- 4/30/2025
During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) spoke about the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
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00:00Senator from Maryland.
00:01Thank you, Mr. President.
00:03Yesterday marked 100 days since Donald Trump was sworn in as president.
00:10It happened right down that hallway.
00:14He promised a golden age for America.
00:17He has not delivered that golden age.
00:21In fact, in that 100 days, all he's delivered is chaos and destruction.
00:25Consumer confidence is plummeting, and today we learned that our economy is shrinking.
00:33This is all a totally self-inflicted, Trump-inflicted wound on America and American families.
00:42That's here at home.
00:44On the world stage, candidate Trump promised to be the great peacemaker, to end the wars
00:50in Ukraine and Gaza on day one.
00:53But he has nothing to show for that other than distrust from our allies and smiles from
01:01our adversaries.
01:02He has thrown the Ukrainian people under the bus, and in Gaza, the hostages have not been
01:07released, and we are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe.
01:13And over the last 100 days, Donald Trump has embarked on a law-breaking spree that has torn
01:21up our Constitution, torn apart our government, and torn down our economy.
01:29Over 200 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts around the country because we are watching
01:35this President break laws on every front.
01:38On everything from his illegal freezing and impoundments of taxpayer funds for important public programs
01:47that benefit communities all over the country, to his illegal firings of patriotic federal employees,
01:54including many veterans who provide critical public services, to letting Elon Musk loose on federal
02:02government programs with a chainsaw, not to make government more efficient, but to rig government
02:09for the already rich and powerful, like Elon Musk, at the expense of everybody else.
02:15President Trump has also been abusing his authority to create tariff chaos that has sent consumer
02:23confidence plummeting, badly damaging our economy.
02:28And he is violating the First Amendment by cracking down on students at colleges and universities
02:35for their exercise of free speech and right to assembly.
02:41To also violating another vital constitutional provision, the constitutional right to due process
02:49for those who live in America.
02:52It's a staggering amount of law-breaking in just 100 days.
02:58And that's why all of us should fight back in the courts, in this Congress, and in communities
03:05all over America.
03:08And we know that the American people don't like what they're seeing, what they're experiencing.
03:14They are rising up in communities all over America to voice their disapproval with President
03:20Trump's performance.
03:22They are giving him a big, fat F for the first 100 days – total, miserable failure.
03:31The only people who don't seem to get it are some of our Republican colleagues here in the
03:36Congress, who apparently live in constant fear of being on the wrong end of a tweet from
03:42Donald Trump or Elon Musk.
03:45And want to look the other way in the face of this massive law-breaking and ripping up
03:51of the Constitution.
03:53So Mr. President, I want to take a little inventory, just a small sampling of the actions of this
03:59lawless President.
04:00And I want to cover four categories.
04:03His violations of constitutional due process rights.
04:07His violation of First Amendment rights.
04:11His illegal withholding and impoundment and freezing of public funds that benefit communities
04:18all over America.
04:20And fourth, exceeding his authorities, claiming emergency powers that he doesn't have in the
04:29area of tariffs, making sham claims to justify his tariff chaos that is sabotaging our economy
04:36as we speak.
04:39So Mr. President, I want to start with Trump's violations of the constitutional right of due
04:45process, a bedrock American principle.
04:51As we speak, President Trump is violating the due process of many, many individuals, including
04:58the rights of a man by the name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was snatched off the streets
05:04of Maryland and illegally shipped to one of the most notorious prisons in Latin America,
05:11called Seacott.
05:13As I have repeatedly said, this case is not about one man alone.
05:20It's about all of us.
05:22I am not vouching for Mr. Abrego Garcia, but I am vouching for his constitutional right to
05:28due process.
05:30Because if Donald Trump can ignore court orders and trample over the rights of one man, he threatens
05:36the rights of everyone who lives in the United States of America.
05:42Mr. Abrego Garcia had legal status in the United States.
05:45He lived in Maryland with his family.
05:48He had a work permit.
