[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 166 (Wednesday, October 8, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6995-S6998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
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PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5,
UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE BUREAU OF LAND
MANAGEMENT RELATING TO ``MILES CITY FIELD OFFICE RECORD OF DECISION AND
APPROVED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN AMENDMENT''--Resumed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.J. Res. 104, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 104) providing for
congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United
States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land
Management relating to ``Miles City Field Office Record of
Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment''.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Arctic Frost
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Monday of this week, I invited eight of
my colleagues to be briefed on an issue that we just found out about
from Deputy Director Dan Bongino. What we learned is very disturbing
and outrageous political conduct by the Biden FBI.
As most of you know, this year, Senator Johnson and I made records
public relating to our investigation of Arctic Frost. Arctic Frost was
the FBI investigation that became Jack Smith's elector case against
then-citizen Trump. We have shown that partisan FBI agents and the
Department of Justice prosecutors created and advanced that matter, and
they did so in violation of FBI rules. We have shown that the FBI
expanded the investigation to almost 100 Republican groups and
individuals, even including Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. And we
have learned that Arctic Frost included the targeting of at least eight
Republican Senators--the same ones that I invited to that briefing.
In 2023, the Biden FBI sought and obtained cell phone tolling data
about my colleagues' personal phones. We have been told the date range
for that data was January 4 through January 7, 2021. This is obviously
an outrage, obviously an unconstitutional breach. Attorney General
Bondi and Director Patel need to hold accountable those that are
involved in that serious breach and wrongdoing, and I am confident that
those two officials will do just that.
Now, based on the evidence to date, Arctic Frost and related
weaponization by Federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse
than the Nixon Watergate scandal.
I have also been informed that Arctic Frost documents, like the one
targeting Republicans, have been hidden in prohibited access files.
Now, let me tell you what I think a prohibited access file is. It
might be legitimate for national security. It might be legitimate for
intellectual property. It may be legitimate for the personal privacy of
American citizens. But it should never be used for what it was used
for: to hide things from the public that would embarrass bureaucrats
and government officials and maybe even political officials.
As I have made public through my oversight, when files are in a
prohibited access file, they receive what the FBI calls a false
negative search result on their database. So that means that if you ask
for emails or some records of the FBI, and they type it in, it doesn't
show up, so that it doesn't exist. Clearly, this impedes responses to
congressional oversight and court cases. It allows for misconduct.
Because of whistleblowers informing me of this serious problem, the
FBI is now reviewing these file types, and only because of that review,
the document about targeting eight Republican Senators was located.
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Lastly, I started the Arctic Frost investigation in July 2022. Now,
it has taken years to get records and to advance the investigation.
Sometimes my oversight work is done quietly, outside of the public eye,
but what the public is now seeing is the importance of congressional
oversight and the importance of whistleblowers exposing government
misconduct. My whistleblowers deserve great thanks for what they have
helped to expose.
We were all shocked and outraged by the unjustified fishing
expedition Deputy Director Bongino informed us about. The FBI told us
in our briefing that not a single one of my colleagues on the list was
under investigation, so the FBI did its dirty digging without
legitimate predication.
We expect Patel and Bongino to shut this abuse down and do it
immediately, and I want my colleagues and Iowans to know that I won't
give up until I have followed all the facts and accountability is
delivered for the American people.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The Democratic leader is recognized.
Government Funding
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it has now been a full week--a whole
week--of Donald Trump's government shutdown, and the country is feeling
the sting of Republican intransigence. Over 700,000 Federal employees
have been furloughed. Services are being disrupted. The Wall Street
Journal reported this morning that businesses nationwide with
government contracts are in peril.
The Republican-manufactured disaster did not need to happen. The
government is shut down for one reason and one reason only: Donald
Trump and the Republicans would rather kick 15 million people off
health insurance, would rather raise premiums by thousands and
thousands of dollars a year on tens of millions of Americans, rather
than sit down and work with Democrats on fixing healthcare.
That is the reason. They would rather kick tens of millions off
healthcare than sit down with us and work with us in addressing this so
important issue--so important to the American people.
Now, Americans are frustrated. The cost of living continues to go up.
Donald Trump's tariffs have sent grocery prices spiking. It is even
more expensive now to buy a cup of coffee, the first thing many people
drink in the morning. They are going to see Trump's tariffs hurting
them.
People are worried about paying more on their electricity bill.
