00:05Mr. President, I ask you now as consent that the quorum call be rescinded?
00:10Without objection.
00:12Mr. President, I'd like to talk today about the rescission bill that will be coming before us in the next couple of days.
00:18And I want to really cover two points.
00:21What is being done in this bill and how it's being done.
00:25I think they are equally important.
00:27In fact, I think perhaps how it is being done is more significant in the long run.
00:33The rescission bill talks about essentially two areas, public broadcasting and USAID.
00:40In my view, the rescission, the total rescission of those two agencies, and by the way, it is a total rescission.
00:46It's not selective cutting of certain programs or partially.
00:50It's the whole thing both in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and USAID.
00:56Go from bad policy to downright dangerous.
01:00And I want to talk about that for a minute.
01:02Public Broadcasting.
01:04Public Broadcasting has a unique place in the United States in our media environment in that it is the only media form that's not driven by advertising and advertising dollars.
01:15It can not be driven by ratings.
01:18It therefore is able to provide programming to the American people that they probably almost certainly would not have access to otherwise.
01:26It wouldn't simply find a home on commercial broadcasting because the ratings wouldn't be there.
01:32But that doesn't mean that programming isn't important.
01:34My kids were raised on Sesame Street.
01:39It made a huge difference in their readiness to go to school, in their understanding of language and numbers, and the whole basis of their education system.
01:48Sesame Street is a program that wouldn't find a home on commercial broadcasting.
01:54Likely also with NOVA, with Nature, and yes, the PBS NewsHour.
02:02The news business today has become more entertainment because it's based upon advertising and attracting viewers,
02:08and therefore is more insightful, and I don't mean, I mean that C-I-T-E, not S-I-G-H-T, more inciting to people's anger and unrest in order to keep them viewing.
02:22Whereas the PBS NewsHour is pretty much straight news.
02:26It wouldn't get the ratings on MSNBC or Fox News.
02:31But it provides a source of news both in terms of nationally but also in each state.
02:38The local national public radio, all things considered, those kinds of programming are essential to providing information.
02:47Now, some people may think it's biased.
02:49I don't think anything done by a human is going to be free of any and all bias.
02:53But it is pretty much straight news.
02:56And it's an asset to our communities, particularly our rural communities.
03:01And, by the way, this isn't where we have federal dollars that are supporting all of these initiatives.
03:10In fact, the majority of the support for public broadcasting, both television and radio, comes from the public, from contributions.
03:18So, in effect, our federal dollars are matched to a very high degree by the public making their own contributions.
03:28That's an indication of how much the public values these wonderful assets to our information environment here in the country.
03:37And to cut off federal funding is just an essential piece of the funding.
03:43A lot of it goes to the local stations.
03:45We talk about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
03:48We think of PBS and the national programs.
03:51But a lot of this funding ends up going to the local stations all over the country that provide essential sources of information to their public.
03:59And, by the way, the cost we're talking about is ridiculously low.
04:06I did the calculation.
04:09The relationship between the cost of public broadcasting to the federal budget is, let's see, it's seven cents to $10,000.
04:19That's the ratio.
04:20Seven cents out of $10,000.
04:22That's what we're talking about here, an almost immeasurable part of the federal budget.
04:28The return on investment is enormous.
04:31It's enormous.
04:32If this were a gigantic $100 billion program, then we'd be having a different kind of discussion.
04:38But this is a relatively small program in the context of the federal budget with a very high return on investment to the American people.
04:48Now let's talk about USAID.
04:51And the minority whip was just talking about that.
04:54And he listed a number of projects that I think are questionable that I don't necessarily support.
05:01But the USAID is an essential part of our foreign policy to help to stabilize unstable parts of the world, to extend America's soft power, to build America's brand, and, yes, to do some very essential projects.
05:17For example, in PEPFAR, which is an initiative of the George W. Bush administration involving AIDS, the estimate is that that initiative, since its beginning in 2005, has saved 25 million lives.
05:3425 million lives were saved by that program that will be destroyed by this bill.
05:42Now you can't tell me that having that level of benefit to the people of the world does not redound to the benefit of the United States, the sponsor of the initiative.
05:55Same thing with malaria.
05:57The estimates are that the malaria program, which goes back to, I believe it was the Obama administration, has prevented 1.5 billion cases of malaria,
06:09which is a real plague in many parts of the world, and saved 11 million lives.
06:16Just those two programs together, those two USAID projects, have saved 36 million lives.
06:24And we're talking about cutting them off.
06:27That's not only bad policy, it's cruel.
06:30It's cruel, and it undermines the credibility of this country.
06:37Now, of course, foreign aid has a lot of benefits aside from the ones that I've just outlined.