05:49He was an apprentice with the sheet metal workers, Smart Local 100, where he worked full-time to
05:57help support his family.
05:59He was driving in his car with his five-year-old autistic son when he was pulled over by federal
06:07agents.
06:08He was taken to some facility in Baltimore where he asked to make a phone call to let
06:13folks know what was happening.
06:16He was denied the opportunity to make that phone call.
06:20He was then shipped to the state of Texas.
06:22From there, his feet were shackled, he was handcuffed, he was put in a plane where he couldn't see
06:27out the windows and he didn't know where he was going.
06:30And he landed in El Salvador and taken to one of the most notorious prisons in our hemisphere.
06:37A place reserved for the worst of the worst for terrorists.
06:42Now here's the thing, Mr. President, there was a standing court order not to deport him
06:49to El Salvador because doing so could put his life in jeopardy from gangs.
06:55Indeed, the Trump administration admitted in federal court that Abrego Garcia was wrongfully
07:03seized and shipped to this prison in El Salvador.
07:08But instead of fixing the problem they admitted to in court, what did they do?
07:15They punished the lawyer who told the truth in court.
07:21And now the Trump administration is ignoring orders from the federal district court, the
07:27fourth district court of appeals, and a 9 to nothing order from the Supreme Court.
07:32We don't get 9 to nothing decisions out of the Supreme Court very often, but that's what
07:37all those courts ordered the Trump administration to do with respect to facilitating the return
07:44of Mr. Abrego Garcia, to facilitate his return.
07:49This is not just trampling over his rights.
07:54And again, I want to emphasize, if you allow the President to trample over the rights of
08:00one person, you do threaten the rights of everybody who lives in America.
08:06That's why yesterday I wrote to President Trump about this case.
08:11And I'm going to read that letter to the Senate so no one can say they don't know what's going
08:17on in this matter.
08:20Here's what I wrote in that letter.
08:23Dear President Trump, I read with great interest your interview with Time magazine regarding
08:30the Supreme Court's 9 to 0 decision ordering you and your administration to facilitate the
08:36return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who your lawyers admitted in federal courts was wrongfully seized
08:43and deported to a prison in El Salvador.
08:46You conceded in that interview, this is the interview we had with Time magazine just a
08:50short while ago.
08:52You conceded in that interview that you have not asked President Bukele, that's the President
08:57of El Salvador, to return him.
09:01You also said regarding this case that you, quote, don't make that decision, unquote,
09:08because your lawyers do.
09:10Your comments and the actions of your administration clearly demonstrate your failure to comply
09:15with the court orders as you continue to violate Mr. Abrego Garcia's constitutional and due
09:21process rights.
09:23And when you deny the due process rights of one person, you threaten them for everyone in
09:28America.
09:29The American public knows this.
09:32Recent surveys show that a majority of Americans reject your trampling over the constitutional
09:38rights in this case.
09:41I went on to write this.
09:44During my visit to El Salvador, I had the opportunity to meet with the Vice President.
09:50My conversation with him revealed the extent to which you and your administration are violating
09:56the orders of the federal courts and the Constitution of the United States.
10:01Our discussion, again referring to my discussion with the Vice President of El Salvador, showed
10:05that your administration is doing nothing to comply with and implement the Supreme Court
10:09order to facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia's return to the United States.
10:15And revealed that the government of El Salvador is holding him solely at the request of your
10:20administration and specifically because you are paying them to imprison him.
10:29While I had expected a private meeting with the Vice President, when I arrived at his office,
10:36there were several cameras rolling.
10:39I think they were probably his own private cameras, I don't know, but they were rolling
10:42to record the conversation.
10:44So I agreed to have the conversation on the record.
10:47And then I write, Mr. President, I want to report some important details of our conversation.
10:54The Vice President told me that, quote, El Salvador is not able to take any action regarding the
11:00case because the case is in the U.S. and usually we do not express any opinion on domestic affairs,
11:09unquote.
11:10He went on to say, and I quoted him again, I mean the ball is in your court, meaning the
11:17ball is in America's court.
