[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 71 (Tuesday, April 29, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2631-S2642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Trump Administration First 100 Days
Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, today, President Trump completes the first
100 days of his return to the White House, and it has been nothing
short of transformational.
Under President Trump and Vice President Vance's leadership, we are
witnessing the rapid implementation of campaign promises that are
already reshaping America's policy landscape. When I go home to Wyoming
each weekend, people approach me everywhere, from restaurants to the
feed store, eager to discuss the positive changes happening in
Washington. The overwhelming sentiment is enthusiasm for what President
Trump is accomplishing for everyday Americans.
For example, on day one, President Trump restored the dignity of men
and women as biologically distinct sexes. It is hard to believe he had
to do that, but, indeed, he did. One of the administration's first
major actions was signing an Executive order directing Federal Agencies
to recognize biological sex in athletic competition.
The left spent the past 4 years gaslighting Americans and making the
failed argument that biological males should now be competing in
women's sports in the name of fairness. Within a few weeks of taking
office, President Trump tackled this issue and made it clear that this
administration won't support the left's attack on female athletes. I
believe this is the women's rights issue of our time, and I am grateful
for President Trump's leadership.
For some people my age, we spent so many years trying to exercise our
rights under title IX and other rights to recognize women's rights,
only to have them swept under the rug and disregarded by the left,
requiring that women not only compete against men but have them in
their locker rooms in what were uncomfortable and, in some times,
unsafe circumstances. President Trump recognized this and, thankfully,
has put that issue to rest for a while.
President Trump is also delivering on his promise to unleash American
energy dominance. A few weeks ago, I joined President Trump and some of
my colleagues at the White House for his signing of an Executive order
that starts to reverse the Biden and Obama administrations' anti-coal
agenda. For energy States like Wyoming, the official lifting of the
unconstitutional coal moratorium represents a significant economic
opportunity for western States.
By removing unnecessary restrictions on energy extraction, the
administration has signaled its commitment to blue collar jobs, cheaper
energy for American families, and a new era of energy dominance.
Joe Biden and his administration didn't care about the impact their
regulations have on working-class people. The Trump administration does
care, and they are continuing to take action that will help Americans
and our amazing energy communities.
Wyoming exports 12 times more energy than it consumes; and much of
that is in the form of hydrocarbons. And each and every year, for years
after the Clean Air Act passed, we were producing more energy and
producing cleaner air. These things can happen simultaneously. And it
is because of Yankee ingenuity and it is because we know how to do
things better all the time, we don't have to accept the status quo when
it comes to energy dominance.
But there were certain people in the Biden administration that forced
something called environmental justice, an absolutely trumped-up,
dreamed-up idea that we can't have clean energy
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and abundant energy at the same time. That is a totally wrong-headed
approach to what has always been a great American tradition of
ingenuity and entrepreneurs who can take a problem and solve it.
There is such a thing as clean air that can be produced from coal and
natural gas, in particular, and I am proud that my State is part of
that. I am proud that President Trump recognizes it and that he has
taken steps to restore our statutory ability to produce both clean air
and abundant hydrocarbon energy simultaneously.
Perhaps the most dramatic turnaround has been at the southern border.
Where the Biden administration created chaos, President Trump has
restored order--through multiple Executive actions, signing the Laken
Riley Act, ending catch-and-release, re-implementing ``Remain in
Mexico,'' and more. We have seen border encounters plummet from nearly
380,000 in February and March last year to just 22,000, plus a few,
during the same period this year.
The people of Wyoming are grateful to have a President who cares
about securing our border and deporting those who are not here legally,
especially those from gangs that are causing unsafe communities,
horrible crimes perpetuated on the American people--all unnecessarily,
if we only followed the laws that were in existence and the statutes
that were in existence all along, those laws that President Biden
ignored and that President Trump is following and implementing.
For decades, America's leaders have failed our country when it comes
to fiscal responsibility, and we in this very Chamber are partly
responsible for that. Our $36 trillion national debt represents a real
and present threat to America's future.
We all know it is unsustainable. And yet, after COVID, we never went
back to pre-COVID spending levels. We have kept spending at post-COVID
highs, even though the moneys spent during the COVID years is no longer
necessary in our now more growing and robust post-COVID economy.
Most taxpayers don't realize their hard-earned dollars primarily
service this massive debt through interest payments rather than funding
national defense and essential services. That is why I strongly support
President Trump's creation of the Department of Government Efficiency--
DOGE. It was done through a provision in ObamaCare and its subsequent
ability to gain efficiencies through efforts that computers can assist
us with.
And nobody knows better how to do it than the people who have
voluntarily participated through their expertise and ability to
identify waste, fraud, and abuse, using the Department of Government
Efficiency and their remarkable skills with computers to ferret out
waste, fraud, and abuse.
Elon Musk and the DOGE team have already identified a huge number of
wasteful programs and abusive expenditures that don't benefit American
families. All of us should be proud, in both parties, that the rhetoric
that we have used over the years that we are going to pay for things by
ferreting out waste, fraud, and abuse and then after elected, don't
even try to find waste, fraud, and abuse, has finally come to an end.
Elon Musk and his team have found true waste, fraud, and abuse in
government and is identifying it so Cabinet Secretaries can deal with
it in their respective Agencies. That is exactly the kind of fiscal
discipline that we value in Wyoming--that we all should value as
Americans.
After years of the Biden administration's unbridled hostility toward
digital assets and cryptocurrency, President Trump is fulfilling his
promise to lead the most pro-digital asset administration in history. I
could not be more proud. We know that we are moving into a digital
future, a digital economy. It is something we should embrace. It is
something we can include in a new, modern 21st century economy.
It is not something to fear. But it is something that cries for
consumer protections, and our incredible ability that we have as
Agencies to disclose matters that should be disclosed to investors and
to allow innovation where it makes our ability to do business
internationally, faster, cheaper, and more responsible. Through the
ledgers, the blockchain's incredible ability to send money all over the
world fast and inexpensively helps regular, everyday Americans avoid
the tremendous friction that is in the banking system that costs
taxpayers money and costs taxpayers time and allows us to do business
all over the world in a much less expensive and a robust way.
What a blessing to have an administration that sees the future in
this way, that understands the innovation that is at our fingertips and
that we can use to go forward in a true 21st-century digital economy.
I am particularly pleased with President Trump's support of my
strategic Bitcoin reserve initiative, which will address our national
debt while securing America's position as the global leader in
financial innovation.
As Bitcoin comes into more usage, its use makes the whole system more
secure, more robust, and more capable of serving our needs all over the
world. We should be the global leader with this fantastic, new, ledger-
based asset that is in a digital format that is going to be
transformative of the everyday economy and puts the everyday American--
in fact, the everyday worker all over the world--in control of their
own money. What a wonderful blessing for hard-working people all over
the world to have this great, new technology and to have America lead
the way in implementing this wonderful, wonderful innovation.
Here in the Senate, we have confirmed 54 of President Trump's Cabinet
and sub-Cabinet nominees. It has required some long hours--many in the
middle of the night, much to our consternation. But our work is far
from complete.
The Democrats' agenda threatens to impose crushing tax increases on
hard-working Wyoming families and our local small businesses. If the
tax cuts that were implemented under President Trump's first
administration are allowed to expire, it will create the largest tax
increase in history at a time when businesses need the innovation that
allows our economy to grow. That can come through a robust, fair tax
system. This is something that I look forward to assisting my
colleagues in this body to implement in a permanent form and using our
current standard practices.
Following years of punishing inflation under the Biden
administration, our communities and working families cannot shoulder
any additional financial strain, and keeping our Tax Code as is and
making it permanent is yet another way of implementing advantages for
local working economies.
It also just delights me that President Trump identified just real
working Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, who are living
paycheck to paycheck, and tried to identify ways to tax-advantage their
lives--for example, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax
on overtime hours. These are things for regular, everyday, working
people.
Some people allege that President Trump is trying to help his
billionaire buddies. I am not seeing that at all. I am seeing a
President who really gets the everyday working American and wants to
make sure that as they live paycheck to paycheck and try to plan for
their families, there is some relief in store for them with regard to
his proposals for taxes.
These first 100 days of President Trump's return to office represent
just the opening chapter of America's golden era. Already, his
administration has made remarkable progress in securing our southern
border, revitalizing American energy independence, cutting wasteful
government spending, supporting innovative digital asset policies, and
restoring America's rightful leadership position globally.
We know even today that as countries are renegotiating their trade
policies and tariff policies with us, there is a newfound desire to
find a level playing field, parity, and reciprocal trade agreements
that allow for some of our products to go into their economies in ways
that acknowledge that the United States has been globally at a trade
disadvantage and to try to repair some of those long practices where
the United States was participating in free trade and other countries
were not. It is time to make it all fair trade. I applaud President
Trump's desires to do that hopefully soon so we can get some of the
turmoil associated with these important changes to our economy behind
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us and restore stability in our economy and our everyday lives.
