration that has now weaponized the Justice Department, the FCC, governmental entities where, yes, they have a very important responsibility to enforce the rules and regulations but where their targets are cherry-picked for political reasons. And that is very damaging to the long-term well-being of our country and our democracy. It is time for this Congress to make an assessment of our obligation to the citizens we represent. When is enough enough? When has the Executive gone too far? When is it that all of us should heed the pleas of the businesses, the enterprises in each of our States about this chaotic, very destructive tariff policy?”
“And who knows what conditions the President imposes on whoever it is he is going to give the benefit of his capacity to make an exception for you or for your business. That is called corruption. And the worst thing that we can do is to inject, as a material factor in the way the economy works, a corruption that is based on your ability to get special treatment because you have made campaign contributions, because you have made certain other concessions, because you looked the other way. That is what is happening right now. You have got an administration that, in the name of waste, fraud, and abuse, is destroying institutions. You have got an administration that, based on an assertion that tariffs will make us rich, is causing inflation, causing enormous business uncertainty, and is, ultimately, going to lead us into a recession.”
“But if you are a farmer in Vermont, if you are a snowboard manufacturer in Vermont and you don't have Secretary Bessent's telephone number on speed dial or the President's, you don't get to make that call, and you will have to live with that enormous impact on your cost structure and on what you have to charge customers and see your market evaporate. It is as though the President is transforming the economy we have had that has been based on competition--you succeed if you have the best product and the best service--into an economy that is based on access. Do you have the Treasury Secretary's telephone number so you can make your case? Do you have the President's number so you can make your case?”
“You know, the fact that the President won't acknowledge so many failures of just--for beginning the tariff policy, and what we are seeing in this economy that is now revolving around this question of tariffs and on whom will they be imposed--what you are seeing is that if you are Apple computer and you are at the inauguration, you can call up the Treasury Secretary, you can call up the President, and you can point out that these tariffs are going to have an enormously negative impact on Apple.”
“It is important not just because democracy is a form of government we are taught as young people to revere and to be proud of, that we have this oldest democracy in the world; it is because democracy is the tool by which the citizens in Utah and the citizens in Vermont who may have very different points of view on a whole number of important issues have that right to have a seat at the table to have a discussion about, How do you resolve these differences? And if we don't stand up for that, it means there is going to be a small circle of well-connected people around President Trump who make all those decisions and make it from the framework of what is best for them as opposed to what is best for all of us. That is the real threat here. That is happening.”
“It is this arbitrary use of power beyond enforcing the law but having the Trump vision of what he wants be the law. And this brings me to the point that the Minority Whip was making: You know, this is not just a question for each of us as a Member of the U.S. Senate to decide, When has the Executive overreached? It is about the obligation we have in both parties to uphold the constitutional system of checks and balances. As many people have said, James Madison made the clear point that absolute power is the biggest threat. And if it is in any single branch, it has the capacity to bring down the entire structure of democracy. Now why is that important?”
“What sense does it make that because of his vendetta about higher education, that instead of addressing those concerns and having discussions, he literally takes away billions of dollars of research that has gone not just to Harvard, our oldest institution, but the University of Alabama, the University of North Carolina where you have people who, to our benefit, have dedicated their lives to scientific research; that because the United States Government has provided support for research and development--we have had cures for terrible diseases--but if they don't do what Donald Trump says, he will take away grants that actually have legally been transferred to these academic institutions--destroying research--destroying research and development.”
“It is the business to enforce the law, but it is not his business to be able to tell a law firm: We will take contracts away. It is not his business to be able to tell a law firm: Since you had somebody who represented the government in a case against Trump or some Trump person or ally, we are going to punish you and not allow you, in fact, into a court building or to get access to the secure information that is necessary to defend somebody who is in court. This is a complete overreach and extension by the President, essentially to impose his own will--not enforce the law--but to enforce his will as he arbitrarily wishes.”
