Jeff Merkley
Senator for Oregon · Democratic · United States
“That is why we need to pass the bipartisan Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act on which I am so pleased to partner with my colleague Senator Curtis from Utah. This bill prepares our communities in two different ways. First, it makes it easier for communities to do prescribed burns.”
Senate29 September 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that is certainly true when it comes to wildfires and smoke. And as climate chaos makes the fire season longer and hotter and more dangerous, wildfires are ravaging States across our country, certainly including my home State of Oregon.”
Senate29 September 2026Source ↗
“Forests burning, grasslands burning, more lightning strikes, more wind, more drought, more dryness, hotter temperatures--all of it combined to create that extraordinarily destructive summer we have just gone through.”
Senate29 September 2026Source ↗
“Second, this bill helps communities prepare for smoke, to have locations that are safe for people, particularly people with lung problems, with asthma or emphysema or so forth or people who are particularly allergic to the content of the smoke to be able to get to places that have clean air through filtering. So that is essential.”
Senate29 September 2026Source ↗
“They have to be meticulously planned, carefully controlled, and then they reduce so much fuel on the ground and provide a lot of protection thereafter. So prescribed burns are--along with thinning and mowing-- significant ways to reduce the fuel load and reduce the devastation when there is a fire.”
Senate29 September 2026Source ↗
“That is a pretty good foundation for a bill--a bill, the Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act, that will give our communities the tools they need to prepare for wildfires and smoke pollution, and I would encourage that we adopt this bill today. I yield to one of my colleagues.”
Senate29 September 2026Source ↗
The complete record
298 held · 140 searchable for Jeff Merkley. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 3.
This is not an official version of US Congress proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one US Congress publishes.
“Mr. President, I so enjoy working with my colleague from Wyoming. But I did notice that her speech had nothing to do with my point that sitting Presidents don't belong on coins because it is an authoritarian symbol. And I also noticed that her description of the bill passed last year involved changing the name of it. Trump called it the Big Beautiful Bill. And it became widely ridiculed because it cut nutrition, and it cut healthcare to fund tax breaks for the very richest Americans. It had nothing to do with working Americans. In fact, when you take the impact of the healthcare cuts and the nutrition cuts, the little, smallest crumbs on the table that were sprinkled to the less affluent Americans don't make up for the cuts to healthcare and nutrition. So they come out the losers.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Instead of putting his face on our money, like a King, let's ask our President to focus on putting money back in the pockets of working Americans. Let's honor 250 years of government by and for the people. Let's prohibit this Caesar-esque-, King George III-, Louis XIV-style of displaying authoritarianism. Let's pass the Change Corruption Act. Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill, the Change Corruption Act, which is at the desk; that the bill be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“It wasn't his portrait; he wasn't alone; and you would have to be really knowledgeable to know that that outline hanging in the background happened to be of Calvin Coolidge. Well, this is quite different. This is a full-on, Caesar-style, King George III-style, self-ego amplification that just doesn't fit with the United States of America. So Congress should immediately pass the Change Corruption Act, which I have introduced with Senator Cortez Masto, so as to ban all coins from featuring the image or signature of the sitting U.S. President or living former Presidents--aimed at the principle involved, not aimed simply at President Trump. You know, families need foundations to thrive, foundations like healthcare, housing, education, and good-paying jobs. What they don't need is to have President Trump's face on fake gold Trump bucks.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“So I urge you: Join together--Ds and Rs together--to defend our Constitution; to defend the vision of a government by and for the people. If we want to turn to the opinion of George Washington 250 years ago, what was his opinion? He was strongly opposed to having his portrait put on coins. Why? Because he considered it a King-like act, completely out of sync with the vision of the Nation we were founding. Washington's example has endured. It has endured for 250 years until now. Well, my colleagues may say that there was one exception--one exception in 1926--when there was a coin of George Washington, and behind him, there was the outline of a face of President Calvin Coolidge, but it wasn't Calvin Coolidge on the coin.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Institute of Peace for himself; hanging ``Dear Leader''-sized, North Korean-style banners on the sides of the buildings here in Washington, DC; putting his face onto passports; putting his face onto the national park passes; naming a class of warships after himself; insisting that it be his signature, not the Treasury Secretary's signature on the currency; planning to build a massive triumphal arch to himself--and let's not forget: tearing down the ``People's House''--the East Wing of the White House--to build his gold-plated, billion-dollar ballroom boondoggle. I say to my colleagues, whether they sit to the left of the aisle or to the right of the aisle, didn't we take the same oath to the same Constitution? Didn't we pledge ourselves to sustaining a democratic Republic, not a strongman state?”