I anticipate the next 100 days will bring equally significant
achievements, and I feel deeply privileged to work alongside this
administration and this President.
I served 14 years in the Wyoming Legislature, all with Democrat
Governors. I have served 12 years in the Congress, all with Democrat
Presidents. This is the first time in my entire life that I have
legislatively served with a President of my own party. It is
refreshing, it is delightful, and it is even, on occasion, fun.
I feel so privileged to be here with a Republican President who is
delivering meaningful results to the people of Wyoming and our great
Nation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the jury is in. At the end of 100 days,
the major polling firms across the United States went out and asked the
American people: So what do you think? What is your impression of this
new President? What is your impression of the MAGA agenda?
The results that came back don't surprise me, but they might surprise
some. Overwhelmingly, on every major issue that this administration has
taken a position, the American people have said: We don't like it. We
are not happy with what is happening in this country today.
After all the promises in the last political campaign about dealing
with the cost of living for ordinary Americans, there is little or no
progress to be shown for the 100 days of President Trump.
For 100 days, President Trump and his administration--mainly
billionaire buddies like Elon Musk--have brought us chaos, wreaked
havoc, and sowed division. President Trump has undermined the
Constitution and our system of checks and balances and the rule of law.
Through it all, I am sad to report that my Republican colleagues have
remained silent.
I got a call several weeks ago, before the Easter break, from CEOs of
major corporations, some in my State and some not. I had not heard from
them before. Why they called me puzzled me a little bit. What it boiled
down to was they were desperate for information about the policy
decisions here in Washington. What did it mean that this President,
Donald Trump, started a trade war and then announced he was going to
put it on pause for 90 days? What were they supposed to do in terms of
the future of their businesses? Were they to assume that the tariff tax
war had begun, that in order to import key elements and parts to their
production, they would have to pay tariffs of 10, 20, 30 percent? 100
percent? What did I know about it?
I couldn't answer because I didn't know the answer. I am not sure
anyone knew the answer.
Somewhere in President Trump's mind is a theory of tariffs that he
believes is going to make America stronger. These business leaders said
just the opposite. Because of the uncertainty of these tariffs and the
uncertainty of our trade relationships, they were going to hold back.
They couldn't risk it. And that is the reality of what we face today.
When it comes to specific cases in this administration, it is hard to
explain how we have reached this point.
When Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father who was living legally in the
State of Maryland with his family, was sent to a terrorist prison in El
Salvador because of what was said in court to be an ``administrative
error,'' where was the outrage that this man was treated so unfairly,
with no evidence except, perhaps, a tattoo that might be connected with
a gang? There was no evidence that took this man out of the United
States and put him in a prison in El Salvador.
Our colleague Senator Chris Van Hollen went down to see him and the
conditions he is being held in and never came back with a satisfactory
answer of why this man was being charged with a crime.
Now, you remember how many times Donald Trump gave speeches at
rallies, and he said that we are being overrun by murderers and rapists
and terrorists and mentally ill people who came to this country and
shouldn't be here, and as a consequence, they were going to change
things when he was elected President.
What they changed was to take this Mr. Garcia, living legally in
Maryland with his family, and, through an administrative error, threw
him into a hopeless prison in El Salvador. Is that what America is all
about now? Because he had a surname like ``Garcia,'' we can ignore any
reference to due process?
The President went so far as to suggest he would do the same thing to
an American citizen. Now, of course, he says things which he later
disavows, but it is outrageous to think a President of the United
States would suggest that an American citizen, without due process,
would be relegated to a terrorist prison in a foreign country. The
American people don't care for that much, and neither do I, because it
happens to offend this document: the Constitution of the United States.
Can you imagine an immigrant living here under a protected status
torn from his home and family for no legally justifiable reason, and
then the administration says it was an ``administrative error''?
While the Trump administration continues to avoid facilitating the
return of Mr. Abrego Garcia as the Supreme Court has ordered him to do,
Republicans have remained silent.
It was about 6 weeks ago. There were several key appointees by the
Trump administration to positions in the Department of Justice. They
included a Solicitor General and two other Deputy Attorneys General.
During the course of questioning, I asked these individuals a basic
question: Do you believe that an executive official can defy a legally
held court order? I thought the answer was clear: It is no, and it
should be, whatever the President's party may be. Yet they struggled to
come up with an answer that suggested maybe, in some cases, it was all
right to defy a court order.
We have been through this in America. The case of Brown v. Board of
Education in 1954 was an effort to integrate schools across America for
the first time--an extremely controversial decision, and several other
decisions followed from it. But there was a legal court order for that
to happen. In order to move forward, you have to start by obedience to
the court order. You can criticize it within the realm of ethics, and
you can even appeal it, but you can't ignore it. Yet these officials
headed for the Trump Department of Justice wanted to equivocate on the
answer.
Who came to my rescue on my argument? A Republican Senator from
Louisiana, John Kennedy, who came in and addressed the three nominees
and said: Let me make it clear to you--I paraphrase him I think
accurately--your options with a legal court order are to be critical
within the bounds of ethics and to appeal the decision if you disagree
with it, but you have to obey that order or resign your official
position.
That was as clear an explanation as I have ever heard. But under the
Trump administration, they believe they are above the law. Some do.
Or take Donald Trump's ill-conceived, mindless tariff tax war, which
I mentioned earlier. Global markets plunged when he came out with his
proposals in the beginning of April. It wiped out trillions of dollars
of wealth from the stock market and will cause Americans to suffer from
higher prices and smaller export markets.
The advice which many people are giving to those who are worried
about their IRAs and 401(k)s is: Don't look at it. Don't look at the
balance. You are going to be too depressed when you see it.
And it is because of the chaos in the Trump White House when it comes
to our trade policy and economics. While their constituents saw their
retirement funds drain and grocery bills skyrocket, sadly, my
Republican colleagues remained silent.
Rinse and repeat the cycle. Donald Trump threatens to withhold
Federal funds from higher education institutions to coerce them to give
up their constitutional rights. It is hard to imagine--we are talking
about modern America--that a President of the United States who is
unhappy with what is being taught at a college or a university
threatens to remove all of their Federal funding.
For God's sake, this is a democracy. Freedom of speech is part of
what we
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admire in this country so much and what is part of our future and our
past. Yet, when it comes to President Trump, he has decided that if
they want to teach something that he doesn't care for, whatever it may
be, they are going to lose Federal funding. That is being tested in
court.
The Secretary of Defense violates national security protocol and
shares classified war plans in a Signal chat that mistakenly includes a
journalist listening to the conversation. You would think that at least
one hard-line Republican conservative, some hawk in their ranks, would
stand up and say: That is wrong, regardless of who the President may
be. But they didn't. The Republicans remain silent.
Unelected billionaire Elon Musk and his DOGE brothers gut the Federal
Government, leading to cuts to lifesaving medical research, Americans
unable to get their Social Security benefits, and threats to Medicaid.
What was the response from the Republican side to these outrageous
developments under the Trump administration? Silence.
When our Nation's Founders began the lofty task of building our
democracy, they created a system of checks and balances to ensure a
stable government and prevent the abuse of power.
In 1788, James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 51:
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. In framing a
government which is to be administered by men over men, the
great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the
government to control the governed; and in the next place
oblige it to control itself.
But it seems the ambition of the Republican-controlled legislative
branch is all but absent as Donald Trump's government goes out of
control. Never in our Nation's history has a coequal branch of
government so willfully rolled over and ceded their power. It is, in
fact, the silence of the lambs.
The President is testing--and violating--the bounds of our
Constitution, amassing power for himself as the economy tanks,
violating the rights of Americans, and destroying our image abroad. My
congressional Republican colleagues have the power to join us in a
bipartisan effort to stop it.
Has it ever happened in history? It did, very graphically, in
history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was upset with the Supreme Court and
its rulings on New Deal programs. He went through a reelection cycle
and was reelected by a large margin. He then came here to Washington
and said: My first order of business is to increase the number of men--
all men then--serving on the Supreme Court so that I can finally get
the rulings that I am looking for on my key elements of the New Deal.
What was the reaction of the Democratic Congress to the Democratic
President, Franklin Roosevelt, who wanted to pack the Court? The
reaction was fierce and it was bipartisan in opposition to FDR and he
had to drop the plan. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress
realized that if a President can control the composition of the Supreme
Court and its rulings, that we have lost a valuable part of the
protection of our Constitution.
My congressional Republicans have the power to join us in a historic
stand on so many areas that this President has violated. They have
majorities in both Chambers of Congress, and in private moments many of
them express outrage and horror at Trump's dangerous abandonment of
law, norms, and the will of the American people. But as their
constituents suffer, out of fear of retaliation, Republicans remain
silent.
