[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 174 (Tuesday, October 21, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7577-S7584]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I have come to the Senate floor tonight
to ring the alarm bells. We are in the most perilous moment, the
biggest threat to our Republic since the Civil War. President Trump is
shredding our Constitution.
Is it OK for masked Federal agents to arrest people off the streets
because of their skin color or their accent? No way, not in a free
America.
OK for the government to cancel research grants to compel
universities as to what they can teach? No way, not in a free America.
OK to use power over broadcast licenses or power over mergers to
compel television networks as to what they can put on the air? Not in
free America.
OK to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after perceived
political opponents--James Comey; Letitia James; Adam Schiff, a Member
of the Senate?
Hell no, absolutely not.
You know, we have a theory of justice here in our Nation that is
symbolized by those words above the pillars of the Supreme Court,
carved into the facade.
You walk out these doors to the right and keep going. You are
standing on the steps that lead up to the Senate. You are staring
straight out at the front of the Supreme Court, and there, carved above
those pillars, it says ``Equal Justice Under Law.''
``Equal justice under law''--that is the vision here in America, not
unequal injustice, which is what the President is pursuing by taking
the power of the government and going after individuals that he does
not like or perceives to be political opponents.
That is what you read about in authoritarian governments far away,
and you go: That will never happen in the United States of America.
But it is happening right here, right now--unequal injustice.
And then we have government by gaslighting. President Trump wants us
to believe that Portland, OR--in my home State--is full of chaos and
riots, because if he can say to the American people that there are
riots, he can say there is a rebellion. And if there is a rebellion, he
can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our Nation,
pretend there are riots, or even try to provoke violence and tighten
his authoritarian grip.
Well, Portlanders have responded in a very interesting way. They are
not taking the bait. They are demonstrating with joy and whimsy. You
may well have seen some of the videos: a wedding held in the street, a
joyful wedding outside the ICE building; a group of frogs, a squad of
frogs in inflated suits; the Unipiper on his unicycle with his
bagpipes--all of this going on, including things like Puppies for Peace
or ``Keep your paws''--your puppy paws--``off Portland''--``Keep your
paws off Portland.'' Or maybe you saw the women coming down and holding
a pajamas-and-pastries party in the morning--Portland demonstrating
with joy and whimsy because they want to make it clear to the world
that what Trump is saying about there being violent protests or a
rebellion in Portland is just not true.
I must say I was particularly struck by something that happened about
a week ago. The Federal agents--assume members of the Federal
Protective Service--came out of the ICE building and asked the
protestors to back up. They wanted to move them several blocks away. I
gathered from the reports from Oregon Public Broadcasting that they
moved them about 300 yards, about three blocks. And then they lined up.
By ``they,'' I mean the Federal agents across the street.
There had been no conflict between the protestors, nothing thrown, no
violence, no fight to break up. The Federal agents lined up and, on
orders, they prepared an assault on the protestors. And they did so
because they had standing behind them professional videographers.
So on command, they threw down flash-bangs, which sound like gunfire.
On command, they put down tear gas, creating clouds of smoke. On
command, they fired pepper balls, and they taped the whole thing to try
to pretend that they were dispelling a riot.
This is the first time I know of, in the history of the United States
of America, that agents of the Federal Government staged a fake riot in
order to try to compel the courts--compel the courts--to say: Yes, you
can federalize the National Guard because there is a rebellion there in
that city.
Wow. That should disturb every single Member of this Senate. It
should disturb every single Member of the House of Representatives down
this hallway that is back here to my right.
But even with that kind of provocation, Portlanders are saying: We
will not take the bait. We are demonstrating with joy and whimsy, frogs
and dinosaurs dancing. You couldn't find a much happier place in the
country than the area near the ICE building in Portland.
In addition to sending Federal agents to harass protesters, Trump has
attempted to federalize the Oregon National Guard, and so when he
attempted to do so, a suit was filed saying: Wait, there is a law that
controls that. And that law says that you can only federalize the
National Guard if there is a rebellion or if there is an invasion.
Now, when these laws were written by our predecessors in this Chamber
and in the House of Representatives down the long hallway, they knew
what an invasion looked like. It looked like a foreign country with
ships or troops ready to assault the United States of America. They
were here on our border; they were ready to attack; and federalizing
the National Guard was a tool that former legislators said would be
available with a foreign invasion.
Well, clearly, nothing close to anything that could be conceived like
that is happening in the State of Oregon or in the State of California
or in the State of Illinois. The second principle for federalizing the
National Guard is called rebellion. And at the time that the authors--
the legislative authors--of that did that, what they had in mind was a
significant group, not a couple of individuals but a group, well-
organized. How can you do a rebellion if you are not well-organized,
well-armed, with a mission--a mission of overthrowing the government.
