Congressional Record, Volume 165 Issue 15 (Thursday, January 24, 2019)

[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 15 (Thursday, January 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S557-S583]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment
No. 5 to H.R. 268, a bill making supplemental appropriations
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other
purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Josh Hawley, John Thune, Shelley Moore
Capito, Johnny Isakson, Mike Crapo, Richard Burr, James
Lankford, Tom Cotton, Roy Blunt, David Perdue, Mike
Rounds, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, Rob Portman, Steve
Daines, John Kennedy.

Amendment No. 5

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on
amendment No. 5, offered by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell]
to H.R. 268, a bill making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes, shall be
brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kentucky (Mr. Paul) and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch)
would have voted ``yea''.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen) is
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 50, nays 47, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 9 Leg.]

YEAS--50

Alexander
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Manchin
McConnell
McSally
Moran
Murkowski
Perdue
Portman
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young

NAYS--47

Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
Jones
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Lee
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden

NOT VOTING--3

Paul
Risch
Rosen
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are
47.

=========================== NOTE ===========================

On page S557, January 24, 2019, bottom of third column, the
following appears: The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas
are 51, the nays are 47.

The online Record has been corrected to read: The PRESIDING
OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 47.

========================= END NOTE =========================

[[Page S558]]

Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment
No. 6 to H.R. 268, a bill making supplemental appropriations
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other
purposes.
Chuck Schumer, Patrick Leahy, Ben Cardin, Tim Kaine,
Brian Schatz, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Coons, Sheldon
Whitehouse, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeanne Shaheen, Gary
Peters, Bob Casey, Jr., Tom Udall, Angus King, Debbie
Stabenow, Maria Cantwell, Martin Heinrich.

Amendment No. 6

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on
amendment No. 6, offered by the Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer] to
H.R. 268, a bill making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes, shall be brought to
a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul),
and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch)
would have voted ``nay''.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen) is
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 52, nays 44, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 10 Leg.]

YEAS--52

Alexander
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gardner
Gillibrand
Harris
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
Isakson
Jones
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Peters
Reed
Romney
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--44

Barrasso
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Capito
Cassidy
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
McConnell
McSally
Moran
Perdue
Portman
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young

NOT VOTING--4

Burr
Paul
Risch
Rosen
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are
44.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my
remarks, the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Johnson, be recognized for 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object because we
had floor time immediately after my friend from Texas, could you give
us an idea of how much time you will be using on the floor before we
have the time--we were supposed to come immediately after you. That is
my reason for raising that issue.
Mr. CORNYN. I promise my friend from Maryland that I will be less
than an hour. I am kidding. I am kidding. I will try to wrap it up in
10 or 15 minutes, max.
Mr. CARDIN. There are about 15 Senators who are waiting for the time.
We were originally supposed to start at 3:30. Now we are starting
later. I know Senators are going to be inconvenienced. Some have
commitments.
I will remove my objection. I really want it understood that we
thought we would be starting our time before that.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, responding to our friend from Maryland, I
understand the situation. We will try to figure out how to accommodate
all Senators so that they get a chance to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, since the shutdown began, we have heard
voices on both sides of the aisle, mine included, calling for a
bipartisan solution to fund the government and end this stalemate. With
Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer refusing to come to the
negotiating table, they made finding common ground much harder than it
needs to be.
This weekend, President Trump made a serious proposal that would
deliver on priorities that are important to both parties--Republicans
and Democrats--in bringing this partial government shutdown to an end.
The bill we voted on today contains key provisions to border security
and to make improvements to our immigration system as a whole. As we
have heard from the Border Patrol experts time and again, we need
sensible solutions, which, along the border, consist of three
components: its physical barriers in some locations, its technology in
others, and personnel in others--or some combination of those three.
President Trump himself has said he understands there doesn't need to
be a wall from sea to shining sea, and he has acknowledged the role of
technology and personnel and border security. We need to prevent the
illegal movement of goods and people without inhibiting legitimate
trade and travel.
I wish to show colleagues one example of a physical barrier in Texas
that was voted on in a bond election in Hidalgo County, TX. These are
folks who live on the border. They voted to pay for this levee wall.
The reason? Because they knew the levee system had to be improved in
order to get insurance companies to write insurance so that they could
build and develop the property in Hidalgo County, TX.
They also talked to the Border Patrol about what the Border Patrol
needed to control the movement of illegal immigration across the
border, and they came up with a win-win proposition--a levee wall,
which is appropriate at this particular location. This was voted on as
a bond election by the voters in Hidalgo County, TX, and did not
involve spending any Federal money.
My simple point is, there are solutions that can be worked out if we
consult the experts--the Border Patrol--to find out what exactly they
need for border security that will meet with public approval along the
border and represent a win-win.
Recently, when the President was in McAllen, TX, Senator Cruz--my
colleague from Texas--and I had a meeting with mayors and county judges
after the President's entourage left to come back to Washington, DC. I
remember specifically my friend, Judge Eddie Trevino, the county judge
of Cameron County, TX--that is where Brownsville, TX, is--who said: If
it is the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection telling us
what we need in order to secure the border, we are all in. But if it is
people in Washington, DC, making political judgments, politicians
trying to micromanage how the border can be secured, we remain deeply
skeptical.
I think those wise words ought to guide us in our discussions going
forward. Not only did the legislation that embodied the President's
proposal invest in critical components along the border, it included
more than $1 billion for improvements and personnel at our ports of
entry.
If you talk to anybody who knows anything about the movement of
illegal drugs--heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl--across the border,
most of it comes through the port of entry, embedded in trucks and
trailers and personal vehicles. We need more technology in order to
scan those vehicles

[[Page S559]]

in secondary review. In order to detect them, deter them, interdict
them, we need the personnel to be able to do that without impeding
legitimate trade and travel.
These are priorities I have long advocated for, based on feedback
from the experts--the law enforcement officers, community leaders, and
folks who live and work along the Texas-Mexico border every day.
As we all know, the challenges that exist within our immigration
system don't end at our borders. With a court backlog of roughly
800,000 cases deep, nearly 1 million people living in the United States
with temporary legal status, and the loopholes that make enforcing some
of our immigration laws nearly impossible, there is much more that
needs to be done. That is why this legislation includes provisions to
build the foundation of real immigration reform--something heralded by
both parties.
This bill generously granted provisional status to current DACA and
temporary protected status recipients, who live each day not knowing if
or when they would be forced to leave the United States. It does not
offer a path to citizenship or a long-term solution. I wish we could do
that, but we don't have a long-term solution. It does provide stability
for 3 years while Congress works on a legislative fix.
This is far from a solution to the pervasive problems in our
immigration system, but it is a start. A journey of 1,000 miles begins
with a single step. This represents a first step. Most importantly,
though, this legislation funds the Departments and Agencies that have
been shuttered since December 22. This shutdown may have begun as a
battle for border security, but it affects men and women in all 50
States whose jobs have nothing to do with border security at all,
people at the Department of Agriculture, the Justice Department, the
Interior Department, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury, the
National Space and Aeronautics Agency, the Environmental Protection
Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Peace Corps. All of
the people working for each of these government Agencies are working
without pay or have been furloughed. Not only is the partial shutdown
impacting the critical work being done by these Departments and
Agencies, it is harming the dedicated men and women who work at them,
those tasked with executing and enforcing laws written by this very
body.

Since this shutdown began 34 days ago, nearly 800,000 Federal workers
have lost the security of knowing when their next paycheck will come.
Tomorrow is the second paycheck they will miss, meaning they have now
gone more than a month without income.
Yesterday, when I was in Austin and then in Dallas, I was told that
people who routinely volunteer their time at the food banks in those
locations now find themselves going to the food banks and seeking food
so they can feed their families because they are missing a government
paycheck and can't provide for them without the generosity of those
food banks.
I also went to events in Austin and Dallas and met with U.S.
attorneys in both locations to talk about our efforts to counter human
trafficking and child exploitation. What I learned is that the
frontline prosecutors who prosecute these kinds of cases aren't being
paid, but maybe more troublesome is the fact that neither are the FBI
agents who conduct the investigations or the administrative personnel
who support the U.S. attorneys offices. So this is harming our ability
to investigate and prosecute human trafficking and child exploitation
cases too. People are being forced to work without pay, and it is
harming not only them but also the victims of these horrific crimes.
More than 110,000 of these unpaid Federal workers earn less than
$50,000 a year, and they rely on their paycheck to make ends meet. They
are not millionaires. While we did pass legislation to guarantee that
these public servants will eventually get their pay, that does nothing
to help them in the interim.
Federal workers are being forced to make decisions that no family
should have to consider. For a single mom who is a Federal correctional
officer in Arizona, that means turning off her heat, never letting the
temperature get higher than 60 or 65 degrees in order to cut costs. For
a mom in Wisconsin who works at the Department of the Interior, that
means rationing her insulin because she can't afford the $300 copay.
This shutdown is deeply impacting thousands of Federal workers and
their families all across the country, including Texas. One Texan who
works at the Internal Revenue Service says he has been sleeping in so
he only has to worry about eating two meals a day, not three. One woman
whose husband is in the Coast Guard drove from Galveston to Ellington
Field in Houston--about 40 miles each way--to pick up free diapers for
their kids.
On a recent trip home, I heard specific examples of the impact this
shutdown has had on the Department of Justice, which I mentioned just a
moment ago, and the heartbreaking challenges they are facing every day.
These dedicated men and women have chosen their careers in public
service. They want to go to work. They want to be able to pay their
bills. It is time for us to do our job so they can do theirs with the
dignity and the pay they earn.
I want to remind all our colleagues that our constituents did not
send us to Washington so we could simply vote no on a less than perfect
piece of legislation. If that were the case, we would never get
anything done here. We were elected to work with our colleagues to
create legislation so we can get to yes, to build consensus, and to
solve problems, not to score political points.
Are there certain pieces of legislation that I don't agree with? Of
course--parts of this legislation we just voted on. But it does fund
priorities critical to our southern border and to the people of Texas.
Right now, this is the only bill I have seen that includes priorities
of both parties and that carries the President's support.
I voted for this legislation to support the men and women who have
been treated as collateral damage throughout this unnecessary
government shutdown, those who are forced to apply for food stamps or
unemployment who would rather be working, who can't pay their medical
bills or for childcare, who not only want this shutdown to end but need
for this shutdown to end.
We aren't here to hold show votes on legislation the President won't
sign. Just ask the elementary school civics students, and they can tell
you that is not how a bill becomes a law.
This was a serious offer by the President to end this shutdown and
build the trust and good will necessary to have real reform, and I am
disappointed that our colleagues voted against this bill. That was a
vote not on the merits of the President's proposal; that was a vote to
get on the bill so it could be amended. In other words, our colleagues
who voted against the bill aren't even interested in having a
conversation about how we solve this problem and how we find our way
out of this boxed canyon. Unfortunately, there are those who, for
political reasons, continue to lack any interest in negotiating a
compromise bill that could earn bipartisan support.
We solve difficult problems every day in the U.S. Congress on a
bipartisan basis--every single day--but somehow we have decided we
can't solve this problem. And I fear that is not because of the
difficulty of the problem presented; it is because of the politics that
have paralyzed us and made it impossible for us to bridge our
differences.
I thank the President for this comprehensive offer and the majority
leader for bringing it to the floor so we could vote on it. I would
urge all of our colleagues, now that we have had these two failed
votes--we know we are right where we started when we got here today--to
work together to try to bridge our differences, to build consensus, and
end this shutdown.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. JOHNSON. Is the minority leader on the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair does not see him.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 1

Mr. JOHNSON. Yesterday, Chaplain Black opened the Senate by quoting
the Gospel according to Luke. He said: ``Those who work deserve their
pay.'' I could not agree more.
First of all, I want to thank the finest among us--the members of the
Coast Guard, TSA, Customs and Border Protection, ICE, all the men and
women whom, because of Federal law, we require to work who are caught
up

[[Page S560]]

in the shutdown politics, which I don't agree with, and they are not
getting paid. It is a basic principle that we should pay these
individuals.
Earlier today, my colleague, the Senator from Alaska, with other
Republican colleagues, came to the floor asking a simple question--
proposing a bill to pay the men and women of the Coast Guard, and for
some reason, the minority leader and Democrats objected to this very
fair proposal.
Today, I come to the floor to offer an amendment to the bill I
introduced 10 days ago. It has been talked about in the press. We have
24 Republican cosponsors of the Shutdown Fairness Act, which does a
pretty simple thing: It simply pays those individuals who are doing the
work trying to keep this Nation safe.
Mr. President, I see the minority leader here.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of Calendar No. 6, H.J. Res. 1. I ask unanimous consent
that the Johnson amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as
amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
Mr. SCHUMER. Reserving the right to object, I heard my good friend
from Wisconsin say, give him one good reason to object to the Coast
Guard. No, there is not one; there are 760,000, if that is the right
number--the number of non-Coast Guard workers who are not getting paid.
Similarly here, it will be easy for any Member to get up and pick and
choose and say: Pay these. Pay those. Don't pay these. Don't pay those.
Our position on this side is simple: They should not be held hostage.
They should not say: We are not going to pay you unless we get our way
on the wall--which is exactly what President Trump is doing and exactly
what my colleagues, with some exceptions, have decided to do on that
side of the aisle, including my good friend from Wisconsin. That is not
fair. Everyone deserves to be paid. These are all hard-working people.
They have done nothing wrong. They all get up on Monday morning, even
if they have a fever or something, to go to work because they believe
in what they are doing. They are government workers. To pick and choose
some and not others is the wrong way to go and would lead to a
cacophony. Every one of us could get up and say: Maybe we should, say,
just pay the workers in Brooklyn, NY. It doesn't make any sense at all.
So I would modify my friend's request and expand it to all of our
Federal workers, which is only fair.
Reserving the right to object, would the Senator modify his request
to ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of H.J. Res. 28, which has been received from the House,
making further additional continuing appropriations through February
28; that the joint resolution be considered read a third time and
passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon
the table with no intervening action or debate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Wisconsin so modify his
request?
Mr. JOHNSON. I do object because we basically just voted on that in
the Senate, and it was voted down. The President would not sign that.
That would not become law. And the minority leader is holding 400-some
thousand individuals who are actually working who should get paid--he
is the one holding them hostage.
I would yield to the Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. SCHUMER. I object to that. I am in the middle of an objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection to the modification is heard.
Mr. SCHUMER. Leader McConnell has requested I go to his office. I
think that is more important than some of these activities. I am going
to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader does not have the floor.
Does the Democratic leader object to the original request?
Mr. SCHUMER. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I would like to turn it over to the
Senator from Tennessee for 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Could the Presiding Officer let me know when 60
seconds is up so the Senator from Alaska can have 60 seconds? And then
we can go on with the colloquy people have been waiting for.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this is what we just heard. The Senator
from Wisconsin asked unanimous consent that the Senate approve pay for
400,000 workers who are being forced to work without pay. No Republican
objects to the Senator from Wisconsin's idea, but the Democratic leader
does. That means the Democratic leader is saying to 53,000 TSA
employees who make about $40,000 a year that he objects on behalf of
the Democratic side to paying them while they are forced to work. He is
saying to 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents that he objects
to paying them while they are forced to work.
Senator Johnson says that on the Republican side, we want to pay
42,000 Coast Guard employees who are forced to work and aren't getting
paid. The Democratic leader says he objects to that and to 14,000 air
traffic controllers, 16,000 Bureau of Prisons corrections officers, and
35,000 IRS employees. They are being forced to work. The Republicans
are saying pay them; the Democratic leader objects.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I had previously noted on the floor the
group of Senators who want to join together to send a clear message
that we are committed to working together to end this shutdown and
responsibly deal with border security in a truly bipartisan manner.
This is a group of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.
Senator Murkowski is leading this on the Republican side of the floor
today.
I ask unanimous consent that for the next hour, the two of us control
30 minutes of time; that I control 30 minutes and Senator Murkowski
will control the other 30 minutes of time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, during this floor time, I think you are
going to see clear messages coming from Democratic Senators and
Republican Senators that this shutdown needs to end, that we need to
pass a short-term, 3-week clean CR so we can have time to consider the
President's request and work together on a bipartisan border security
package.
I want my colleagues to know we have been meeting regularly in an
effort to try to see where we can find common ground. We feel pretty
confident that we can find common ground if we can get government open
and get to work in a responsible manner to deal with border security in
the best interest of the people of this Nation.
Mr. President, I will first yield to my friend from Virginia, Senator
Warner, then I will yield time and give up the floor to Senator
Murkowski.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I appreciate my friend, the Senator from
Maryland, yielding time. I appreciate the fact that this may be the
first time, at least in the last few weeks, where a group of Senators
from both sides of the aisle are actually coming together to find
agreement--not to score ``gotcha'' points but to find agreement. I
promised the Senator I would be very brief.
It is clear this government shutdown needs to come to an end. My hope
would be that as we move toward that conclusion, we will also look at
the issues revolving around, particularly, low-paid Federal contractors
who will get no relief when the government reopens. I also hope we can
work together.
I have legislation called the Stop STUPIDITY Act. It is a good name.
It may need further amendments that would try to prohibit future
shutdowns being used by either party on a going-forward basis.
What I think we need to do, and I think other colleagues will
acknowledge this, is let's take a 3-week, short-

