[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 27 (Monday, February 10, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S822]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             2024 ELECTION

  Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, Donald Trump, as we all know, won the last 
election in November, and he is now the 47th President of the United 
States. But Donald Trump did not, contrary to what he and the Vice 
President want people to believe, win by anything close to a landslide.
  As this chart shows, out of a total of 155,238,302 votes, Mr. Trump 
won 77,302,000, or 49.8 percent. Kamala Harris won 75 million, or 48.3 
percent. President Trump won, but just slightly over 2 million votes 
more than Kamala Harris. The difference between them was 1.5 percent of 
the popular vote.
  And although it was one of the smallest margins of victory since the 
19th century, President Trump, in his inaugural address, and others in 
the inner circle of Trump repeatedly called the victory a 
``landslide,'' a ``blowout,'' a ``mandate,'' ``historic.''
  Do you know what a real landslide is? Lyndon Johnson, in 1964, won by 
22.6 percent. Ronald Reagan won by 18.2 percent. Those are landslides.
  Why does it matter? Because facts matter. The truth matters. And we 
cannot survive in our democracy without respect--much more respect--for 
the truth. It is also really important because whether you are running 
for the U.S. Senate or for the Presidency of the United States, when 
one goes from candidate for office to the President or the U.S. Senator 
in office, the responsibility that we have is to all the people in our 
district and--certainly for the President of the United States--a 
responsibility to all the people in the United States. We serve all, 
whether they voted for us or against us.
  But what has been happening with the assertion that this was this 
massive landslide is that it has become the justification for narrow 
policies that completely disrespect the reality that so many other 
Americans need to be represented and heard and, also, is so narrow that 
even those who voted for President Trump for a variety of reasons are 
not getting policies they thought would be included.
  The ``America First'' policies, so far, have cut funding for programs 
to protect water that all Americans need, clean air that we all 
breathe, whether it is a voter who was for Trump or a voter who was for 
Harris. We are cutting funding for medical research for cancer, cures 
for kids who have cancer, for food assistance to feed malnourished kids 
and parents who are in every district in this country--and, of course, 
most spectacularly, what we are seeing is the illegal termination of 
the USAID program, something the courts have rescinded but the 
administration is rushing pell-mell, nevertheless.
  All of this, actually, is in service of being able to find offsets in 
order to pay for the Trump tax cuts that are heavily weighted to folks 
who are billionaires like Mr. Musk and, of course, to our major U.S. 
corporations. The folks who need a tax cut are the everyday Americans 
who have been trying to make ends meet and are having real trouble 
doing that.
  The White House is not even trying to hide what they are doing. You 
have got Elon Musk--you know, it is pretty astonishing. He owns 
Twitter, which is a source of immense misinformation. He is now trying 
to buy ChatGPT. He has massive amounts of government contracts for 
Starlink and for his space program. And he has contributed $280 million 
to the Trump campaign.
  And now, without any elected authority, without any advice and 
consent to the Senate on a position that is very powerful, the so-
called DOGE Administrator, he has access to the private information of 
millions of Americans--all that confidential information about your 
Social Security and mine that is in the Treasury Department.
  So how is that happening? That is not in service of the folks who 
didn't vote for Mr. Trump. It is not even in service of people who did.
  It is important that elections and the outcomes of elections be 
respected. In this last election, just like in 2020, the people who 
oversaw this election worked hard to ensure that it was free and fair. 
We don't all get the outcome that we want, but it was free and fair. 
The difference in this election is that we, on the losing side, 
accepted the result. We didn't falsely claim that it was stolen--the 
``Stop the Steal'' narrative--as President Trump continues to assert 
about 2020 and most of his Cabinet nominees do as well.
  We didn't try to prevent the outcome from being certified or to 
promote an insurrection by a violent mob, folks who actually attacked 
and injured people in this building and police officers--spit in their 
face, hit them, hit them with poles. And we had police officers who 
died after that attack.
  Falsely denying the outcome of an election and then using violence to 
overturn the result of a free and fair election absolutely subverts the 
democratic process. And as every American voter knows, free and fair 
elections--like the checks and balances between our three coequal 
branches of government--are absolutely essential to the well-being and 
continuation of our democracy.
  In the inaugural address that the President gave, I did not hear 
anything about childcare or the cost of housing or bringing down the 
cost of prescription drugs and making healthcare more affordable--
things that everyday families in every single part of this country need 
help with to be able to pay those bills and, at the end of the month, 
have their checkbook still balance.
  If and when the President starts focusing on those issues, I and my 
colleagues are absolutely ready to work with him and our colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle because those things--affordable broadband, 
affordable healthcare, affordable housing and rent, some economic 
security--those are things every single one of us needs. And the 
challenges that we face, whether it is in red America or blue America--
to try to have better policies to make that happen are things that we 
must be working on together. But not where what comes first, last, and 
always are these tax cuts that explode the deficit and go to folks who 
are not now paying their fair share.
  So as long as President Trump and his allies pretend that he has this 
massive mandate to literally disrupt and throw out the traditions and 
norms and guardrails of democracy, that is something I and so many of 
my colleagues will resist.
  We can't do that. The law matters, respect for your opponents 
matters, and focusing on the everyday needs of everyday people is what 
matters most. It is what is the goal all of us should be looking to 
accomplish.
  So there was no mandate--no massive mandate. There was a victory; but 
with victory, to describe it as this smashing mandate is a suggestion 
that what awaits us and has already arrived is overreach and failure.
  I yield the floor.

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