When we are elected Members of Congress, we swear an oath to the
Constitution, not to any politician or any President. It is time both
parties remembered that and lived accordingly. So I am coming to the
floor regularly to highlight the President's latest outrage and the
GOP's inevitable silence in the face of it. Until they start using the
voices they were elected to raise, we are going to continue to have a
pending constitutional crisis in this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I totally support the comments of the
minority whip.
It is 100 days, and it is time to assess. Whatever you may say about
President Trump and the stated goals, there is an obligation to act
functionally to achieve those goals. Stating you want an outcome is a
long way from implementing a plan and executing a plan to achieve it.
And there is no plan. There is absolutely no plan.
Let's talk first about DOGE. DOGE is about, supposedly, getting rid
of waste, fraud, and abuse. Now, there is not a single Member of this
Congress who is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse, but if you are
going to do that, you look at a Department: What is its goal? How is it
achieving it? Where is it coming up short? You do an assessment, and
you do a plan.
What DOGE did was essentially get the personnel list and then send
out emails to every fifth or sixth person saying: You are fired because
you did a lousy job.
So it is not at all on the level. It is not at all on the level. And
as a result, the real goal becomes revealed. It is not to eliminate
waste, fraud, and abuse. It is, say, to eliminate USAID. It is to
eliminate the Department of Education. It is to eliminate the Social
Security response team. That is what is going on.
And the challenge for us--and this is bipartisan--is whether we, as
an independent branch of government, want to look at what is before our
very eyes and address it or simply ignore it.
Let's take the other so-called plan that is going to make us rich,
more revenue than we can ever deal with. And that, of course, is the
tariffs. The tariffs are going to be seen by historians as the absolute
worst economic blunder in the last 100 years.
Whether you are a farmer in Vermont or in Utah or in the Dakotas,
these tariffs are hammering you. Most of our farmers in the northern
part of the country, we import our fertilizer and we import, in many
cases, grain to feed our animals from Canada. This tariff is going to
hammer farmers who are already contending with what farmers every year
have to contend with: very tight margins, the will of the weather. This
is having a real impact on them.
In Vermont, we had roundtables with people from various industries
and asked: How are these tariffs going to affect you?
No. 1, what tariffs? What are they today? Supposedly they were 25
percent yesterday. Then they are suspended. Then they are back on. They
apply to this part but not that part. No possibility of anybody making
a plan in order to run their business.
But across the board--and, by the way, these are folks who came in
and are affected by the tariffs. They are not Republicans or Democrats
or Independents; they are really folks just trying to make a living.
And they may have their political preferences, but what they are
talking about is the real-world impact of these crackpot tariffs that
are on again and off again with the President.
But some of the folks who spoke: Small business owner Jason
Levinthal, founder of J Skis, said:
This is essentially a tax on the consumer.
Something the administration won't acknowledge itself.
Mimi Buttenheim, President of Mad River Distillers:
Tariffs radically affect our manufacturing arm by raising
the price of raw materials.
Jen Kimmich, cofounder of The Alchemist Brewery:
We don't know how they're going to affect us, we just know
they're going to affect us.
John Lacy, CEO of Burton Snowboards, one of the global enterprises
founded in Vermont by Jake Burton and Donna Carpenter:
How can you navigate the playbook if you don't know what
the rules of the [road] are?
It is a fair question, and it is a question that the administration,
President Trump, feels he has no obligation to answer.
So this goes on and on. You have got the economic issues, the
tariffs. You have the attack on the institutions. USAID is a good
example, and it is a vulnerable target because there is a lot of
misinformation about USAID. A lot of folks think it is about 25 percent
of our budget. And I see we have the ranking member of the Foreign
Affairs Committee here who knows this better than anyone else. It is
like 1 percent of our budget.
It creates, first of all, the alleviation of enormous suffering among
many people who are absolutely starving,
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among many people who need medicine, among many people who need water
to help with agriculture, to be able to feed themselves. It is
something that had bipartisan support in this Senate Chamber, with many
of my Republican colleagues--your colleagues--leading the way for
America to make a contribution as the greatest and most wealthy Nation
in the world.
That was just shut down, literally. Notices went out: You are fired.
Notices went out: Your program is terminated. Notices went out: Turn
the ship around and bring the food back.
And the impact of this on these USAID workers who have dedicated
their lives to being a representative of our country, doing something
beneficial in other countries? They just got the termination notice
that they haven't been doing a good job. Obviously, not on the level.
But when I think about the cruelty of the way in which this was done;
that in those warehouses where food is stored, the local population who
is hired and paid to take the food from the warehouse and deliver it to
where those starving children needed the food were fired. And we
literally have food rotting in warehouses rather than nourishing
families' children.
The same is true with medicine. We won't deliver it. It is over
there. It is where it is needed. It can be delivered. But the way in
which the Trump administration, with Mr. Musk, is proceeding is to
literally take that food away and take that medicine away rather than
deliver it. So that is not at all on the level.
There is not, here, an effort to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse.
There is an effort here, essentially, to destroy these institutions
that have served this country. And I just want to state very clearly
that those of us who are appalled by this conduct are all in favor of
looking at every program, from SNAP to the Pentagon: How can we do it
better? How can we get more for less? How can we get the most out of
the folks who are serving in those organizations? But that is not what
is going on.
Then there is the next step: the overreach of power; a lawless, in my
view--absolutely lawless--abuse of Executive authority. You know, what
business is it of Donald Trump what the hiring practices are of an
individual private corporation or firm? It is the business to enforce
the law, but it is not his business to be able to tell a law firm: We
will take contracts away. It is not his business to be able to tell a
law firm: Since you had somebody who represented the government in a
case against Trump or some Trump person or ally, we are going to punish
you and not allow you, in fact, into a court building or to get access
to the secure information that is necessary to defend somebody who is
in court.
This is a complete overreach and extension by the President,
essentially to impose his own will--not enforce the law--but to enforce
his will as he arbitrarily wishes.
What sense does it make that because of his vendetta about higher
education, that instead of addressing those concerns and having
discussions, he literally takes away billions of dollars of research
that has gone not just to Harvard, our oldest institution, but the
University of Alabama, the University of North Carolina where you have
people who, to our benefit, have dedicated their lives to scientific
research; that because the United States Government has provided
support for research and development--we have had cures for terrible
diseases--but if they don't do what Donald Trump says, he will take
away grants that actually have legally been transferred to these
academic institutions--destroying research--destroying research and
development.
It is this arbitrary use of power beyond enforcing the law but having
the Trump vision of what he wants be the law. And this brings me to the
point that the Minority Whip was making: You know, this is not just a
question for each of us as a Member of the U.S. Senate to decide, When
has the Executive overreached? It is about the obligation we have in
both parties to uphold the constitutional system of checks and
balances.
As many people have said, James Madison made the clear point that
absolute power is the biggest threat. And if it is in any single
branch, it has the capacity to bring down the entire structure of
democracy.
Now why is that important? It is important not just because democracy
is a form of government we are taught as young people to revere and to
be proud of, that we have this oldest democracy in the world; it is
because democracy is the tool by which the citizens in Utah and the
citizens in Vermont who may have very different points of view on a
whole number of important issues have that right to have a seat at the
table to have a discussion about, How do you resolve these differences?
And if we don't stand up for that, it means there is going to be a
small circle of well-connected people around President Trump who make
all those decisions and make it from the framework of what is best for
them as opposed to what is best for all of us. That is the real threat
here. That is happening.
You know, the fact that the President won't acknowledge so many
failures of just--for beginning the tariff policy, and what we are
seeing in this economy that is now revolving around this question of
tariffs and on whom will they be imposed--what you are seeing is that
if you are Apple computer and you are at the inauguration, you can call
up the Treasury Secretary, you can call up the President, and you can
point out that these tariffs are going to have an enormously negative
impact on Apple.
But if you are a farmer in Vermont, if you are a snowboard
manufacturer in Vermont and you don't have Secretary Bessent's
telephone number on speed dial or the President's, you don't get to
make that call, and you will have to live with that enormous impact on
your cost structure and on what you have to charge customers and see
your market evaporate.
It is as though the President is transforming the economy we have had
that has been based on competition--you succeed if you have the best
product and the best service--into an economy that is based on access.
Do you have the Treasury Secretary's telephone number so you can make
your case? Do you have the President's number so you can make your
case? And who knows what conditions the President imposes on whoever it
is he is going to give the benefit of his capacity to make an exception
for you or for your business.
That is called corruption. And the worst thing that we can do is to
inject, as a material factor in the way the economy works, a corruption
that is based on your ability to get special treatment because you have
made campaign contributions, because you have made certain other
concessions, because you looked the other way. That is what is
happening right now.