Forty-one States have seen increased prices. Why? Because in their
mania of hating clean energy, they cut out so much of wind and solar,
solar being the cheapest form of new energy to go on the grid.
Americans are pessimistic that any of this is going to get any
better, and they blame President Trump and the Republicans. A CBS poll
from a few days ago found that 75 percent of Americans don't think the
administration--the Trump administration--is focusing enough on
lowering costs. Fixing healthcare would be at the top of the list for
lowering costs for people.
Now, Democrats want to reopen the government right away. We want to
have a serious negotiation to fix healthcare so that people can see
their costs go down. And we can do both: fix healthcare and reopen the
government. This is not an either-or thing, which Republicans are
making it, and the American people don't like it.
Democrats have been consistent. Our position remains the same. We
have been saying it for months: Republicans are shutting down the
government because they refuse to address the crisis in American
healthcare.
One sentence sums it all up: Republicans are shutting down the
government because they refuse to fix and address the crisis in
American healthcare.
Now, our Republican colleagues, being against public sentiment, are
flailing. On the one hand, it is starting to sink in for Republicans
that their position of not fixing healthcare is untenable in the eyes
of the American people.
As President Lincoln said, ``Public sentiment is everything.''
Well, public sentiment is building on fixing healthcare. It is high
already. It is getting higher every day, and it is not going to recede.
It is getting even stronger.
Republicans refuse to acknowledge that public sentiment is not on the
side of Trump and Johnson. And Johnson has become the No. 1 roadblock
to ending a shutdown.
He sent everyone home for 3 weeks now. If you care about fixing the
crisis, if you care about reopening the government, how the hell do you
keep your House not in session for 3 weeks?
And now their buddy Johnson himself is feeling the heat. At first, he
and his caucus were telling Republicans in the House: Don't talk about
healthcare. They knew the American people were against what they
thought. Johnson's leadership team explicitly told Members in a memo
not to mention healthcare when talking about the shutdown.
Of course, that didn't work because the public knows, overwhelmingly,
that we need lower healthcare premiums and that is what Democrats are
fighting for and that is what is preventing the Republicans from coming
to the table. They don't want to fix it. That is why they are causing
the shutdown.
So feeling the heat, Speaker Johnson held a press conference
yesterday and said perhaps one of the most ridiculous things I have
heard from Republicans in a long time. He said: ``Let me look right
under the camera,'' said Johnson, ``and [I will] tell you very clearly:
Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare.''
As he did it, he couldn't look right into the camera. Deep in his
subconscious, he knew he wasn't telling the truth. What he said was
nonsense. He couldn't even look in the camera when he said this because
he knows the American people don't buy what he is saying.
Republicans are the ones who cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid,
who tried to repeal the ACA. Three times we asked them to vote to
sustain it after the new year. Three times they voted it down.
So that is first.
Second, Donald Trump is making all these terrible threats led by the
evil Mr. Vought. Trump is saying, he is going to fire people en masse,
saying that Federal workers don't even deserve backpay, even though he
signed the law guaranteeing backpay in 2019.
Again, they are threatening. They are bludgeoning. They are using the
American people, government workers, as pawns. But these kinds of
tactics from the administration are backfiring. Americans don't like
being used as pawns. Even if they are not one subject to being held
hostage, they don't like watching it happen.
The American people know clearly that it is Republicans who are in
charge. Republicans have the White House. They control the House and
the Senate. So when people are laid off, when people are not paid, when
people are not getting backpay, they know it is the Republicans trying
to do it, even though they are using it to try and bully us.
It is not Democrats who are threatening to fire people or threatening
to withhold backpay. It is the Republican side, Donald Trump, saying
all this, and the American people know it and will blame them for these
mass firings and chaos.
The data is very clear that trying to use the public as political
pawns will backfire for Republicans, and plenty of Republicans in
Congress know this. That is why, behind closed doors, some Republicans
are praying the administration tones down its threats because these
mean-spirited tactics by Russell Vought aren't going to win in the
court of public opinion or the hearts and minds of Americans.
Look, Republicans are tripping over themselves because they are
divided on the core issue: fixing people's healthcare.
When someone on the hard right--the hard, hard right--Marjorie Taylor
Greene, openly says Republican leaders are wrong and that we need to
fix the premiums, that is how you know how deeply Republicans are
split.
[[Page S6997]]
Let me read what she said. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, not Chuck
Schumer:
I'm going to go against everyone on this issue--
Healthcare that is--
because when tax credits expire this year my own adult
children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE,
along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people
in my district.