That is what a rebellion is.
So among the inflated costumes and the women doing their pajamas and
pastries and the wedding and the Unipiper on the unicycle, where do you
find a large, organized, armed group with a mission of overthrowing the
government? Not to be found.
So the district court issued a ruling and said: The presentation of
facts by the government is ``untethered to the facts.'' Untethered.
There is nothing resembling what the Federal Government has described.
So not only did Trump and his team stage a fake riot, they also
submitted fake facts about the disturbances outside the ICE building.
And so the judge issued what is called a temporary restraining order.
And, essentially, that would give the judge the time to take further
testimony and carefully consider the circumstances before issuing a
longer restraining order, a more permanent restraining order on the
effort to federalize.
And then President Trump and his bank of geniuses said: Well, if we
can't federalize the Oregon National Guard,
[[Page S7578]]
we are going to send the agents from California and Texas who have
already been federalized. Well, again, you can only use them if there
is a rebellion or if there is an invasion. And if there is no rebellion
or invasion to justify federalizing the Oregon National Guard, then
there is none to justify outsiders coming, so she issued a second
temporary restraining order.
Where we are at now is that a whole lot of court action is happening
at a whole lot of levels. First of all is she has to decide whether or
not to dissolve those two temporary restraining orders in the light of
early action by the Ninth Circuit panel of three judges.
Those findings of the three judges are now being submitted with a
request for a panel of 12 judges--a larger group--and this is a larger
group of judges than the Ninth Circuit. This is a common practice when
there is a very significant issue.
I would say, colleagues, that when we are talking about deploying the
U.S. military against peaceful protesters, that is a very big issue
indeed. And so I hope that the Ninth Circuit will have a much broader
consideration. So that is potential action.
And then we have decisions from the Seventh Circuit in Illinois, and
they have found, much like the district judge found, that there was not
a rebellion or an invasion, but that decision is being appealed to the
Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has an extraordinary level, really
unmatched in the history of our country--they have been issuing
preliminary findings on what they call the shadow docket; meaning, they
haven't heard full arguments before the Court, but they make an initial
ruling. And they may make an initial ruling this week.
They may make an initial ruling to support the Seventh Circuit, which
said that you cannot send in the troops to Chicago, or they may go the
opposite direction. They may copy what two of the three judges said in
the district court and the Ninth Circuit. And to sum it up, that
opinion is profoundly troubling because what they basically said is,
there may be nothing going on there now, but let's look back 3 months
ago when a couple dozen people were arrested. Well, that is
significant, a couple dozen people a few months ago, so maybe that
shows there is a rebellion.
And, of course, those were kind of the host of interactions that the
Portland police found well within their ability to handle, so certainly
no justification and certainly not a well-organized, armed rebellion
trying to overthrow the government.
They also said: Well, let's use a less challenging definition of
``rebellion.'' So they wanted to adjust what the word ``rebellion''
means. Well, words in the law have meaning, and when judges start to
say: Well, we don't really want to use that meaning, we will use some
other meaning to try and justify what Trump is doing, that is
troubling.
But the third thing that they said was there should be high deference
to the President of the United States. Now, on national security
issues, it is a tradition for us to give considerable deference to the
President. In fact, there is at least one law I know of that says it
right in the law that the judgment and evaluation will be based on the
opinion of the President. It is written into the law--but not on title
10 that governs the federalization, the federalization of the National
Guard. Not there. No, it sets a standard, a standard for a rebellion or
an invasion. And when there is a standard, it is the role of the court
to determine whether the facts fit the standard. Otherwise, the
standard is meaningless.
If you want to throw open the barn doors as wide as they could
possibly be flung to send the military after peaceful protesters in the
United States of America, then say it is just up to the President,
regardless of the facts on the ground. A regardless-of-the-facts
opinion, in my estimation, is untethered to the Constitution,
untethered to the long tradition in America of understanding what
freedom is; that assembly is a fundamental freedom for citizens of the
United States of America; that the ability to protest and exercise your
free speech is a fundamental freedom, a freedom that cannot be
legitimately squashed under our Constitution because a President of the
United States is untethered to the facts and wants to develop the
authoritarian power to send the military after civilians.
This is an incredible threat to our Nation, to the entire vision of
our Constitution, to the entire platform on which our freedom exists.
So I am ringing the alarm bells tonight about this risk.
If you remove a clear standard as to whether there is a rebellion and
just say a President can deploy the military on a whim, in places he
doesn't like against peaceful protesters to distract Americans or to
exercise a suppression of dissent, then you have flung the doors open
to tyranny, to a strongman state, to authoritarian rule, and I don't
believe there is a single Senator here in the U.S. Senate who wants to
see freedom crushed and authoritarian rule established here in the
United States of America.