11:20And he used that expression multiple times during our conversation.
11:27I went on to tell President Trump that the Vice President of El Salvador made clear that
11:31once the case will be resolved definitively and there will be clear instructions regarding
11:36this case, El Salvador's government will apply our principles and, of course, we will
11:41act accordingly.
11:43He indicated that at this current moment we cannot take any actions because the case is
11:48still in the United States' situation.
11:52He reinforced this point throughout the conversation, saying, the bottom line is this.
11:59It's an issue that has to be solved in the United States.
12:02We have not expressed, we cannot express any opinion on that case because it's up to you.
12:09Again, this is what the Vice President of El Salvador told me and what I reported to President
12:15Trump in this letter.
12:16I went on in my letter to President Trump to say, all of this makes crystal clear that
12:22even though your administration's lawyers admitted in federal court that Mr. Abrego Garcia
12:27was wrongfully detained in Maryland and sent to prison in El Salvador, and despite the Supreme
12:32Court's order to facilitate his return, your administration has not lifted a finger to comply with the court
12:39order.
12:40As the Vice President indicated, the ball is in your court.
12:47When I asked, and I'm continuing to report this to the President of the United States,
12:51when I asked the Vice President whether El Salvador had any evidence that Mr. Abrego Garcia
12:56had committed a crime, his response was, how can I have it?
13:02He said that the government of El Salvador does not qualify those persons who are there.
13:08We just take them.
13:11I asked if El Salvador is imprisoning Mr. Abrego Garcia simply because the United States is
13:16paying to keep him and others there.
13:20His response was, exactly, that's it.
13:26Exactly that's it, he said.
13:28He also said, I mean, if the person that you send is not a criminal, is not whatever, I mean,
13:37it is up to you.
13:38That's what I'm saying.
13:40I don't want to express any opinion.
13:42I think it's up to you, the ball is in your court.
13:47And the Vice President of El Salvador made clear that they did not review the file of
13:52Mr. Abrego Garcia.
13:54He said, and again I quote, we have a deal with the U.S.
13:59They send people, we host them, they pay, and that's it.
14:06When I asked the Vice President of El Salvador why this country cannot release Mr. Abrego
14:13Garcia from prison when the United States government conceded in court that he was wrongfully abducted,
14:19and whether he is now being charged under El Salvador's law, he responded, what is your
14:26recommendation to El Salvador's government?
14:29We can take them to the airport and ask an airline to take them to the United States?
14:35Are you saying the airline would take a person without a passport?
14:39What kind of visa should we carry?
14:42He went on to say, this is the Vice President of El Salvador, that President Bukele said we
14:48cannot smuggle a person into the United States.
14:52Because if we send a person without a visa, tourist visa, working visa, student visa, what
14:57kind of reason can we call to get legally into the United States?
15:06Regarding papers, he asked, who will provide that?
15:09We don't have it.
15:12So I continued to report on this conversation in my letter to President Trump.
15:20And I said that I repeatedly pointed out to the Vice President of El Salvador that neither
15:25I nor anyone else in the United States is asking El Salvador to smuggle Mr. Abrego Garcia
15:30back into the United States.
15:33That argument is obviously a red herring.
15:37I repeatedly pointed out that Attorney General Mondi has said when President Bukele was in
15:44the Oval Office with you, referring to the President of the United States, that the U.S.
15:49would send a plane to pick up Mr. Abrego Garcia.
15:53So I was not asking the government of El Salvador to smuggle him in the United States, only to
15:58release him from prison.
16:00And I pointed out to President Trump that your administration illegally took Mr. Abrego Garcia
16:07to El Salvador in a plane.
16:09And Attorney General Bondi has said the United States could send a plane to pick him up.
16:14And the U.S. government can certainly provide him with the papers necessary to return.
16:23I went on in my letter to President Trump to say this.
16:27My conversation with the Vice President clearly demonstrates that the government of El Salvador
16:32has no independent legal basis for imprisoning Mr. Abrego Garcia.