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Then, at the time our Nation was founded--and, again, we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of that vision--King George III put his face on a coin, on the silver sixpence, and it was viewed, as it was with Julius Caesar and the Emperors who followed him, as an expression of authoritarian personal power. Does our Constitution provide for an authoritarian structure of government, where power flows down from the King to the people? I think not. It flows up from the people through elections. That is why putting your face on a coin just is absolutely wrong and why it violates the very premise of the law that created the permission to have this 250th anniversary coin. The design that Trump has come up with--that of a fake gold coin with his face on it--violates the law that we passed. It is widely out of sync with the values of our Nation.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Well, certainly, this we know--that the symbol of putting a sitting President or leader on a coin is not a symbol of a democratic Republic; it is a symbol of an authoritarian strongman. If we turn the clock back to the year 44 BC, Julius Caesar was Emperor and he decided to have a coin with his face on it. He was the first to do so. It was a radical departure from Roman tradition, and it alarmed the Senate. It was viewed widely as a blatant display of personal power--of personal authoritarian power. And if you missed the point, on the backside of this coin, it had the words ``dictator perpetuo''--``dictator in perpetuity'' or ``dictator forever.'' That is what it represents to put your face on a coin.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, Americans are worried that the money in their pockets will not cover the increasing costs of gas and groceries and housing or healthcare. Meanwhile, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is worried that the money in Americans' pockets doesn't currently have his face or his signature on it. You know, in 2020, Congress passed a law to produce new coins to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. In that law, we wrote that the coins should be emblematic of our 250th anniversary--the U.S. semiquincentennial celebration of 250 years of the vision of a democratic Republic--of a government by and for the people; of our values as a free people, with the rights of free speech and free assembly and free expression.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I am pleased to welcome Senator Armstrong from Oklahoma in his delivering his maiden speech. It is an important part of this institution, and I hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who weren't able to hear him in person will have a chance to listen to it and to get to know him during his stay here. Welcome to the Senate.”
Senate16 July 2026Source ↗
“So let's be clear. Our journey toward the vision of citizen empowerment in voting has been imperfect. It has been long. It has been slow. It has seen setbacks like after the collapse of reconstruction. But we have worked steadily toward that vision, that ideal that every citizen should have that full opportunity to participate in the direction of their Nation. So should the SAVE Act ever be brought to this floor, which itself would be a massive corruption of our responsibility as U.S. Senators, I am voting hell no, and everyone else should as well.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“The Secretary of State of Georgia, in 2022, led a massive examination of the history of voting in Georgia, and the Secretary of State says he could not find a single noncitizen that had cast a ballot in Georgia in 25 years. So don't tell me that your so-called reform is about integrity at the ballot place. We know what it is about. It is about manipulating the vote on election day to stop people from voting, and we are not going to let that happen. In another case, the Brennan Center examined, in 2016, the behavior of 23 million voters, and they found it was roughly equal to the risk of being struck by lightning that a noncitizen would vote. And we know that in some cases where those have happened--I mean, it is so rare--it has happened because the bureaucracy screwed up and sent them a ballot when they weren't supposed to.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“And Republicans want to stop women across the country from voting once again because their name doesn't match their birth certificate. That is pretty extraordinary. More than half of Americans today who don't have a passport--my mother would have been in that category. She wouldn't have been able to register to vote. Let's not go backward into the realm of voter suppression. Let's go forward into full voter empowerment. If you believe in this Constitution, then honor it; don't put it in the wood chipper. Folks today are able to register in a variety of ways. Some say: Well, isn't this opening the possibility that noncitizens are voting? The answer is no. That is not happening.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“We stopped it, and blue and red States have adopted those reforms. But the SAVE Act is about going the other direction. What a name--the SAVE Act--as if it is saving something important as opposed to destroying the opportunity to vote. So we will absolutely not let our colleagues across the aisle take us backwards to voter suppression. Under the SAVE Act rules, my mother would likely not have been able to vote. The most common documents to prove citizenship are a birth certificate or a passport. And when my mother married my father, she changed her last name from Collins to Merkley. My mother never had a passport. She couldn't have used a passport. Her name was different than that on her birth certificate. Betty Lou Collins became Betty Lou Merkley.