[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 12, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S165-S166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Biden Administration

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 12 months ago, a newly inaugurated 
President Biden stood on the west front of the Capitol, and here is 
what he had to say:

       My whole soul is in this: bringing America together, 
     uniting our people, uniting our nation.

  Yesterday, that very same man delivered a deliberately divisive 
speech that was designed to pull our country further apart.
  Twelve months ago, this President said we should see each other not 
as adversaries but as neighbors. Yesterday, he called millions of 
Americans his domestic ``enemies.''
  Twelve months ago, the President called on Americans to ``join 
forces, stop the shouting, lower the temperature,'' but yesterday, he 
shouted that if you disagree with him, you are George Wallace. George 
Wallace? If you don't pass the laws he wants, you are Bull Connor. And 
if you oppose giving Democrats untrammeled one-party control of the 
country, well, you are Jefferson Davis.
  Twelve months ago, this President said ``disagreement must not lead 
to disunion.'' Ah, but yesterday, he invoked the bloody disunion of the 
Civil War--the Civil War--to demonize Americans who disagree with him. 
He compared--listen to this--a bipartisan majority of Senators to 
literal traitors. How profoundly--profoundly--un-Presidential.
  Look, I have known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for 
many years. I did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday.
  American voters did not give President Biden a mandate for very much. 
He got a tied Senate and negative coattails in the House--the narrowest 
majorities in over a century. The President did not get a mandate to 
transform America or reshape society, but he did arguably get a mandate 
to do just one central thing that he campaigned on. Here is what that 
was: Bridge a divided country; lower the temperature; dial down the 
perpetual air of crisis in our politics. That is the one central 
promise that Joe Biden made. It is the one job citizens actually hired 
him to do. It is the one project that would have actually been 
consistent--consistent--with the Congress that voters elected. Ah, but 
President Biden has chosen to fail his own test.
  The President's rant--rant--yesterday was incoherent, incorrect, and 
beneath his office. He used the phrase ``Jim Crow 2.0'' to demagogue a 
law that makes the franchise more accessible than in his own State of 
Delaware. He blasted Georgia's procedures

[[Page S166]]

regarding local election officials while pushing national legislation 
with almost identical language on that issue.
  The President implied that things like wildly popular ID laws are--
listen to this--``totalitarian.'' Totalitarian? Ironically, on the same 
day, Washington, DC's Democratic mayor told citizens to bring both a 
photo ID and a vaccine card anytime they leave the house.