16:37That as they readily concede, the only reason for keeping him in prison is that they entered
16:42into an agreement with your administration to be paid by the United States.
16:48This also reveals that your administration could easily facilitate his release by letting El
16:53Salvador know that, given his wrongful detention, they are not contractually bound to continue
16:59to imprison Mr. Abrego Garcia.
17:01My conversation with the Vice President of El Salvador shows that your administration's
17:06claim that El Salvador is exercising, quote, its sovereign decision to continue to hold Mr.
17:13Abrego Garcia is a farce.
17:16The government of El Salvador is imprisoning him because your administration is paying
17:20them to do so, and they claim to be contractually obligated.
17:26Obviously, your administration could say El Salvador was no longer contractually obligated
17:32to imprison Mr. Abrego Garcia.
17:35And then El Salvador can release him, and Attorney General Bondi can, as promised, send the plane.
17:43I went on to write to President Trump that it's outrageous that Mr. Abrego Garcia and his
17:48family have been forced to suffer through this trauma because your administration, to date,
17:54has refused to follow the requirements of the Constitution and the orders of the federal
17:59courts.
18:00Instead of fixing the egregious administrative error—administrative error is what the Trump referred to this travesty
18:08as—that the administration has conceded, deposited Mr. Abrego Garcia in a prison in El Salvador,
18:17your administration chose to attack and punish the lawyer who told the truth.
18:20That's shameful.
18:21I went on to write to the President—I think this is an important point—that it's shameful
18:28that you and your administration continue to try to change the subject in this case.
18:34You—referring to President Trump—continue to put out information on social media asserting
18:40that Mr. Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13.
18:43And Vice President Vance falsely asserted that he had been convicted of crimes in the United
18:48States.
18:49Yet, the federal district court judge in this case said that your administration presented
18:54the court with, quote, no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or to any terrorist activity,
19:03unquote.
19:05So your administration should put up or shut up in court.
19:11I am not vouching for the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
19:14I am vouching for his rights.
19:17I'm going to take a little departure here.
19:20I don't know if my colleagues witnessed the interview that President Trump had with an
19:25ABC reporter, Mr. Moran, yesterday.
19:29But it's all over social media because it turned out that, you know, President Trump had taken
19:35a picture of what was supposed—was Abrego Garcia's fingers.
19:42And he had superimposed or someone in the administration had put an MS-13 written that on.
19:48And that had been photoshopped or otherwise falsely there.
19:52So apparently no one informed the President of this or he just decided to pretend he didn't
19:59know.
20:02You know, in this interview he says he had some MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed, and the
20:08reporter said that was photoshopped.
20:09And Trump's response was to the reporter, Terry, they're giving you a big break of a lifetime.
20:17I picked you, but you're not being very nice.
20:20Well, my point here, Mr. President, again, is whatever evidence there may be, the proper
20:29form to submit it is in the courts of the United States.
20:35And at least to date, judges in those cases have made clear that the Trump administration
20:43has not provided such evidence.
20:48I went on in my letter to President Trump to say this, it's also dangerous for you
20:55to suggest that we cannot fight gang violence without trampling over constitutional rights.
21:01More than two decades, I pointed out to him, I helped establish a regional anti-gang task
21:07force to combat MS-13 and other gang violence in the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. area.
21:14We have made substantial progress in that fight, but there is more that can be done.
21:19But that is not what you and your administration are doing.
21:23You're engaged in gross violations of the Constitution and due process rights.
21:28I then, in this letter, cite Judge Harvey Wilkinson, who wrote on behalf of a three-judge panel of
21:38the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the following, and I'm going to quote, and I
21:43have this in my letter to President Trump.
21:47It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter.
21:51But in this case, it's not hard at all.
21:55The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons
22:01without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.
22:06Further, it claims, in essence, that because it has already rid itself of custody, there
22:12is nothing else that can be done.
22:15This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans,
22:20far removed from courthouses, still hold dear."