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“But we are going to stop that bill. My own State has pioneered the ability to vote by mail, and that provision has spread across the country to States like Utah, a red State. Blue States, red States are saying this makes sense because it ends the corruption on election day where officials stop people from voting by relocating the voting booths to a new location, by putting equipment in there that malfunctions, by understaffing it, by putting out false information about where the voting will be held. Vote-by-mail ended all of that corruption on election day, utilized so often to stop people from voting who lived in the inner city, who lived in poorer communities, who lived in communities of color--a modern-day version of the suppression that followed the collapse of reconstruction.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“There was kind of an evil deal that was worked out all over the election of Rutherford Hayes. And that ended reconstruction; and, quickly, a series of measures were passed by States to suppress the opportunity of Black Americans to vote in the South. These included poll taxes; they included literacy tests; they included civics exams--rigged so that only White Americans could pass. But we remedied that situation. We took it on. It took a long time, unfortunately. In the 1960s, Members of this Chamber and Members of the Chamber down the hall said we are ready to end that discrimination that we knew all along was wrong, those barriers erected for citizens to vote. But now we have one party, the Republican Party, which was founded on the vision of ending slavery, that wants to suppress the vote of Americans once again. That is incredible.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, our Constitution starts out with the three words ``We the People,'' and they are written in supersize font to tell you that that is what the core of our democracy is all about-- or, as Lincoln so well summarized, government of, by, and for the people. There are several things essential to make this happen: the freedom of speech, for one; the freedom of assembly, for another. But perhaps nothing encapsulates the opportunity of a citizen to participate in the direction of their own country more than the ballot box, more than the right and opportunity to vote. Yet that sacred opportunity at the heart of our Constitution is under assault because there seems to be one party that has decided it is about suppressing citizens' rights rather than empowering and honoring citizens' opportunity to participate in our government.”
Senate30 April 2025Source ↗
“Let it be a celebration of our determination and our effectiveness in confronting and turning back Trump's authoritarian assault, a celebration of the reenergization of our constitutional framework and the vision of government by the people, not by the powerful. We are participants in a 250-year relay of democracy, where the responsibility to govern ourselves has been handed from one generation to the next. We inherited it from our parents and our grandparents. Let's pass it on to your children and our grandchildren. When Ben Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention, he was asked: What type of government do we have? He responded: A republic, if you can keep it. Let's keep it.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“The law firms need to channel Perkins Coie, not Paul, Weiss, which capitulated. And to the American people across the country who are angry and disturbed by what is happening, who want to stop this authoritarian takeover, I have three suggestions: Get off the couch. You can't help change the world curled up in a fetal position on your couch. Second, fiercely hold your elected representatives accountable with your phone calls, with your mail, with your demonstrations outside their office. Hold your representatives accountable. That is what you get to do in a free nation. And, third, join affinity groups. Being angry and frustrated alone is depressing. Being angry and organized with others is energizing and effective. Next year, the United States of America will celebrate its 250th anniversary.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“We saw this happen just yesterday and today. Amazon was going to put up honest impacts on its website saying how much Trump's tariffs would add to the cost of products so people could see why they were being charged so much for things that were much cheaper a little while ago, but Trump in this relationship with the oligarchs called up Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, and said: That is bad for me. Don't do it. Here is what is going on. Trump is doing what is good for the oligarchs, 2 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans, and then he is asking them to do his bidding, and that includes not being honest with the American people about the impact of his tariffs.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“And it will explode the national debt, adding 7 trillion of additional debt over 10 years and 52 trillion of additional debt over 30 years. Families lose; millionaires win. And America's future is deeply damaged, perhaps drowned in an ocean of red ink created by this bill. You know, it was stunning at the inauguration, the one that happened just down this hallway in the Rotunda, to see President Trump with a lineup of billionaires standing behind him. Some countries would call this oligarchs--oligarchs standing behind him. Will Congress really pass a bill that takes away 2 trillion from families to give 2 trillion in tax breaks to the very richest Americans to buy the support of oligarchs? Is that what we are headed to--a strongman state in which Congress acquiesces in buying the support of the oligarchs?”