06:43And by the way, if the Congress and the administration wants to cull the programs and say,
06:49we don't think this one is necessary, this is not a good expenditure of the people's money, that's fine.
06:54But that's not what this bill does.
06:58This bill throws out the beneficial baby with the questionable bathwater.
07:05It is a total abdication of America's engagement with the world.
07:28And as I say, it's a relatively small part of the budget.
07:34It helps to stabilize fragile states.
07:38It cuts the risk of extremism and terrorism and conflict.
07:42And James Mattis put it best.
07:45General James Mattis, one of the most distinguished military officers of our time, said,
07:51if you don't fund the State Department fully, then you're going to have to buy me more bullets.
07:58That puts it most succinctly.
08:00You're going to have to buy me more bullets because the programs of USAID tend to stabilize the world
08:06and mitigate the tendency toward extremism and violence.
08:17And since we have started to gut AID, which was one of the first actions of this administration
08:23back in January and February, China has stepped into our shoes.
08:28I'm on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, and I have seen and heard testimony
08:34that China is basically stepping in where we're walking away.
08:38We are handing Africa and Latin America to the Chinese.
08:42In some cases, to the very programs that we were sponsoring.
08:47They're the ones that are now engaging with local governments, local leadership,
08:51getting the credit for helping with these kinds of problems across the world.
08:56We're giving away the goodwill that is part of the American brand.
09:02We're giving away the opportunity to build alliances to strengthen our influence,
09:07especially in competition with regimes like China and Russia.
09:12It also creates markets for U.S. goods and the U.S. economy.
09:17A significant share of the foreign aid ends up going back to businesses and NGOs here in the United States.
09:24So it actually contributes to our economic development.
09:28Countries that are receiving this U.S. aid end up being partners and customers of U.S. goods, products and services.
09:38I mentioned it saves lives.
09:40It aligns with our values.
09:42And there's nothing wrong with talking about values.
09:45That's a part of what we should be doing.
09:53USAID is doing important work all over the world.
09:58I've met with USAID people in Kabul, Afghanistan.
10:01I met with them in Jordan, where they're working on a water desalinization project that will literally save Jordan.
10:08Jordan is a country that has no water.
10:11And they're facing a tremendous crisis.
10:14And one of the projects that they're relying on is a very large water production facility supported by USAID.
10:22That's the kind of project that I think we need to continue.
10:26And again, I would not say that every single project they have sponsored is what I would have agreed upon.
10:32That's our job as oversight bodies, to take a look at the projects that are being sponsored.
10:38The administration can also do that.
10:40And they can then call the projects that we don't think are a useful expenditure of the government's money,
10:47or the people's money, but not the wholesale destruction of an agency that's critical, I believe, to the foreign policy of the United States.
10:57So, that's the picture on these rescissions.
11:04I believe the more important question, though, Mr. President, as I mentioned, is how this is being done.
11:14The question is, who has the power in our government over appropriations?
11:20That's the fundamental question.
11:22Where's the power over appropriations, where the federal dollars go?
11:26The answer to that question, of course, is the Congress.
11:30Article 1, Section 8, the Congress has the power of the purse.
11:34The President can submit his budget, and he can submit a budget that zeroes out AID, that zeroes out Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
11:43But then, the way the process works is, we have hearings, we have meetings with the Appropriation Committee, the appropriators meet and decide and discuss and debate,
11:52and come to the floor with a bill that represents the consensus of those on the Appropriations Committee, and then we consider it here.
12:00This process that we're talking about here, this rescission process, turns the whole thing upside down.
12:06It basically says, the administration can decide programs that are going to go away, and you can take it or leave it, Congress.
12:13And I believe that it shreds the appropriations process.
12:18The Appropriations Committee, and indeed this body, becomes a rubber stamp for whatever the administration wants.
12:26The deeper problem, Mr. President, is I believe this is another step in Congress's abdication, abdication of its constitutional authority, which has dramatically accelerated since January.
12:44The war power.
12:46Article 1, Section 8, an express power of the Constitution.
12:50We barely could have a debate about that, and the President attacked another sovereign country, which may have been the right thing to do, but there was no consultation.
13:02There was no attempt whatsoever to engage Congress, which has the power over declaring war, before that step was taken.
13:13Foreign trade, again, foreign trade, trade among nations is the term in the Constitution, is expressly delegated by the Constitution to the Congress.
13:24And the Congress has delegated some of that authority to the President, to a President, any President, under emergency circumstances.
13:32But this President has expanded emergency to mean just about anything.
13:36We learned this week that he's talking about a 50% tariff against Brazil because he doesn't like the way the current government is treating the prior President.
13:47It has nothing to do with trade.
13:48It has nothing to do with the trade deficit.