  The President repeatedly invoked the January 6 riot, while himself 
using irresponsible, delegitimizing rhetoric that undermines our 
democracy.
  The sitting President of the United States compared American States 
to ``totalitarian states.'' He said our country will be an 
``autocracy'' if he does not get his way--if he does not get his way.
  So the world saw our Commander in Chief propagandize against his own 
country--his own country--to a degree that would have made Pravda 
blush. There was no consistent standard behind anything the President 
said. He trampled through some of the most sensitive and sacred parts 
of our Nation's past. He invoked times when activists bled and when 
soldiers died, all to demagogue voting laws that are more expansive 
than what Democrats have on the books in his own home State.
  Georgia has more days of early voting than Delaware or New York. 
Georgia has no-excuse absentee voting, which Delaware and New York do 
not have. If Georgia or Texas presents Jim Crow emergencies, then so do 
a whole lot of Democratic-run States.
  The Senate Democratic leader has gone on cable TV saying Georgia ``is 
greatly restricting or eliminating early voting.'' That is a lie, 
provably false. Georgia has more early voting than New York. The 
Democratic leader has tried to fearmonger about one rural Georgia 
county that condensed multiple voting locations into one--one rural 
Georgia county. Well, the county is overwhelmingly red. They were 
clearly not involved in trying to suppress Democratic votes--70 percent 
Republican in that one county in 2020.
  So take a step back for a minute. President Biden's story is that 
democracy is on death's door, but he spent 9 months chasing a reckless 
taxing-and-spending spree before addressing it. It must not be that 
much of an emergency. Citizens are meant to believe a return of Jim 
Crow is on the table, but this was only President Biden's sixth 
priority after he was blocked from spending $5 trillion on windmills 
and welfare. Democrats' own behavior refutes their false hysteria.
  Twelve months ago, the President said that ``politics need not be a 
raging fire destroying everything in its path.'' That was just 12 
months ago, but yesterday, he poured a giant can of gasoline on the 
fire.
  Twelve months ago, the President said every disagreement doesn't have 
to be a cause for total war, but yesterday, he said anyone who opposes 
smashing the Senate--smashing the Senate--and letting Democrats rewrite 
election law is a domestic ``enemy'' and--listen to this--a traitor 
like Jefferson Davis.
  One week ago, President Biden gave a January 6 lecture about not 
stoking political violence--1 week ago. Yesterday, with the world's 
largest megaphone, he invoked the literal Civil War and said we are on 
the doorstep of ``autocracy.'' He talked about domestic ``enemies''--
rhetoric unbecoming of a President of the United States.
  In less than a year, ``restoring the soul of America'' has become 
this: Agree with me or you are a bigot. Agree with me or you are a 
bigot--from lowering the temperature to invoking totalitarian States 
and the Civil War.
  This inflammatory rhetoric was not an attempt to persuade skeptical 
Democrat or Republican Senators. This whole display--this whole 
display--in fact, you could not invent a better advertisement for the 
legislative filibuster than a President abandoning rational persuasion 
for pure demagoguery. You could not invent a better advertisement for 
the legislative filibuster than what we have just seen: a President 
abandoning rational persuasion for pure--pure--demagoguery.
  A President shouting that 52 Senators and millions of Americans are 
racist unless he gets whatever he wants is proving exactly why the 
Framers built the Senate to check his power.
  This whole display is the best possible argument for preserving--
preserving--the Senate rules that extend deliberation, force bipartisan 
compromise, and let cooler heads prevail. Nothing proves it better than 
this episode. It offers a perfect case study in why Senator Biden was 
right about the filibuster and President Biden is wrong.
  One respected scholar explained it this way:

       The smallest majority we've ever seen in our politics is 
     trying to change the rules for how people get elected in 
     every [single] state. . . . That's just about the best 
     argument for the filibuster you could possibly imagine.

  The citizens of the greatest country in the world deserve for their 
elected officials to treat them like grownups. The adults of America 
deserve to hear from the adults in Washington, DC.
  I will close with some basic truths.
  Obviously, our country is more divided than it should be, no doubt.
  In recent years, I have vocally criticized people across the 
political spectrum who have sought to legitimatize elections when they 
win and delegitimize democracy when they are polling badly or when they 
lose.
  I criticized the top Democrats' hysteria after 2016, when their 
rhetoric had 66 percent of Democrats across America falsely convinced 
that Russia had hacked our voting machines and changed the tallies. 
Sixty-six percent of Democrats thought that after 2016. I criticized 
Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats who spent the runup to 2020 hyping 
conspiracy theories and suggesting the election would presumptively be 
illegitimate if their side lost.
  In December 2020 and January of last year, our side of the aisle 
defended our constitutional process despite political pressure, and we 
had, of course, a literal mob. But now it is President Biden and Leader 
Schumer and other Washington Democrats who don't like their poll 
numbers. So they are reversing their tune yet again. The people who 
spent November 2020 through January 2021 preaching sermons about the 
strength and the sanctity of our democracy are now undertaking to 
delegitimize the next election in case they lose it.
  We have a sitting President--a sitting President--invoking the Civil 
War, shouting about totalitarianism and labeling millions of Americans 
his domestic enemies.
  We have a Senate Democratic leader who now frequently calls American 
elections ``a rigged game.''
  Look, this will not be repaired with more lies, more outrage, and 
more rulebreaking.
  Unfortunately, President Biden has rejected the better angels of our 
nature. So it is the Senate's responsibility to protect the country. 
This institution was constructed as a firewall against exactly--
exactly--the kind of rage and false hysteria we saw on full display 
yesterday. It falls to the Senate to put America on a better track. It 
falls to us. So this institution cannot give in to dishonorable 
tactics. We cannot surrender to this recklessness. We have to stand up, 
stand strong, protect the Senate, and defend the country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.