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Others on the Democratic side of the aisle here in the Senate argued differently, believing that the risk to our Nation was much greater if we let Trump's authoritarian ambitions go unopposed and that history teaches us that the best time to confront an authoritarian is right away, before he amasses even more power. Both of these arguments had some merit. We will face this decision again soon when the existing continuing resolution runs out on September 30. That will be a critical moment for Congress to confront the President and not hand him more power. We should be preparing for that moment now.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Just think about the difference in types of natural disasters that strike different parts of our country. Some States endure hurricanes, others grapple with earthquakes. The Pacific Northwest, where I come from, battles wildfires. Different parts of the country have different needs. Different parts of the country have desires to have those needs met, resulting in compromises in these spending bills. But if Trump is allowed to impound the funds for programs for the priorities of his political opponents of either party, then that destroys the foundation for these compromises since no Senator can be assured that the deal they are striking--you get what you need, but you agree to help me get what I need for my part of the country--no one can be assured that that compromise will be honored.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Might he--given how he is stretching other laws, misapplying them in situations for which they were never intended--deliberately adjourn Congress to advance his goal of the strongman state? And let's ponder a few questions that are specific to our Congress. Will Trump's impoundments and rescissions destroy the congressional process for drafting bipartisan spending bills? For fiscal year 2025, the year that started last October 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed 11 of the 12 spending bills out of committee in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion. In fact, most of them were passed unanimously out of committee. That was possible because compromises were struck. Compromises were the priorities of both parties, compromises for priorities of different regions of the Nation with different concerns.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“It has never been used by any other President to set tariffs. There is no precedent for it, and there is no language in the law that serves it. Or let's see him reaching further back into history, using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. That act was passed when our early Members of Congress were afraid that France would invade the United States, and they wanted to be able to deport French citizens who might help the French invasion, should it occur. But Trump is using that as the legal basis for deporting Venezuelans, saying: There is an invasion of Venezuelans. Well, clearly there is no invasion by the Venezuelan Government. This act was used, shamefully, in World War II, in particular, to lock up Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, and it is being used shamefully and inappropriately now.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“A third issue is the stretching of laws that really don't even begin to convey the power that Trump has claimed. We are all aware of the tariffs that he is setting and tearing down day after day. Tariffs are up. Tariffs are down. Tariffs over here. Exceptions over there. Oh, iPhones? Too important. Let's create an exception. Oh, cars are too expensive. Let's create an exception. Who knows? It is certainly not a foundation for companies to invest in America because it is chaos. He is using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act as a legal basis to set tariffs. But read the act. It says nothing about powers of tariffs, nothing that gives the President the ability to raise and lower tariffs on one fiat after another. It provides power for sanctions and seizures, not tariffs.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“It is carved into the stone above the pillars of the Supreme Court, which, if you go out the doors I am pointing out to my right and you continue down the hallway, there is another set of doors, another set of stairs, and you can see the Supreme Court straight across from here, and you can read ``equal justice under law.'' That is the principle. But I will tell you what--that Supreme Court last year decided no equal justice under the law. In fact, the President has complete immunity from committing a crime as long as he calls it a government act. It is invisible ink in here somewhere, but I will tell you, the Founders are rolling over in their graves at this betrayal of the Constitution by this majority in the Supreme Court. Think about what they have done.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Last summer, less than a year ago, at the beginning of July 2024, the Supreme Court found some invisible ink in the Constitution. Grab your Constitution. Take a read of it. Where does it say in here that the President is above the law? Our Founders were terrified that a President would try to become a King. They had just escaped one King; they didn't want another. Instead, they had a theory of the world: Equal justice under law-- equal. For the powerful and the nonpowerful, for the rich and the nonrich, equal justice under law.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“First, Trump nominated a man, Pete Hegseth, to be Secretary of Defense who is fabulously unqualified for the position. He fired several highly capable, top-tier military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, CQ Brown, and the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Lisa Franchetti. These firings make plain that Trump doesn't value these professionals' management--nonpartisan management of our Armed Forces. Is Trump seeking to fill these top tiers of our military with loyalists? If that is what he is up to--replacing these highly professional, impartial managers of our military enterprise with loyalists--what additional authoritarian risks does this pose for our Republic? Second, what has the Supreme Court unleashed through its Trump v. United States decision?”