You have got an administration that, in the name of waste, fraud, and
abuse, is destroying institutions. You have got an administration that,
based on an assertion that tariffs will make us rich, is causing
inflation, causing enormous business uncertainty, and is, ultimately,
going to lead us into a recession.
You have got an administration that has now weaponized the Justice
Department, the FCC, governmental entities where, yes, they have a very
important responsibility to enforce the rules and regulations but where
their targets are cherry-picked for political reasons. And that is very
damaging to the long-term well-being of our country and our democracy.
It is time for this Congress to make an assessment of our obligation
to the citizens we represent. When is enough enough? When has the
Executive gone too far? When is it that all of us should heed the pleas
of the businesses, the enterprises in each of our States about this
chaotic, very destructive tariff policy?
When is it we will say ``no more'' to an Executive pushing his weight
around with private law firms, private employers, with our
universities, and telling them unless they do it his way, they will pay
an enormous price in lost governmental funding or access to things that
they need?
Mr. President, in my view, 100 days of giving a lot of rope and a lot
of license to the Executive is 100 days too many, but it is not too
late for us, as Congress, to stand up for the separation of powers, the
balance of powers, and the prerogatives of the United States Senate and
the United States Congress.
I yield the floor.
[[Page S2636]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, 100 days ago, our Nation was safe and
our economy was considered the envy of the world. We had disease
surveillance programs that were in place to stop the spread of deadly
viruses like Ebola, no matter where they broke out in the world, and
the security contracts at detention camps that have been filled with
ISIS fighters were still being paid.
And if our Nation was attacked by a foreign enemy or if we were
thrown into a global pandemic or even a global economic crisis, our
allies had our backs. They had our backs because they knew that in
their darkest hour, the United States would stand with them.
Then, unfortunately, the Trump administration took over, and in 100
days, this administration has undone six decades of investments that
have made the United States more respected and influential than any
other nation.
The administration and the President have raised and lowered and
raised and lowered tariffs against some of our closest allies and
neighbors, spiking costs for Americans and hurting our manufacturers
and the defense industry.
Instead of the promised golden age of America or golden age of
prosperity and lower prices, of safety and security, of our enemies
bowing to our demands, the resulting chaos has left us weaker and more
vulnerable. From global financial markets to New Hampshire
supermarkets, consumers and businesses aren't sure what to expect.
They are looking at higher prices, at layoffs, at longer wait times,
and at uncertainty, which many businessowners I have talked to tell me
it is just as bad as higher tariffs because they don't know what to
expect, and they can't plan.
I recently met with a New Hampshire company called New Hampshire Ball
Bearings. It is a company that makes bearings for the aerospace
industry, and they do a lot of business with our Department of Defense.
They are concerned because once the tariffs were announced, their
only domestic steel manufacturer has increased its cost to be
equivalent to what out-of-state companies--out-of-country companies are
charging.
But worse than that, they said that their lead time for steel that
they use for the aerospace industry and for our Department of Defense
has gone from 20 weeks to 2\1/2\ years. I mean, think about that. The
lead time to get the steel they need to make the ball bearings has gone
from 20 weeks--which is a long time in and of itself--but now it is
2\1/2\ years because of the tariffs.
And the administration's attacks against U.S. research and academic
institutions, against our international students, have also caused
serious damage to our reputation as a global hub for STEM talent, not
to mention those students who are graduating from our colleges and
universities who we want to attract to stay in the United States
because they are the next generation of talent.
The policies of this administration have left us more vulnerable to
the spread of deadly diseases like Marburg and Ebola. They have
crippled our response to disasters like hurricanes in the Caribbean, as
we enter what is expected to be an active hurricane season.
And just today, the Secretary of Defense said he would end the Women,
Peace, and Security program at the Department of Defense. Now, he
mistakenly said this was a program that was put in place by the Biden
administration. That is not true. He didn't even--he wasn't even
concerned enough to go back and look at the history.
This is legislation, and it is a law--it is not a rule--it is a law
that we passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration. I know
because I sponsored it. The House sponsor was our current Secretary of
Homeland Security Kristi Noem. It had support from our current National
Security Adviser, former Congressman Waltz, and it was bipartisan
legislation.
It is not some DEI program--some program that is designed to provide
women an advantage in the Department of Defense. What it is is a
program that gives us a security advantage.
Every combatant commander who has come through my office has
highlighted the strategic advantage that this program gives to our U.S.
forward deployed forces, and it gives us that advantage because our
adversaries don't have this kind of program.
One of the reasons we passed it in the first place is because what we
know from the data is that when women are at the table in a negotiation
to end conflict, that the negotiations that are agreed to have a better
than 30-percent chance of lasting 15 years or longer because women are
at the table.
It is an advantage that it gives us because China and Iran and North
Korea and Russia don't have that role for women in their military. What
Secretary Hegseth's action has done is not only showed his ignorance,
but is now putting our military at a disadvantage because of that
ignorance.
Now what these kind of actions do is to create opportunities for our
adversaries to gain influence. It is not just giving Vladimir Putin the
chance to keep stringing along American negotiators, to continue to
play President Trump as he is trying to secure a Ukraine peace deal,
but across the globe, China is stepping in everywhere the United States
is retreating.
After the earthquake in Myanmar, the Chinese Embassy flooded social
media with images of Chinese rescue workers responding to crises,
instead of the United States because we weren't there at all because
the three people we sent to assess the damage to see what we needed to
do to help were fired while they were in Myanmar trying to figure out
what we can do to help that situation.
So China's image is being bolstered at our expense.
Across Africa and Latin America, Chinese Ambassadors are giving
interviews focused on the unreliability of the United States as a
partner. They are inviting local officials to all-expense-paid trips to
Beijing to discuss further cooperation.
China is now replacing a canceled American program for child
nutrition in Cambodia, and Beijing just announced an early childhood
project in Rwanda, where the United States recently cut our program.
They are even moving in, picking up the PEPFAR Program that we have
walked away from in Africa, after saving millions of lives. These cuts
represent a serious strategic error on behalf of the United States
because for less than 1 percent, about 1 percent of our annual budget,
America has been able to build partnerships around the globe that have
reduced the threat of illness and the spread of disease, including here
at home, because thanks to these programs around the world, we have
nearly eradicated polio, we have cut malaria deaths by half, and we
have saved 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS. And these successes
strengthen America's reputation on the global stage, they help counter
our adversary's influence, and they help us here at home, because it
means that diseases like bird flu don't reach America's shores, where
they are now. It means that we can track those diseases.
So whether it is through its mismanaged trade war or deliberate
weakening of U.S. standing overseas, the administration is facilitating
China's global rise. That is why, as the ranking member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, I am committed to working with my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve the vital programs
that we need to keep our country safe.
I am committed to speaking up for American families and small
businesses that have been shouldering the burden of higher costs
because of President Trump's trade wars.
So I know he is not listening, but I call on President Trump to
reverse course, to spend the next 100 days fulfilling the promises that
he made during his campaign--promises to make our Nation safer, to make
it more secure, to make it more prosperous.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow the ranking
member on the Foreign Relations Committee and to be followed by another
distinguished member of that same committee and to focus on these first
100 days.
The focus on the first 100 days of an administration, I think, comes
from
[[Page S2637]]
the time of Franklin Roosevelt and his 100 days in the midst of deep
depression, despondency, and despair on the part of the American
people, and the whirlwind of activity that he brought to addressing our
Nation's depression.
And there are dramatic differences between those 100 days and the 100
days we have seen from President Trump. First and foremost, our economy
was at near full employment, at a time of solid prosperity, 100 days
ago, and we are now sliding toward exactly the kind of economic
downturn that F.D.R. helped to address.
Second, in those first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration,
there was a whirlwind of congressional activity, inspired by the
President, with his proposals for new Agencies and programs and
investments. Congress was a partner. In this administration, President
Trump has acted unilaterally by Executive order--illegally,
unconstitutionally, and unchecked, except by courts that have been a
bulwark.
In those first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration, F.D.R.
appealed to our ``better angels,'' our willingness to give back, to be
generous to our fellow Americans. He later inspired us with the call to
``a rendezvous with destiny.'' In this administration, which is plagued
with corruption, crypto theft, and Musk exploitation of Agencies, it is
a downward spiral, a race to the bottom in an appeal to self-indulgence
and self-enrichment.
There are many, many other differences, but the whirlwind of activity
here has produced chaos. That is the operative word: chaos. The turmoil
and turbulence have produced confusion and, yes, anxiety, deep fear,
and apprehension about the future of this country. And the poll numbers
only reflect not only the downward spiral of our economy but of our
confidence in the future.