13:50It has nothing to do with tariffs.
13:51It has to do with something that the President individually doesn't like.
13:55That's not the way the system is supposed to work.
13:58The up and down roller coaster that we've been on with regard to tariffs is a perfect example of why one person shouldn't have this authority.
14:07This should be something that's done thoughtfully and systematically here in the Congress under Article 1, Section 8, to debate and decide what appropriate tariff levels there are across the world,
14:19and not this helter-skelter, up and down, changing every other day, that has not only already, we have reports today, affected inflation in this country and brought it up,
14:31but has also created enormous uncertainty, both in our markets and across the world.
14:37And then finally, we see the power of the purse, Congress's fundamental responsibility.
14:44And by the way, Mr. President, as I talk to my colleagues, particularly my Republican colleagues about this issue over the last several months,
14:52one of the common refrains is,
14:54don't worry, we don't have to buck the President because the courts will take care of it.
15:00The courts will take care of us, they'll protect us.
15:03Well, that ain't happening.
15:05The ridiculous decision of the Supreme Court yesterday on the Department of Education
15:10is an indication that we cannot count on the courts to protect us from the depredations of an authoritarian, a proto-authoritarian regime.
15:20They basically said, the President can continue to gut the Department of Education because we're going to hear the case later and maybe we'll decide it when it comes.
15:28They did the same thing with birthright citizenship.
15:30They punted on the issue and allowed the activities, the authoritarian-like activities to continue before they get to the case in their own good time.
15:43So we can't count on the courts.
15:45That means we're it.
15:49The Congress, the Senate, has to stand up for the Constitution.
15:55What this bill is, is another building block in the edifice of authoritarianism that we are seeing built before our eyes.
16:08A building block in the edifice of authoritarianism.
16:13Why is this important?
16:15Is this just a dispute between the Congress and the President?
16:18Politics as usual.
16:19Democrats attacking, undermining a Republican president.
16:22And it's just going to be all about the midterms and the election in 2028.
16:27No, this is much deeper than that.
16:30This is much deeper than that.
16:32The fundamental premise of the Constitution is the separation of power.
16:37And the reason it's there is because history tells us that if power is concentrated, it's dangerous.
16:45Madison put it absolutely bluntly in the 47th Federalist, the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same set of hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
17:02He used the word tyranny.
17:05Madison wasn't mincing words.
17:08History tells us that if you concentrate power in one set of hands, it's dangerous.
17:14Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
17:21We know that from a thousand years of human nature.
17:24And that was exactly what the framers of the Constitution were trying to prevent by this complicated, difficult structure where there's power in the Congress, power in the states, power in the executive, power in the courts.
17:50To protect us from the danger of power being concentrated in one set of hands.
17:59Now, the framers thought that they didn't have to worry about this, having set up the Constitution the way they did, because they said, never will the Congress give up its power.
18:09The term they used was ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
18:16That there would be institutional rivalry and we would never give up.
18:19Well, they didn't reckon on parties.
18:22They didn't reckon on party primaries.
18:24They didn't reckon on the executive having such sway with the legislative branch that the checks and balances essentially have melted away.
18:37So this bill is important because of the merits, as I talked about, about the danger of wiping out USAID and all the good it does in the world and the good it does for our country.
18:49And also wiping out public broadcasting and all the good that it does, the irreplaceable good that it does for the people in the United States.
18:58But it's also more dangerous than ever because it's one more step, as I mentioned, in the breakdown of the fundamental constitutional structure that says power must be divided because if it's concentrated in one set of hands.
19:16I don't care whether it's Donald Trump or the Archangel Gabriel, it's dangerous to have the power in one set of hands.
19:23That's how we lose our liberty.
19:25Again, Madison, when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can be no liberty.
19:33Mr. President, we must listen.
19:36We must listen to history, to the people that brought us here, the people that brought us this government, the geniuses that formed this structure to protect the liberty of the American people.
19:49And it may seem like a small thing, this is one more bill, one more item, but it is one more step, in my view, toward empowering the executive at the expense, not of the Congress, but of the people, but of the people of the United States.
20:08Mr. President, I don't know what it's going to take, but I hope this debate, this discussion, will lead us to finally say, this is a line too far, we're going to draw a line here, and we'll establish a relationship with the President that is cooperative, collaborative, bipartisan,
20:33and sharing the power that the Constitution gives to each of us.
20:40There's nothing less than the liberty of our people that's at stake.
20:45I therefore urge my colleagues to vote against this bill and begin a discussion in the appropriations process as to these two elements and how they should be structured and funded.
20:58That's the way it should be done, not by the dictate of a President, of one who is trying to collapse the authority in our Constitution into his own hands.