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Others, like Harvard and Princeton, are fighting back. A sincere compliment to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, who published an op-ed in The Atlantic when the first attack occurred on Columbia University. He called on presidents to ``speak up and litigate forcefully to protect their rights.'' He said: This won't be the last university that is attacked. Not soon after, his own university was attacked. He noted that this attack on universities is ``the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.'' Looking back on these 100 days and these five strategies to convert a robust Republic, our robust Republic, with its checks and balances, into a strongman state, it raises a number of questions--questions that I hope folks will ponder.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“They are about power, authoritarian power, about creating a strongman state. If we want to preserve freedom, we damn well better defend due process vigorously. The fifth authoritarian strategy by Trump is to target other power centers in our communities, including law firms and universities. Trump has attacked a host of major law firms, in some cases hamstringing the firms by suspending their national security clearances and therefore making them unable to represent their clients in key cases. He has done this to punish their past association with individuals or cases that threatened his power or to sway them from using their skills, their legal skills, in new efforts that might threaten that power. The attacks that Trump has launched on law firms have generated some results.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“I would hope that every single Member of this Chamber would share the view that when they hear someone speaking with whom they disagree, they would still stand and defend that person's right to say it. Note that there was no due process for students Rubio disfavored, just as there was no due process for the Venezuelan immigrants Trump sent to El Salvador. ``Due process''--those two words. What does it mean? And maybe it sounds like legal mumbo-jumbo. Due process is the guardian of our freedom. It means you cannot be grabbed by the government at their will, tossed into a van, and thrown into a prison because they cannot do so, they cannot take away our liberty or our rights without a fair, public process. That defends our freedom. It is about freedom, but this administration isn't about freedom.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“I have said it about Democratic Presidents, that I disagree with them. I have said it about Republican Presidents, that I disagree with them. So has virtually every single Member of this Chamber. That is freedom of speech. And we don't expect or believe that compromises the United States; we think it makes it stronger to have an actual debate of ideas, opinions expressed and hopefully considered. It is an extraordinary law that came from another era where free speech was under attack. It is an extraordinary power to have vested in one person--the Secretary of State--that power to punish free speech. It is a chilling attempt to silence free speech that presents viewpoints out of favor with this administration, and it is wrong. It is wrong under our Constitution.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“But all that has changed here in the United States of America because students who are saying things the government doesn't like are being swept off the street and transported halfway across the country and held in prisons in preparation to deport them. This particular 1952 Red Scare McCarthyist law being used by the Secretary of State says an alien can be excluded if ``the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien's admission would compromise a compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.'' ``[A] compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.'' How does a student expressing an opinion on a campus somewhere compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest? Does it compromise our foreign policy interests when I say I disagree with some foreign policy venture?”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“He has sought to end free speech in America, taking control of content at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums, canceling programs, firing employees, even scrubbing Federal websites simply because of words he doesn't like. But most egregiously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is using a 1952 Red Scare law--a McCarthyist law--to strip students and others of their visas and deport them, students like Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University or Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University. Neither was accused of a crime. Both had simply exercised free speech. I think every Member here would have assumed that a student has the right to express their opinion on an issue because we are here in the United States of America.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“But a week later, the White House was still excluding AP from the press pool. In yet another action against the press, Trump has silenced the Voice of America. The Voice of America was created to counter propaganda from authoritarian governments in the Second World War. The Voice of America has grown to be a powerful check on disinformation from authoritarian governments. It broadcasted in 40 languages, bringing facts to bear against that propaganda from those strong-man states. But now Trump has canceled that powerful counter to authoritarian governments around the world. He is attacking free speech as well as the free press. Like many of us here, I was in the House Chamber last month for Trump's State of the Union Address when he claimed to have ``brought free speech back to America.'' That is completely wrong. The opposite is true.