More Republicans should listen to her because on this issue, she is
right on the money. Meanwhile, Democrats' position hasn't changed. We
urge our Republican colleagues to join us in serious negotiation to
reopen the government and extend ACA premiums. It is the right thing to
do for the American people, and by doing it, we will be able to quickly
reopen the government before any more serious damage is done by the
Republicans to our country.
Nomination of Jennifer Lee Mascott
Mr. President, finally, on nominations, today, the Senate will vote
to advance the nomination of Jennifer Mascott of Maryland to be a
circuit court judge for the Third Circuit. I will oppose Mascott's
nomination because she does not seem to have any other qualification
for the job other than this: She is a career loyalist and sycophant to
Donald Trump.
She has no connections to the Third Circuit. She has never lived in
Delaware. She is not even licensed to practice law in Delaware. In
fact, her only link to the State is a beachside summer home.
If you look at Mascott's resume, the only time she has ever really
practiced law is the 2 years she worked in Trump's Department of
Justice. That is it, and you are putting her on the circuit court, one
of the most important courts in the country?
Well, the only reason Donald Trump is putting Mascott on the bench is
because he thinks she will do whatever he wants from the bench. She
will be a total, total Trump sycophant--not look at the law, not look
at the facts, just look at Donald Trump and see which way he is nodding
and follow it.
This nominee is another troubling example of the ``Trumpification''
of the Federal bench, where loyalists replace jurists and obeisance to
Trump matters more than adherence to the law or precedent or even the
Constitution.
It is just like what we saw yesterday in the Judiciary Committee.
Pam Bondi exposed herself as woefully unqualified to be Attorney
General but a supremely obeisant Trump deputy is what she is instead.
She spent her time dodging questions, hurling insults, and, most
importantly for Donald Trump, defending the President's interests more
than anything else, even if the law or the facts or the truth pointed
strongly in the other direction.
This troubling pattern of obeisance above all in our judiciary system
is dangerous and troubling. So I will oppose today's nominee and urge
my colleagues to do the same.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Recognition of the Majority Leader
The majority leader is recognized.
Government Funding
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are now on day eight of the government
shutdown, which is truly unfortunate and unnecessary and totally at the
behest of leftwing Democrat special interest groups that have pressured
the Democratic leadership into a position that makes absolutely no
sense to any thinking person.
I want you to think about where we are. Think about this scenario:
You have a bill passed by the House of Representatives, over here in
the Senate--24 pages long, clean, short term, nonpartisan, no policy
riders, no Republican priorities--a clean resolution to fund the
government. And there are 55 Senators--55 out of 100 Senators--who are
voting for the clean, short-term funding resolution that would open up
the government.
The President of the United States has said that, as soon as it is
passed in the Senate, he will sign it into law. So what you have is
complete unified support for a short-term funding resolution to keep
the government open and make sure that all the government employees who
are currently being impacted and their families can get back to work
and get paid again.
And so it is always interesting when the Democrat leader comes down
here and describes this fantasy world where the bill that they
proposed, which would only get 47 votes here in the U.S. Senate--not
even 50, not 51, not a majority, and certainly not the 60 that are
necessary to pass consequential legislation in the Senate--it wouldn't
get a single vote in the House of Representatives.
So they have got a bill, a proposal, that they say keeps the
government open, that can't pass the Senate, wouldn't pass the House,
and wouldn't be signed into law by the President.
You tell me--you tell me--who is responsible for the government
shutdown.
Republicans passed a bill in the House. It is over here in the
Senate, 24 pages long, sitting right at the desk. We can pick it up and
pass it today and send it to the President, who will sign it into law,
and the government opens up again.
Or--or--you can take this proposal the Democrats have, which has $1.5
trillion in new spending, allows for free healthcare coverage for
noncitizens, completely obliterates the $50 billion rural hospital fund
that we put in place to support rural hospitals in this country that
are struggling, and they think that would pass. It doesn't pass here,
doesn't pass the House, and wouldn't get signed into law by the
President.
So just a logical person, think about this. Think about the
juxtaposition of those two positions, and you tell me who is shutting
the government down. We have a straightforward, simple proposition: a
24-page funding resolution to keep the government open, with no
partisan policy riders, no gimmicks, short term, which funds the
government through November 21 to give us an opportunity to do the
government funding the way we should do it, through the appropriations
process, where we have the committees meeting and Republicans and
Democrats contributing, and then bring it to the floor and have an open
amendment process here. That is the way the government should normally
be funded.