[[Page S561]]

term CR. Let's consider the President's proposal. Let me be clear. The
President is watching. This Senator will commit to good-faith
negotiations. This Senator will commit to supporting increased border
security beyond what we just voted on in the so-called Democratic
proposal. I hope the President will take that kind of commitment for
increased border security as a good-faith effort and will be responsive
so we can get this government reopened on a short-term basis and that
the kind of horror stories we all can recount about our workers,
contractors, and oftentimes private businesses that surround those
Federal installations--that will see no relief--can actually get their
operations back open.
I thank my friend, the Senator from Maryland, for granting me this
time. I thank the Senator from Alaska for leadership on her time. Let's
see if this eight can go forth and multiply so, before this weekend is
over, we can get our workforce back to work doing the people's
business.
I yield back to the Senator from Maryland.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleagues being down
here again on a bipartisan basis to talk about where we are at this
moment.
We just had two messaging votes. Both of those votes failed. I voted
for both of them because my message was I want to get this government
open. I want to do it quickly and with the sense of urgency that
responds to the men and women who have been so significantly impacted
by this partial government shutdown for the past 34 days. I also want
to be fair to the President's priorities that he has articulated in the
proposal that he has provided to us as recently as Saturday. I think we
can do this together.
My message to folks back home--my message to people is don't give up
hope because now is the time that we all must come together to address
these issues, but you can't do it when the government is shut down.
I have indicated I am supportive of a measure the Senator from
Maryland, Mr. Cardin, has introduced that will allow for a short-term
CR, 3 weeks, allow us then to go through--whether it is the
appropriations process, the Judiciary Committee process--but allow us
to have this debate on these important priorities; allow us to do the
business of the Senate, to do the business of legislating, but let's
also allow the business of the government to proceed by opening up the
government right now.
We will have an opportunity to go back and forth amongst colleagues.
I will remind folks, we have very limited periods of time.
I am going to yield to my colleagues on the other side. It is so
important that we are coming together now to offer some glimmer of
hope.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. I couldn't agree more with my friend from Alaska and the
way she worded it. We are going to work together to open the government
as quickly as possible.
I yield to my friend from Delaware, Senator Coons.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleagues from
Alaska, Maryland, and other States for their willingness to spend so
much time talking, listening, and trying, together, to craft a path
forward.
The role the Senate has historically played in our constitutional
order is one where we are the body that others look to when there is
either an inflexibility or an unreliability in negotiating a path
forward. We have lots of folks across this country suffering from this
government shutdown. It is having an impact that all of us could
detail.
I have to ask, what is it going to take for us to reopen this
government? Is it going to take a breakdown in food security or airline
security? Is it going to take an increase in crime or terrorism, an
accident, or thousands more Americans struggling to feed their
families, losing housing or electricity? I will not go on with the
list. We all know the human cost of this shutdown.
I am here to join my friends, my colleagues from both parties, in
saying that we are intent on making a good-faith effort to reopen the
government for 3 weeks, to promptly support good-faith negotiations, to
address the President's priorities, to discuss what effective, modern
investment in border security and changes in immigration policy would
look like, and then reach a resolution in 3 weeks or less. We have to
be able to do this. We have to show our country and the world that
democracy can work.
I am optimistic that with the passion and the commitment I have heard
from my bipartisan colleagues who stand on the floor with me tonight,
that it is possible to get this done and that whatever gets taken up
and considered in regular order by this body could then be passed by
the House and signed into law by the President.
Let us take a first bold step together today and sign on to an
amendment that my colleague from Maryland has, committing us to a
clean, 3-week continuing resolution, reopening the government, and
promptly negotiating in good faith to increase investment in border
security.
I yield the floor.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I would ask that the Senator from Maine be recognized
at this time.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, this shutdown, the longest in our
history, must come to an end. It has already caused far too much harm
for 800,000 dedicated Federal employees and their families who are
struggling to pay bills without paychecks and are on the verge of
missing yet another paycheck. It has hurt the American people who need
to interact with Federal Agencies, including seniors, low-income
families, people with disabilities who worry about their housing
assistance. It is damaging our economy, causing a drop in consumer
confidence and consumer spending.
Ironically, shutdowns always end up costing the government more money
than if we had operated as we should.
I see a glimmer of hope here. We at least have had two votes today on
two different plans. Like the Senator from Alaska and others, I
supported both plans because my priority is to reopen government, but
where I am really optimistic is the fact that 16 Senators are on the
floor, equally divided between the two parties, and willing to
compromise. Compromise is not a dirty word. It is not a sign of
weakness. It is a sign of strength.
Let us compromise to reopen government, address border security, and
get on with the business of this country.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. At this time, I yield to my colleague from Arizona,
Senator Sinema.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Ms. SINEMA. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues from
Maryland and Alaska for bringing us together today but also for the
work our group has been putting in for the last several weeks to find a
solution to end this harmful and hurtful shutdown.
The voters of Arizona want a government that is lean, that allows
them to pursue their individual interests, and that, above all, does
not detract from their everyday life.
Unfortunately, when the Federal Government is shut down, as it is
today, it detracts and takes away from the quality of life for folks in
Arizona.
Recently, the President asked the Congress to consider appropriations
for border security. I stand in support of working together across the
aisle with my colleagues in the Senate to answer that request. Arizona
needs enhanced funding for border security, and I feel confident that
if given 3 weeks, the Republicans and Democrats together in this body
could find a reasonable compromise that both continues to keep our
government operating in a lean and efficient way, while also providing
for efficient and effective border security.
In Arizona, we bear the brunt of a government that has failed its
duty to secure our border and protect our communities; in Arizona, we
bear the brunt of our country's failure to solve the immigration crisis
we live in today; in Arizona, we have been waiting for over three
decades for the Congress to solve this problem so that we in Arizona
can live our lives free from unnecessary government interference and
with the full freedom our country has promised us.

[[Page S562]]

I believe that if we work together over the next 3 weeks, we can find
a compromise, we can find a solution to this challenge, and we can work
with our colleagues in the House and send a piece of legislation to the
President that will meet the security needs of our country and ensure
that we keep government operating efficiently and effectively for the
people of my State and for this country. I look forward to working over
the next several weeks to solve this challenge.
I request of the President, allow us those 3 weeks to find this
bipartisan solution together.
I yield back.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask that the Senator from South Carolina be
recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. I just got off the phone with the President. I told him
we were talking about a 3-week CR. All of us believe that if we had 3
weeks with the government open and all the discord coming from a
shutdown, that we could find a way forward to produce a bill that he
would sign that would be good for everybody in the country, but we need
that opportunity.
He gave me some indications of things he would want for a 3-week CR
that would be a good-faith downpayment on moving forward that I thought
were imminently reasonable. Rather than me telling you about what he
said, I think Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell will be talking
about this.
The 3-week CR concept is a good idea, and what the President wants to
add to it made sense to me, and it gets us back in the ball game. Here
is what is going to happen. The TPS language that was sent over by the
President is a move forward but unacceptable to my Democratic
colleagues. It needs to be like what Tim Kaine did. The DACA provision
sent over by the President is moving forward, but it needs to be what
Senator Durbin did because they are both, I think, reasonable proposals
that the President should be able to accept.
To my Democratic friends, money for a barrier is required to get this
deal done. It will not be a concrete wall, and the money will be a
program to a DHS plan that all of you know about and have been briefed
on and should approve.
You are not giving President Trump a bunch of money to do anything he
wants to do. He has to spend it on a plan that the professionals have
come up with. If you want $800 million for refugee assistance, you will
get it. We all need more judges, and 250 more Border Patrol agents on
the border would be good for us all.
I want to let the public know I have never been more optimistic than
I am now if we can find a way to open up the government for 3 weeks. If
we fail, everybody can say we did our best. This is one last chance to
get this right. I am just hoping and praying that what the President is
asking for, in addition to Senator Cardin's 3-week CR, he will
entertain. Let's get to work. If we can get in a room, we will fix
this, and it won't take 3 weeks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I am now pleased to yield to my colleague
from Maryland, Senator Van Hollen, who has been a real partner during
his stay here in the Senate. We have traveled the State of Maryland
together, and we know firsthand the hardships of this shutdown. We have
seen the faces, and we have seen the consequences.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and partner from
Maryland for all of his work in ending the shutdown.
I thank him, as well as our friend from Alaska, Senator Murkowski,
for bringing us together in a bipartisan way to find a solution to end
this shutdown as soon as possible. That is why I support the bipartisan
amendment that will be filed this afternoon to open the government for
3 weeks.
I should stress that this is not my preferred solution. I would like
to take up the bill that is at the desk that would open eight of the
nine Federal Departments right away and give us time to deal with the
Department of Homeland Security. Yet the proposal before us is our best
option at this point in time for resolving this shutdown.
What will 3 weeks accomplish? It is a fair question.
First of all, it will allow Federal Government employees--all of
them--to get back to work for the American people and help resume vital
services.
No. 2, it will make sure that all of them get paid--those who are
working without pay and those who have been locked out. That is
important because all of us know that tomorrow marks the second full
pay period of when they will get big fat zeros on their paychecks even
as their bills keep coming through the door.
It will do something else that is very important. It will give the
Senate and the House a little breathing room to work together on a
bipartisan basis to address a number of priorities--priorities to make
sure we provide adequate border security, which can include additional
resources. We can spend some time addressing immigration issues,
including those that were just mentioned by the Senator from South
Carolina.
I believe this time and space is absolutely needed to allow us to
work together in a bipartisan way. While 3 weeks may not sound like a
lot of time, in part, it will help focus our attention on getting the
job done, and we will all be held accountable in the House, in the
Senate, and in the White House for getting our work done in that
period.
I thank our colleagues for showing this good faith in trying to find
a solution to doing it. Take 3 weeks. Open the government. Let's have
those very important discussions. Let's do it in a sober and serious
way. If we do so, I am confident that we can find a permanent result
that will help us get out of this crisis.
I thank the Senator.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Georgia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, all Democrats and Republicans, pay close
attention.
I have been here for 20 years, and I have seen a lot of shutdowns--
about five of them. I want to talk about what they have produced.
The first one with Bill Clinton produced Monica Lewinsky. That is how
they got into all the trouble--because she was an intern at the White
House. Idle hands are never good.
For us, Newt Gingrich lost his job in the same shutdown. He lost his
job because he lost six votes in the House and couldn't get reelected
as Speaker. I had to replace him. I am kind of glad that happened, but
it is still not a good reason to have a shutdown.
A few years later, great Senators--John McCain being one of them and
Ted Kennedy being another--worked their fingers to the bone and came up
with a great immigration bill that I was a part of in my first term in
the Senate. We got castigated and ruined because, all of a sudden,
``amnesty'' became a four-letter word, and political consultants found
it to be kind of an easy way to run against people in the party.
For 15 years, we have been beating each other over something that
ought to be easy to do, which is to change for the better. A lot of
people think Congress's job is for us to come to Washington and change
things for the better. When it comes to immigration, all we ever change
is the subject. We never end the debate, and we never pass a result.
Oftentimes, we call each other names for the wrong reason.
I am here for one reason--to thank my colleagues who are on the
floor. To all of the others who are ready to do some business, I am
ready to do some business. It is time we put the workers in our
government back to work. It is time we did what we promised the people
in the United States of America we would do. And it is time we went to
work because when everybody is out of work, it is our fault. They are
the people who carry the mail, who empty the garbage, who cook in the
cafeteria, who clean up the parks, and they do everything without
complaining whatsoever. They are out there--many of them--not even
being paid right now while we are sitting here, debating a subject that
we can't reach a solution on--period.
We need to take our armor off, leave our weapons at the door, walk in
the room, and shake hands.

[[Page S563]]

We need to grab Ben Cardin's hand and say: Ben, thank you for making
an effort as a Democrat.
Lisa, thank you, as a Republican, for supporting it.
Let's sit down, and let's pass a bill we can all agree on that gets
Americans back to work and restores the spirit of Ellis Island and the
pride of the United States of America.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I have joined Senator Isakson on many
bills since I have been in the Senate, and I look forward to working
with him to find the solution with regard to border security issues. I
thank him for his comments.
I yield to my colleague from Maine, Senator King, who has been so
instrumental in trying to come up with concrete ways to end this
shutdown.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, it strikes me that there are really two
problems before us--one we can resolve this evening or tomorrow morning
or in the next 24 hours, and that is the shutdown. At least we could
resolve it for a limited period of time and then start talking about
the second problem, which is border security.
I think one of the unfortunate realities of what has happened in the
last month is the assumption on the part of some that there was no good
faith on border security and no interest in dealing with border
security from this side of the aisle. That is a misunderstanding. I
voted in 2013 for the largest border security provision that I think
has ever come before the U.S. Senate. So did virtually every Member of
this caucus and a third or more of the other caucus. Two-thirds of the
Senate voted for that bill with a very important border security
provision.
I want to be very clear. I am very supportive of border security and
of increasing border security. There also may be cases in which there
may be parts of the border at which some kind of barrier makes sense
and is cost-effective; whereas, there are other areas of the border at
which it doesn't make sense. What I am interested in is a thorough
discussion with the experts about what the most cost-effective way is
to protect our citizens and secure the border. I believe this proposal
today gives us the breathing space to have that discussion.
I remind my colleagues that this administration submitted a border
security proposal to the Congress last February with its budget of $1.6
billion. Lo and behold, it was approved by the Appropriations Committee
and by this body. That is an indication to me that there is good faith.
I think the important thing to communicate now is to not complicate
this with conditions. Let's take the awful hammer away--and I don't
have to reiterate all that has been said today about the devastating
effect of this shutdown on people in all of our States and on people
who are working for no pay, which is fundamentally wrong--and then
spend the next 3 weeks finding a solution, which I believe we can do. I
have had enough discussions with my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle. I think there is a solution to be had that will satisfy the
President, the two bodies of Congress, and, most importantly, the
American people in terms of the protection we can provide.
I am happy to join my colleague today in supporting this message and,
importantly, to join my colleagues across the aisle. Give us breathing
space. Take the problem of the shutdown away. Then we can have a
discussion and a debate and find a solution through a process, which is
the way it ought to be, not with a shutdown hanging over everyone. That
is not the way we should be governing.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on finding a creative,
cost-effective, and safe solution to this issue of border security to
protect this country.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, how much time remains on the Republican
side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republicans have 21 minutes remaining.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Presiding Officer.
I now yield to the Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska for her
leadership today; my colleague from Maine, who just spoke; my colleague
from Maryland; and all of my colleagues on the floor.
By the way, there are several Republicans who came up to me over the
last hour and asked: May I speak in this colloquy? We didn't have time
for all of them, but that is a good sign. It shows that there are a lot
of Members--16 here on the floor and many others--who believe it is
time for us to figure this out.
No one likes a government shutdown. I have put out a bill five times
now to the Congress to end government shutdowns. By the way, it is
getting a few more cosponsors now, and it should because this situation
doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for the families who are
affected, including those who are going to work without pay and are
living paycheck to paycheck. This is true hardship. It doesn't make
sense for the taxpayers, who never end up winning in these government
shutdowns but whom we end up paying after the fact--often, for
government services that were never provided--because that is how
shutdowns work. Finally, it is bad for the economy. If we go another
few weeks, there will be one point off our GDP, which will be a huge
deal for wages and jobs and economic growth. So let's get this thing
behind us.
There is a serious issue here, which is, How do we secure the border?
Our southern border is a mess. I call it a ``crisis'' while others call
it something else, but we have to address this. The President is right
about that.
I am hopeful today, and I am hopeful for three reasons.
One is that we just went through a process whereby there was failure
on both sides. As was expected, we had two proposals out there, but
nobody expected they would pass. It was an opportunity, I guess, for
voices to be heard, but no one expected them to pass. After this, the
pieces are starting to be put back together by this group and others.
I just listened to my colleagues on the other side. I listened to
what Senator King said. They want border security. They want to enhance
what is going on at the border now. Senator King just talked about the
need for more barriers. I mean, look, if you are serious about this,
you have to acknowledge that twice as many people crossed in the last 2
months, which we have records for, than a year ago. There has been
about a 50-percent increase in families crossing and about a 25-percent
increase in kids crossing. There has been a 3,000-percent increase in
the last 5 years in people coming forward and claiming asylum. This is
a problem we have to address.
There is a huge problem with regard to drugs. I come from Ohio, where
we are getting hit hard by the heroin and crystal meth that are coming
across the border from Mexico. We are not stopping it--we are stopping
very little of it--which is why Democrats and Republicans alike have
said there should be more screening at our ports of entry. I agree.
So I appreciate what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
have said. I will let them speak for themselves in our going forward,
but they want border security too. I am encouraged by the fact that
they were talking about it today in terms of coming up with a solution
here to enhance security.
Secondly, I like the fact that the President put out a proposal. I
think he should have put out a proposal that was a compromise, and he
did. He said: OK, we are not just going to have more border security;
we are going to deal with about a million people who are in temporary
protected status who have come from these 10 countries. We don't want
to send them back because there is a war or there is strife or there is
a natural disaster. There are about 400,000 people.
We are also going to take care of the people who have come here as
children, through no fault of their own, who now find themselves in
this uncertain status. These are the so-called DACA recipients. I think
it is time for Congress to act on this.
Again, the President put forward a plan that said: OK, you guys help
me on border security. I am also going to deal with these other issues
that many Democrats have talked about for years.
That makes me hopeful in that finally we are talking about these
issues.

[[Page S564]]

I agree with what Lindsey Graham said in that we can do more on these
two and that we can do more on some issues that the Democrats care
about. I believe the administration is willing to do that, but, gosh,
at least we are finally talking.
Finally, I am encouraged by the fact that we are not that far apart.
Let me be specific. I think the administration and the Democrats have
mischaracterized the President's plan as it relates to barriers on the
southern border. It may surprise you to learn that in the President's
proposal he has just given us, it is not 2,000 miles of the border. He
is talking about his interest in 234 more miles. There will be no wall
in the sense of a cement wall, a concrete wall. He has said there will
be fences; there will be vehicle barriers, low barriers; and there will
be pedestrian wire fences. Yet it won't be done by what the White House
says is the right thing to do; it will be done by experts. The experts
are in the ``Border Security Improvement Plan'' that we embraced in
this Congress in the last appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018--
that we are working on now, which is what the CR is--and in the new one
that was passed last summer. We said this plan is the right plan
because it says what kinds of barriers are going to be where.
People ask, how did the President come up with $5.7 billion? Do you
know how he came up with it? It was from wanting to fund the top 10
priorities of the ``Border Security Improvement Plan'' that was put out
by the experts. That is what that is. We can disagree on whether that
is too much money, too little money, or whatever, but it is only 234
miles out of 2,000 miles. Almost all of it is in Texas, in places where
there are no fencing, as opposed to California or Arizona, where there
is a lot of fencing, or even New Mexico. We can say: Well, maybe that
is too much. Maybe we will go a little more slowly. But this is a plan
about which we had all--Republicans and Democrats--with a huge vote out
of the Appropriations Committee, said: This is a plan that we ought to
follow.

I don't think we are that far apart. Frankly, I think both sides need
to start characterizing the plan accurately and stop talking past each
other. I think if we do that, with reasonable numbers on both sides of
the aisle here, we can do something that makes sense, yes, to help
secure our southern border, which everybody wants to do, and to do it
in a smart way and not waste money.
Walls are not the only answer. Fences are not the only answer. You
have to have more sensors and more cameras. You have to have more
immigration judges, which Democrats want and so does the President in
his proposal. You have to have more screening for these drugs coming
in. You have to help in terms of the human trafficking. These are
things that both parties want to do.
So I am optimistic, although frustrated--really frustrated--by this
shutdown, but I am more optimistic today because I hear on the other
side of the aisle a willingness to come forward. I sense with the new
proposal that there is a willingness to reach out, and, folks, it is
time.
Let's stop this shutdown. Shutdowns are stupid. Let's protect that
southern border, and let's move forward on other priorities we have in
this Congress.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate the words from
Senator Portman. The two of us have been working together since we were
in the House of Representatives, and we are proud that we have a record
of concrete accomplishments, working together across party lines.
Sometimes we had to take on the leadership of both of our parties, but
we got things done. So I am encouraged by his comments, and I really do
believe we can work together to resolve this issue.
With that, I would like to yield to my colleague from West Virginia,
Senator Manchin, who has been a real leader on the practical impact
that this shutdown has. The story about what is happening in the
prisons located in West Virginia I think really frighten all of us.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Cardin, Senator
Murkowski, Senator Collins, and all of my colleagues here.
This is a good step. We are all here for the first time after 30
days. But guess what. You have been back home talking to the people who
are hurting. They have no idea why we are doing what we are doing,
allowing them to be harmed the way they are.
I voted for both proposals today. I will vote for whatever it takes
to get us back in the room to make something happen--to open up the
government.
I understand that the CR works this way. If we have a CR, then,
proportionately, there is going to be 3 weeks of money still being used
for DHS and for border security. I understand that is how it works. It
is based on $1.3 billion of last year's approps. A CR continues the
spending from last year. So there will be money there to continue on in
good faith.
I don't think any of us would want to come back 3 weeks from now and
say: It is your fault for shutting it down.
No, it is the President's fault.
No, it is our fault.
No one wants to go through that. I don't know why the 3 weeks is
unreasonable for anybody if it is presented properly to the President
that you are going to have continuation of money, proportionately, for
the 3 weeks that we are going to be in that CR.
The thing that I can't understand is that I am hearing that the
President wants $5.7 billion. Senator Portman just told us where that
came from--from the people who are experts and should know, the Customs
and Border Patrol people. I am understanding also--and I heard this
morning--that some of the leadership from the Democrats on the House
side are saying that they would consider $5.7 billion for anything but
a wall. That means they know we need border security, but they have a
different idea of how to secure the border.
Well, guess what. If you want to spend $5.7 billion for border
security and the President wants to spend $5.7 billion for border
security, then, surely, we can sit down in that 3-week period and,
talking to the professionals, figure out what needs to be done and
where our greatest risks are. How do we stop the opioids and all of the
drugs that are coming in? It has ravaged my State. It is horrible what
my State is going through.
On top of that, I have about 12,000 people who are working for the
Federal Government. I have never seen more people impacted. All they
are saying is this: You people really don't care because none of you
are hurting. You talk a good game. You throw a lot of words back and
forth, but no one is hurting. We are the ones who are hurting.
Then, I have essentials working in prisons. Basically, most of our
prisons are in very rural areas. The average drive time to our prison
is 1 hour. The prison I am talking about is Hazelton. It is a 1-hour
drive time. People are making decisions. They are not not going to work
because they are upset and mad. They know their responsibility, but
here is the other responsibility: They have to make a decision because
they have no cash. They say: Of what little bit of money I have in
resources, do I put gas in the tank or do I put food on the table for
the kids? It is one of the two because we don't know how long this is
going to take. Now we are trying to decide whether we are basically
going to carpool or take what public transportation we can get.