This administration has been cruel, and it has been dumb. It is
unmatched for its meanness and stupidity--the harm and hurt done to
everyday Americans in real life and realtime; the harm in tariffs
already having effect on the uncertainty of businesses about the
future, their inability to plan, to invest in new manufacturing, and
the fear of people that they will be jobless and lose the dignity of
work and be hit with higher prices for everything from groceries to
gasoline, to housing; the harm done in healthcare already, our
federally qualified health centers deprived of funding, NIH research
grants for curing cancer, for diabetes or hypertension canceled or
frozen; in education, the uncertainty and loss of funding for special
education and other programs that benefit children and the neediest and
most vulnerable of our districts, in rural areas as well as urban; and,
of course, the damage to our fundamental freedoms, women's reproductive
freedoms, the suspension of title X grants, and the assault on women's
healthcare--other freedoms: the basic due process of people who should
have a right to receive notice and the opportunity to be heard before
they are deported, before they are detained, before they are imprisoned
or put on a plane to be imprisoned out of the country.
Basic fairness and due process rights that involve also the President
intimidating law firms with threats that they will be denied access to
security clearances or even to go on to governmental property, and
intimidation and threatening our universities, supposedly in the name
of anti-Semitism--nobody hates anti-Semitism more than I do, but I
despise using anti-Semitism as a pretext or a guise simply to attack
people or institutions because they disagree with a public official.
We live in a time when the rule of law is under threat, perhaps as
never before in my lifetime, and the cause of freedom, all around the
world, is in jeopardy. Ukraine has been betrayed. This Nation has
switched sides to the enduring and deep detriment of our standing in
the world, our reliability as a partner and ally. The harm may be
irreparable.
We must stand with Ukraine. We now have more than 60 cosponsors of a
Russia sanctions bill that I have been proud to lead with Senator
Graham--it is bipartisan, evenly divided in cosponsorship--to send a
message to Vladimir Putin: We are going to hit you, and we are going to
hit you hard economically if you continue to stall and string along
America, if you continue to play the President.
But Donald Trump has been a seemingly willing partner in being played
by Vladimir Putin, his bro, his role model, perhaps.
Nobody has a stronger right to claim credit for preserving our
freedoms in the past and now than our veterans, and they have been
betrayed by this administration. For our veterans, it has been 100 days
of chaos, of cruelty, stupidity, anxiety on their part, and
apprehension, and 100 days of decisions made about their healthcare and
their benefits. They were promised healthcare, and they were promised
benefits. And now this administration is breaking those promises, not
by coming to Congress and asking for a rescission or changing the PACT
Act, which we passed in a bipartisan way, but simply by firing the
people who were supposed to approve those claims for PACT Act benefits
for veterans who have been exposed to toxic chemicals or burn pits.
And this is an administration that has fired already 2,500 of those
dedicated VA employees, close to one-third of them veterans themselves,
thousands from the Federal workforce, generally, close to 30 percent of
them are veterans as well. And make no mistake, every one of these days
has been a time of crisis for those veterans. Since day one, the
administration has systematically shortchanged and betrayed veterans
with its policies.
They have not only fired that 2,500 in reckless mass terminations of
probationary employees--our young workforce, starting out on jobs, our
VA future, and some of them dedicated multiyear employees who have just
been promoted and, therefore, are in those new positions on a
probationary basis. They have been promoted because they were good at
their jobs and dedicated and hard-working, and they have been fired.
That is why I have proposed the Putting Veterans First Act, which
would put those veterans back on the job--all of them from the VA--and
put those veterans back on the job from the Federal workforce, and make
sure that anybody who is terminated in the future gets a right to a
personal, individual evaluation, and not just fired because Elon Musk
wants to meet certain numbers or apply an algorithm or have his tech
bros pick out randomly, arbitrarily names from the list.
There are 83,000 of those VA jobs on the chopping block. The approach
of this Secretary of the VA, of Elon Musk, and Donald Trump is ``Fire
first, plan later''; ``Fire first, evaluate later.''
I am disappointed that so many of my Republican colleagues are
seeking to minimize or diminish the human impacts of these cuts,
because I am hearing from veterans, just as I am from people in
Connecticut and all around the country.
I went to Michigan just last week to talk to folks there. Those human
impacts are heartbreaking because these actions are heartless, and they
are impactful not only on the incomes of these people but on their
self-worth, their sense of dignity. They have devoted their lives to
caring for veterans, and now, with the sweep of a hand, they get the
back of a hand from Elon Musk, who has never ever even thought about
wearing the uniform of the U.S. military.
These human impacts include world-class researchers who are looking
into how to predict stroke risk among veterans; enrollment of veterans
into clinical trials for advanced cancer delayed because of the VA's
hiring freeze; openings for new clinics that have been delayed because
the VA can't hire the necessary staff to open their doors; the VA
mental health staff forced to conduct counseling sessions in open
cubicles without privacy, basic privacy, for the veterans who are
talking about their innermost doubts and fears; service lines at VA
hospitals and clinics that have been halted; beds in operating rooms at
VA facilities that have been suspended. We are hearing about VA supply
teams now understaffed and behind on placing critical supply requests
for medication and equipment; support lines for caregivers that have
been reduced; Veterans Crisis Line employees fired and, after a public
backlash, maybe some rehired, as we heard today in a hearing of the
Veterans Affairs' Committee. But the impact is enduring because suicide
prevention has to be done in the moment, and suicide
[[Page S2638]]
prevention training sessions have been postponed or canceled.
Earlier this month, the Secretary announced he will be abruptly
canceling the VA Servicing Purchase Program, known as VASP, on May 1.
Now, I know very few of my colleagues have heard about VASP, but it is
a program that enables veterans to get some very temporary, short-term
help so they can avoid eviction from their homes and the homelessness
that we are all ashamed to acknowledge continues to exist in the
greatest country in the history of the world.
Our veterans are on the streets without shelter because they lack
homes, and here is a program designed to keep them in their homes, and
the Secretary is canceling it.
With housing more unaffordable than ever and veterans losing their
jobs, I am at a loss--total, absolute loss--to understand how he can
cancel a critical program that helps veterans undergoing financial
hardship to stay in their homes.
I challenge the Secretary of the VA; I challenge the President of the
United States; I challenge my colleagues across the aisle: Instead of
saying yes blindly to Elon Musk, when he says ``Slash and trash the VA,
fire those thousands of people, and end those programs,'' look at them
not as waste but as an investment.
Yes, if there is waste, let's eliminate it. But as the national
commander of the VFW--Veterans of Foreign Wars--said to us in one of
our hearings, when he was wounded in combat, the surgeon who took the
shrapnel out of his arm did it with a scalpel; he did not cut the arm
off with a chain saw. Let's give up Elon Musk's chain saw, and if there
is waste, do it with a scalpel.
These first 100 days have been disgraceful and shameful, cruel and
dumb, deeply un-American. These VA employees are the ones delivering
healthcare to the people we love and revere.
To my colleagues across the aisle, I just want to remind you in
closing that this is a moment that will define you, your career, your
reputation. It is a moment of profound historic challenges that has
been recognized with massive marches here in the Nation's Capital, in
Connecticut, around our State--New London, New Haven, Westport, New
Britain. I have been to many of them.
Veterans are one of most powerful voices in our country, and I urge
them to use those voices and their faces to say: We need the PACT Act.
We need veterans' healthcare. We need to fulfill our promises.
As VFW commander Al Lipphardt said at that hearing, apply pressure
and stop the bleeding.
These heartless and heartbreaking cuts, firings, freezes are un-
American. My Republican colleagues, who have been almost entirely
silent, please do the right thing. Our country has made a sacred
promise. Our duties as Members of Congress is to keep our promises.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Lummis). The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Madam President, in 100 days, in 100 days, what can a
President accomplish? In the last 100 days, President Trump has made
Americans less safe, less prosperous, and less free. He has chosen to
move us in a direction at home and abroad that is the opposite of what
those who voted for him expected and that is aligned with what those of
us who worked against him feared.
What I have heard my whole life, whether in business or in foreign
policy, as a lawyer or in my community as a local elected official:
Folks need trust, and they need predictability. Businesses say they
need predictability in order to decide what to invest in, who to hire,
where to grow. Other countries around the world say that they need to
know they can trust us, that they can rely on us. And in the last 100
days, President Trump has shattered both of them.
I am going to speak for a few minutes about foreign policy because so
many of my colleagues in my caucus have stood to talk about the
disastrous cuts led by Elon Musk and DOGE and the ways they have
impacted Americans all over the country. But if you think about our
reputation globally, statement after statement and tweet after tweet by
President Trump has puzzled, concerned, even alarmed our allies. He is
going to invade Greenland, a NATO ally. He is going to take back the
Panama Canal. He is going to take over the Gaza Strip and make it
``Mara-Gaza.'' He is going to turn Canada into the 51st State.