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Trump hasn't just launched suits; he is succeeding in compromising our free press. ABC bent the knee, agreeing after Trump won and fearing for how Trump might misuse Presidential power, to pay Trump that $16 million to settle the case involving Stephanopoulos, even though Trump had, in the view of experts, little chance of prevailing in court. And last week, Bill Owens, the executive director of ``60 Minutes,'' resigned, citing encroachment of his journalistic independence in the face of mounting pressure from Paramount, CBS's parent company, again potentially for fear of the misuse of Executive power that would compromise the success of Paramount.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Benjamin Franklin wrote that ``whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.'' Apparently, President Trump was paying attention because he is seeking to overthrow the liberty of our Nation, and he is trying to subdue the freeness of speech. One of his tactics is to intimidate the free press by suing them. He sued the Des Moines Register for an inaccurate poll predicting he would lose Iowa. He sued CBS News for $10 million because he disliked its editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris on ``60 Minutes.'' And he sued ABC News because George Stephanopoulos said on the air that Trump had been found liable for ``rape'' when, in fact, he had been found liable not for ``rape'' but for ``sexual assault,'' under the detail of the law, in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Illegal defunding and dismantlement, done in one weekend, to an Agency that constituted only one-third of 1 percent of our national spending in 2024 could result in more deaths than World War I. Now you may say: Is this some crazy theory on the internet? It was a study put together by prestigious medical organizations, groups like the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the New York University Grossman School of Medicine--serious people, serious modeling, serious understanding of what USAID does around the world. And do you know what else his decision did? It created an enormous opportunity for China to move in and say, ``You can't count on the United States of America, but you can count on China,'' hugely undermining our standing and influence in the world.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“On February 3, Elon Musk posted that he and DOGE had ``spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.'' Musk was bragging that he and Trump had destroyed an Agency in a single weekend, in violation of the law. They fired almost all of USAID's employees and canceled more than 5,000 contracts, crippling America's delivery of lifesaving aid around the world and, I might add, crippling relationships that create soft power for the United States of America to accompany the hard power of our military. In February, a senior USAID official Nicholas Enrich estimated that a yearlong pause in AID's programs could cause between 71,000 to 166,000 additional deaths just from malaria, with huge increases in deaths from tuberculosis and infectious diseases like Ebola. Shortly after making these estimates, Enrich was fired.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“And there is a good possibility, perhaps a probability, that the Republican-led House and Senate would have passed that rescission. A rescission formally undoes a law by Congress reconsidering it. But he deliberately--he, being Trump--deliberately chose the illegal path of impoundments, the unconstitutional path of impoundments in order to put a case before the Supreme Court so the Supreme Court could rule--Trump and Russ Vought hope--for the unitary executive theory of power, the vision of a strong-man rule in our Nation rather than government by the people. Note the parallel. Trump fired thousands and thousands of employees across this country. He could have done it legally through reductions in force, RIFs, but he chose to do it illegally. Why?”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“It violates the law, and it is unconstitutional, and it violates the separation of powers. You know, Nixon tried this. He impounded funds for the EPA for fiscal year 1973. The Supreme Court ruled, when this case finally reached it in Train v. City of New York, that impoundments violate article I of the Constitution, which so clearly--this Constitution so clearly gives the power of the purse to Congress. And when Congress passed the law in 1996 that gave the President a line-item veto on program funding, the Supreme Court ruled again, in Clinton v. City of New York, that Congress could not give to the President the power the Constitution reserves to this Chamber, to Congress. It is worth noting that Trump had a choice. Instead of illegally impounding funds, he could have sent a legal rescission request to Congress.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Vought's deliberate desire to break the law and violate the separation of powers caused me to label him the most dangerous man in America. He is a direct threat to the entire vision of our Constitution. I led a 30-hour debate here in this Chamber on his nomination to put a spotlight on him and on his ideas, but it was a party-line vote. Every one of my colleagues across the aisle looked to their loyalty to President Trump over their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. The second Trump strategy to expand the power of the President--the authoritarian power of the President--is to usurp Congress's article I power of the purse by impounding the funds that Congress has dedicated in law and long passed in the Senate and passed the House and signed by the President, impounding funds in those laws for specific programs. This is illegal.