Guess what. Public transportation is starting to shut down too. The
buses are starting to shut down. It is the way they can get to work in
masses.
Colleagues, let me tell you that I have been in public service, like
all of you, and I think we are all in it for the right reason. We
wanted to truly serve the public, but we are not serving the public. We
are all guilty, every one of us. I don't care how you vote on bills. I
don't care what we talk about. We are all getting painted with the same
brush right now. No one is going to escape this. It is absolutely
horrific what is being done.
I have always said this: Government should be your partner and your
ally, not your adversary. Right now, the government is the enemy of the
people who basically are providing the services that people depend on
and who are protecting us. This is why this has to stop.
I am saying to the President: Mr. President, please, give us the 3
weeks.

[[Page S565]]

We understand we need border security.
Basically, our colleagues on the other side understand there should
be compassion. When you have a child who was brought here at 2 days
old, 2 weeks old, or 2 months and now is an adult and has no idea how
they got here but they would like to enjoy the fruits and be able to
give something back to this country, there ought to be a pathway
forward. These are the things that we all seem to agree on at certain
times.
Along with many of the Senators who were here in 2013, I voted for
one of the biggest packages we have ever had--$44 billion in security;
basically, border security--and not one person could get a pathway to
citizenship or become a citizen of this great country if they were not
here for the right reason. They might have gotten here the wrong way,
but they came for the right reason. Should they not have an
opportunity? They could not become a citizen after 10 or 13 years until
we secured the border. That is what this was all about.
Now we are fighting over whatever. I don't know. I can't even explain
it when I go back home. So I tell them: Listen, I am for border
security. I will vote for border security. I will vote compassionately
to try to help people to find a pathway to be an American citizen also,
especially children.
The other thing is that I think we can find a pathway forward if the
President will give us the 3 weeks. I guarantee you that I don't think
any of us will vote for another shutdown or let this happen.
We can't let this go another day longer. We cannot leave here until
we fix this. The people back home say: I will tell you the only way you
are going to fix it is when you are hurting as bad as I am hurting. Why
don't you all stop your pay? Why are you still getting a paycheck? Oh,
yes, you fixed that because that is a constitutional amendment. You are
taken care of, and it is out of your hands. You can't deny your pay. It
is going to come.
They say: I will tell you that this will never happen again if,
basically, the day that the shutdown begins, for every Congressperson--
every Senator and every Representative, all 535--and the President and
everybody who works in that White House over there who is making
policy--the pay stops. I guarantee you one thing: You will work around
the clock. You will work around the clock to prevent another shutdown.
I cannot disagree with them. So I am saying: I am all in. I am all
in. I will do whatever it takes. I will stay here 24/7. I will do
whatever it takes to bring people back together, but, most importantly,
to get people back to work. We can do that and still have border
security and have some compassion for the people who are hurting the
most.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, that is exactly why we are here--to get
this government open, to get people paid, and to get people back to
work.
Let me turn to the Senator from Louisiana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, If I were sitting at home or in the
Gallery right now, I would be incredibly frustrated. I am frustrated,
but if I were home, I would be particularly frustrated. Why?
Think about what we have agreed upon in this colloquy from both the
Democratic and Republican side of the aisle. We agree that border
security is important. We agree that it is one of the primary functions
of the Federal Government. We agree that there needs to be more money,
and although in legislation we have not agreed, we certainly have
statements from Democrats and, of course, as well as Republicans, that
barriers are also important.
Collin Peterson, a Democrat on the House side, put it well. On
January 22, 2019, he said:

Give Trump the money. I'd give him the whole thing . . .
and put strings on it so you make sure he puts the wall where
it needs to be. Why are we fighting over this? We're going to
build that wall anyway, at some time.

My Democratic Senate colleagues have said something along the same
line, maybe not as point-blank but they certainly have said it. We
agree there. We agree that the American worker who continues to show up
but is not getting paid needs to get paid.
As for those TSA agents and those air traffic controllers whom we use
as we go back and forth to our districts, God bless them. More than
51,000 TSA agents are working without pay. There are 10,000 air traffic
controller support staff who remain furloughed.
By the way, I and others have introduced legislation to pay those
while they are working. I think it is something we, the Senate, should
take up. We need a solution that fulfills our national security
responsibilities, ends the shutdown, and so that these workers can get
paid.
I say it is time to move forward, negotiate, and come to the table,
but you may ask: If Democratic and Republican Senators all agree to
this, then, why is it not happening?
In fairness to President Trump, whose rhetoric sometimes inflames and
sometimes pushes off and, as my colleague from Ohio said, who sometimes
describes things in a way that misrepresents his actual intent, it is
not a wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. It is a wall
in certain places that are high flow with pedestrian traffic. But,
nonetheless, clearly, we have come to a point where a personality
conflict between the President and the Speaker has put them at
loggerheads and, apparently, they are unable to negotiate.
It is clear from our colloquy that Senators on both sides of the
aisle would like to come to a solution that secures the southern
border, opens the government, and pays the workers.
In fairness to the President, he has put forward an opening offer. He
has said he wants that money for the barrier, but he has put other
issues on the table that are near and dear to Democrats' hearts that,
hopefully, would open the way to a compromise.
The way I can imagine it would work is that the Speaker would put
forward a counterproposal. I think that is where we need to be, to rise
above any personal dislike or any entrenched positions that people have
come to but, rather, to come to a point where we recognize that the
American people are better served if the folks serving them are getting
paid, that it is important to secure our southern border, and that some
sort of barrier will be part of that, as Members of both parties have
agreed to.
So it is time to move forward. It is time to negotiate. It is time
for the two principals to come to some sort of compromise. Clearly, we
in the Senate are willing to move forward.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to yield to my colleague from
New Hampshire, Ms. Hassan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I join with my colleagues here in saying
how disappointed I was that today's vote to reopen the government
immediately while we keep negotiating to address border security was
defeated, but I am encouraged by the bipartisan group on the Senate
floor with me this afternoon to send one clear message: Let's pass a
clean, 3-week continuing resolution to reopen the government
immediately, and each of us is committed to work to pass a strong,
bipartisan border security bill during that 3-week period.
Like many of my colleagues, I have gone down to the border. I have
talked to our frontline personnel on the border. There is a lot of
common ground about what we need to strengthen our border security. I
join my colleagues here and thank Senators Cardin and Murkowski for
organizing us in saying that we can get to a solution on border
security, but we need to open the government right away.
There is no reason to keep the government closed while negotiations
on strengthening border security continue. In fact, there is concern
that negotiations forced by shutdowns set a dangerous precedent.
So I strongly urge my colleagues from both parties to support this
bipartisan approach. I also thank Senators Graham and Cardin for their
leadership in this effort, and I am committed to working with them and
the rest of this bipartisan group to find a way forward.

[[Page S566]]

Every day that this senseless shutdown continues, it is hurting
people in New Hampshire and across the country. We have all been
sharing stories. We have heard these stories. We have talked to the
hard-working men and women who serve the people of this country and who
are doing their work without pay or who are furloughed and who really
don't know how they are going to make their next mortgage payment and
their next utility payment or put food on the table and get their
medication--all of the things they need a good day's wages to do. So we
need to end this now.
I join with my colleagues in being here this afternoon to simply say
that we need to open the government and that I am committed, as all of
us are, to negotiate in good faith going forward to find a solution on
border security.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I turn to my colleague from Iowa.
Ms. ERNST. I thank Senator Murkowski and Senator Cardin for their
leadership today in organizing this floor colloquy, and I thank the
Presiding Officer.
I want to join my colleagues in expressing how urgent it is that we
not only secure our borders but that we open our government. We really
do have to come together. We have two sides of the aisle here, our
Democrat and Republican friends. Certainly we can come to a solution.
We have to figure out a path forward, folks, and I am glad we are here
to do that.
We have a duty to provide for our Nation's security, and it is also
our job to fund the government. We just voted on a sensible and smart
proposal offered by the President that every Democrat and Republican
should have supported, but, unfortunately, it was rejected today.
Back home, hard-working Iowans and, of course, Americans all across
the country are tired of government shutdowns, and they are
disappointed in the dysfunction of Washington, DC. The impacts of this
government shutdown are tangible for families. They feel it. People are
hurting all across this Nation.
Most families don't have a rainy day fund. Money lasts only so long
when you have zero income. Prolonged periods without a paycheck are
unsustainable.
I have a friend who works for Federal law enforcement. Fortunately,
he is up in seniority, but he told me the other day: Joni, our young
Federal workers--they just can't make ends meet.
Children don't stop growing; people don't stop getting sick; and the
obligations of caring for families don't stop just because we have.
Washington has stopped working, folks. We have to get it together.
I have heard from businesses on the brink of collapse. I have heard
from first-time home buyers who are trapped in limbo right now, and
there are serious consequences that I have heard about from our farmers
who work every day with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the USDA.
Our food banks, churches, and other charities, which spend their time
and resources helping families and communities through these tough
times, helping furloughed workers and those who are in need, are
running out of resources. They are running out of time. It can last
only so long.
We need our DOJ working to stop crime and violence. We need our vital
government Agencies back up and running. We can do that. I support a
stronger border, and I support the President's sensible proposal, which
does include a barrier, manpower, ports of entry, technology, and
infrastructure. I think it is necessary that these investments be part
of an overall deal. Our lack of border security has resulted in a
humanitarian crisis at the border. We have tens of thousands of illegal
and inadmissible immigrants on our southern border every month.
I agree with President Trump and many of my colleagues that securing
our southern border is a must-do to discourage illegal immigration,
curb human trafficking, stop drugs, stop gun trafficking, in addition
to stopping the ability of gangs and terrorists to exploit the holes in
our system.
The American people expect us to do better. We have an opportunity to
step up and do the right thing, and that is to find a solution. We have
to do it by working together.
I again thank all of my colleagues for coming together today on the
floor. Senator Cardin, Senator Murkowski, thank you for organizing the
effort. Hopefully, we will come to a solution.
Folks, the Nation is watching us. We can do better.
I yield the floor.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Senator from Iowa.
I have a question for the Presiding Officer in terms of how much time
remains on the Republican side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Six minutes.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Perfect. We are down to the remaining two speakers, 3
minutes each. I ask that Senator Gardner be recognized at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for this
opportunity to come to the floor to talk about what this Chamber needs
to do, along with the House and the President, to get this government
reopened and to fund border security, something that all Americans
agree on--that we can walk and chew gum at the same time; that we can
multitask; that we can find a way to fund priority spending on the
border; and that we can find a way to fund 800,000 government
employees, including 53,000 Federal employees in my home State of
Colorado.
In 2014, I was elected to the Senate. In November of 2014, we were
dealing with a question of whether the government would shut down. In
fact, the first issue we were asked in the new Congress as we headed
back into session was this: Would there be a looming shutdown over
immigration? That was not in 2018 or 2019. That was actually in 2014.
Here is what I said then:

There's no time, place, or purpose of a government shutdown
or default. That's simply ridiculous and something that a
mature governing body doesn't even contemplate. We ought to
make it very clear that that's simply not acceptable.

I said that in 2014; I echoed it in December 2018; and I stand on the
floor today sharing the same belief, sentiment, and value.
We need border security in this country. We need to have barriers and
structures on the border where it makes sense, as the President has
said. He has made a reasonable request to put in place border security.
We also have a responsibility to the people of this country to govern
responsibly. That means not jeopardizing our economy, not jeopardizing
the firefighters in Colorado who can't go to training right now because
the government is shut down.
My home State lost hundreds of homes last year due to wildfires.
Think about the catastrophes in California and across the West last
year. Firefighters from around the country were called to do heroic
things and save entire towns, yet those training services, classes, and
tools they need for a fire season that could start at any time are
being denied--training and classes that they need to save their own
lives, to save other lives, and to protect our land.
We have farmers who are trying to get production loans right now.
They can't get their production loans through certain offices because
of the shutdown. Farming is not good right now, and prices are so low
right now that people are struggling. I talked to a farmer in Colorado
yesterday. He doesn't know what the bank is going to say to him on
Friday, tomorrow, when he goes in, and he can't get ahold of anybody at
the USDA because of the shutdown.
We need border security. That is why I voted for both measures
today--the $5.7 billion for border security and the continuing
resolution proposal that contains the President's 2018 border security
proposal. Both measures included border security.
We can do this. It is not that difficult. It shouldn't be a challenge
to govern responsibly. Shutdowns aren't the solution. Walking and
chewing gum at the same time shouldn't be so difficult, and I hope this
Chamber will come to its senses, along with our House colleagues and
the White House, to move forward.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I now ask that the Senator from Arizona
be recognized.

[[Page S567]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Ms. McSALLY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for
organizing this--both sides of the aisle--so we can begin to have our
voices heard for those we represent here on the Senate floor.
I came yesterday from Yuma, AZ, and the day before I was in Nogales,
AZ. I visited Nogales's port of entry and the CBP officers coming to
work every single day now without pay. On Monday, they processed 2,000
trucks through the port of entry there. That cross-border commerce is
so important for an economy like Arizona's and for jobs.
They also seized 18 kilograms of methamphetamine, heroin, and
fentanyl, which are contributing to the opioid crisis and the drug
crisis in our country.
Morale is still pretty good because they still know how important it
is for them to be there on the watch and do their job. However, it is
unacceptable that they are being asked to come to work and not being
paid. As was said by other colleagues, some of the lower level
officers--the younger individuals early on the job--have no reserves. I
talked to several of them. They are very concerned about what is going
to happen when they miss a second paycheck here in the next day.
When I went to Yuma and talked to the Border Patrol, it was the same
thing. They need to be on the job. They want to be on the job. They
know how important it is for our country and for border security.
I visited the place where, just last week, 376 people were able to
tunnel under where we have a barrier they can't see through. They
weren't able to see it until they had actually breached it, and they
caught a couple of MS-13 gang members yesterday.
Again, they are asking: Please, let's secure our border. Let's
provide the resources for the agents and for the officers and for what
they need to do every single day, and let's open up the government.
We can do these things. This is why America is so frustrated with
Washington, DC, and why many of us ran to come here in the first place:
What is the matter with you guys? Just get it together; get something
through the House and the Senate that can be signed by the President to
open up the government and secure our border.
Let's roll up our sleeves, let's stay here all night around the
clock, and let's get this mission done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, over the last hour, many of our colleagues
have come to the floor--Democrats and Republicans--with different views
about how we should deal with border security issues and how we should
deal with the problems at hand but with a common willingness and
commitment to reach a bipartisan agreement.
In order for that to be accomplished, we need time. Therefore, we are
filing this afternoon a bipartisan amendment to the underlying bill
that would provide 3 weeks for a continuing resolution for government
to be opened so that we can work together to deal with the border
security issues.
I agree with Senator King in his optimism that we will be able to
reach an agreement. It is interesting that Senator King is an
Independent. This should not be a partisan problem on border security.
We should be able to resolve the issues.
I thank Senator Murkowski for her help in organizing this event. We
tried to work in a truly bipartisan manner in order to give optimism,
and I think, rightfully so, that we can solve this issue if we have the
time to do it.
I urge all of our colleagues to join us in this effort. Let's open
government, let's have 3 weeks, and let's all be committed to deal with
border security in the manner in which this institution in the past has
been able to deal with tough issues.
I again thank my colleague from Alaska, and I yield back the balance
of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Maryland and
all Senators--on the Republican side and the Democratic side--who came
to the floor after these two votes to express this air of optimism that
we can figure this out.
One of the things I have heard very clearly from both sides is enough
already--enough already. That is what the American people are saying
about this shutdown: Enough already--figure it out.
Well, we got the message. We know what the mission is, and I think
what you have seen expressed here on the floor is the good will and the
good faith that will be extended in these hours and days going forward,
knowing that there is an urgency to get the government open and to
address the legitimate priorities that the President has outlined.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Russian Hybrid Warfare

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I rise to continue my series of
speeches on Russian hybrid warfare.
I have done a series of speeches on the Russian hybrid warfare
threat. It poses a great challenge to our national security. Russian
hybrid warfare occurs below the level of direct military conflict, yet
it is no less a threat to the national security and integrity of our
democracy and society.
One tactic that Russia deploys as part of their hybrid warfare
arsenal, and the one I would like to focus on today, is information
warfare.
Russian information warfare includes the deployment of false or
misleading narratives against the targeted civilian population or
government, often through deceptive means, in order to intensify social
tensions, undermine trust in government institutions, and sow fear and
confusion, which advances their strategic objectives.
The Defense Intelligence Agency highlights in their Russia military
power report in 2017: ``The weaponization of information is a key
aspect of Russia's strategy . . . Moscow views information and
psychological warfare as a measure to neutralize adversary actions in
peace and to prevent escalation to crisis or war.''
Russia developed its playbook over time, enhancing both the technical
and psychological aspects of these information operations in
capability, sophistication, and boldness. Lessons learned from previous
information warfare campaigns culminated in the attacks the Kremlin
unleashed against the United States during the 2016 Presidential
election.
The 2016 information warfare campaign, according to our intelligence
community, ``demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level
of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.''
Let's be clear. Russian interference in the 2016 election was an
attack on the Nation. It was just not a type of attack that has been
commonly recognized as warfare. As former Director of National
Intelligence Jim Clapper stated recently, ``[I]t's hard to convey to
people how massive an assault this was.''
While Russian hybrid attacks were detected by our intelligence
community and our National Security Agencies in a runup to the 2016
election, the seriousness of the threat was not absorbed across the
government, including Congress. There are a variety of reasons for
this, including political paralysis and a collective unwillingness to
believe that these attacks could compromise our political and social
institutions.
Two years on, we still have only scratched the surface in our
understanding of about the nature of Russian information warfare
attacks. Gaps in our knowledge include the extent to which these
attacks have been perpetrated at Putin's direction, by Russian military
intelligence units, known as the GRU, and through Kremlin-linked troll
organizations. Yet we have no time to waste. Information warfare
attacks continue against us, our allies, and our partners to this day,
and they continue to pose a threat to our national security.
Former CIA Acting Director and Deputy Director Mike Morell
characterized the attacks of the Russians against our elections as
``the political equivalent of 9-11.''

