[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 127 (Thursday, July 24, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4690-S4692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Maiden Speech

  Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. President, I am honored to be here on the Senate 
floor for the first time. Each time I enter the Senate Chamber, I am 
humbled to walk in the footsteps of the Pennsylvanians who came before 
me, from founding father Robert Morris to Simon Cameron, from Joseph 
Clark to John Heinz.
  It was the namesake of the Commonwealth, William Penn, who said:

       Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

  In my short time here in the Senate, I have found these words to be 
of comfort. At this moment, our circumstances and fellow countrymen 
require us to remove mountains and to do so with great haste.
  I would also not be here today without the patience, love, and 
example of my parents Jim and Maryan. I am also so grateful for the 
love and encouragement and belief in me by my incredible wife Dina, who 
is in the Gallery today. She believed in me when few others did. 
Finally, Dina and I are both so grateful for the love and support of 
our amazing six daughters through two hard-fought campaigns.
  I chose to rise today for the first time because something miraculous 
happened last week in Pittsburgh, the city that Dina and I are proud to 
call our home. In the middle of the so-called rust belt, President 
Trump, members of the Cabinet, the CEOs of the world's leading energy, 
technology, and investment companies, labor leaders, and political 
leaders from both parties came together at Carnegie Mellon University 
to commit over $90 billion in new investments--investments that affirm 
Pennsylvania's central role at the crossroads of America's energy and 
AI revolutions.
  These projects announced at the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and 
Innovation Summit will bring enormous benefits to communities across 
our great Commonwealth: new data centers and powerplants in 
Northeastern Pennsylvania, data centers and hydroelectric power in York 
and Lancaster Counties, new natural gas power capacity and production 
in Western Pennsylvania, and plans by Pittsburgh's iconic Westinghouse 
to begin constructing 10 large nuclear reactors by 2030.
  For Pennsylvania workers, this will result in tens of thousands of 
jobs for skilled labor, including electricians and welders, 
steamfitters, machinists, and countless other trades, and many, many 
more indirect jobs supporting these projects will come to 
Pennsylvania's communities.
  Perhaps most important, the significant media focus on the summit 
allowed Pennsylvania to tell its unique and compelling story to the 
world.
  Last year, President Trump and I promised to make America energy 
dominant and to secure our Nation's AI leadership and to create jobs 
and opportunity for working families in Pennsylvania and across America 
during our campaigns. Last Tuesday, it was clear to all that we were 
delivering on all those promises.
  These investments come at a defining moment not only for Pennsylvania 
but also for the future of our great Nation. Embracing the AI 
revolution and achieving energy dominance will require us to do 
something very special: once again build in the United States. In this 
process, we can revitalize the American dream for all Pennsylvanians 
and for all Americans by training and deploying workers across our 
economy, from the trades, to engineers, to our very finest scientists.
  The stakes could not be higher. If the United States does not rise to 
this challenge, we risk putting our future in the hands of the Chinese 
Communist

[[Page S4691]]

Party, which seeks to dominate industries and technologies that will 
define the 21st century. This is a competition we must win, and it is a 
moment that demands leadership, sound policies, and, yes, 
bipartisanship--bipartisan cooperation to ensure our Nation's 
prosperity.
  That is what this summit in Pittsburgh was all about--bringing the 
President and his team together with many leaders who can seize this 
moment, who can chart a course forward to build the infrastructure, the 
talent, and the technology required to lead America's next chapter of 
growth and opportunity.
  I will come back to the significance of the summit in a few minutes, 
but let me step back for a moment and describe the journey that has 
brought me here today.
  I am a seventh-generation Pennsylvanian from Washington County. I 
grew up in a small town called Bloomsburg--the majority leader 
visited--in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I spent my Friday nights on the 
wrestling mat in high school gyms from Shikellamy to Shickshinny, from 
Selinsgrove to Schuylkill Haven. I spent my summers baling hay and 
trimming Christmas trees with my high school buddies. Many of them are 
still close friends today.
  This upbringing, like for so many generations of Pennsylvanians, 
taught me the timeless lessons of toughness, hard work, and resilience.
  My senior year in high school, I was nominated to the U.S. Military 
Academy at West Point--the first kid from Bloomsburg to attend the 
Academy in decades. There, I learned the three words that General 
MacArthur called the rallying points for every cadet: ``duty, honor, 
country.''
  Three years after graduating, I saw those words put into action when 
I deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division to Saudi Arabia and later 
Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.
  Following the Army, I joined and eventually led a successful 
technology company in Pittsburgh. I served in several senior positions 
in the government at the intersection of national security and our 
economy. And I led, as CEO, one of the world's great global investment 
firms. But nothing--nothing--I have done in my life compares to the 
honor of serving as the 54th elected Senator from the Keystone State. I 
am also proud, following the great Senator from Rhode Island, to be the 
ninth Senator in American history who is a graduate of West Point.

