[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 26, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H1290]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      A REPUBLIC IF WE CAN KEEP IT

  (Mr. TRAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TRAN. Mr. Speaker, in 1787, after the Second Continental 
Congress, Benjamin Franklin was asked: Do we have a monarchy or a 
republic?
  He solemnly replied: a republic, if you can keep it.
  For nearly 250 years, those immortal words have lived at the heart of 
our Republic. Representative democracy is not just something that 
appears, it doesn't happen by accident, and it isn't maintained by 
sheer inertia. We have to fight each and every day to maintain it.
  I am the child of refugees. My parents came to this country from 
Communist Vietnam in search of the very freedoms that had been ripped 
away from them in the country of their birth. I joined the Army when I 
was 18 years old because I wanted to protect the freedoms that have 
given me so much.
  I fear that this President does not share this same commitment to our 
Republic. He seems not to care whether we keep it or not, as long as 
his personal political desires are met. This is a trying time for our 
Republic, and I invite my Republican colleagues and the rest of America 
to join me in fighting to keep our Republic.

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