[[Page S568]]

In the aftermath of the tragic September 11 attacks of 2001, we
established a nonpartisan commission to understand what happened and
why. One of the 9/11 Commission's conclusions was that the U.S.
Government showed a failure of imagination by not anticipating and
preventing the 2001 attacks by the terrorists.
We have had no similar wholesale reckoning in the aftermath of the
attacks from 2016. Some elements of our government and society have
taken steps to focus attention on this pressing problem. However, these
efforts have not been sufficiently comprehensive, and the nature of the
threats has not been fully communicated to the American public.
As senior vice president for the Center of European Analysis, Edward
Lucas assessed in a recent New York Times documentary on Russian
disinformation, we ``are still playing catch up from a long way behind.
We are looking in the rear view mirror, getting less bad at working out
what Russia just did to us. We are still not looking through the
windshield to find out what's happening now and what's going to be
happening next.''
We must recover from our collective failure of imagination. We must
rethink and refocus our strategy for countering these threats and
implement necessary institutional policy and societal changes to
support that strategy. Importantly, we must develop a playbook of our
own to fight back.
While the West has been slow to recognize the extent of the threat,
these types of attacks are not new. Historically, informational warfare
has long been a part of the Soviet and Russian arsenal.
As security scholar Keir Giles noted in ``The Handbook of Russian
Information Warfare,'' ``For all their innovative use of social media
and the internet, current Russian methods have deep roots in long-
standing Soviet practice.''
During Soviet times, information warfare tactics were part of a
broader collection of operations that were referred to as active
measures.
The State Department described active measures in a 1981 report as
including ``control of the press in foreign countries; outright and
partial forgery of documents; use of rumors, insinuation, altered facts
and lies; use of international and local front organizations;
clandestine operation of radio stations; and exploitation of a nation's
academic, political, and media figures as collaborators to influence
policies of the nation.''
Active measures were run by the KGB, which at its height employed
approximately 15,000 officers devoted to these tactics. The same State
Department report described the strategic rationale for such
operations, stating: ``Moscow seeks to disrupt relations between
states, discredit opponents of the USSR, and undermine foreign leaders,
institutions and values.''
The tactics of contemporary Russian information warfare mirrors
Soviet-era active measures but have gained vastly greater potency in
the digital age.
The irony is, these are the tactics the Soviets employed, but they
have been supercharged because in a digital age, you can reach more
people, you can be more effective. Under Putin, Russia has
institutionalized informational warfare with a 21st century twist that
capitalizes on the interconnectedness of our global society in the
speed and reach of today's informational age through cyber space.

This has important advantages for Moscow. For example, the Soviet-era
KGB agents worked for years to get an information warfare campaign to
``go viral'' and be picked up in multiple news outlets. Today, GRU- and
Kremlin-linked troll organizations spread propaganda and disinformation
campaigns across social media platforms with ease--virtually
instantaneously.
These information warfare operations are not simply opportunistic
meddling by Russia. Russia's purpose is to further its strategic
interests. Putin seeks to advance several strategic objectives,
including preserving his grip on power and enhancing his ability to
operate unconstrained domestically or in Russia's perceived sphere of
influence near and abroad.
Putin further seeks for Russia to be seen as an equal to the United
States on the world stage and regain the great power status it lost at
the end of the Cold War. Putin knows that for now, Russia cannot
effectively compete with the United States in conventionally military
ways and win. Instead, Putin seeks to use tools from his hybrid warfare
arsenal, including information warfare to divide the United States from
our allies and partners in the West and weaken our institutions and
open society from within. By weakening our democracy, Putin can make
Russia look more powerful in comparison.
It is not surprising that Putin, who spent most of his Soviet career
in the KGB and its successor, the FSB, has deployed these techniques
during his rule. Putin mourned the downfall of the Soviet Union,
lamenting in 2005 that the breakup of the Soviet Union was, in his
words, ``the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.''
When he assumed power, Putin revitalized a number of methods of
hybrid warfare from the Soviet system, including information warfare.
Over time, Putin came to see Russia's nearly continuous campaign of
information confrontation with the West as both a justified and
defensive response to perceived U.S.-led international activism,
regardless of our intentions. Keir Giles confirms this idea, assessing
that Russia interpreted the color revolutions in former Soviet states
and the Arab Spring as resulting from information operations by the
United States and the West. Those operations were seen as posing a
serious and growing threat to Putin's rule.
The Kremlin's development of its information warfare capabilities
reflects those perceptions and Putin's concern with preservation of his
regime. Putin moved from earlier ad hoc information warfare campaigns,
such as the operations against Estonia in 2007 and in Georgia in 2008,
to the systematic application of these tools.
Most experts point to the Russian's public reaction to Putin's return
to the Presidency for a third term in 2012 as the turning point that
led to development of Russian information warfare as we experience it
today.
It began with the announcement in September 2011 that Putin--then
acting as Prime Minister--and Medvedev--then serving as President--
would switch roles. This revelation, coupled with the rigged
parliamentary elections in late 2011, created an unexpected backlash
from the Russian people. Massive demonstrations ensued, with thousands
of people taking to the streets. To Putin, the grievances of the
protests appeared personal as they chanted ``Putin is a thief'' and
``Russia without Putin.''
The year of 2011 is particularly relevant for revolutions and the
overthrow of dictatorships. The year 2011 gave rise to the Arab Spring,
in which dissidents relied heavily on Facebook and Twitter--American
inventions--to organize their protests and cast-off authoritarian
governance in places across the Middle East. Again, Putin conceived
U.S. actions in places such as Egypt and Libya as proof that the United
States actively cultivated regime change. Protests in Russia began to
resemble the protests of the Arab Spring, including the similar use of
Facebook and Twitter. Putin viewed these activities as a threat to his
hold on power.
Around that time, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised
concerns about the Kremlin's electoral conduct. She urged that the
``Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to have
their voices heard and their votes counted.'' In response, Putin
accused the United States of interfering in the Russian elections and
blamed Secretary Clinton for the massive protests taking place in
Russia, alleging that Secretary Clinton gave the, in his words,
``signal to some actors in our country to rise up.'' He further
bemoaned what he called ``foreign money'' being used to influence
Russian politics and warned: ``We need to safeguard ourselves from this
influence in our internal affairs.''
After his inauguration for a third term, Putin promoted a close ally
and tasked him with getting control over the Russian's people use of
the internet. Putin and his cronies also put political pressure on the
creators of prominent websites. Those who were not willing to
cooperate, such as the owner of the Russian version of Facebook, were
pushed out so that the chosen oligarchs could become majority
shareholders and then begin to control content.

[[Page S569]]

About the same time, the Russian Parliament passed legislation
helping the Kremlin monitor and criminalize unfavorable cyber
activities. In concert with the new online restrictions, the Kremlin
began paying bloggers to slip in pro-Russian material amongst other
benign posts, which was the beginning of government-directed troll
operations.
In late 2013, a leading Russian newspaper reported that the tools put
in place to co-opt new forms of media were ``recognized as so effective
that [the Kremlin] insiders send these weapons outside--to the
Americans and European audiences.'' This may mark the beginning of
Putin's move to institutionalize a more sustained and permanent state
of information confrontation with the West.
Russia also used these external operations to further develop its
toolkit for information warfare. Central to these efforts included what
many experts agreed was the development of a hybrid warfare doctrine,
as articulated by the chief of the general staff of a Russian Armed
Forces general, Valery Gerasimov, in 2013.
Gerasimov argued that asymmetric approaches to dealing with conflict,
including the use of ``political, economic informational, humanitarian,
and other nonmilitary measures,'' have grown and in many instances have
``exceeded the power of force and weapons in their effectiveness.'' He
further discussed how hybrid warfare tactics, including what he termed
``informational actions,'' can nullify the enemy's advantage and reduce
its fighting potential. One of his conclusions was ``that it is
necessary to perfect activities in the information space,'' including
the defense of our own objectives.
About the same time, in August 2013, RT, which is a Russian
television station, reported on Russian plans to create a new branch of
the military that would ``include monitoring and processing external
information as well as fighting cyber threats.''
In the article, Putin acknowledged that information attacks are
already being applied to solve problems of a military and political
nature and that their striking force may be higher than those of
conventional weapons.
Based on RT's reporting and observations of the GRU's activities, it
is clear that Russia has created ``information warfare troops'' with no
parallel in the United States. These GRU units combine the arts of
technical cyber operations with psychological manipulation. Malcolm
Nance, a former U.S. naval intelligence officer, characterized the GRU
as ``the armed forces of Russia and the intelligence apparatus that
does reconnaissance, surveillance, and . . . strategic cyber
operations.''
Russian security services expert Mark Galeotti explained:

[H]istorically, the GRU has been Russia's main agency for
operating in uncontrolled spaces, which mean civil wars and
the like. In some ways, the internet is today's uncontrolled
space.

In hindsight, we can trace Russia's development and conduct of its
information warfare campaign against perceived foreign threats from its
neighbors and the West. These campaigns generally progressed along
three major lines of effort, all of which benefited from advances in
technology from the Soviet days.
First, the campaigns involved overt propaganda and disinformation,
much of it carried out on Russian state-owned media, such as RT and
Sputnik.
The second line of effort involved covert cyber attacks, including
hacking and weaponizing stolen information.
The third line of effort in the Russian information campaigns
involved weaponizing the internet, particularly social media networks,
to amplify messages to a vastly greater audience and promote themes
that advanced Russia's strategic interests.
While Russia's technical and psychological capabilities grew over
time, the outlines of the Russian information warfare playbook were
evident during Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and during the
United Kingdom's Brexit debate the following year, but we largely did
not understand the extent of these operations and the threat to our
national security and that of our allies and partners. Our collective
failure to understand the pattern of Russian information warfare
emboldened Putin. The Kremlin's tactics and techniques were further
refined and deployed in the Russian information campaign against the
U.S. Presidential election in 2016.
Starting in 2014 and 2015, Putin turned his information arsenal first
on the near abroad, deploying information warfare operations against
Ukraine during the conflict over Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Russia
used Ukraine as a testing laboratory for experimenting with new tactics
of information warfare through cyber space and social media.
The impetus for Russian intervention in the Ukraine arose in response
to domestic unrest which caused the Russian-backed Ukrainian President
to flee the country. Events tipped off when Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych signaled he was no longer willing to continue efforts to
integrate Ukraine with the West, which had broad public support.
Instead, he accepted a Kremlin offer of a $15 billion bailout for
Ukraine and a deal on gas imports.
Protests broke out, which grew into what was known as the Maidan
revolution. The numbers and strength of the protests alarmed the
Kremlin. Putin wanted to ensure Ukraine stayed in Russia's sphere of
influence. He deployed hybrid warfare, including a full-scale
information warfare campaign, to force the Ukrainian people back in
line. The goal of the information warfare campaign was to convince the
people of Ukraine that they were in imminent danger from fascists and
Nazis who were taking over the country and committing atrocities on
their fellow citizens.
The Kremlin deployed all three lines of effort that I laid out for
their information warfare campaign against Ukraine--a barrage of overt
propaganda and disinformation; cyber attacks, including weaponizing
stolen information; and the manipulation of the internet and social
media platforms. These efforts sowed fear and magnified mistrust toward
the Ukrainian Government, which the Kremlin was able to exploit for the
seizure of Crimea and to achieve other Russian strategic interests.
The Russian campaign deployed a significant volume of propaganda and
disinformation against Ukraine to magnify a climate of fear and
distrust amongst the Ukrainian people. Examples include photos doctored
to look like scenes of carnage from Ukraine, fake stories of dead
children caught in the crossfire, supposed attacks on Jewish Ukrainians
who were forced to flee the country, and, allegedly, a 3-year-old who
was crucified by Ukrainian soldiers. The messages also portrayed the
Russians as the Ukrainian people's saviors and that Russia had to
intervene to help restore order.
The second line of effort--covert military operations in cyber
space--was also deployed as a Russian campaign against Ukraine. At the
time, attacks against Ukraine were described as coming from
CyberBerkut, which the U.K. Government's National Cyber Security Centre
has recently announced ``is almost certainly'' the same branch of the
GRU that infiltrated the Democratic National Committee. The GRU forces
responsible for these ``hack-and-weaponize'' information operations
were later named by their unit numbers in Special Counsel Mueller's
July 2018 indictment and have been given many names, including
CyberBerkut, Fancy Bear, and Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) 28.
In the spring of 2014, as Ukraine held its Presidential election,
CyberBerkut penetrated Ukraine's Central Election Commission, directly
altering the nationwide Presidential vote tallies in favor of Russia's
preferred candidate. The Ukrainian officials caught the change before
the results were announced, although it was broadcast on Russian news
that the Russian-backed candidate had won, sowing doubt on the validity
of the election and magnifying distrust in the Ukrainian Government.
Seeing as how they couldn't change voting tallies and fully get away
with it, Russia's tactics evolved to try to change people's minds about
whom to vote for or make the public so distrustful of the system that
they wouldn't vote at all. These same units began to steal private
information through cyber intrusions on Ukrainian Government and
political officials and weaponize it by posting it on the internet. As
the Defense Intelligence Agency noted in the ``Russia Military

[[Page S570]]

Power'' report from 2017, the intent of publicizing the stolen
information was ``to demoralize, embarrass and create distrust of
elected officials.''
A third line of effort by the Russian campaign focused on leveraging
cyber space to reinforce and amplify their messaging, which was carried
out by the GRU and Kremlin-linked troll organizations. While these
efforts were often unsophisticated, this may have been the first time
that organizations embarked on wide-scale social media campaigns to
amplify information warfare beyond Russia's borders.
The Washington Post reported, based on internal Russian military
documents, that the GRU fabricated numerous accounts on social media
after Ukrainian President Yanukovych fled in 2014. These accounts on
Facebook and the Russian version of Facebook, known as VK, posed as
ordinary Ukrainians who were against the Kiev protests. They preyed on
people's emotions, magnifying fear and distrust.
One example of a message posted by the GRU from a fraudulent social
media account was ``brigades of Westerners are now on their way to rob
and kill us. . . . Morals have been replaced by thirst for blood and
hatred toward anything Russian.'' The same GRU unit was also
responsible for the creation of the fictitious persona ``Ivan
Galitsin,'' who placed pro-Kremlin comments on English language
websites.
The intercepted Russian military documents also detailed how the GRU
created four fraudulent groups on Facebook and its Russian equivalent
to support its campaign in Crimea and used paid Facebook ads to
increase traffic to their fraudulent sites.
Subsequent reporting by the Washington Post uncovered the specific
GRU unit--54777. The GRU unit responsible for this operation bragged to
their superiors that these 4 groups alone received at least 200,000
views.
All of these tactics would appear in later information warfare
campaigns.
This information warfare campaign against Ukraine also appears to be
one of the first uses of a complementary social media effort--deploying
Kremlin-linked trolls--against the population of a foreign country to
enhance and amplify the GRU operation.
A close Putin crony, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founded and funded the
operation--known as the Internet Research Agency and its related
companies--to amplify the Kremlin's messages across social media
platforms. According to a Russian press report in 2014, during the
Ukraine operations, the Internet Research Agency was employing about
250 people to engage in online discussions ``with a goal to undermine
the authority of Ukrainian politicians and post hate speech and fake
stories, thus shifting attention from the real events.'' Copying the
model that the Kremlin developed to manipulate its own citizens, these
fake Ukrainian personas would pretend to be regular, local Ukrainian
people and slip in politically charged messages.
BuzzFeed detailed one such campaign entitled ``Polite People'' which
``promoted the invasion of Crimea with pictures of Russian troops
posing alongside girls, the elderly, and cats.'' The trolls used
innocuous pictures to gain a group of followers; then they were easily
able to pump out pro-Kremlin messages to readymade audiences.
Although the tactics were relatively simplistic--both for whom they
were trying to reach and the technical aspects of their campaign--the
Kremlin information warfare campaign appeared largely successful
against Ukraine and contributed to the Kremlin's seizure of Crimea.
Indeed, Gen. Philip Breedlove, then head of the U.S. European Command
and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, warned at the time that
Russia was ``waging the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg in
the history of information warfare.''
Even as these information operations overwhelmed Ukraine, the
potential threat they posed to Western societies was largely
unrecognized, and calls for help in combatting these types of
campaigns--including manipulation of social media--went unanswered.
The Washington Post reported last October that high-level Ukrainian
officials, including President Poroschenko, personally appealed to
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg in the spring of 2015. One of his deputies
stated that they told Facebook: ``I was explicitly saying that there
were troll factories, that their posts and reposts promoted posts and
news that are fake. . . . Have a look.'' Facebook officials failed to
take these pleas seriously and in 2015 declined President Poroschenko's
request to open a Facebook office in Kiev to address the problem. In a
foreshadowing of events in the United States, Facebook failed to
imagine the significant impact these campaigns could have on Ukrainian
politics and security. Our government, too, failed to realize the full
extent of the threat.
While we have been able to uncover a lot about Russian attacks on
Ukraine, we have not been able to piece together the full picture of
what Russia perpetrated against the United Kingdom in connection with
the spring 2016 referendum on whether the United Kingdom should leave
the EU, commonly known as Brexit.
UK members of Parliament and others investigating these attacks have
been able to piece together evidence that the Kremlin mounted an
information warfare campaign to encourage and amplify anti-EU sentiment
in the run up to voting day. However, because these investigations are
limited to their committees of jurisdiction and there is no equivalent
to the U.S. special counsel's investigation pulling the disparate
pieces of information together, we have yet to understand the full
picture of what the Russians perpetrated against the British people.
What we have learned so far indicates that the Kremlin appeared to
run a more sophisticated campaign against the British people than the
attacks it perpetrated against Ukraine. In this operation, the Kremlin
was pushing one side of the argument, as they were in Ukraine, but they
showcased increased psychological complexities in their attacks. This
campaign focused on targeting segments of the British population that
would likely be frightened by threats of increased immigration,
particularly from Muslim-majority countries. The Kremlin and Kremlin-
linked actors also pushed messages that the EU was corrupt and had
little accountability to the people of the United Kingdom, which
magnified feelings of mistrust of the EU.
The first line of effort for this Kremlin information warfare
campaign and the one that the West was able to track and analyze was
propaganda and disinformation. The Kremlin unleashed a slew of overt
Russian propaganda in English, advanced on TV and the internet by
Kremlin-controlled media outlets. A United Kingdom parliamentary
inquiry on disinformation cites 261 articles on RT and Sputnik with a
heavy anti-EU bias in the 6 months prior to the referendum. These
outlets advanced a steady drumbeat of stories stressing the continued
dangers as long as the United Kingdom remained part of the EU's so-
called ``open borders.'' This included disinformation intended to
magnify fear by alleging that British women would be subject to
increased attacks from dangerous Muslim immigrants.
It has yet to be determined whether the second line of effort--covert
GRU operations in cyber space--was deployed as part of the Russian
campaign promoting Brexit. It does not appear that hacking and
weaponizing stolen data was deployed in connection with Brexit.
However, as detailed in a separate parliamentary inquiry, on the night
of the Brexit referendum, there was a suspicious crash of the voter
registration website likely attributed to denial-of-service attacks.
The timing of this attack appears consistent with other GRU covert
cyber attacks, which aim to take key infrastructure or information
offline at crucial times to advance Kremlin objectives. This crude
information warfare tactic has been tied to GRU in previous operations,
particularly Eastern Europe. Further, the UK Government has been able
to tie the GRU to other cyber attacks, including attacks on a United
Kingdom television station and the United Kingdom foreign office. If
these Russian actors were culpable in this denial-of-service attack,
then it would fit with the Russian playbook.
The third line of effort, the use of cyber space to amplify and
reinforce messaging, featured prominently in the information warfare
campaign relating to Brexit. While we don't know what role, if any, the
GRU played in this line of effort, we have been able to identify