One of my Republican colleagues has said: Don't pay so much attention
to what he says; look at what he does.
Well, lots of our partners and allies have looked at what he has done
by imposing tariffs on trusted allies and partners and recoiled.
An election in Canada last night where Trump was the issue elected a
new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who ran on a platform of standing up
to America, of standing up to Donald Trump.
Look, folks, the actions he has taken in slashing foreign aid, in
abandoning decades-old, bipartisan programs around the world that save
lives and that help other countries to trust us and rely on us, have
weakened us abroad and created openings for our pacing threat, the
People's Republic of China.
I was recently in the Philippines, a nation that faces more natural
disasters every year than any other country on Earth--more typhoons,
more earthquakes, more volcanos. For decades, they have relied on the
United States and the help of USAID, volunteers, nonprofits coordinated
through our government to respond to these disasters. It has built a
long and close partnership of trust. Gone.
I was recently in Taiwan, a country looking to decide whether they
can rely on us should China make real their threats to reunite Taiwan
with the mainland by force. Can they trust us?
Well, what I am going to say is that in 100 days, President Trump has
shown weakness in Europe and created openings for China.
We have long relied on a global network of allies and partners to
keep us safe and strong, to make us prosperous, and to build our role
in the world. China doesn't have that. They have nervous neighbors,
client states, countries that can't count on them and view them as
predatory. Yet now, through the actions of President Trump, Elon Musk,
and DOGE, and the silence and the collaboration of Republicans in this
Chamber, even our closest, most trusted allies, like Canada, question
whether they can count on us.
Back to the Reagan days, Republicans have talked about ``peace
through strength.'' What we have seen from Donald Trump in 100 days is
weakness through chaos.
One hundred days in, he is not stopping Putin; he is preparing to
sell out Ukraine and Europe to Putin. One hundred days in, he is not
deterring Xi Jinping; he is backing down every time he says he is going
to stand up to him. At the end the day, these first 100 days have shown
that we are weaker, the world is less stable, and Americans are less
safe.
I have to say that 100 days is more than enough time for my
Republican colleagues to have seen enough, to stand up to this
President, and to restore the role of this Senate and return our
position of strength to the world.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I thank my colleagues, the ones
I have heard so far--Senator Blumenthal, Senator Coons. I know Senator
Klobuchar will be great as always, as will Senator Baldwin. But I thank
them all for coming.
Democrats are holding the floor late tonight to expose the disaster
of Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. We will be speaking for
several more hours.
This week marks the 100th day of Donald Trump's second term as
President of the United States. It has been 100 days from hell, and
people are fed up.
One hundred days in, the legacy of Donald Trump's second term is
already set: chaos, corruption, costs. It is chaos, one fiasco after
another. One minute, Donald Trump and his people say one thing, and
then they say it is the opposite, and then they say something else
entirely. Nobody ever seems to know which way is up, and many of them
just lie outright to the American people.
It is corruption. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans are
highjacking the government, raiding the public's piggy bank, and
picking the pockets of the American people to enrich themselves. These
billionaires are using the
[[Page S2639]]
government to even make more money. It is despicable. We have never
seen anything like it, the level of corruption and self-dealing, in
America before.
MAGA grifters are getting rich off meme coins, and the White House
lawn has been turned into a Tesla dealership. It makes Americans
cringe. This is not the American way. This has not been a hallmark of
our history.
Maybe most of all, it has been 100 days of costs--costs going up and
up and up because of tariffs; costs to working people because programs
vital to them--Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits,
housing, SNAP--are being threatened or even already taken away to some
extent, and it will be a greater extent once we see their
reconciliation bill.
So Donald Trump promised a golden age on the day he took the oath of
office. What Americans are learning instead is it is fool's gold.
Americans got corrosion, erosion, and rot--corrosion across this
administration, erosion across this economy, and rot within the
foundations of our democracy.
So tonight, Senate Democrats come to the floor to expose this
administration for what it is: a full-frontal attack against the fabric
of America, a full-frontal attack on our economy and on people's
pocketbooks, and a full-frontal attack, finally, on working people in
the middle class to take away people's Medicaid, their Social Security,
veterans' care, healthcare, and more--all to give tax cuts to the very
wealthy.
Another way to describe this administration: Billionaires win,
American families lose.
There is a cabal of very greedy people who run the White House. They
are rich. They have no understanding of what average Americans go
through. And they plunder the government, then slash programs we so
desperately need for average families--all for tax cuts for the rich.
And there is a second thing they are doing. They are destroying the
guardrails of government. They are destroying every part of anything
that opposes them, all so they can take more money away from working
people and give it to themselves.
Let's talk about it. First and most urgently, maybe--they are all
very urgent; that is the only reason I say ``maybe.'' But the first 100
days of Donald Trump have meant 100 days of rising costs. For months
before he became President, Trump promised that if elected, costs would
go down, that America would be affordable again. Well, prices haven't
gone down. Quite the opposite. Groceries up; gas and energy prices up;
clothing, cars, homes up.
What about retirement savings? Down.
What about consumer confidence? Down. In fact, consumer expectations
are at their lowest level in over a decade. The stock market is on pace
for its worst 100 days of any Presidential term since Nixon.
What happened to Donald Trump bragging about the stock market like he
always liked to do? There is not much to brag about these days.
No President in history has promised more on day one and delivered
less by day 100 than Donald Trump. In record time, the President has
turned his golden promise into an economic ticking time bomb. It gets
worse every day. He is trying to call it progress. He says to people:
Americans won't mind paying more. That is the arrogance of a
billionaire--the arrogance of a billionaire.
Thanks to Donald Trump's stupid trade wars--which have failed to rein
in countries like China--CEOs and small business owners are warning
about rising prices, empty shelves, disrupted supply chains. We urge
national retailers to be honest with their constituents, with their
customers. I urge national retailers, when you post prices online for
your products, show the consumer exactly how much tariffs are added to
the total price. Cars would have been X dollars, but now they are X
plus Y dollars.
Show it to the American people because it is hurting you, retailers.
Don't let them blame you. They should be blaming Trump. Be honest with
your customers. Show them exactly how Donald Trump's tariffs are making
prices go up. Americans deserve to know who is picking their pockets.
And smaller businesses shouldn't take a downfall of Donald Trump
either. His policies are forcing them to an impossible choice: hike
your prices or risk shutting down your doors.
On Long Island, a small business owner told me she is losing sleep
over tariffs. She proudly voted for Donald Trump but told me she is
seeing her costs rise 30 percent. She is frustrated--frustrated that
the President she supported put her whole business, which she put
everything into, at risk.
Donald Trump's tariffs are a MAGA double whammy. Not only are they
eating the people's bottom lines, his chaotic approach makes it harder
for people in businesses to plan ahead at all. If you are a business,
you don't know what he is going to do 2 weeks from now or 5 weeks from
now, so you don't spend. You don't build a new plant. You don't hire
the new worker. Small businesses have to cut back because they don't
have a cushion. Every business is getting clobbered by Donald Trump's
chaotic tariff policies.
And even if Donald Trump ended Trump's tariffs tomorrow, the damage
is already done because leaders don't know what he is going to do next.
It is not just the tariffs, the prices, and recession. Americans are
worried about the costs of cutting to their healthcare, cutting their
Social Security, cutting Medicaid. They are going to slash Medicaid.
I was in six of the Republican districts in New York State last week.
All six had Democrats, Republicans, Independents frightened to death
about what will happen if Medicaid is cut. They could lose their jobs.
Elderly people could be kicked out of nursing homes. Healthcare would
diminish for everybody.
And when they are cutting the healthcare of veterans, these people
who served us are told: ``Go away.''
And the cruelty with which they are firing people in the VA and other
Agencies--I know one woman who was a former veteran. She served our
country, risked her life, got injured. She was helped by the VA, then
decided to work there. She saw the good work they were doing. She loved
her job. She didn't get paid that much, but she loved helping her
fellow veterans.
One night, Friday night, she comes home and on her computer is: You
are fired. Don't show up to the office until further notice.
This woman was distraught. Why was she fired? What did she do wrong?
What of her services serving the veterans at the Buffalo VA home--what
services were not needed, were superfluous, were waste? There were
none. She was just cruelly fired.
Only an administration that exhibits a meanness--almost a
viciousness--would do it. But that is what Trump, DOGE, and Musk and
all their henchmen who work there are doing.
This is just a terrible, terrible 100 days for anyone who depends on
Medicaid. And that is a huge number--tens of millions of people in
America.
And there is also chaos in so many other places. Every single day,
Donald Trump's administration lurches from one crisis to the next. For
all their talk of bringing back meritocracy, their administration seems
addicted to chaos and incompetence--hardly meritocratic. Every day,
there is a new decision, new reversal, new course correction, only to
give way the next day to whatever impulsive decision comes next.