  I decided to enter the political arena because America is a 
superpower in peril. I gave up a successful business career because I 
could see that despite the strength and the spirit of the American 
people, our future is threatened by a cycle of stagnation and 
disillusionment and decline. The American dream is out of reach for far 
too many families in Pennsylvania. And the Chinese Communist Party is 
actively subverting America's economic and military power.
  Breaking this cycle and focusing on the renewal of our Nation is the 
only way forward, and I felt a calling to try to do my part in 
fulfilling this mission.
  During his campaign, President Trump uniquely grasped this challenge. 
He saw the struggling communities next to the shuttered steel mills 
along the Monongahela Valley on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, and he 
understood the devastation in small towns like Bloomsburg, where I grew 
up, 50 miles from Scranton. The Magee Carpet Mill once employed more 
than 2,000 workers, including the parents of many of my high school 
classmates, and is now occupied by a mere 200.
  Like the President, our fellow citizens saw thousands of brave men 
and women who fought for two decades in the endless wars in the Middle 
East. Too many--too many--returned home with broken bodies or troubled 
minds, like Michael Wargo of Lehighton, the son of Dina's and my dear 
friends Michael and Sally. They lost Michael to suicide years after he 
returned from a tour in Afghanistan. I share their heartbreak--and I 
know many of you do, too--and disbelief that 18 veterans a day still 
take their own lives, every single day.
  Finally, we all saw the wide-open southern border bringing millions 
of illegal immigrants into our towns and cities and violent crime and 
deadly fentanyl into our communities. More than 4,000 Pennsylvanians 
lose a loved one every year to a fentanyl overdose. One of those 
families is that of my good friend Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott, who 
lost his 33-year-old son Josh to the scourge of fentanyl.
  Last year, I heard these concerns over and over and over again from 
my fellow Pennsylvanians in hundreds of campaign stops I made across 
the Commonwealth. And in November, the people spoke. Pennsylvania 
voters gave President Trump and me a mandate for change. They wanted a 
dramatic turnaround from 4 years of open border policies, soaring 
prices caused by reckless spending, and weak leadership on the world's 
stage that emboldened China, Russia, and Iran.
  After only 6 months, the results speak for themselves. President 
Trump, with the support of this Congress, has made enormous progress. 
Illegal border crossings are at a record low, with more resources on 
the way. The One Big Beautiful Bill just delivered and made permanent 
the largest tax cut in history for working families. And the U.S. 
economic indicators across the board are getting better by the day.
  We are making America safer. We are rebuilding our military. 
President Trump ordered a flawless attack on Iran's nuclear enrichment 
facilities so the mullahs can never wield a nuclear weapon. And we are 
working together to end the Russia-Ukraine war while preserving Ukraine 
as a free and independent country.
  As a Senator, my job is to deliver for the people of Pennsylvania 
whether they voted for me or not. We are going to have some tough 
fights in this Chamber. This year, we already have had many. But when I 
look back on my time serving the people of Pennsylvania, I want to be 
able to tell my children and my grandchildren that I worked with 
anyone, regardless of their party, who shares the goal of delivering 
results and much needed change for Pennsylvania and our Nation.
  That is why I appreciate my collaboration with my colleague and 
friend Pennsylvania senior Senator John Fetterman. Despite our 
differences, we found a way to work together on critical issues, such 
as fighting anti-Semitism at home and abroad.
  In the months and years ahead, I hope to serve my constituents not 
only inside this Chamber through legislation, hearings, and votes but 
also outside this Chamber by using my platform, my voice, and my 
leadership to bring about meaningful change.
  That is why I began today by talking about the Pennsylvania Energy 
and Innovation Summit. Our vision for the event came from a realization 
that Pennsylvania sits at the crossroads of America's energy and AI 
revolutions. Yet the key political, business, and labor leaders had 
never actually been brought together in one place to make things 
happen.
  I highlight this summit not because it is the answer to all the 
problems we face but because it exemplifies the key ingredients that I 
believe we need as a country at this unique moment.
  This moment demands bold, innovative leadership across the political 
spectrum to build coalitions--unique coalitions--required to tackle 
these challenges.
  This moment--this moment--demands a willingness to discard 
conventional wisdom to improve the lives of our fellow countrymen.
  This moment demands embracing partnerships between our Nation's 
public institutions and the private sector, where much of the 
innovation that is required is taking place.
  This moment--this moment--demands urgency, moving at the speed that 
is necessary to overcome the obstacles facing working families each and 
every day that we all hear about when we are home in our States.
  I have the privilege, the true privilege, of representing the 
birthplace of our Nation during its 250th year, but the Keystone 
State's special place in American history extends far beyond our 
Nation's birth.
  In the summer of 1787, Philadelphia gave our young Nation new life at 
the Constitutional Convention. As Benjamin Franklin emerged from the 
convention, he famously said that the United States would be ``a 
Republic, if [we] can keep it.''
  More than 100 miles to the west at Gettysburg, almost 100 years 
later, the

[[Page S4692]]

Civil War put Franklin's warning to the test. On that hallowed ground, 
Abraham Lincoln told his audience to be dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us--that task, of course, being the preservation of 
our Union.
  Our Nation's history and Pennsylvania's history are full of such 
significant milestones, and today we face another make-or-break moment 
for America's future. I have seen our country at its best, as many of 
you have, from the brave men with whom I served in Iraq to the 
shopkeepers and the storekeepers along the streets of vibrant, small 
Pennsylvania towns, to the farmers whose plowed fields dot our 
Commonwealth's beautiful landscape, beautiful countryside.
  I have witnessed firsthand our uniquely American ability to get to 
the edge of the cliff and to pull ourselves back in times and moments 
of national peril. We can do it again. A bright future can and should 
be ours, but it depends on what we do next. We must confront the 
difficult task ahead, while staying true to the values and ideals that 
have made America the last best hope of man on Earth.
  And what I can say with certainty today, Mr. President, standing in 
this esteemed Chamber with so many friends, is that this Senator and 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can be counted on to do our part.
  I yield the floor.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
previously scheduled rollcall vote begin immediately.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.