[[Page S571]]

a sustained campaign on social media against the British public by
Kremlin and Kremlin-linked actors. These attacks included the use of
trolls and automated bots amplifying pro-leave messages ahead of the
date of referendum. The New York Times reported that tweets from the
Russian accounts ``sought to inflame fears about Muslims and immigrants
to help drive the vote.'' Tweets surged in the last days of the
campaign, spiking from about 1,000 tweets a day to 45,000 tweets in the
48 hours prior to the polls closing. In the final days before the
referendum, less than 1 percent of Twitter users accounted for one-
third of all the conversations surrounding the issue, showing that
these actions were artificially boosting the pro-leave messages to
increase viewership size.
Joint analysis from Swansea University and the University of
California, Berkeley, concluded that the attacks emanated from 150,000
Russian-based accounts and that their tweets were viewed hundreds of
millions of times.
It must be noted that Russian amplification efforts in connection
with Brexit also received a boost from local surrogates in the UK. One
pro-leave local surrogate was Nigel Farage, then-leader of the
rightwing populist UKIP Party. Whether unwittingly or not, Farage
echoed aspects of Russian propaganda, including lending his voice to
stories broadcast on Russian propaganda channel RT. Farage was also
often quoted in Russia media articles, including when he warned that
British women could be at risk of mass attacks of gangs of migrants due
to ``big cultural issues'' should Britain choose to remain in the EU,
again, echoing the message that Russian agents and authorities were
promoting.
Here, too, it seems we have just begun to scratch the surface of our
understanding about what the Kremlin was doing, including how they had
insight into whom to target with their information warfare campaign.
Member of Parliament Damian Collins, who is leading an investigation
into Russian disinformation connected to Brexit, fears that what we
know at this point about the extent of the Russian attack against the
British people ``may well be just the tip of the iceberg.''
We can't point with all certitude to whether the Kremlin's
information warfare campaign made a difference in the outcome of the
vote. However, we know that those who voted to leave the EU won by a
small margin. It was a stunning upset that no one expected, let alone
then-Prime Minister Cameron. He cited the outcome as the reason for his
resignation.
The Kremlin has also turned these weapons on the United States. The
most prominent example was the sustained, multipronged information
warfare campaign deployed against the American people, as I stated,
during the 2016 Presidential election. While the Kremlin's information
warfare campaign against Ukraine and Brexit supported and amplified one
side of an issue, for this operation Russia showed increased technical
and psychological advances by targeting multiple aspects of contentious
issues to advance the Kremlin's objectives. Grievances about race,
religion, immigration, social justice, and even U.S. institutions writ
large were woven into anti-Clinton, pro-Trump fabric. These efforts
were a toxic mix, trying to poison Clinton's candidacy, promote Trump's
favorability, taint the electoral process, and weaken democratic
institutions altogether.
Similar to the information warfare campaign against Brexit, we are
still trying to get a full picture of how Russia attacked us during the
2016 election and, particularly, the role that the GRU played. But what
is now clear is that the Kremlin's information warfare campaign
regarding the 2016 election was not neutral or even-handed in its
messaging on Clinton compared to that of President Trump. As affirmed
in the intelligence community's January 2017 assessment, in their
words: ``Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S.
presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine
public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary
Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.''
They also assessed, in their words, that ``Putin and the Russian
Government developed a clear preference'' for President Trump.
Similarly, Special Counsel Mueller's February indictment against the
Kremlin-linked troll operation found that the Russians ``engaged in
operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information
about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz
and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and the candidate Donald
Trump.''
The clear anti-Clinton and pro-Trump themes in Russia's efforts
aligned with Russian strategic interests. As mentioned earlier, Putin
blamed Hillary Clinton for protests in Russia in December 2011.
Weakening Clinton as a candidate would reduce the perceived threat to
Putin's grip on power from a Clinton Presidency. President Trump, on
the other hand, offered Russia a freer hand in conducting its affairs.
Similar to Brexit, the Russian information warfare campaign against
the American people in 2016 demonstrated a high degree of
sophistication in targeting susceptible groups of Americans,
potentially including the use of data analytics. We are still learning
details of how the Russians were able to build an audience for its
information warfare attacks and whether they had any help from any
Americans. However, Justice Department indictments, including those
from the special counsel, and two reports commissioned by the Senate
Intelligence Committee analyzing data provided by social media
companies are providing a better picture of the information warfare
campaigns against us.
One of those reports, a joint study by Oxford University and the
social media analytics firm Graphika, assessed that the Kremlin-linked
troll organization was able to segment users into different groups
based on ``race, ethnicity, and identity.'' Once they categorized
people in such a manner, they tailored ads to entice users to engage
with their fraudulent accounts and pages. This process engineered
messages to manipulate and polarize receptive audiences. The other
study commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, a
collaboration between the social media research firm New Knowledge,
Columbia University, and Canfield Research, confirms this idea,
detailing how specific ethnic and Russian groups were targeted. Their
analysis concluded that these operations were directed overwhelmingly
at African Americans. As the Washington Post technology reporter Craig
Timberg explained, social media companies created this technology and,
in the process, have ``atomized'' us into different categories and put
us into a ``thousand different buckets.'' The Russians co-opted this
American technology, just as they have exploited other aspects of our
open society and democratic system, and weaponized it against us.
Similar to campaigns in the past, this information warfare operation
followed the three established lines of effort as detailed in the
intelligence community's January 2017 assessment. The Kremlin's
campaign ``followed a longstanding Russian messaging strategy that
blends covert intelligence operations--such as cyber activity--with
overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media,
third-party intermediaries and paid social media users or trolls.''
The first line of effort involved overt propaganda and disinformation
focusing on a number of themes that advanced Russia's strategic
interest. Having tested their methodology in previous campaigns,
including in Ukraine and Brexit, the Russians had an arsenal of tried-
and-tested methods of influence they deployed in the U.S. Presidential
election to maximize fear and distrust.
Propaganda and disinformation to stoke these negative emotions were
pumped out by Kremlin-funded channels RT and Sputnik. They sought to
flood an unsuspecting American public with stories portraying Secretary
Clinton as untrustworthy and dangerous, thus amplifying negative
feelings toward her. Articles painted Clinton as a warmonger who would
lead the United States into future conflicts or alleged that she was of
ill health and hiding her condition from the public. Additional reports
were aimed at bolstering the perceptions that she was not trustworthy
and accused her of nefarious dealings detailed in the emails she
deleted as a coverup of her so-called ``crimes.''

[[Page S572]]

A third group of accounts alleged that Clinton used her high-ranking
position as Secretary of State to enrich her family foundation with
foreign donations by engaging in quid quo pro schemes. In contrast,
Kremlin-funded media pushed positive stories about President Trump,
promoting him as a pragmatist who understood that the United States
needed to stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
An additional widely used theme, which sought to maximize feelings of
distrust and ran through much of what Kremlin media broadcast, revolved
around corruption in the United States, American hypocrisy, and that
our elections were rigged and fraudulent. Painting the American
political system as unfair, biased, and tainted served Putin's
strategic interests, allowing the Kremlin to counter pro-democracy
forces within Russia by asserting a moral equivalence between a
``flawed'' American democratic system and his autocratic rule of
Russia.
The second line of effort in the Kremlin's information warfare
playbook, covert Russian operations in cyber space, repeated tactics
used against Ukraine but this time with greater sophistication. In
particular, the Kremlin and Kremlin-linked actors engaged in hacking
and weaponizing the release of stolen data. From what our intelligence
community, the Department of Justice, and FBI have compiled, it appears
that the GRU undertook the largest share of this aspect of the
information warfare campaign, with complementary efforts undertaken by
the FSB. The special counsel's indictment from July 2018 detailed how
the GRU ``intentionally conspired . . . to gain unauthorized access
into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016
election, steal documents from those computers and stage releases of
the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential
election.''
As we now know, two of the main targets of this operation were the
DNC and Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta. Press reports indicate
that approximately 50,000 emails and documents were stolen.
Once in possession of these stolen documents, the GRU repeated its
playbook from the earlier campaigns. It sought to weaponize the hacked
information by releasing it in a manner and at key times when it could
cause the most damage, while concealing Russia's role in the process.
As the Mueller indictment against the GRU describes, ``They did so
using fictitious online personas, including `DCLeaks' and `Guccifer
2.0.'''
The Mueller indictment from last July further detailed the GRU's use
of fake persona, Guccifer 2.0, which the GRU falsely claimed was a
Romanian hacker. Guccifer 2.0 released stolen documents and was active
in promoting so-called ``exclusives'' of stolen information as a way to
launder it to third parties, including journalists from traditional
media outlets.
The GRU's covert efforts also took advantage of a willing amplifier,
WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks had an established reputation for spilling State
secrets, including those of the U.S. Government and military. WikiLeaks
also offered a ready-made audience and had an understanding of how to
time releases for political impact. Indeed, according to the Mueller
indictment, the GRU, posing as Guccifer 2.0 ``discussed the release of
the stolen documents and the timing of those releases'' with WikiLeaks
``to heighten their impact on the 2016 presidential election.''
WikiLeaks released the stolen documents during the Democratic
National Convention to cause conflict between Clinton and Sanders
supporters at a time when many Americans were very likely to be paying
attention. WikiLeaks also released documents in the last few weeks of
the election, again, when the Nation was very likely to be following
campaigns. The first release of stolen emails from the Clinton campaign
chairman, John Podesta, coincided with a warning from the Department of
Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence
in October 2016 about Russian attacks against our election. It also
occurred on the same day as the release of the Trump ``Access
Hollywood'' tape. These efforts, too, suggest a high level of
sophistication that hadn't been seen in earlier Russian influence
campaigns.
The third component of the Russian information warfare campaign,
message amplification and reinforcement through social media, was
deployed in parallel with the other lines of effort to achieve an
unprecedented impact. While we don't know the full extent of the GRU's
involvement, the Mueller indictment revealed that an entire military
intelligence unit--74455--was active in this line of effort. In his
July 2018 indictment, the special counsel explained that unit No. 74455
assisted in the promotion of the released stolen material ``and the
publication of anti-Clinton contact on social media accounts operated
by the GRU.''

That includes the site DCLeaks, which was, in fact, established by
the GRU. It went live in early June 2016, posing as a site run by
American hacktivists, promising to ``expose the truth'' about U.S.
politicians. The GRU even created a DCLeaks Facebook page, authored by
the fictitious U.S. woman Alice Donovan, which sought to drive traffic
to its site. The July indictment further details how the GRU used
additional fake accounts posing as Americans named Jason Scott and
Richard Gingrey to promote the DCLeaks site. Before it was shut down in
March of 2017, the DCLeaks site was viewed over a million times.
The GRU also used social media to magnify fears about Hillary
Clinton. The July indictment from the special counsel revealed that the
GRU was the true operator behind the fraudulent Twitter account
@BaltimoreIsWhr
[Baltimore is War], which encouraged U.S. audiences to ``[j]oin our
flash mob'' opposing Clinton and to share images with the hashtag
``Blacks Against Hillary.''
In addition to the GRU's weaponizing social media against the United
States, there was a complementary effort from the Kremlin-linked troll
organization, the Internet Research Agency. By the 2016 U.S.
Presidential election, the deployment of the troll organization
appeared to be a standard part of the Kremlin's playbook. The October
2018 indictment of the Internet Research Agency's accountant in the
Eastern District of Virginia provides additional confirmation of the
troll organization's role in the information campaign. The indictment
confirms the existence of the Agency's operation known as Project
Lakhta--since at least May of 2014--and notes that this project
targeted Ukraine, Europe, and the United States with a stated goal in
the United States to ``spread distrust toward candidates for political
office and the political system in general.'' Social media researchers,
including P.W. Singer, have also noted how some of the same trolls were
repurposed for different operations. The accounts that pretended to be
Ukrainian then posed as British citizens and then as Americans as the
focus of attacks shifted over time.
Against the United States, the troll operation capitalized on issues
of importance to groups inside American society to magnify fear and
distrust in ways that aligned with the Kremlin strategic interest of
hurting Clinton and helping President Trump. As the special counsel's
February indictment detailed, ``These groups and pages, which addressed
divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be
controlled by U.S. activists when, in fact, they were controlled by
[Kremlin-linked trolls].'' The indictment further asserted this was the
manner in which the troll organization reached ``significant numbers of
Americans for the purpose of influencing the Presidential election of
2016.''
The report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee by New
Knowledge, Columbia, and Canfield Research that analyzed certain data
from social media companies identifies a number of tactics employed by
the Internet Research Agency in its assault on the 2016 election. These
include building brands across platforms, including Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, and Instagram; deploying or repurposing popular memes to
spread propaganda; reinforcing key themes by resharing the same story
across multiple accounts; impersonating local media on Twitter and
Instagram to win the trust of Americans in their local news; and
amplifying conspiratorial narratives among both left- and right-leaning
audiences.

[[Page S573]]

As I mentioned, the report found that one of the troll organization's
concerted lines of attack was against African Americans. These efforts,
however, went beyond just trying to sow discord and reinforce fears
about Clinton. Campaigns against African-American groups were pushed
across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube with the goal of
suppressing voter turnout ``through malicious misdirection, candidate
support redirection and turnout depression.''
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar who studies political campaigns,
examined polling data throughout the campaign and documented similar
tactics at disenfranchisement in her recent book, including fake ads
that encouraged minority viewers to text or tweet their support for
Clinton rather than to vote at the polls or to rally support for other
candidates in the race. These efforts may have been particularly
effective in peeling off voters who would have been likely to vote for
her candidacy. They also may have influenced undecided voters at a key
time. Polls in the final month of the campaign showed a marked drop in
the number of Americans saying they intended to vote for Secretary
Clinton.
The reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee
highlighted that Twitter was an important component of the attacks
Kremlin-linked troll organizations deployed against the American
people. The nearly 4,000 inauthentic Russian Twitter accounts, like
their Facebook counterparts, promoted messages related to divisive
social issues, such as gun control, race relations, and immigration.
The troll organization also deployed bots, or automated accounts, to
amplify messages and drive traffic to specific Facebook pages, Kremlin
propaganda sites, or other targeted websites. The Kremlin-linked troll
operation went into overdrive on election day with strategic messaging
that mimicked the spike in activity on Twitter during the Brexit
referendum. According to the Daily Beast, Kremlin-linked trolls began a
``final push'' and used ``a combination of high-profile accounts with
large and influential followings and scores of lurking personas
established years earlier with stolen photos and fabricated
backgrounds'' to send ``carefully metered tweets and retweets voicing
praise for Trump and contempt for his opponent from the early morning
until the last polls closed in the United States.''
As the recent studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence
Committee illuminate, the information warfare campaign against the
American people was an extensive, widespread, coordinated effort across
many social media platforms, both big and small. The increased
sophistication of the troll organization's techniques on social media
provided a relatively low-cost but highly effective method of
influencing the American public. For example, these trolls spent only
$100,000 on 3,000 ads on Facebook. While this may seem like a small
amount compared to the millions of dollars spent on the Presidential
campaign, the impact and reach of these Kremlin ads, once amplified
through these Russian operations, was extensive.
While Facebook estimates that approximately 126 million Americans saw
Kremlin-linked messages, Jonathan Albright, the research director for
Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, extrapolated
that they could have been shared hundreds of millions and, perhaps,
many billions of times. Kathleen Hall Jamieson concluded that the
widespread reach of the troll organization's disinformation ``increases
the likelihood'' that the Russian activities changed the outcome of the
election. A study from the Ohio State University on propaganda and
disinformation affirmed Hall Jamieson's assessment and concluded
Russian information warfare attacks ``most likely did have substantial
impact on the voting decisions of a strategically important set of
voters--those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012. Indeed, given the
very narrow margins of victory by Donald Trump in key battleground
states, this impact may have been sufficient to deprive Hillary Clinton
of a victory in the Electoral College.'' That is their conclusion.

As with the Brexit campaign, the Russian information warfare campaign
during the 2016 election was aided by others who, either wittingly or
unwittingly, helped to advance Russia's strategic objectives. Among
these were major American news outlets, which covered much of what was
in the WikiLeaks disclosures. They treated it as legitimate news
without reminding viewers of how the information was obtained or that
it was being pushed by a foreign adversary. Thomas Rid, a professor of
security studies at King's College, testified to the Senate
Intelligence Committee in March of 2017 that the journalists functioned
as ``unwitting agents . . . who aggressively covered the political
leaks while neglecting or ignoring their provenance'' or, as Kathleen
Hall Jamieson concludes, the American media ``inadvertently helped [the
Russians] achieve their goals.''
Further, as in the Brexit campaign, a number of local surrogates
appeared to echo the Kremlin messages. This included associates of the
Trump campaign and even the President himself. He boasted of his love
of WikiLeaks at least 124 times in the last month of the election alone
and even tweeted a link to access the stolen disclosures from
WikiLeaks. According to the Washington Post, at least five close Trump
associates, albeit perhaps unknowingly, retweeted messages from
Kremlin-linked troll accounts, including the account @Ten--GOP, a
Russian fake handle that impersonated the Tennessee Republican Party.
The President and his campaign also used talking points that were
similar to Russian propaganda and disinformation, including disparaging
Secretary Clinton's health and accusing her repeatedly of being
``crooked.'' The President encouraged Russia, in many respects, to
continue these activities. From what we know from the July indictment
from the special counsel, the night that Trump called on the Russians
to hack her emails, the GRU did, in fact, attack the server that housed
Clinton's personal accounts. As journalist and legal analyst Jeffrey
Toobin characterized it, ``All of these separate [Russian] efforts are
completely aligned with Donald Trump's interests, often word for
word.''
Some have argued that despite this extensive and sophisticated
Russian influence campaign, there was no effect on the outcome of the
election because no vote tallies were changed. While we may never know
definitively what the actual impact of the Kremlin's operation was, it
is hard to believe that the Kremlin would mount a sustained, multiyear
information warfare campaign against our democratic institutions if it
had no reason to expect that it would have an impact. To the contrary,
based on its experience in Ukraine, Brexit, and elsewhere, the Kremlin
had every reason to believe that it could successfully influence the
outcome of the 2016 election with minimal risk of being discovered or
suffering retaliation.
As I have laid out, Russia is engaged in a sustained information
warfare campaign against the United States, our allies, and partners.
This Russian interference can't be dismissed as a one-off operation. As
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the Aspen Forum last July,
the Russian effort to influence the 2016 Presidential election is
``just one tree in a growing forest. Russian intelligence officers did
not stumble onto the idea of hacking American computers and posting
misleading messages because they had a free afternoon. It is what they
do every day.'' Our intelligence community assessed in January 2017
that the campaign against us represented a ``new normal'' in Russian
influence efforts in which ``Moscow will apply lessons learned from its
campaign aimed at the U.S. presidential election to future influence
efforts in the U.S. and worldwide.''
Russian information warfare operations have a real and ongoing impact
on our national security. Russia has not paused its information warfare
operations since the 2016 election, and, in fact, the level of Russian
operations has increased since then. As John Kelly, the founder of
Graphika, a social media intelligence firm, who testified to the Senate
Intelligence Committee in August and who collaborated on one of the
reports for the Senate Intelligence Committee I discussed earlier,
stated: ``After election day, the Russian government stepped on the gas
. . . confirming again that the assault

[[Page S574]]

on our democratic process is much bigger than the attack on a single
election.'' This idea was confirmed by data in both his report and the
other report commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the
Kremlin-linked troll organization.
The report done by New Knowledge, Columbia University, and Canfield
research noted that the Kremlin-linked troll organization went after
those who are investigating Russian information warfare and other
malign influence activities in the United States, including attempts to
label Russian interference in the election as ``nonsense'' and casting
former FBI Director James Comey and Special Counsel Mueller as corrupt.
We don't have to look too far for other examples of Russia's ongoing
campaign against the American people and our allies and partners.
Kremlin-linked troll operations flooded Twitter with messages that were
intended to sow division and disinformation in the wake of numerous
controversies, including the tragic shootings in Las Vegas and
Parkland, FL, and during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Last
September, we learned from an indictment in the Western District of
Pennsylvania that GRU officers, including some agents who were
previously indicted by Special Counsel Mueller, attempted information
attacks against prominent world organizations, including those who were
investigating Russian malign influence activities.
It is now clear that Russian information operations also targeted the
2018 midterm elections. The October indictment from the Eastern
District of Virginia details an ongoing and advanced operation to
influence the American electorate up through 2018. As the indictment
states, this campaign ``has a strategic goal, which continues to this
day, to sow division and discord in the U.S. political system.'' The
indictment also details how Russian troll operations are using U.S.-
based virtual private networks, or VPNs, paid for with Bitcoin through
multiple bank accounts, to disguise the origin of Russian messaging on
social media.
The sophistication of these operations continues to increase. The
Internet Research Agency has a dedicated ``search engine optimization''
department that is devoted to manipulating social media search
algorithms to advance the goals of Russian troll operations. The troll
organization spent millions of dollars annually in 2017 and 2018 and is
still buying ads on Facebook and Instagram. These operations continue
to cover a broad range of divisive issues, and as the indictment
details, the organization's employees are instructed on strategies and
guidance for targeting particular audiences with carefully tailored
messages. Despite efforts by Facebook and Twitter to eliminate
inauthentic accounts, there are still thousands of active social media
and email accounts appearing to be U.S. persons when they are, in fact,
Kremlin-linked trolls that are acting as part of an information warfare
campaign.
Last February, in testimony before the Armed Services Cyber
Subcommittee, Russia expert Heather Conley warned that Russian
information warfare campaigns in 2018 and 2020 will adapt and ``look
more American, and [it] will look less Russian.'' The New Knowledge,
Columbia University, and Canfield research study notes that we need to
be on the lookout for increasingly sophisticated operations, including
``increased human-exploitation tradecraft and narrative laundering.''
The technology already exists to create ``deepfakes,'' false videos
of real people saying or doing things that are damaging. Advances in
artificial intelligence are enabling rapid, automated responses on
social media that mimic authentic accounts.
We are still gathering data about information warfare attacks,
including the 2018 midterms. Between the indictments I referenced and
the additional Kremlin-directed troll operations discovered by Facebook
in conjunction with our Intelligence Committee, the FBI, and DHS, we
seem to be getting better at responding to the types of attacks
perpetrated against United States in 2016, but that is no indicator
that we have become better at anticipating future attacks.
The Director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity
and Infrastructure Security Agency warned last November that ``the
[2018] midterm is . . . just the warm-up or the exhibition game. . . .
The big game . . . for the adversaries is probably 2020.''
I want to thank my colleague for being generous and patient with my
presentation, but I do want to make, I think, an important and
concluding point that ties in directly with what is going on right now.