Tariffs are a great example. One day he says yes to tariffs. The next
day he says: No, I am negotiating with countries. Oh, no, maybe I am
not. This tariff is going to stay in place. This one will be reduced.
Then he flips it.
Again, no sound businessperson is going to plan ahead. That is why,
not Democrats, but places like the big banks and big analysts say
chances of a recession could be as high as 60 percent.
What does a recession mean to the average family? You could get laid
off. If you need to find a job, it is harder. Costs go up. Stagflation
is likely to occur. It is nasty, brutal to people.
So chaos is there; and chaos, of course, is in foreign policy. I was
amazed last week on one day when Donald Trump was over at the Vatican,
he says he had a great talk with Putin and acted like there was going
to be a deal. Next day, he says: I had a terrible talk with Putin, and
he didn't even talk to Putin in between. He makes it up. Whatever he
thinks will appeal to people that moment, he says. And he
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doesn't even know what appeals to people. It is really what appeals to
his own ego, which seems to be governing this country more than any
rational policies or caring.
The chaos makes Americans' heads spin--firing people who manage our
nuclear arsenal, then saying: Never mind, oops. But, you know, when you
fire people, they don't all come back. Of course, their morale is
shaken. These are good people who worked so hard for so long.
The long and short of it is this: Donald Trump's 100 days is 100 days
of corruption, cronyism, of higher costs--much higher costs to the
American people. It really is awful. The poll numbers show it. But we
don't need the poll numbers to tell us. We have all been back in our
districts. We are hearing it. We are not just hearing it from
Democrats. We are not just hearing it from people who are out on the
streets protesting. We are hearing it from average folks who don't
really care about politics but are getting hurt, and it is making them
look at Donald Trump and say: Whoa, this is not what I bargained for.
And, of course, last but not least is the threat to our democratic
republic. He is acting like a King, a mob boss, a wannabe dictator. He
said he wanted to be a dictator on day one; it looks like he is
extending it. Any quarter of opposition that might say something in our
tradition of free speech and debate, he tries to crush--crush the law
firms, crush the universities, go after the judges which have been a
foundation of our Republic. The judges are independent and are able to
stop an executive that is going too far.
When the Founders drafted our Constitution, they feared a man like
Donald Trump who sees the rule of law as a nuisance, considers the
truth an inconvenience, regards his fellow citizens as little more than
subjects: Kiss the ring, bow before the throne, or watch your back.
That is the ethos of Donald Trump.
He has moved with lightning speed to weaponize the Federal Government
against anyone he thinks might oppose him. He doesn't believe in
democracy, debate, or honest disagreement. He simply wants to crush his
opponents. That is what dictators do.
What is so interesting, Madam President, Americans are as angry about
that as they are about their higher costs because the roots, Donald
Trump, of democracy go deep in the American people. And the American
people will not tolerate--will not tolerate--your disruption, your
threat, your trying to end, in a sense, our democracy.
Good news is this: Donald Trump's destructive agenda has one great
weakness--the American people themselves. Most Americans vehemently
reject the path which he is trying to take our country on costs, on
chaos, on corruption, on democracy. The American people are not giving
up. They are standing up. They are organizing. They are resisting, and
Democrats are standing with them shoulder to shoulder and with our
country.
As America marks the first 100 days of the worst President of our
lifetimes, I ask Americans to look at this administration for what it
is--a full frontal attack on the core elements of what makes America
truly great: The rule of people over kings and oligarchs; the rule of
law, not the dictates of an authoritarian; respect for the rights of
all people, respect for all people; and a commitment to promoting the
general welfare for the whole, not cruel and cheapskate voting.
Let us commit ourselves, all of us--Democrats here in the Senate--
against this administration and to uphold the core values and
principles of this beautiful Nation which we must fight to preserve and
protect.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, it is 100 days since Donald Trump
took office. I think back to the promises that were made, not just
during the campaign but the first day. I think of my constituents who
voted for me and voted for him--who actually believed he was going to
bring costs down and put them first and do something about housing and
do something about healthcare and do something about childcare.
Those were some of the main things they brought up to me. They were
hoping that would happen. But, instead, we have seen the most divisive,
chaotic Presidency.
Yes, chaos is up, corruption is up, costs are up, and, sadly,
people's retirements are down. Americans are paying the price.
Trump's tariff taxes, which is especially concerning to those in the
rural areas of my State who sometimes just get by on a margin--those
tariff taxes, $4,000 a family, $200 in grocery costs--that is what is
going to happen. That is what is happening now, and they know it. That
is why you see these numbers. It is not like the American people
haven't noticed.
In his 100 days, President Trump, sadly, has the worst approval
rating of any President since polling began. Two-thirds of them don't
like how he is handling the economy. Two-thirds of them, by multiple
polls, don't like these tariff taxes.
I was just on a 19-county rural tour in my State. I visited farms and
small businesses. Everywhere I went, I heard people--some of them
quieter than others--and I think that is important to know. On TV and
on social media, you see these big people yelling into a microphone. I
don't blame them. They are mad; they are sad. That is all. They are
showing how they feel.
But there is another group of people maybe are a little quieter.
Maybe they just tell us--maybe they tell people behind closed doors,
maybe they show up. They don't know why the person next to them has a
sign that says ``This is not normal.''
I heard a farmer ask this woman: Why do you have that sign? She said:
Because it is not normal. He said: I am normal. And she said: This is
not normal.
They are showing up because they cannot believe what is happening.
Here is the problem. Some of the biggest entities, the big
companies--Tim Cook, it is good for phones, good for Apple--he is able
to call the President, go over there. My soybean farmer who relies on a
market that is quickly dwindling--that already dwindled under the last
Trump administration--he doesn't have that phone number. He can't get
over there in the Oval Office. He can't get an exception. Or I doubt
that the Treasury Secretary has heard about Beth Benike, who runs our
``Minnesota Small Business Person of the Year'' company, called Busy
Baby, an online company that gets stuff that she makes into things for
high chairs for babies--a successful small business. She is not going
to make it. She wasn't invited by the Treasury Secretary to that secret
JPMorgan investor meeting. She didn't get in the door. She doesn't know
what the scoop is. She is just trying to get by.
Among other things that all my colleagues are hearing right now from
individuals and people living on fixed incomes and seniors who are
depending on Social Security and can't get through--one of my
constituents, when their wife died, he couldn't even get through. He
tries on email for days, tries to get through, just trying to figure
out what he does when his wife has died, and he can't find one person
to talk to in the government and has to call our office. Besides all of
that horror show, what really people have to understand--people ask me:
What is the worst thing no one is talking about? It is the small
businesses, the small ranchers, the small farmers that are the roadkill
here. They are the ones who do not have the margins.
In the case of farmers and ranchers, it may be because input costs
are already difficult, or maybe because of the weather. Or in the case
of our poultry producers, it may be because of the avian flu and the
like. But this is just like the last straw that they can't handle. That
is what is going on right now.
So if you wonder why these opinion polls are saying what our
colleagues on the Democratic side here have been saying forever and
asking our Republican colleagues to stop rubberstamping everything he
does and to stand up, which did happen on the tariff vote that Senator
Kaine and I and Senator Warner pushed forward when it comes to Canada--
we are going to have another vote like that, which covers more
countries when it comes to tariffs--they want people to stand up. They
don't want any more rubberstamps.
And the thing that is really galling to them is, when you look at
what
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these tax breaks will do for the billionaires, and the thought that
that is being paid for by--as the Congressional Budget Office has said
when looking at the House numbers, it would be hundreds of billions of
dollars of cuts to Medicaid or paid for from food assistance, with
grocery prices up. And people need--and I tell you, they need them in
the rural areas just as much as they need them in the urban areas. That
is just the last straw. And from what I have heard, we are going to
really see the worse of it when you start to not see those goods come
in.
So I know that my businesses, big and small, are seeing this coming.
They are stopping investing. You know what that means. When America was
on this cusp of greatness and we had come from the pandemic--we were
dealing with inflation; that is true. To me, we were going to the next
level of problems, which is making sure we had a workforce for the jobs
we had and that they had housing and that they had childcare. Instead,
we are going backward.
We were on the cusp at NIH, with the research and with the
combination of mapping the human genome and AI and all of these
incredible innovations that are going on. And as long as we put some
rules of the road in place, we were in the place to lead in the world
on some incredible new things. But now we are going backward if we
don't even have FDA people who can improve the new gadgets and the new
medical devices. Or if we don't have any rules in place when it comes
to AI, we are going to go backward, not forward.
So when I look at these 100 days, I wish for my constituents it
wasn't so.