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“He is an architect of Project 2025, and he is leading the Office of Management and Budget for Trump's second term. As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, I interviewed him in my office before his nomination hearing, and he was very clear, very direct about his viewpoint. He is a proponent of the fringe unitary executive theory that says the President has complete authority over every element of the executive branch. The President, he believes, can ignore any detail in law passed by Congress and perhaps ignore any order by the courts that constrains how the President manages the executive branch. Vought anticipates that when Trump's lawbreaking reaches the Supreme Court, a deferential Court will legitimize his unitary executive theory and hand vast power to President Trump. Mr.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“The first strategy has been to willfully violate a host of Federal laws. One hundred days ago, on January 20, I sat in the Rotunda of the Capitol, just down this hallway, halfway between here and the House of Representatives, for Donald Trump's inaugural address. It was not a traditional address. A traditional address is when the President lays out a vision and says: Here in our democracy, I will be working with Congress to pass laws to provide a foundation to implement that vision. That is the way it works when power is divided between a court and an Executive and Congress. But instead, the speech that President Trump gave just down this hallway in the Rotunda didn't talk about working with Congress. It didn't talk about passing laws. He spoke only of governing by Executive order, as if he was already a King.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“It could never happen here because our commitment to the separation of powers is too secure, our 250 years of dedication to a democratic republic too established for it to ever happen here. But the last 100 days have shown us that we were robbed. So tonight, I am ringing the alarm bells. The danger is clear. The danger is present. This crisis calls upon every patriot, every individual who cherishes a deliberative republic, every institution--whether it is Congress or the court or the people or the press or the university or the law firm--to use their heart and mind and sinew, their clout and their connections, to resist this authoritarian takeover and save our Republic. In only 100 days, Trump has aggressively pursued five strategies to advance his authoritarian powers.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's speech in laying this out. I am going to address another aspect of the first 100 days, which is about the phenomenal strategy of President Trump to undermine our Constitution; to undermine the separation of powers, the checks and balances, for the purpose of creating a strong-man state, which is also just an extraordinary, extraordinary experience to be living through. The first 100 days of the Trump administration have plunged our Nation into a constitutional crisis unparalleled since the Civil War. How bad is it, and how will we respond? How will this Chamber respond? How will the House respond? Our democratic Republic, with its separation of powers and checks and balances, is sliding into an unaccountable strong-man state.”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“In your knowledge of American history, has there ever been a Presidential first 100 days that showed this level of corruption that we are witnessing with this administration?”
Senate29 April 2025Source ↗
“We are going to stand up and say no to families lose and billionaires win. We are going to say no to magic math that lies to the American people about the cost of their bill, driven by massive tax cuts to the richest Americans. It is a simple request: honesty and integrity. We should not be engaging in a big lie, and Democrats will have no part of it. We are going to be honest about what every provision of the reconciliation bill costs. We are going to be determined to make sure that the Byrd rule stands.”
Senate3 April 2025Source ↗
“And your spouse says: You know what, that is going to cost us another $24,000 in rent. And you say: No. I am using the Republican magic math. It won't cost a single dime because we will just pretend that a year ago we had planned to rent the apartment for a second year; and therefore, it is no more than we thought we would pay a year ago--except a year ago you said you were only going to rent the house for a year. In other words, it is a big lie. It is the very smoke and mirrors, the very gimmicks that Democrats and Republicans came together and stopped back in 1974. Fifty-one years ago, we said this game of lying to the public has to end. But tonight, my Republican colleagues are saying that game will continue if they have their way. Well, we say they must not have their way.”
Senate3 April 2025Source ↗
“We even put that pillar into law specifically in 1985 in a bipartisan way. We wanted to emphasize how important that was. Just think about how much more important this process of deficit reduction, special rule of the reconciliation bill, is today than it was back in 1974. In 1974, the debt-to-GDP ratio: 23 percent. Tonight, in 2025, it is 100 percent. It is equal to the entire gross domestic product of the United States. In 1974, the annual deficit was about $6 billion. Today, it is $2 trillion. In 1974, total debt: $475 billion. Today, it is $37 trillion. Now, consider this: All of the debt run up over the last 249 years since the Declaration of Independence, right now, is just a little bit less than $37 trillion. In this single bill--this single bill-- Republicans are saying we will add $37 trillion more--at least that much.”
Senate3 April 2025Source ↗