Government Funding

Mr. President, we have been talking about this shutdown. After I
described the activities that have transpired over the last 5 to 10
years, we should be aware that they are continuing, and the
consequences of this shutdown are more than theoretical.
We are missing some of our most critical tools for countering Russian
information warfare for protecting systems that are vital to our
democracy. As Andrew Grotto, a former cyber security adviser for
Presidents Trump and Obama stated, ``Defending Federal networks is
already an act of triage . . . furloughs make a hard job even harder.''
While I applaud DHS for reorganizing into the new Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency, they have since had to furlough 43
percent of their employees. That is over 1,500 workers who right now
are unable to continue key missions and protect us from attack.
The FBI is also affected by the shutdown in critical functions
related to countering Russian hybrid and information warfare.
A recent FBI Agent's Association report highlighted how efforts to
investigate and prosecute cyber criminals have been impacted. That
includes a lack of resources to pay for wiretaps and subpoenas. One
anonymous FBI agent quoted in the report remarked: ``These delays slow
down our work to combat criminal activity on the [internet] and protect
the American people.''
All the while, Russia continues to attack us with information
warfare. They were not closed for business. With this unnecessary
government shutdown, we are fighting blindfolded with one hand tied
behind our backs.
I am confident in the ability of our government and our society to
come together. I am confident that with the American vision and
ingenuity, working across the aisle and across the Atlantic, these are
challenges that we can meet and conquer, but we must remember that this
is not a Democratic or Republican problem.
This is an attack against the Nation by a foreign power. This is a
problem of our national security. We have no time to waste. If we are
looking for another reason why we should open this government
immediately, it is to continue our protection against the attacks by
foreign entities.
With that, let me particularly thank the Senator from Florida for his
patience and thank the Presiding Officer for his patience as well.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

Amendment No. 48

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today as a voice for the
people of Puerto Rico. I intend to be their voice in the U.S. Senate.
They are Americans--as American as the people of Florida whom I was
elected to represent. They are our brothers and sisters, and they
deserve a voice. Their success is America's success. Their recovery is
America's recovery.
In September of 2017, Puerto Rico was hit by a devastating hurricane.
Maria's landfall changed the landscape of the island forever. As
Governor of Florida, I worked to be there for the people of Puerto
Rico. I worked with Congresswoman Jenniffer Gonzalez Colon, Governor
Rossello, Lieutenant Governor Luis Rivera Marin, Senate President
Thomas Rivera Schatz, and House Speaker Carlos Johnny Mendez to provide
whatever support and aid they needed.
Jennifer has been a tireless advocate for Puerto Rico, and she has
been fighting so hard for this funding. I am proud to join her in this
fight.
In Florida, we created welcome centers at the airports in Orlando and
in Miami to support those coming to Florida from the island. We waived
housing and education regulations to make sure families coming from
Puerto Rico could easily settle in Florida,

[[Page S575]]

whether they planned to stay permanently or just for a short period of
time.
I have visited Puerto Rico eight times since the deadly storm and
provided Florida State resources to the citizens of Puerto Rico to aid
in rebuilding and recovery, but the island still has a long way to go.
The bill I supported today does many good things. It reopens the
government after the longest shutdown in U.S. history. It provides
significant funding to secure our southern border--funding that is long
overdue and that is needed to keep American families safe. It extends
protections for children who were brought to this country illegally
through no fault of their own, and it extends TPS. While I would prefer
a permanent solution for the DACA kids and TPS, this is a positive
step. Putting protections for the DACA population into law is also long
overdue.
The bill also provides significant disaster funding for the State of
Florida following the devastation of Hurricane Michael, which hit
Florida's Panhandle just a few months ago. The funding includes
resources specifically for Tyndall Air Force Base. I would like to
thank Majority Leader McConnell for putting a bill forward to help
Florida recover from this horrible hurricane.
On all of these points, I join many of my colleagues in support, but,
unfortunately, the Senate version of the government funding bill does
not include $600 million in essential disaster funding for our brothers
and sisters in Puerto Rico.
I am offering an amendment today that would add the $600 million
included in the House bill back to the Senate version.
Puerto Rico's recovery continues, and the U.S. Congress must do
everything we can to support that, with responsible safeguards against
fraud and waste. As long as I am a Member of the U.S. Senate, I will
fight to make sure the people of Puerto Rico are represented. I am
proud that the first amendment I filed and my first speech on the
Senate floor is to fight for Puerto Rico.
To the people of Puerto Rico, know this: I will be your voice in the
Senate. I will fight for what is right, and I will never give up.
I will now address the Senate in Spanish. I provided the translation
to the Senate for the Record.
(English translation of the statement made in Spanish is as follows:)

The people of Puerto Rico deserve real change. We have to
strengthen the economy of the island. As a Senator, I will
fight for the families of Puerto Rico and work to ensure that
Puerto Rico is treated fairly.
Thank you so much.

Mr. President, the amendment is at the desk.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Government Funding

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, it has been 34 days since the President
fulfilled his promise to shut down the government, and the American
people are not happy about it.
Poll after poll shows that people are not OK with the way the
President of the United States is handling his job, and it is getting
worse by the day, because to any reasonable person, this shutdown has
been stupid and useless and cruel.
There are so many failures to talk about, but I want to talk about
four specific failures that, if it were any other President, if it were
any other time in modern history, would bring a President and a
Congress to its senses and end the shutdown.
The first failure is this. Federal workers are in food lines. Federal
workers are in food lines. People with jobs are now in food lines.
Hundreds of thousands of people who work for the government are either
furloughed or working without pay, and, tomorrow, these American public
servants will miss their second paycheck.
There is a big difference between missing the first paycheck and the
second paycheck. Some people can absorb missing the first paycheck, but
this second paycheck is going to be really, really challenging for tens
of thousands of American public servants because the rent is due, the
mortgage is due, the car registration is due, the insurance is due, and
the utilities are due at the beginning of the month.
This brings the amount of money that American public servants are
owed by their government for work already performed to $4.7 billion.
Remember that about a third of all Federal workers are veterans.
It may be hard for billionaires in the Cabinet to understand, but for
the middle class, missing two paychecks in a row is a total disaster.
I have met people working in airport security who can't concentrate.
They can't sleep because they can't stop worrying about how they are
going to pay their bills. I have met government workers in the midst of
applying for food stamps and asking local charities for help. I met a
single mom who spent her career working hard to build a life for her
family, and she told me that without these paychecks, it is all going
backward.
As one Washington Post columnist put it, under the Republican
leadership, the United States is starting to look like the failed
Soviet system, with middle-class workers literally waiting in bread
lines.
I am grateful that for every story I have heard of someone suffering,
there is also a story of people stepping up to help. In Hawaii, in
particular, local utility companies, financial institutions, and others
have decided that they will not penalize Federal workers hurt by the
shutdown if they miss a payment. I want to thank our local banks for
allowing unpaid Federal workers to make a late payment on their
mortgage without a penalty, and I want to thank our credit unions for
extending very cheap credit. I want to thank people who are organizing
in local communities, not just in Hawaii but across the country, so
that middle-class families can make it through this.
Federal workers want paychecks, not food banks. They want paychecks.
They don't want charity. They want to be compensated for the work that
they do. They shouldn't rely on pop-up kitchens for furloughed workers
or online fundraising campaigns or the kindness of families, friends,
and strangers--as great as all of that is. They should just get paid,
and that starts with opening the government.
Here is the second failure that should end this shutdown right away,
and that is that economic growth is already slowing. This week, a White
House adviser said that the Nation's economic growth could be zero if
the shutdown goes on. Economists and business leaders were already
worried about the potential for a recession, and this shutdown is
fanning those unfortunate flames.
Small businesses can't get loans. Companies can't go public. This
administration has stopped some of the core functions of our market
economy, but there is one thing that will not stop, and that is the
corruption in this administration.
If you have money, this administration takes care of you, and if you
don't, then they will not. Federal workers have been called back to the
office to take care of oil and gas leases--to take care of oil and gas
leases--and to help financial institutions. They are working unpaid so
that special interests can keep making money.
This is the third failure. While people who are fortunate financially
are protected, this shutdown leaves the people most vulnerable to fend
for themselves.
Food pantries and health clinics that rely on Federal funds are out
of supplies, which means that Americans are going to start to go hungry
and without medicine for everything from diabetes to addiction.
Landlords who provide housing for 4 million people--mostly seniors
and people with disabilities and kids--will soon stop receiving rent
payments. They will have to decide how long they can hold out before
being forced to evict these people or lose the properties themselves.
Housing authorities are delaying the release of section 8 vouchers.
Domestic violence shelters that rely on Federal funds are furloughing
their own workers and cutting back services that save lives. So men,
women, and children who need to get out of a dangerous situation at
home have fewer options to get to safety.
That brings me to the fourth failure, which is that public safety is
gravely at risk. This is a serious matter. This isn't about whether
Donald Trump can save face or whether the Republicans can vanquish the
Democrats or Nancy Pelosi makes Mitch McConnell look

[[Page S576]]

bad. It is none of that. Public safety is at risk.
Air traffic controllers and TSA workers are working without pay. They
are stressed out, and they are becoming increasingly understaffed and
undersupported, and there is no ability to train new employees, and
they are sounding the alarm.
This isn't my rhetoric. I want you to listen to what the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association said yesterday:

We cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at
play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will
break. It is unprecedented.

The National Transportation Safety Board is being forced to choose
which crashes to investigate and which not to, leaving us with
unanswered questions and risking lives in the future. As of this week,
the NTSB has been unable to investigate 87 crashes, including some with
fatalities.
This is a pattern. It is a pattern of recklessly endangering the
safety of Americans. We are just 2 months out from a wildfire that
destroyed 18,000 homes and buildings and killed 86 people. Yet the
shutdown has stopped us from training firefighters. It has cancelled
controlled burns. It has led to dead trees piling up in places that we
know pose a fire risk. This is what happens when you shut down the
government to try to get your way. You put real people at risk.
The safety of Americans abroad and at home is threatened by this
shutdown. The State Department cancelled a border security summit. This
fight is supposed to be about border security. Yet we are not paying
TSA, we are not paying FBI agents, we are about to close some of our
Federal courts, and the State Department itself just cancelled a border
security summit. FBI agents are working without pay. Field offices are
operating in fiscal uncertainty. That means investigations into street
gangs and drug dealers are on hold, training on child abductions and
counterterrorism has been cancelled, and communications with sources
about gangs, such as MS-13, have stopped. As one agent put it, ``Our
enemies know they can run freely.'' Our enemies know they can run
freely.
I ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, why would we
put public safety at risk? Why can't we reopen the government and
negotiate our differences?
The truth is, as it relates to border security--I am in my seventh
year in the Senate, and every year, we do a bipartisan bill that
includes border security in the Homeland Security Appropriations
Subcommittee. We always do this.
By the way, every Republican and every Democrat will quietly say: We
are not doing a cement wall from sea to shining sea. That makes no
sense, and nobody at the Department of Homeland Security thinks that is
a good idea.
So we quietly appropriate money--some for personnel, some for beds,
some for courts so they can adjudicate some of these cases, and some
for physical barriers where it is appropriate, to put up a wall where
it makes sense. You don't put up a wall where it doesn't make sense. We
do this all the time. So the idea that we are going to shut down the
government and shut down portions of the Department of Homeland
Security itself in order to get to a place where the President of the
United States can save face is just absurd.
We have to be the grownups here, and that is going to require some
Republicans to craft a border security package with Democrats, as we
have over the last 6 or 7 years, and we have to do that after we open
the government. The reason that is so essential is that this
President--certainly this President especially, but no President,
Democratic or Republican, now or 30 years from now, should ever inflict
pain on the American people in order to generate leverage in a policy
discussion. When somebody does that--and if it is one of my friends in
the Senate and they do this 10 years from now, I want them to read this
speech back to me. The answer to the offer, which is, ``I am going to
hurt Americans unless you do X,'' should be ``You get nothing in
exchange for not hurting Americans.'' That is not a cookie for us.
Barack Obama learned that lesson the hard way. Only when he finally
said ``You guys want to screw with the American economy; you want to
mess with the debt ceiling; you get nothing'' did they back off, and
all that brinksmanship stopped.
Every time we reward hostage taking, we will get more hostage taking.
As painful as all of this is, we have to stand firm. We are absolutely
willing to negotiate a package related to border security, which will
no doubt include some physical barrier, because we do that every year,
actually, but I am not doing any of that until the government is
opened. That is not just a political position; that is a matter of
principle because we can't live like this as a country. We cannot
function like this. If we do this, if we cut a deal now and we give $2
billion for the wall, the debt ceiling is coming up in March or April,
and here we go again. The fiscal year expires in September, and here we
go again. We will never govern. I know the Presiding Officer was a
Governor. That is no way to run a country. Let this be the last
shutdown.
I know the two leaders of the Senate are in what appear to be
constructive conversations. I know there are plenty of adults who want
to get us out of this. For the first time in several weeks, I have
actually felt somewhat hopeful about the trajectory. I don't think we
are going to fix this in the next hour or so, but at least we are
talking, and at least there seems to be a desire to structure an off-
ramp. But we have to do one simple thing first: We have to reopen the
government. People are about to miss their paychecks for the second
time tomorrow. It is our obligation to reopen the government.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The clerk will call the
roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Venezuela

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I wanted to take a moment to address the
recent events in the nation of Venezuela, but before I do, I want to
take the opportunity to congratulate the Presiding Officer, my
colleague from the great State of Florida, who a few moments ago I
believe gave his speech on the floor of the Senate--and gave part of it
in Spanish, and did it very well--and spoke about the important issue
of Puerto Rico. His leadership here on that is going to be critical. It
is an issue I know he knows very well from his time as Governor of our
State.
I know this is another cause he cares about. He took leadership on it
as the Governor of the State of Florida. As recently as 2 nights ago,
he was with me and some others, and together we met with the President
of the United States to talk about what is happening in Venezuela.
The most important answer we have to have for the American people is,
Why should it matter to us? Why should America even be involved in
this, beyond expressing an opinion or sending a letter or even a vote
on an international organism? Why should America lead, and why should
America be so intricately involved in something going on in another
country?
That is always a valid question. It is the most important question we
have to consistently answer and not take for granted. I think we don't
do that enough anymore in American foreign policy. It has allowed some
to argue that perhaps the United States gets too engaged around the
world.
We are a nation that should always stand for our principles, and we
should defend them and stand with those around the world who share the
principles of human liberty and dignity and freedom and respect for
human rights. When the United States gets deeply involved in something
in another country, it must also be in our national interests.
The only reason why being involved in the issues that are going on in
Venezuela can be justified to the men and women of this Nation, for
whom we work, is to prove to them and argue to them and convince them
that what is happening there is not just about Venezuela, but it is in
the national interests of the United States.
Before I can do that, I have to lay out the history of what brings us
to