22:24I should point out that Judge Wilkinson was a Reagan administration appointee and that
22:32was a unanimous opinion of the three-court panel.
22:39I went on in my letter to President Trump to say that the Fourth Circuit got to the heart
22:43of the case.
22:44Kilmar Abrego Garcia was snatched from his car while he was driving in Maryland with his
22:48five-year-old autistic son, then illegally stashed away in a prison in El Salvador.
22:53His wife, his mother, and his brother have been unable to communicate with him in any
22:57way.
22:58He has a work permit, and his fellow sheet metal workers have been organizing to bring
23:03him back home.
23:05As have thousands of Americans, his constitutional rights must be respected.
23:12I close with this paragraph in my letter to the President.
23:16This case is not about Kilmar alone.
23:19It's about everyone in America.
23:21While Mr. Abrego Garcia is at the center of this case, its consequences impact the due
23:26process rights of everyone who lives in America.
23:30If your administration can strip away the constitutional rights of one man in defiance of court orders,
23:36it can do it to all of us.
23:38I will continue to fight to defend the Constitution and due process rights of all who live in America.
23:47That was my letter to President Trump.
23:50I haven't heard anything back from them, and they continue to violate the Supreme Court orders.
24:04You know, colleagues, members can look the other way.
24:09But cannot deny the fact that this is happening as we speak today.
24:15And I would urge every senator to recognize the threat to everybody's rights under the Constitution.
24:25Now I want to turn to another area of law-breaking, constitutional violations, being committed by the Trump administration.
24:37Because not only are they violating the due process clause of the Constitution, in the Abrego Garcia case and others,
24:45but they're also tearing up the First Amendment and trampling over free speech rights of individuals in America,
24:52especially students on college and university campuses, but many others as well.
24:58The Trump administration and Secretary Rubio apparently think the First Amendment is like an a la carte menu.
25:06In other words, they seem to believe that the United States government can punish those who engage in speech that they don't like.
25:14That's not how it works.
25:18They don't get to cherry-pick speech under the First Amendment and use governmental power, state power,
25:26to sanction those who disagree with their point of view.
25:30But that's exactly what they're doing in cases like those of Rumeza Azturk, Mahmood Khalil, and Mohsen Madawi.
25:42Mohsen Madawi was illegally snatched as he was taking his citizenship test in the state of Vermont.
25:54President, I just want to read one of the questions that's on the U.S. citizenship test.
26:01It's important that everybody recognize what we ask those who are working to become citizens have to understand.
26:13Question six on the citizenship test reads,
26:19what is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
26:25And under it, there are a number of things, but the first one on there is speech.
26:32The second one on there is assembly. Speech and assembly.
26:46I think members of the Trump administration need to take a refresher course of the kind that we ask citizens to take in this country,
26:55because apparently President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, and others would like to cross that question right off the citizenship test.
27:09You know, we observed recently that when Vice President Vance took an overseas trip,
27:18he lectured some of our European allies, like the U.K. and Germany, about freedom of speech.
27:27He said that they had too many limits on freedom of speech, that they were curtailing freedom of speech for people who lived in their countries.
27:37But here at home, tearing up the First Amendment, the Constitution.
27:46Apparently, here at home for the Trump administration, freedom of speech exists only for those who agree with their point of view.
27:56Mr. President, you know that our colleague who served with us, Senator Rubio, used to take to the Senate floor regularly
28:07to talk about an American foreign policy based on democracy, based on human rights, based on freedom of religion,
28:16and yes, based on freedom of speech and expression around the world.
28:22Telling other countries that it was wrong to have the governments lock them up for expressing their points of view.
28:33And yet now, here at home, Secretary of State Rubio is trashing freedom of speech.
28:40He's ripping up the First Amendment of the Constitution.
28:45And it's shameful.
28:47And the American people should not stand for it.
28:50Because if you rip up the First Amendment, for some people, you threaten it for everybody who lives in the United States of America.
29:02Mr. President, I was fortunate to grow up in a Foreign Service family.
29:06I sort of went back and forth between the United States and other countries.