My State is fourth in the country for ag exports. We have 15 Fortune
500 companies. I know the differences in this economy and how hard it
is anyway. But when I look at those people showing up at the rural
smalltown townhalls or showing up at farmers' events and telling me
what is going on, that is where I realize: This 100 days isn't just
some campaign brochure. This 100 days isn't just sound bites on social
media or a post. This is their lives, and we need to stand up for them.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Madam President, listening to my colleagues, I am
reflecting on last year, when President Trump was campaigning in--I
want to say it was Bozeman, MT--and I remember he said: ``Starting on
day one,'' in his administration, he said, ``we will end inflation and
make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.''
That is what he said.
Well, it has been 100 days since he entered the White House, and here
is what he has given us so far. His tariffs are increasing costs for
the average family by more than $4,000 a year. He has slashed billions
from programs that everyday Americans rely on, including $1 billion for
mental health care services. He has directed Elon Musk and his
unqualified, loyalist DOGE team to fire more than 121,000 Federal
employees who deliver essential services, including everyone from
firefighters who should be fighting the fires that happened in the West
to scientists researching cures to deadly diseases.
Donald Trump is pushing House and Senate Republicans to rubberstamp a
plan to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid in order to give tax cuts
to billionaires, and, on top of all of that, he has created endless
chaos and uncertainty.
I can go on and on. That is just how much damage President Trump has
caused to our country in his first 100 days in office. But I want to
take some time to focus on the impact that his economic agenda is
having on our small businesses.
I am from Nevada, where there are almost 300,000 small businesses.
These are our mom-and-pop shops. They are entrepreneurs. They are the
lifeblood of our economy and are part of the fabric of every community
across this country. And it is these small businesses that are bearing
the brunt of President Trump's destructive tariffs.
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe that targeted tariffs on our
adversaries can be a useful tool to protect American jobs and our
national security. But these blanket tariffs are just the opposite.
These last 2 weeks, while back home in Nevada, I got a firsthand
account of what small businesses are dealing with because of these
tariffs. I have heard concerns and visited with three small business
owners in Las Vegas: Juanny, Santy, and Kristen--separate business
owners. All three of these are women-owned shops that serve specialty
drinks and incredible foods to Nevadans, from coffee and boba to tacos.
In Vegas, as you may know, travel and tourism are the backbone of our
economy. When people come to Las Vegas, they don't just visit the
Strip. They go to Chinatown. They go to the Arts District and all over
the valley to patronize our small businesses. For many businessowners
like Juanny, like Santy, and like Kristen, their margins are already
razor-thin, and tourism is key to meeting their bottom line. But
because of President Trump's blanket tariffs, we are already seeing a
decline in visitors coming to Las Vegas.
Whether people are staying home because they don't have the room in
their budgets for a vacation or international tourists are choosing
other destinations, Trump's economic agenda is threatening to crater
our $2 trillion tourism economy. That hurts small businesses.
And when they can't keep up because costs are rising because they
have fewer patrons or because of the higher cost of importing their
supplies, these small businesses are forced to raise their prices. They
don't want to have to, but they are forced to raise prices and pass the
burden on to customers, everyday Americans. It is just unsustainable.
The same sentiment is echoed in the northern part of our State. In
Reno, I spoke to Mark. He is a small coffee shop owner who is already
asking himself how he can continue to navigate everyday operations amid
this uncertainty. He doesn't want to have to pass higher costs onto his
customers. But if Trump's erratic tariff agenda continues, he may have
no choice.
Trump says Americans must accept short-term pain for long-term gain.
But what is there to be gained if hard-working Nevadans have to close
the doors of their businesses?
I think to myself: If it has only been 100 days, how much damage is
he going to potentially cause in the next 100 days, in the 1,361 days
left in his term?
It has been 100 days, and small businesses across the country may
soon be faced with having to close up shop. I think about what is going
to happen to my small business owners, the ones I just talked about:
Juanny, Mark, Santy, Kristen, and the others. Will they make it through
the rest of Trump's term? I don't have the answer.
But I hope, and I ask my Republican colleagues to join me in
protecting these small businesses and families from these harmful
tariffs.
If I am hearing it in my State, I know, my colleagues, you are all
hearing it in your States as well. So if there is an opportunity to
work together, please don't rubberstamp Donald Trump's harmful agenda.
Let's work together so we are actually working on behalf of American
families and ensuring that these small businesses can keep their doors
open.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise today to reflect on the last 100
days and the unimaginable amount of havoc and harm President Donald
Trump has caused for Wisconsinites.
Now, while on the campaign trail and even once in office, the
President made a staggering number of promises: promises to end wars on
day one, promises to lower costs at the grocery store on day one,
promises to make healthcare more affordable. And the list goes on and
on and on.
Look, I was on the campaign trail and listening to Wisconsinites at
the same time as Donald Trump was. And, truly, I get why he was making
some of these promises. Wisconsin families were facing high prices.
Workers felt like they were being ripped off by their big-corporation
employers. Democracy felt broken, as voters' voices were drowned out by
special-interest money, and people were sick and tired of endless wars.
Mr. Trump claimed he had the solution.
Well, so far, he has broken these promises and literally betrayed the
American people.
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Here is the kicker: Donald Trump not only broke these promises, but
many of the things he promised to fix he has actually made worse.
Grocery bills are up, and I have yet to see even a concept of a
healthcare plan, while Medicaid coverage for 1 million-plus
Wisconsinites is on the chopping block to pay for tax breaks for
billionaires. Wars are raging in Ukraine and Gaza. Billionaires and big
corporations have a friend in the White House who has their backs. It
is one of the greatest bait and switches of our time. And, at the end
of the day, it is Wisconsin families who are paying the price.
For the last 100 days, I have heard from constituents in all 72
Wisconsin counties who fear what this administration's actions will
mean for them and their families.
I have heard from farmers like Linda in Vernon County, who barely
survived Donald Trump's first trade war. Family farmers like her are
scared that they will be put out of business entirely as punishing
tariffs and new trade wars jack up costs of fertilizer and farming
equipment, while cutting off access to markets.
I have heard from folks like Renee in Milwaukee. Renee has stage IV
breast cancer. Renee is scared that cuts to Medicaid will force her and
her husband to choose between protecting their life savings--their
retirement savings--or getting the lifesaving cancer care that she
needs to stay alive.
I have heard from veterans like James in southeastern Wisconsin who
are out of a job because Donald Trump fired them from the only place
that they have ever felt like they belonged in civilian life: helping
their fellow veterans at the VA.
I have heard from so many small businesses, like Lakefront Brewery.
There was a local roofing contractor in Milwaukee, small retailers, and
an auto parts seller in Milwaukee who are all considering: Do we have
to raise our prices? Will our customers be able to afford our prices?
Or do we have to lay off workers because President Trump's trade war is
tightening their margins and making it harder to plan for the future?
I have heard from families from Ozaukee County on Wisconsin's east
coast to the St. Croix Valley on our western side who have had their
childcare or food assistance threatened because this President is
choosing to prioritize tax breaks for his wealthy friends over working
families.
Dairy farmers saw millions in funding that they were promised to grow
their businesses frozen, and Alzheimer's researchers at Wisconsin's
universities are making do with less because of arbitrary cuts that
threaten the next breakthrough that would serve our loved ones. Seniors
accessing their hard-earned Social Security benefits have fewer places
to turn as field offices shutter and staff is let go.
Public schools in Milwaukee with children in them who have been
exposed to lead paint in the schools have fewer resources because
President Trump fired the very lead hazard experts they relied on at
the CDC. Imagine that.
I hear it from constituents every day calling my office. Now, in
ordinary times, my office would maybe get around 50 to 100 calls a day,
but regularly, since January, we have passed 1,000 calls a day from
Wisconsinites. There isn't a corner of our State that hasn't been
impacted by this President's often illegal, sometimes unconstitutional
overreach of his Presidential powers.
These Wisconsinites are not alone. Poll after poll is showing the
same thing: This President is reaching historically low approval
ratings. More Americans are giving him an F grade than any other grade.
It is hard to state all the ways that President Trump's second term
is already impacting folks in Wisconsin. His actions have made things
more expensive and the future far less certain, whether you are a
Wisconsin farmer or small business owner, veteran, senior, or just a
family looking to make ends meet.
In January, I said I would work with anyone to deliver for Wisconsin.
I also promised that I would stand up to anyone who hurts
Wisconsinites. Those things remain true, and right now our country is
not on the right course. And Americans agree.
Wisconsinites want lower costs. Our veterans and farmers want to be
respected and working families to have a fair shot. Donald Trump's
chaos isn't delivering any of that, and it is about time Congress steps
up and acts as a true check and balance on this President before it is
too late for our economy, working families, and the future of our
Nation.
I yield the floor.