And so what this does is it provides a short-term extension in order
for all that to happen. That is all that we are talking about.
They have other issues they want to bring up, which I have said
before we are happy to discuss. And, yes, there are some things that I
think there is interest on both sides in trying to address when it
comes to healthcare in this country. But you can't take the Federal
Government hostage and expect to have a reasonable conversation on
those issues. The government needs to be funded. Federal employees need
to go back to work. Federal Agencies and Departments need to be open
and providing the services that the American people expect. It is that
simple.
And that is really what this is all about--again, nothing more,
nothing less, nothing else. It is whether or not they want to support a
24-page funding resolution that keeps the government open or continue
to vote for $1.5 trillion in new spending, free healthcare for
noncitizens, and completely wiping out a $50 billion rural hospital
fund that is designed to support rural hospitals in this country--
something that would get 47 votes here in the Senate and not a majority
in the House of Representatives, and wouldn't get a single vote,
honestly, among Republicans in the House of Representatives, and would
not be signed into law by the President--versus something, again,
passed by the House, here at the Senate.
All we need is five more votes. There are a majority of U.S. Senators
today who support the short-term funding resolution, 55 out of 100. We
need 5 Democrats.
You tell me who shut the government down.
And I think that the public is becoming wise to this debate and this
argument and these fallacious arguments that are being made by the
Democrats. In fact, there is a new Harvard-Harris poll that came out
Monday that found that 70 percent of voters oppose a government
shutdown--70 percent.
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And of interest to my Democratic colleagues, 65 percent of voters,
including 63 percent of Independents, think the Democrats should end
the shutdown by accepting a continuing resolution like the clean
funding resolution I just described that is in front of us.
So what are my Democrat colleagues doing? Well, after their
resounding defeat in the Presidential election last November, you would
think they might be paying attention to the strong majority of voters
who would like the shutdown to end as well. You would think they might
notice that 63 percent of Independents--voters I am sure Democrats
would like to capture in the next election--want Democrats to accept a
resolution like the clean CR in front of us. But you would be wrong,
because Democrats are still deeply in thrall to the far left, and they
are taking their marching orders for this shutdown from far-left
interest groups. And I mean that literally.
A recent Axios article reported:
Progressive grassroots groups are blasting congressional
Democrats on speed dial to ``hold the line'' in any
negotiations to reopen the government.
Now, that followed an Axios report that found:
Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his staff are
closely coordinating their government shutdown strategy with
outside liberal groups. . . . Backing down and helping fund
the government, like Schumer did in March, is unacceptable,
the groups have told his team.
Backing down and helping fund the government, like Schumer
did in March, is unacceptable, the groups have told his team.
And so the liberal groups say ``jump,'' and Democrat leaders say,
``How high?''
Forget the robust majority of Independents that want the Democrats to
end this shutdown.
You know, back in the day--and by ``back in the day'' I mean as
recently as 6 months ago--the Democrat leader was a pretty robust
opponent of government shutdowns. Yes, he was an opponent--so much so
that even though he didn't like the continuing resolution we passed in
the spring, he voted for it anyway because, in his words, ``a
government shutdown would be far worse.''
But then progressive groups got big-time mad, and now the Democrat
leader is leading the charge to keep the government shut down--
indefinitely, apparently--and all those Federal workers and hard-
working Americans he was so worried about before seem to have slipped
his mind.
In fact, Democrats have barely reacted to the fact that Federal
workers are going to start missing pay.
When we realized we were going to need a continuing resolution to
allow us more time to complete the fiscal year 2026 appropriations
bills, Republicans wanted to do everything we could to ensure that
there was no government shutdown, which is why we put forward a clean
continuing resolution with no Republican policies or partisan policy
riders.
We knew a shutdown would be costly and disruptive for hard-working
Americans, and we were determined to ensure the Democrats had no
reason--no reason--to oppose our CR. But Democrats weren't deterred by
the fact that there was nothing for them to object to in our bill, and
they decided to oppose it anyway.
Now, Democrats will get another chance this week to vote to keep the
government open. And I hope the Democrat leader and Democrat Senators
can summon up some of that concern they used to have about shutdowns
and vote to reopen the government.
At the very least, if the Democrat leader is too worried about his
polling to vote to reopen himself, he could allow Democrat Senators who
do care about the functioning of our government to join Republicans to
reopen.
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