29:11And I was proud to be from a family that represented the United States overseas.
29:15We are far from perfect, and we have a lot of work to do to live up to the principles that we say we stand for around the world.
29:23But one of the things we do, or used to do, is stand up as a beacon for human rights and freedom of speech.
29:33That's no longer happening.
29:38And you can't say you want everybody else around the world to live up to that principle when you're violating it right here at home.
29:49Now, Secretary Rubio has dug way back into a McCarthy-era statute from what was called the McCarran-Walter Act.
30:00That was a law passed at the height of the McCarthy era.
30:05And he's using that to claim that these students represent a threat to the foreign policy of the United States.
30:14That's pretty pathetic, right?
30:17That students expressing their views represent a threat to the foreign policy of the United States.
30:27We have students of all different faiths who are protesting the war in Gaza and advocating for Palestinian rights.
30:33Others may agree or strongly disagree with what they say.
30:38But the claim that they somehow represent a threat to the foreign policy of the United States is ridiculous.
30:49It is so clearly being used as a ruse to deny their First Amendment freedom of speech rights that I hope the courts will see right through it.
31:01What it is is an effort to punish speech.
31:06Mr. President, Donald Trump's law-breaking doesn't end with his efforts to tear up constitutional rights of due process and the First Amendment.
31:18He's also tearing up Article I of the Constitution by illegally freezing, withholding, and impounding funds for important public purposes.
31:33Funds that have been appropriated by the Congress and signed into law.
31:37The Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars of investments to support public services in communities all over America.
31:45The latest count is there holding up about $430 billion that were appropriated by the Congress.
31:58You know, just this morning we had a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee about the Trump administration's freezing and cutting of funds for NIH, the National Institutes of Health.
32:14Lots of powerful testimony from witnesses, including from a mom who was there with her daughter who had suffered through childhood cancer.
32:27And because of past research at NIH, her daughter's cancer was thankfully in remission.
32:39We're going away.
32:40But she was there, the mother was there, to say she wants other families who have kids with cancer to have the same opportunities.
32:54And that those opportunities only exist if we continue to do research into life-saving cures and treatments.
33:07And yet, the Trump administration is sowing chaos at NIH and has frozen some clinical trials.
33:17Meanwhile, Elon Musk and his doge cronies are taking a chainsaw to the federal government and destroying the ability of the federal government to deliver reliable services to the American people.
33:29Like the damage they're doing at the Social Security Administration.
33:34First, they say there's no more phone service. Use the internet. People couldn't get through on the internet. Go to the local Social Security offices. We're closing the local Social Security offices.
33:45And by the way, we're also firing thousands of people so there won't be anyone in those local offices.
33:52And then they say, oh well, maybe we better turn the phones on again. This isn't about government efficiency.
33:57This is about rigging the government for people like Elon Musk at the expense of everybody else.
34:05This is an issue that should concern every member of Congress.
34:14Because it is a direct attack on Article I. And it's an attack on the American people.
34:22And their rights to have these investments made when their elected officials direct them to be made on their behalf.
34:30And yet, just yesterday, the head of the Government Accountability Office, as we know by GAO,
34:39testified before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that the Trump Administration was stonewalling GAO's efforts
34:49to investigate this illegal withholding of funds.
34:55Now, Gene Dodaro, who is the Comptroller General, testified that the Office of Management and Budget,
35:02quote, has not been responsive, unquote, to GAO's questions about the freezing of billions of dollars in funding Congress had already approved.
35:14Now, this is not the first time we have seen a Trump administration violating the Impoundment Control Act.
35:25The last time President Trump was in office, he illegally withheld funds that the Congress had appropriated for helping the people of Ukraine.
35:39And he refused to spend those funds, Donald Trump did.
35:44And so back at the time, I wrote a letter to GAO asking them to investigate that withholding to see if it violated the Impoundment Control Act.
35:55That's a statute of the United States of America.
35:59And in that case, GAO found that, yes, the Trump Administration, the first round, had illegally withheld those funds.