[[Page S577]]

this point. I will not go into great detail because the time does not
permit it. Venezuela has a Constitution. In fact, it has a Constitution
that was put in place during the rule of Hugo Chavez--someone whom I
was certainly not a fan of and who was not a fan of the United States.
Under that Constitution, there was a parliamentary body of the
National Assembly, and there was a Presidency and a supreme court. What
happened a few years ago is that when Chavez died and Nicolas Maduro--
the current dictator of the country--took over, he had to stand for
election. Before he stood for election, there was an election to the
National Assembly. The party that was Hugo Chavez's party and now
Maduro's party was trounced. They lost badly. They didn't just lose the
National Assembly. They lost Governors' seats across the country.
Maduro realized that his party, and he himself, could not survive in
a truly democratic system. What he did is he canceled the National
Assembly. First, he started ignoring them. He stopped following their
orders. They would pass a bill, and he wouldn't implement it. He would
completely ignore it, as if they didn't exist.
Then, he replaced a supreme court with handpicked people who would do
what he wanted to do. The equivalent would be if the President of the
United States decided that no matter what law we passed, even if we
overrode a veto, he just wouldn't implement it and would refuse to do
it.
Then, at some point, he actually tried to create an alternative to
the National Assembly. He created, out of thin air, this thing called
the Constituent Assembly, which is an idea he got from the Cubans and
from Communist countries, and gave them extraordinary powers to do all
sorts of things.
One of the things that Constituent Assembly did is they created an
election late last spring. People would say Maduro stood for election,
and he won--theoretically. At least that is their argument. You can
have an election and it not be a real election.
For example, every one of the media outlets in the country is
controlled by the government. All of them have to run, by law--they are
mandated to provide what they call network coverage across the board
any time he speaks to the nation.
The opposition party doesn't have that same opportunity. He
manipulated vote tallies. They were able to go in and make sure votes
were counted in a certain way. They control votes through the food
program. Forty-two percent of the people in Venezuela depend on a food
program run by the government. To have that food program, you have to
have an identification card. When you go vote, that same identification
card doesn't just register whether you voted or not, they know whom you
voted for. They know whom you voted for.
If you didn't show up to vote and you didn't vote for whom they
wanted you to vote, meaning Maduro, you got cut off from your food
program. If you had to choose between voting for someone you didn't
like or not feeding your family, you were going to vote for someone you
did not like.
Despite all that, the turnouts were abysmally low. The images that
came out--there were two people in line, in some cases. Sometimes they
caught the same five people making the line over and over again. It
wasn't a real election.
By the way, he legally disqualified every credible opponent he could
have possibly had. Because it was a fake election, the opposition
boycotted it. So he didn't even have real opposition.
He won this fake election. Then came January, and he tried to be
sworn in. He was, through a ceremony, but it was not legitimate. It
would be the same as if the President of the United States announced
that he was calling new elections, not in 2020; we are going to have
them in April of this year. If he wins, he will get to serve 6 years
instead of 4.
Everybody here would say that is not the Constitution. It is not a
constitutional election. That is what they did. It is not a reelection.
Under the Constitution of Venezuela, because that was not legitimate,
you have a vacancy in the Office of the Presidency.
Under the Constitution of Venezuela, similar to ours, when there is a
vacancy in the Presidency--and by virtue of that the Vice Presidency
because he was elected alongside--the President of the country becomes
the equivalent of our Speaker of the House, the same line of succession
we have here. He becomes the President of the National Assembly.
The President of the National Assembly assumes that charge as interim
President and within 45 days has to call valid constitutional
elections. That is what happened yesterday. The valid President of the
National Assembly called, assumed the responsibility of interim
President, and now within the next 45 days he will have to schedule and
call for elections.
The United States responded to that by stating the obvious. This is
not constitutional. It is not legitimate. We don't recognize this fake
President. We recognize your Constitution and the President whom the
Constitution says is in place, this interim President.
This is not a guy who is trying to be President himself for 6 years.
This is not a fight between two political parties, not some civil war
like we see in other parts of the world between two competing bands.
This is basically the person who has been elected, the President of the
National Assembly assuming an interim position who is now a caretaker
to guide the country back toward a constitutional democracy. The United
States recognizes it.
It is stunning to see some of the reporting on this here and around
the world; that he basically proclaimed himself the President. No, he
just assumed his constitutional responsibility. The United States did
something unusual in recognizing him. No. 1, it is not unusual. It is
the Constitution of Venezuela; and No. 2, it was not just the United
States.
We were immediately joined by 11 countries in the region. That number
is now up to 16 in the Western Hemisphere--Colombia, Chili, Peru,
Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala--all of them, lined up, and
more, and reflected the same position the United States has taken on
this issue. So did France. Apparently, so did the United Kingdom today
and Albania and Kosovo and a growing number of countries. Even the
European Union says Maduro is illegitimate. They have not gone as far
as to recognize the interim President as the interim President, but
they have said he is illegitimate, and at the National Assembly he is
legitimate.
It is not unusual. It happens to be the global norm. Who disagrees
with us other than Maduro? Cuba, Turkey, Russia, Iran, Egypt,
apparently. What do they have in common? Think about it. These are not
democracies. They have their own interests here at heart.
Some might ask: How does this guy hold on to power if he is so
terrible? No. 1, he controls access to food. I can tell you, if you
control access to food and medicine and you threaten people with
hunger, you will have a lot of control. The other thing he has done is,
he uses migration as a relief valve. It is a very Cuban regime-type
tactic.
It is estimated that over 2.3 million people--basically 1 out of 12
Venezuelans--have left the country since 2015. Think about that. One-
twelfth of the population has abandoned the country, leaving behind, in
many cases, children on their own, leaving behind catastrophe.

The ability to drive out opponents and people for whom life has
become too miserable is a relief valve. The other is just sheer
oppression. They put people in jail. They kill people. People die in
custody. They shoot them in the streets. That is pretty effective, too,
sometimes.
The second thing that keeps them in power is the assistance of the
Cuban regime. Every time I mention that, people think: You are just
obsessed with Cuba. You are from Miami, Cuban American.
The Cubans, when it comes to intelligence and repression, punch way
above their weight. They are experts at repression. That is what they
basically assist them with.
Do you know the Cubans basically run the security apparatus of
Venezuela? The personal security of Maduro are Cubans, which tells you
a lot about how much trust he has in his countrymen. The Cubans provide
them with basically all of their intelligence collection and the
capacity to collect intelligence. They have trained their National
Guard on crowd control.

[[Page S578]]

By the way, none of this is free. These are not free services. This
is a country that is poor and low on resources. The Cubans are probably
pulling in $1 billion a year for these services they provide.
The other thing people keep mentioning that keeps him in power is the
loyalty of military officers. I know you will see the picture of all
these guys in a country, by the way, where people are starving, and
every single one of these military guys is overweight. Somehow, in a
starving country, these people are gaining weight. They have these
fancy uniforms on.
Let me tell you, these folks are not truly loyal to Maduro. I saw
that picture today. I can tell you for a fact that more than half of
the people in that picture at some point in time have expressed serious
doubts about Maduro. They are really limited to what they can do right
now. Why? First of all, because all of them--every one of them--is
compromised. Their loyalty is not ideological, and it is not personal.
It is bought. It is paid for. Every single one of them has access to
lucrative corruption opportunities. Some of them have been given the
opportunity to raid Venezuela's national oil company. They have made
millions--hundreds of millions of dollars--by running that company into
the ground. Some of them have been given the distribution of consumer
goods--watches and phones and consumer articles. They give them these
things and say: You guys go out and sell them in the black market in
the street and take your cut.
Others have been allowed to skim off that food program I mentioned
that feeds 42 percent of the people. The military officers get first
dibs at some percentage of it, and they get to sell food directly for a
profit. Some are participating in currency manipulation. It sounds a
lot like an organized crime ring, like one of these old-style Mafia
families, where one guy ran the loan-sharking racket and the other guy
had the gambling and the other guy had the prostitution and the other
guy did the bank heists.
That is what this is. These people are loyal because Maduro allows
them corruption opportunities. They are also loyal, by the way, because
the Cubans are spying on them. The Cuban intelligence agencies quickly
pick up on any of these military officers who are being disloyal or
expressing doubts, and those guys are arrested.
There has been a massive purge of Venezuelan military officers over
the last 2 years. I am talking about dozens of high-ranking military
officials, either removed from their positions or arrested and are in
jail. It wasn't for corruption, believe me. It was because the Cubans
caught them and reported them and were wrapped up. Everybody else was
watching that and saying: It ain't going to happen to me.
That is not really loyalty. That is fear. You can see it in their
eyes today. By the way, they resent the Cubans, these military
officers. Imagine, for a moment, this is your country, and here comes
the smaller country and their guys run everything and tell you what to
do and spy on you and pit you against each other. They better be
careful about expressing that resentment because the Cubans are
listening, and they will report you.
Despite all of this, all is not good in the Venezuela regime. It has
gotten harder and harder every day. What has happened with the
sanctions that have been imposed on these individuals, they have cut
off their ability to steal money and enjoy corruption, and it has cut
off the ability to enjoy the money they have stolen. They can't travel.
They can't buy certain things. They have to hide their money. Some have
had assets seized here and abroad. That has created resentment, and
that has created anger within the inner circle. All these people in the
inner circle are now upset because they are not making as much money
off corruption as they used to make. They start saying to themselves,
maybe we have to get rid of Maduro and get a new godfather Mafia head
here. Maduro finds out about it, and he eliminates them. So the circle
gets smaller, which actually works to his benefit because with
shrinking resources, the less mouths you have to feed with corruption,
the better.
There is a real good example of it. There is a guy named Diosdado
Cabello, who ostensibly is now the president of this fake constituent
assembly. He happens to be a drug lord deeply involved in
narcotrafficking. I guess that is his part of the corruption deal. That
is his take. That is the business line he has been given. But he wants
to be President. He wants to be President, not Maduro.
This guy Cabello--when Chavez was removed in a coup that lasted just
a couple of days, Cabello was sworn in as President of Venezuela
because there was a vacancy, using the exact same provision of the
Constitution that they now claim is illegitimate. But here is Cabello,
who is a drug dealer, a drug lord, a thug, but he wants to be
President. He will never be elected President of Venezuela in a normal
election, in a legitimate election, so what is his path to being
elected and to becoming President?
First is this constituent assembly he has been put in charge of. This
new thing they created outside the Constitution is so powerful that it
has the power to remove Maduro today. They could remove Maduro. And
this guy hears the whispers. These guys are not blind to what is
happening. They can see that the country is in disarray, the economy is
collapsing, and there isn't enough money for them to steal anymore, and
there are people saying to him: Hey, why don't you move on this guy
because this guy is never going to fix this place.
He is thinking about it, and he has thought about it, but he knows
the only way he will ever be President is if he can preserve the
outlines of this regime and just get rid of the godfather and declare
himself the new godfather, the head of this new criminal syndicate, or
he can wait until 2024 and run a rigged election--again, set up under
the confines of this regime. Even if he doesn't like Maduro, it is to
his benefit that he stay there until he is ready to make his move on
him or until 2024, when he can run under this rigged system.
Another thing that is wrong with Venezuela is they are deeply in
debt. They have serious problems. These are the things we think about.
They owe China about $18 billion, which they don't have the money to
pay. They owe Russia about $3 or $4 billion. Do you know how they are
paying that right now? They are paying it with oil. They are sending
oil to China and to Russia for pennies on the dollar. That is what they
are making because they don't have cash, so they are bartering instead,
paying the debts off in oil.
I know you have seen the public pronouncements. The Chinese just want
to get paid. They are owed $18 billion, and they want to get paid, and
they want to make sure that Maduro or whoever is in power is going to
pay them the $18 billion. But the Russians want to get paid too.
Neither one of them believes Maduro is a great leader or is happy with
him; they just don't know what is going to come after him. They are
afraid that whoever comes after him will state that the debt is not
legitimate because it wasn't approved by the National Assembly. So they
would rather have this guy in place unless it is going to be someone
else just like him. But they are not happy.
The corruption in the national oil company is so horrifying that even
the Chinese and Russians don't like it. That is how bad it is. That has
to be a pretty high standard. Then there is the mismanagement. They
have destroyed this company. Its production has collapsed. It is not
run by oil people; it is run by generals who don't know anything about
the business. They have run it into the ground, and they missed
payments. Remember, they are supposed to be delivering oil for payment.
They have missed deliveries to the Chinese and Russians. They are not
happy about it, but what are they going to do? At least they are
getting paid something.
Russia has another interest, by the way, which leads me now to why we
should care about this.
First and foremost, I can make a very compelling argument, I believe,
that what is happening in Venezuela is a national interest threat to
the United States and even potentially a national security threat.
Let me start with this: Maduro has repeatedly and openly invited the
Russians to establish both a naval and an air base in Venezuela.
Basically he said: Here is the land. We will build it for you. We want
to have your airplanes and naval ships stationed here.

[[Page S579]]

Most of us serving here, with a few exceptions, have never served in
Congress when--and many people around do not remember a time--when a
foreign military, an adversary, was stationed in our own hemisphere,
but that is what Maduro is inviting him to do. Why does Maduro want it?
Because he thinks that acts as insurance against ever having an
invasion or whatever he thinks is going to happen.
Why does Russia want it? They want it because it is leverage against
us. They don't like how close we are to them in Europe with our allies
in NATO, so this gives them an opportunity to have the equivalence of
it in our own hemisphere.
So if you think Putin having his military stationed here is a good
thing, then I suppose what is happening in Venezuela wouldn't bother
you. But the enormous majority of Americans don't want Putin's military
anywhere in our hemisphere, and that is precisely what will happen if
Maduro remains in power. That alone is a national security threat to
the United States.
There is more. In their own national territory, the Maduro regime
hosts a group called the ELN, which is a terrorist narco organization.
In fact, last week the ELN detonated a bomb at the police academy in
Colombia and killed 20 people. Do you know where they are
headquartered? Inside Venezuelan territory, and it is from there that
they plot these attacks.
Do you know what else Venezuela does with the ELN from within
Venezuelan territory? They help them ship cocaine to the United States
of America.
I can state that both of those matters are national security
interests to the United States. The first is that drugs are a threat to
this country, and anyone who is helping a drug trafficking organization
ship it into our country is a threat to us. So if you don't mind or
don't care about cocaine being shipped to the United States in growing
quantities, then I guess Maduro and Venezuela is not something that
will bother you. But if you do not want to see people around who are
helping drug organizations ship cocaine into the United States under
the protection of a government, meaning they are giving them controlled
airspace, and they are protecting the shipments into the United States
and Europe--if that troubles you, then Maduro is a problem.
One of our best partners in fighting drugs in the hemisphere is
Colombia, but right now, Colombia is overwhelmed. They don't have
enough money to dedicate to the anti-drug cause at a time when cocaine
production--the growth of coca and the production of cocaine, I should
say--in Colombia is at historic levels 3 years running. Where is that
cocaine headed? A lot of it is headed to our streets, and that will be
on top of fentanyl, heroin, and all the other problems we have. We are
going to have a cocaine crisis in this country because all that cocaine
is headed here.
Colombia is out there trying to fight against it, but their resources
are being drained because they have at this moment at least 1 million
or 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants who have had to leave Venezuela and
are now in their territory. If the United States suddenly absorbed 1
million migrants over a 12- to 18-month period, we would struggle to
afford what that would entail. Imagine Colombia, whose economy is a
fraction of the size of ours--that means that instead of spending money
to fight drug cartels to prevent them from bringing drugs here, they
have had to dedicate resources to the humanitarian cost of housing over
1 million people, and growing.
It is not just Colombia that is being compromised. Ecuador has about
170,000 Venezuelan migrants. Peru has about 250,000 Venezuelan
migrants. These people are not bad. I am not criticizing the migrants.
But these are not big governments. Some of these governments have
budgets smaller than most of our States have. They cannot afford this,
and it is threatening to collapse their public health system, which
means we may not have a humanitarian catastrophe just in Venezuela; we
may soon have a growing economic catastrophe in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador,
and Colombia--multiple countries in our hemisphere. And geography
matters. It would be a terrible thing if it were happening in Africa or
halfway around the world, but it would directly impact Americans and
our economy and well-being because of how close it is to our country,
in multiple ways.
So if you think that having a humanitarian crisis in multiple
countries in our hemisphere--including countries aligned with us in the
war against drugs--is a problem, then you should care about what is
happening in Venezuela.
What is the road forward now? I hope people have been compelled to at
least understand that this is about more than just caring about
democracy. That is a big part of it. We do care, and we are proud of
it. But it is a lot more than just that. This is in the national
interest of the United States. We should be proud, not just of the
bipartisan support in favor of the interim President and of democracy
in Venezuela, we should be proud of the job the National Security
Council, the White House, and the State Department have done. Unlike 25
or 30 years ago, this wasn't some unilateral American action where we
went in and told everybody what to do; this is international
organizations, like the OAS.
Today, the Secretary of State appeared at the OAS personally to argue
the American case, and he was joined by 15 other countries that voted
on a resolution agreeing with our principles on this and their
principles. The leadership of these countries under the auspices of the
Lima Group has been extraordinary. The United States is an equal
partner to them in this endeavor.
What will probably happen now is that Maduro, instead of being the
one who arrests the interim President, will turn it over to the courts
to let them decide. Well, he controls the courts. They are all his
cronies. They are also corrupt, by the way, sanctioned by the U.S.
Government. He could very well move to try to arrest the interim
President, Juan Guaido, tomorrow or the next day, although the eyes of
the world are upon him, and the consequences for that would be
extraordinary and severe.
They are now saying: Let's have negotiations. This is a tactic they
have used repeatedly, and they use it because they all know we like
negotiations. Everybody--anytime there is an international crisis, why
don't we all just sit down and negotiate our way through this? Ideally,
that would be the outcome. But he doesn't really want negotiations. He
wants a delay tactic. He has done this multiple times. There were
negotiations from the Vatican, and they gave up. Then the former Prime
Minister of Spain was involved in some of these negotiations. Those
were a total catastrophe. He is just doing this to bide time. Now he is
talking about Mexico and Uruguay being the host of the negotiations. I
wouldn't be surprised if he soon says: Let Russia come in and be the
interlocutory. How about that for a national security threat, a
national interest threat--having Vladimir Putin brokering political
agreements in the Western Hemisphere. Putin would love it. He fancies
himself a great global leader. You are going to see him do something
like that, all in an effort to bide time. He has no intention of
negotiating anything.
It bides him time to do what? It bides him time for his fake
constituent assembly to change the Constitution towards one-party rule
or even potentially to call on new flash elections at some point for a
new national assembly under this fraudulent election system he set up.
To many people, he will say: We had an election, and the opposition
lost. But it won't be a real election if the people who could win are
not allowed to run, are not allowed to advertise, have no access to the
media. They control the ballot box, and they extort people with access
to food.
At some point, I wouldn't be surprised to see him declare a state of
emergency, maybe go out there and trigger some fake incident, a false
flag, where agitators go out and commit violence, and he will say: The
protesters are out of control; declare a state of emergency. Why would
he do that? So he can paralyze the streets. No one can be out there
protesting. And if the opposition tries to leave their homes, now they
have a pretext to arrest them.
There is really only one way forward, and that is to do everything we
can to

[[Page S580]]

strengthen the legitimate interim government, and that began today. The
interim President's first request was for humanitarian aid to help
bring food, medicine, and medical supplies to the people inside
Venezuela.
The Secretary of State of the United States immediately announced
that as an initial step, we will provide, immediately, $20 million. I
know they are working on how to deliver that into Venezuela and how
they can position that so the Venezuelan people have access to it. This
is on top of and apart from the aid we are already providing the
migrants in Colombia and other places.
That is a good first step. On day one on the job, the interim
President, Juan Guaido, made a request of the international community,
and America immediately stepped forward. And I believe very shortly, in
a matter of days, there will be significant humanitarian aid--food and
medicine--awaiting the people of Venezuela, either within their own
territory and distributed through the Red Cross or some other
nongovernmental organization or just across the border, where they can
access it.
We have to continue to make clear to the elites in that country that
there is no future for Maduro, that there is no way he can hold on, and
that they need to begin thinking about who their loyalties should be
to--the Constitution they swore an allegiance to, the people they live
among, or some guy whose future is about to come to an end.
I think it is important that the National Guard know that not only
should they not repress the people but that they will be held
accountable if they do. Ultimately, I believe this deeply. I know the
generals and all the guys at the press conference in the fancy uniforms
have sworn allegiance--you know how nervous they were--but I can state
that the rank-and-file fighters did not. Do you know why? Because the
rank-and-file soldier and the midlevel officer in the military don't
have corruption deals; they are going just as hungry as everybody else.
They have massive rates of desertion, people just abandoning posts.
When you saw the images yesterday of the hundreds of thousands of
people in the streets, you know that many of those soldiers have
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and loved ones, wives, and
children in that crowd. Do you know who else knows that? The military
brass. I know for a fact that they have significant doubts. In fact,
they probably do not even believe that if they ordered the military to
act against their own people, the military would, because there is no
way these rank-and-file soldiers are going to shoot on their brothers
and sisters and mothers and fathers and other loved ones.
So we need to step forward and continue with the humanitarian aid. We
need to help use the leadership of the United States to put together
reconstruction aid.
We need to help the interim President with whatever he needs to carry
out a legitimate free and fair and internationally supervised election,
which he should call for in the next 45 days.
This is the path forward. It is in our national interest. It is the
right thing to do. It reflects our values, but it also reflects our
interests as a nation. That is why this matters. That is why we should
care. This is not halfway around the world. This is in our own
hemisphere. It is just a few hours' flight away, and it impacts more
than just one country. It impacts an entire hemisphere.
I will close with this. There has been a lot of criticism
historically over the U.S. role in the Western Hemisphere. During the
Cold War, the criticism was that we were supporting rightwing
dictators, fighting off communism, but we were involved in some coups,
and we had a heavy hand and got in and imposed ourselves. Then we went
the total opposite way, and for many years--in fact, up until recently,
no one talked about the Western Hemisphere, and to the extent we did,
it was about migration and drugs. It was almost, frankly, a complete
abandonment of the portfolio.
What you are seeing now is the potential birth of a new Latin
America--a new Western Hemisphere, one in which the United States is an
important partner but not a unilateral actor. When you see 16 countries
in this hemisphere come together in an economic and diplomatic way,
from Peru to Chile, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil, when you see the
OAS come alive after years of--frankly, when is the last time any of us
here discussed anything of the things happening at the OAS? You start
to see the beginning of not just a way to confront the crisis in
Venezuela but of a hemispheric partnership whose impetus may have been
this crisis but creates a path forward that is in our national
interest. Imagine if, in fact, democracies and free people of this
region came together not just to tackle dictatorships but to tackle
drugs, to tackle the root cause of migration. Imagine a hemispheric 16-
, 18-regional-nation response to what is happening in El Salvador and
Honduras and Guatemala to cause these people to undertake this
dangerous journey with their children, in many cases; imagine if it
wasn't just the United States but us working in partnership with all
these other countries to tackle these hemispheric challenges. I will
tell you, that is in our national interest.
Not only is this an opportunity to do the right thing in Venezuela,
it is an opportunity to give a start to a new hemispheric reality, a
new Latin American reality that serves the national interest in this
country and allows us to live in a hemisphere that is free and
prosperous, where people do not have to abandon their homelands, where
people can stay in their countries, if they so choose, and raise their
families and not have to undertake dangerous journeys to other
countries for fear of their lives.
We have to start somewhere. I can think of no better place to start
than on behalf of the people of Venezuela who have suffered terribly
for far too long under a dictatorial, corrupt regime that tortured
their children and murdered their fathers and mothers and denied a
once-prosperous country the future they deserve.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Government Funding

