00:03I ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with.
00:06Without objection.
00:07Mr. President, later today, the Senate will take a procedural vote on the MilCon VA funding bill.
00:13The Senate version of this legislation took some important steps to reverse a number of the awful cuts posed by Doge and Russell Vogt,
00:23particularly cuts against our nation's veterans,
00:26people who served us, who risked their lives for us,
00:30and they want to cut their health care and cut what the VA does for them.
00:35Too bad.
00:36That's a bad thing, and I'm glad this bill undoes a lot of that.
00:42It is also, for now, a positive thing that the Senate version's funding number is significantly higher than the House's.
00:50That is thanks to the push Democrats made in committee, and I thank my colleagues for their work to date.
00:56But we will see how the floor process evolves here on the floor.
01:02Given Republicans' recent actions undermining bipartisan appropriations, nothing is guaranteed.
01:09Senate Democrats will meet today at our weekly caucus lunch to discuss today's vote.
01:14As recently as yesterday, though, I heard my friend, the Republican leader, come to the floor and talk about the need for bipartisanship in appropriations.
01:25And I heard him take issue with Democratic criticisms against the reproach Republicans have taken over the last few months.
01:32Look, we all would like to see bipartisanship.
01:36It's been a tradition in this Senate until that sort of evaporated over the last decade.
01:44But Leader Thune is sort of talking out of both sides of his mouth.
01:50On one hand, he says, on the one hand, Thune says he wants bipartisanship.
01:57Then, on the other, he's pushing rescissions packages here on the floor.
02:05He's allowing party-line votes to reverse bipartisan funding agreements.
02:12Well, you can't have it both ways.
02:15What he is doing with rescissions is the opposite of bipartisanship,
02:20because rescission packages totally renege on agreements both sides reached on funding.
02:25When Donald Trump and Russell Vogt insist on rescissions and an obeisant Republican Congress goes along,
02:35even though many of them know it's wrong, it makes the spending process totally partisan.
02:42So the leader's words and his actions are a complete contradiction.
02:46He can't have it both ways.
02:48If Leader Thune hopes to see bipartisanship, he should tend to his own garden first
02:55and convince his Republican colleagues and the White House
03:00that bipartisanship is the way to go to do what's best for the American people.
03:06Republicans sold their rescissions package as cutting wasteful spending.
03:09But we all know that it's not that at all.
03:14That it was about giving Donald Trump what he wanted and using partisan means to get it all done.
03:20Meanwhile, we know that Russell Vogt and Donald Trump want Congress to greenlight yet another rescissions package for the near future.
03:28Russell Vogt even says openly that the appropriation process should be less bipartisan.
03:35Frankly, right now, the biggest obstacle to a good-faith bipartisan funding process
03:42is coming from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue
03:45and from Republicans all too eager to give Donald Trump and Russell Vogt whatever they want.
03:51And, of course, Republicans not even a month ago pushed Trump's big, ugly betrayal on a completely partisan vote,
03:59passing devastating cuts to Medicaid, to health care, to good-paying jobs, especially in rural communities.
04:05all to fund tax breaks for billionaires.
04:09And they did it by breaking norms of the Senate, by inventing fake math,
04:13by defying the concerns of even their own members to get it done.
04:18That kind of legislative stunt only makes it harder, harder for bipartisanship to take root.
04:25We'll see how our Republican colleagues choose to proceed this week.
04:29They can either keep doing Donald Trump and Russell Vogt's bidding,
04:33or they can work with Democrats on funding priorities that will serve the American people well.