36:12It was an illegal impoundment.
36:14And so that's what we're seeing right now.
36:17And they're not even working too hard to show that they're violating the Impoundment Control Act.
36:23When the head of OMB, Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vogt, was before the Senate Budget Committee for his nomination, his confirmation hearing,
36:37I asked him about the Impoundment Control Act.
36:40And I asked him about the past violations of the Impoundment Control Act because, guess what?
36:46He also was the head of OMB at the time of the earlier violation.
36:53And Russ Vogt is back at it again as the head of OMB.
36:59And so when I asked him about the Impoundment Control Act at his hearing, I said, I got this answer.
37:09I asked him about President Trump and the Impoundment Control Act.
37:13Here was his answer at the hearing.
37:15Senator, the President ran against the Impoundment Control Act.
37:22My response to him was, you know, Mr. Vogt, I know what the President did.
37:26He wants to change a lot of things.
37:28He can submit legislation to do that.
37:31But you're going to be the head of OMB.
37:34And here today at this hearing, you're refusing to comply, commit to comply with the Impoundment Control Act.
37:41Is that right?
37:42Are you refusing to commit to complying?
37:45And this dance went on and on and never did he commit to comply with the Impoundment Control Act.
37:53And so that's what we're witnessing right now.
37:57Violation of the Impoundment Control Act.
38:00We, the Senate, were supposed to get the Trump administration's spending plans for the remainder of fiscal year 2025 a few days ago.
38:10For many agencies, we haven't seen them yet.
38:13So we don't know what they say their plans are, but we do know that as of now they're withholding about $430 billion of appropriated funds.
38:23Finally, Mr. President, I want to talk about another area where Donald Trump is violating the law to the detriment of our economy.
38:38And that is in the area of tariffs.
38:42Now, presidents, of course, have some authority to apply tariffs.
38:52And I've supported targeted tariffs in the past for strategic purposes.
38:57But a number of small businesses around the country and others have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration for their illegal use of the International Emergency Economic Power Act.
39:14And I see the ranking member of the Finance Committee on the floor here, and he's spoken to this many times, and I want to thank him for his leadership.
39:23But I do want to read directly from the complaint that's been filed.
39:30Because the complaint, and this is one of the cases, okay.
39:33Congress passed the International Emergency Economic Power Act to counter external emergencies not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy.
39:47They go on to point out that, yes, we have a fentanyl crisis in America.
39:54All of us agree with that.
39:56But using this statute, which is for economic emergencies, and using the statute that the way the Trump administration is doing is a gross violation of the president's legal authority.
40:13And as we can see, by the downturn in the economy, we just learned that we're seeing the economy contract, we're seeing consumer confidence plunge, that President Trump's illegal use of that statute is causing incredible economic pain across the country.
40:36So, I want to end with this, Mr. President.
40:41When you see this kind of massive law breaking going on, violations of the Due Process Clause, violations of the First Amendment, violations of Article I and the Empowerment Control Act, I mean, you can just take a marker through the Constitution and cross out those provisions.
40:57Right?
40:58Right?
40:5914th Amendment, cross it out.
41:01First Amendment, cross it out.
41:02Cross it out.
41:03Cross out Article I.
41:04That's what everybody in this body who's not standing up to the president is complicit in right now.
41:12So, what bullies do, and make no mistake, President Trump is a bully.
41:19What they do is they try and pick on people they think that are weak.
41:24And if the rest of us don't stand up for the rights of those people, then it's a very fast and slippery slope to losing the rights for everybody who lives in America.
41:36So, I hope, Mr. President, that as we review this first hundred days and the massive law breaking that's going on, and the tearing up of the Constitution, the tearing apart of the government, and the tearing down of our economy, we will all wake up.
41:55Because the American people are waking up.
41:58They understand what's going on, and they don't like what they see.
42:03So, we better do our jobs here in the United States Senate.
42:07And I hope, starting today, all hundred senators will begin to do exactly that.
42:14And I yield.