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor to implore my
colleagues and the President to end the shutdown and reopen the Federal
Government.
We are now on day 34 of this shutdown, which is well past being the
longest in American history. When you think about what our country has
been through: the Civil War, World War I, World War II; you think about
the protests we had; what we had with the country in the Depression;
what we had only a decade ago with the biggest downturn since the
Depression--through all of that, even through a few shutdowns, we
somehow, in this Chamber and in the House and in the White House, were
able to get our act together and were somehow able to keep the
government open.
Now is the time to open the government, Mr. President. The 800,000
Federal employees who are not being paid are keenly aware that this is
the longest shutdown on record. Another sad milestone is coming if the
shutdown continues through tomorrow. These workers will miss yet
another paycheck. These are workers, like a Federal prison worker in
Rochester, MN, who noted to me that the inmates were getting paid but
the prison workers are not. She was so excited to get this job a few
months ago. Her child was in daycare. She is a single mom, and now she
has to decide between taking some other job and moonlighting. What does
she do about the daycare if she takes another job and takes her child
out of daycare and stays home with her child, which would make some
sense, except she wouldn't have enough money, and then she would lose
her spot in the daycare. It is very hard to get daycare in Minnesota.
Instead of working on those kinds of what I would call opportunities,
at a time when our economy has been stable after we had gotten out of
the downturn, we have been working out of chaos. Instead of helping her
to afford childcare and figuring out smart solutions, or doing
something about pharmaceutical prices, or doing something about college
costs, or training our workers for the jobs of today and tomorrow, or
enacting comprehensive immigration reform so our rural areas in my
State, where we don't have enough workers on our farms and in our
fields and in our factories--we

[[Page S581]]

should be working on those opportunity issues--instead, we are trying
to crawl out of chaos.
We need to reopen the government and get these workers back on the
jobs providing vital services for the American people. Once it is open,
as my colleagues have made clear and as leadership has made clear, we
can continue negotiations with the President about border security. I
am someone, as is my colleague from Pennsylvania, who voted for a bill
that had over $40 billion in border security that was part of
comprehensive immigration reform. We did this, but was it a wall
through the entire border? No, it was not. It allowed the experts to
decide where there should be technology, where there should be fencing,
where there should be barriers, where there should be personnel. That
is the way to do this.
There is no reason our Federal workers and the American taxpayers who
rely on the vital services provided by the Federal workers should be
held hostage while these policy negotiations take place. The pain that
this shutdown is causing is real, and it is getting worse.
The administration has implemented many creative measures to try to
blunt the public outcry against the shutdown, but these measures are
being held together by duct tape. We use duct tape a lot in Minnesota.
We try to put things together, but we shouldn't be using duct tape to
tape together our entire government.
Our Agencies are running out of money, and many are reaching the
breaking point. Earlier today, the five former Secretaries for the
Department of Homeland Security, including our first DHS Secretary, Tom
Ridge, and John Kelly, President Trump's former Chief of Staff, wrote a
letter urging an end to this shutdown and full funding for the
Department of Homeland Security. In their letter, the former
Secretaries noted that Congress always prioritizes funding of the
Defense Department as a matter of national security.

Congress does so because putting national security at risk
is an option we simply can't afford. DHS should be no
different.

The administration continues to explore ideas like a national
emergency declaration to bypass Congress. The irresponsibility of all
of this is breathtaking. Yesterday, the presidents of the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association, the Air Line Pilots Association, and
the Association of Flight Attendants released a terrifying joint
statement pointing out the risk the shutdown presents to air travel:

In our risk-averse industry--That is putting it mildly--
we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at
play, nor predict the point where the entire system will
break. It is unprecedented.

I have talked to the air traffic controllers in my State. I have
talked to the TSA workers who sit there every day and do their job
without pay. In this letter, they go on to state that the ``air safety
environment . . . is deteriorating by the day.''
Reading this statement does not give me confidence, nor does the fact
that a full 10 percent of our Transportation Security Administration
agents are now missing work because of financial limitations--meaning
they can't cover the daycare and transportation expenses required to
come to work. Those who can come to work are surely distracted by
worries about how they will pay their bills.
As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, I worked with my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle last year to reauthorize the
Federal Aviation Administration. We were rightly proud of the law,
including the third title, simply titled, ``Safety,'' which had 90
individual provisions designed to maximize the safety of air travel for
the American people. We required updated safety training procedures for
airline professionals, sought to improve safety on our Nation's runways
and in rural areas, and updated the laws regarding engine safety. This
matters a lot in my State. We are a major hub in the Minneapolis-St.
Paul area. We are the State that manufactures jets up in Duluth at
Cirrus. We are the State that has major Minnesota National Guard
facilities that train flight inspectors and aviators and people all
over the country. Aviation is incredibly important in my State.
In our bill, we required updated safety training procedures for
airline professionals, sought to improve safety in our Nation's runways
and rural areas. As the Senator from Pennsylvania and Florida know,
rural air service in our States are key, and we updated those laws.
We are hearing the entire system of air travel may break, and for
what? What does air travel have to do with border security? The short
answer is, air travel has nothing to do with border security, except
when we are checking our airports and making sure they are safe when
there are border flights. If we are talking about a wall across the
southern border, that has nothing to do with our airports in Minnesota
and in Pennsylvania and in Florida. I have long favored increasing our
border security through smart technology.
As I mentioned, our 2013 immigration bill, which passed this Chamber
with a number of Republican votes--many of whom are still here--
included money for an additional 40,000 Border Patrol agents. As we
know, most drugs come into this country through our ports of entry. If
we want to do something about the various problems with the drugs
coming into our country, things like heroin from Central America and
from Mexico and things like other opioids, then we should be doing
something about those ports of entry.
As has been the case all along, there are proposals on the table that
will reopen the government and end this senseless shutdown. The House
has now passed legislation that will fund the government under any
number of arrangements. It includes bills that fund all remaining
government Agencies through the end of the fiscal year--bills that fund
individual Departments and Agencies, most having absolutely nothing to
do with this debate that is raging in the White House.
The last bill that was passed through February 8, a short-term basis
that would have taken us through February 8, would have allowed the
President and Congress to negotiate a longer term proposal. That was
the bill we passed in the Senate. This last bill was even coupled with
additional funding for disaster relief--a priority for both parties
that wish to help Americans in States that have suffered through
hurricanes and wildfires.
Earlier this afternoon, the Senate voted on the short-term funding
proposal. While the proposal did not gain the required 60 votes to gain
consideration, I was encouraged by the fact that 5 Republican Senators
joined Democrats in voting to consider this bill. This is progress, and
we need to build on that momentum by working together to do the right
thing for the American people.
On Monday, we celebrated Martin Luther King's life. One of the things
Martin Luther King once said was that ``the time is always right to do
what is right.'' This is the right time. We can't just keep waiting
while government Agencies remain shuttered. There are 6,100 Federal
workers in the State of Minnesota who are not receiving their
paychecks. Farmers, small business owners, and taxpayers are going
without vital services from their government, major portions of which
have been closed for 34 days. It is time to reopen the government.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the shutdown, as my
colleague, the senior Senator from Minnesota, just did. I am grateful
for her comments on what is happening to people in Minnesota, the
direct adverse impact of this shutdown on their lives. We have all seen
it. We have all experienced it.
I will be referring to specific testimony from people who wrote me
letters, but let me just highlight one experience I had the other day
at a food bank in Central Pennsylvania, just miles from our State
capital--a food bank that serves 27 of our 67 counties.
I was talking about how this shutdown could end. The President wanted
the shutdown. He got the shutdown, but he could also end it. Prior to
the discussion we had, behind us, they had an entire table full of food
items that the food bank and others in that region of Pennsylvania were
delivering to Federal workers, especially to TSA agents, who cannot
afford food because they are working but are not being

[[Page S582]]

paid. It is hard to comprehend that. It is hard to comprehend that so
many veterans around the country are, once again, serving their country
by serving in the government as they served in combat or in the
military; yet they are being left out in the cold, so to speak--
sometimes literally--but are, obviously, being left out when they don't
have paychecks.
So this is real life. We debate bills and budgets and appropriations
here in Washington. We have debates on the floor and debates and
discussions in the hallways, but for these folks, this is real life. I
will just point to, maybe, five examples in Pennsylvania.
Adams County, which is in the southernmost part of our State, where
Gettysburg is--just on the Maryland border--is not a big county by
population. Here is what one individual who is married to a Federal
worker wrote. I will just quote her in part.
She writes:

We are expecting our first child this summer and, prior to
December 22, were excited about the future and potential of
2019. Now we are anxious, sad, and angry, not knowing where
the money will come from to buy necessities for this child,
let alone medical expenses related to birth and daycare.

She goes on to write later in the letter:

We are now in real and serious danger of losing our home
and our vehicles. We will soon have to choose between buying
groceries or paying for the electric bill.

She goes on from there. She is one Pennsylvanian in Adams County.
Here is one from Cambria County, which is in the southwestern part of
our State.
This individual wrote: ``My husband is a Federal employee who has
been furloughed.''
She goes on to write:

We have a son in elementary school. It is about time for
spring sports sign-ups, but we don't know how we are going to
pay our bills or buy groceries. It is our son's birthday in
less than 2 weeks. We canceled his birthday party to save
some money.

That was from Cambria County, PA.
The third one I will highlight is from Delaware County, which is one
of the big, suburban Philadelphia counties. It is a big population
county.
Here is, in part, what this individual wrote: ``My in-laws are
selling their home and cannot go to settlement because the FHA will not
close a mortgage for the buyer.''
That was among several things they wrote in the letter. In the
interest of time, I will not read all of it, but we hear these stories
all the time of people not being able to complete the work on a
mortgage because of the impact on the FHA.
Here is one from Montgomery County, which is also a suburban
Philadelphia county.
This individual wrote:

I am a law enforcement park ranger for the National Park
Service. . . . I am the sole provider for a family of four,
to include two young children. Not knowing when I will get
paid again is putting undue stress on the entire family.

That word ``stress'' keeps coming up either directly in these letters
or by implication. Over and over again, we hear of the stress this
shutdown is putting on families across America.
The last one I will highlight is from Warren County, which is in the
northwestern corner of our State. It is a much smaller population
county than were the two suburban Philadelphia counties I just
mentioned of Montgomery and Delaware.
Here is what this individual wrote from Warren County:

Both my wife and I are federal employees working for the
U.S. Forest Service. We are also both veterans. We will be
using our savings to live off of and charging food to our
credit cards if we must.

It goes on and on, and I know the Presiding Officer has seen the same
thing. We have all seen and heard much about this. There is not enough
time tonight to go through every letter.
This is what has to be the priority of all of ours. We have to be
responsive to these cries for help, to be responsive to Americans who
are just asking us to open the government so they can be paid, so they
can make ends meet, so they can pay for groceries, so they can pay
their mortgages--or to even have a mortgage in some cases--so they can
pay for basic necessities, and so they can sometimes even just pay for
birthday parties for their sons. Over and over again, we hear these
stories.
As my colleague from Minnesota made reference to, I was encouraged
that, today, we had two votes. There was a likely expectation prior to
the votes that they wouldn't get enough to pass, but at least we were
voting. At least we were voting on one measure that one side favored
and were voting on another measure that my side of the aisle favored. I
was also encouraged that five Republicans voted for the Democratic
proposal, which is very simple--to fund the government, to open the
government, and add disaster assistance for emergencies from natural
disasters. The lives of people are adversely affected by so many
natural disasters, but this is also, of course, an emergency--funding
the government so as to make sure that workers have their pay and to
make sure people are served by important programs like the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program. Of course, we could make a long list of
programs that are important to people's lives.
In the case of the so-called SNAP program--what we used to call food
stamps--you are talking basically about children, seniors, and people
with disabilities. These are most of the people who get benefits from
the SNAP program. They are only guaranteed help from that program
through February. There is no certainty about March. There is no
certainty about April or the forthcoming months. It is just one program
that serves millions of Americans that has already been adversely
impacted because of the shutdown.
Whether you are talking about a mom or a dad who is a Federal
employee or whether you are talking about someone who needs the help of
the Federal Government--people who we have said over many generations
deserve that help--in either case, it is unacceptable to them, and it
should be unacceptable to us to not have the government open. We have
lots of time to debate many issues after that, but priority No. 1 has
to be to open the government. Then we will have a lot of time for
debate on a range of issues.

Remembering Harris Wofford

Mr. President, I conclude tonight with some brief remarks. We are
going to have several occasions to amplify these remarks in the coming
days regarding the passing of Senator Harris Wofford, the Senator from
Pennsylvania from 1991 to the early days of 1995. I just want to offer
some personal remarks. In a short timeframe, it is very difficult to
encapsulate the life of any individual, obviously, but in this case, it
is impossible in a few short minutes to encapsulate the life, the
contributions, and the achievements of Senator Harris Wofford, so I
will just highlight a few. If you were to just read his resume, you
would think you were reading the life story of the achievements of
several people instead of just one.
To give you some highlights, he was an early advocate for civil
rights. He was someone who stuck his neck out to march with Dr. King,
his good friend, and to advocate on behalf of the Civil Rights Act of
1957.
He then worked for President Kennedy as a special assistant for civil
rights and prepared the way for the great breakthroughs of the
midsixties, of the civil rights legislation of the sixties. He worked
with Sargent Shriver and others in the Kennedy administration in the
formation of the Peace Corps, and he served in that capacity overseas.
As I mentioned, he was a good friend of Dr. Martin Luther King's and
participated in the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches in 1965 in
support of voting rights for African Americans.
He was the President of two different colleges--one in Pennsylvania,
Bryn Mawr, which is a great college. It is one of the best in the
country.
I got to know Harris Wofford before he was Senator Wofford. It was
when he worked for the new Casey administration, when my father was
elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1986. He put together a cabinet in
the early part of 1987, and he appointed Harris as the Secretary of
Labor and Industry--one of the big departments in State government.
It was from that position that he was chosen to be a U.S. Senator. It
was after the tragic and untimely death of Senator John Heinz, who
passed away in April of 1991. Harris was named that next month. He was
elected in 1991 to complete that term and then lost his reelection in
1994, but Harris was not done with service.

[[Page S583]]

After serving in the Kennedy administration and in the Senate--after
doing such great work on education and civil rights in the interest of
justice--he continued his work. He worked very hard to make sure that
the Martin Luther King holiday was not just a holiday but a day of
service. So he and others came together in the midnineties--after
Harris was out of office and after he had left the Senate--to make sure
that day would be a day of service. Now, all of these years later--more
than 20 years later--hundreds of thousands of people across the country
perform acts of service, engage in service, on that day.
We will spend more time highlighting his life here on the Senate
floor and in other places around the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and,
I am sure, across the country, but let me just conclude with these
words: Harris Wofford was a champion for justice. In the Scriptures,
they tell us that those who pursue justice should be blessed. Blessed
are they who will hunger and thirst for justice for they shall be
satisfied.
Harris Wofford was never satisfied when it came to justice. He was
always trying to march us forward. He was always urging us to do more
in the interest of justice, in the interest of civil rights, and of
equal rights. He was a champion for justice. That is probably an
understatement. He was also a person of uncommon courage to stand up as
he did on civil rights when it was not easy--when, at times, it was
literally dangerous.
In addition to his courage, he was a person of integrity and decency.
He always wanted to know what others were doing, what other's lives
were like, what they hoped for our country. He was always curious about
other people's lives and what he could learn from them.
To say that he lived a life of service is, again, an understatement.
I don't know of anyone who served in so many different capacities,
whether it was in the Army Air Corps in World War II, whether it was in
leading the way on civil rights for President Kennedy, or whether it
was here in the Senate in his helping to create opportunities for
service. He not only lived that life of service, but he challenged all
of us. Whether we were public officials or citizens, he challenged us
to serve. He lived the words of Dr. King, the words of service. Dr.
King said that everyone can be great because everyone can serve. Harris
Wofford was great for lots of reasons, but he was also great, of
course, because he served.
We will have more opportunities to amplify this small measure of
commendation to Harris Wofford, but on a night like tonight, we are
thinking of him. We are inspired by him, and we are grateful for his
service and for that of his family's.
I had a chance to talk to his son Dan, who has been a friend of mine
for a long time, just hours before his father passed away. I was
honored to talk to him in those difficult hours.
Mr. President, in remembering Harris Wofford, as we will do more
formally in the next number of days, I want to thank him for his
service to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and for his service to
America.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Tribute to the Senate Pages

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, today is the last day for the Senate pages
who are here with us today. This is a little known fact--I didn't even
realize this until it was presented to me--but the 115th Congress,
which we just concluded, had more session days than any Congress since
1951. That goes to tell you that these pages worked incredibly hard,
and we are grateful. We hope their experience here was rewarding. They
should know that there are several Members here serving on this side
who once sat there.
I shouldn't be here by the time the pages get here, I hope, but we
look forward to their service to our country in the years to come in
whatever they decide to do.
Thank you for all of your work.
We truly appreciate the time they have put in.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that their names be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Abby Solomon, Eve Downing, Sophia Valcarce, Ellie Ralph,
Luke Baldwin, Benjamin Stimpson, Travis Christoff, Elli
Ament, Shira Hamer, Holden Clark, Hardy Williams, Luke
Schneider, Alex Little, Luke Lilly, Robert Hess, Nicholas
Acevedo Foley, Collin Woldt, Sophia Clinton, Amelia Gorman,
Myra Bajwa, Renee Clark, Allison Leibly, George ``Win''
Courtemanche, Luke Turner, Lucy Besch, Victoria Roberts.

____________________