“There is not, here, an effort to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse. There is an effort here, essentially, to destroy these institutions that have served this country. And I just want to state very clearly that those of us who are appalled by this conduct are all in favor of looking at every program, from SNAP to the Pentagon: How can we do it better? How can we get more for less? How can we get the most out of the folks who are serving in those organizations? But that is not what is going on. Then there is the next step: the overreach of power; a lawless, in my view--absolutely lawless--abuse of Executive authority. You know, what business is it of Donald Trump what the hiring practices are of an individual private corporation or firm?”
“They just got the termination notice that they haven't been doing a good job. Obviously, not on the level. But when I think about the cruelty of the way in which this was done; that in those warehouses where food is stored, the local population who is hired and paid to take the food from the warehouse and deliver it to where those starving children needed the food were fired. And we literally have food rotting in warehouses rather than nourishing families' children. The same is true with medicine. We won't deliver it. It is over there. It is where it is needed. It can be delivered. But the way in which the Trump administration, with Mr. Musk, is proceeding is to literally take that food away and take that medicine away rather than deliver it. So that is not at all on the level.”
“It creates, first of all, the alleviation of enormous suffering among many people who are absolutely starving, [[Page S2635]] among many people who need medicine, among many people who need water to help with agriculture, to be able to feed themselves. It is something that had bipartisan support in this Senate Chamber, with many of my Republican colleagues--your colleagues--leading the way for America to make a contribution as the greatest and most wealthy Nation in the world. That was just shut down, literally. Notices went out: You are fired. Notices went out: Your program is terminated. Notices went out: Turn the ship around and bring the food back. And the impact of this on these USAID workers who have dedicated their lives to being a representative of our country, doing something beneficial in other countries?”
“John Lacy, CEO of Burton Snowboards, one of the global enterprises founded in Vermont by Jake Burton and Donna Carpenter: How can you navigate the playbook if you don't know what the rules of the [road] are? It is a fair question, and it is a question that the administration, President Trump, feels he has no obligation to answer. So this goes on and on. You have got the economic issues, the tariffs. You have the attack on the institutions. USAID is a good example, and it is a vulnerable target because there is a lot of misinformation about USAID. A lot of folks think it is about 25 percent of our budget. And I see we have the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee here who knows this better than anyone else. It is like 1 percent of our budget.”
“And they may have their political preferences, but what they are talking about is the real-world impact of these crackpot tariffs that are on again and off again with the President. But some of the folks who spoke: Small business owner Jason Levinthal, founder of J Skis, said: This is essentially a tax on the consumer. Something the administration won't acknowledge itself. Mimi Buttenheim, President of Mad River Distillers: Tariffs radically affect our manufacturing arm by raising the price of raw materials. Jen Kimmich, cofounder of The Alchemist Brewery: We don't know how they're going to affect us, we just know they're going to affect us.”
“This tariff is going to hammer farmers who are already contending with what farmers every year have to contend with: very tight margins, the will of the weather. This is having a real impact on them. In Vermont, we had roundtables with people from various industries and asked: How are these tariffs going to affect you? No. 1, what tariffs? What are they today? Supposedly they were 25 percent yesterday. Then they are suspended. Then they are back on. They apply to this part but not that part. No possibility of anybody making a plan in order to run their business. But across the board--and, by the way, these are folks who came in and are affected by the tariffs. They are not Republicans or Democrats or Independents; they are really folks just trying to make a living.”
“It is, say, to eliminate USAID. It is to eliminate the Department of Education. It is to eliminate the Social Security response team. That is what is going on. And the challenge for us--and this is bipartisan--is whether we, as an independent branch of government, want to look at what is before our very eyes and address it or simply ignore it. Let's take the other so-called plan that is going to make us rich, more revenue than we can ever deal with. And that, of course, is the tariffs. The tariffs are going to be seen by historians as the absolute worst economic blunder in the last 100 years. Whether you are a farmer in Vermont or in Utah or in the Dakotas, these tariffs are hammering you. Most of our farmers in the northern part of the country, we import our fertilizer and we import, in many cases, grain to feed our animals from Canada.”