Our Founders did not want the President to be a King. A King can
decide on a whim to deploy troops against his own people; Presidents
cannot.
During the debate at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, James
Madison warned the following:
A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will
not long be safe companions to liberty.
Our Founders were terrified that a President would employ a standing
military against its citizens, and they would lose the entire vision of
our Constitution. It would slide into being an authoritarian state if
that were permitted.
That is why I am ringing the alarm bells because what is going on
right at this moment is the President of the United States is an
overgrown Executive. That is an Executive seeking authoritarian power.
And as Madison said, if such an Executive starts using a standing
military force, not long will we have our liberty.
He noted in further commentary:
The means of defense against foreign danger--
That is standing armies providing defense against foreign danger--
have always been instruments of tyranny at home.
That is why our Founders were afraid of having a standing army. That
is why we have the Posse Comitatus law, which says you can't deploy the
military against civilians in the United States.
That is why we have title 10 that says you can only federalize
Federal forces, National Guard, if there is a rebellion or an invasion.
Trump's plan is to replace government ``by and for the people'' with
government ``by and for the powerful.''
We saw it on day one when he was sworn in to being President of the
United States, and because of the weather, the swearing in was moved
into the Rotunda, down this hallway, halfway between this Senate
Chamber and the House Chamber.
I was sitting a couple rows back, not very far from the President,
and as the events commenced, I thought: How interesting. He campaigned
on helping families, and we know what the foundations for families are.
The foundations for families are healthcare and affordable, quality
housing--a decent home in a decent community--an education, and good-
paying jobs. Those are the foundations for a family to thrive.
But as I looked at the President of the United States and the row of
people right behind him, I didn't see any champions for housing; I
didn't see any champions for healthcare; I didn't see any champions for
education. But I will tell you what I did see. I saw a row of
billionaires. Mark Zuckerberg was standing there, Jeff Bezos was
standing there, and Elon Musk was standing there. It was Trump telling
us right then: This is what I am about--government by and for the rich
and powerful; government by and for the billionaires.
If you had any doubt about where things were headed at that moment,
all you had to do was wait for team Trump to work with the Members of
the majority in the House and the Members of the majority here in the
Senate to craft their main bill. Trump called it his Big Beautiful
Bill; many of us called it the ``Big Ugly Betrayal.''
Why would we call it a betrayal? Betrayal because Trump campaigned on
saying he was going to help family, but this bill was all about helping
the billionaires--the megamillionaires and billionaires across America.
The vision of that bill--the big, ugly betrayal of America bill--was
families
[[Page S7579]]
lose, billionaires win. That should tell you that we are now under an
authoritarian direction because in a republic where there is government
by and for the people, that is not the vision. It is not a vision of
families lose, billionaires win. That is not what government by and for
the people would produce. Government by and for the people would
produce a different vision: Families thrive, and the affluent--the
megamillionaires, the billionaires--pay their fair share. Families
thrive, and billionaires pay their fair share. That is a vision. Had
that been in the bill, I wouldn't be standing here tonight ringing the
alarm bells that we are in an authoritarian takeover of our Nation.
In this bill was an attack on healthcare like none we have ever seen.
Now, if we wind the clock back to 2009, 2010, when I first came to
the Senate, there was an effort to create, well, repairs to a
healthcare system in order to have basically everyone in the country
have access to insurance, and so we undertook a couple of efforts.
One was to increase the folks eligible under standard Medicaid to be
able to get healthcare coverage. Often, adults, veterans, and people
with disabilities had not been eligible; we made them eligible.
The second thing is, we said that the number of folks covered is
still too low of poverty level because the folks right above them are
never going to be able to afford insurance, so let's expand. Let's
extend Medicaid.
Well, these two things brought healthcare coverage to an enormous
number of Americans. Not every State opted into it, but over time, more
and more States have.
Then we said: There is an idea from this man named Romney, who was
Governor of Massachusetts, and this idea was to give tax credits to
families a little more affluent than those covered by Medicaid, but
they still can't afford insurance because the insurance policy is too
high. So let's give tax credits. And we can set up a marketplace on the
web where people can compare policies so they can see which insurance
policy is best for my family and, with the tax credits, how much would
I pay. And, oh, hey, I can now afford insurance.
These basic efforts increased the insurance coverage rate in my State
to 97 percent. That 3 percent that didn't have coverage--well, they
might have previously had coverage with their company, but then their
company dropped coverage, and they are still looking to sign up on the
exchange.
You know, I was thinking about this today because I had a visit from
small businesses, and they said: The biggest issue facing small
businesses right now in Oregon is that we largely get our health
insurance from the exchange.
Well, makes sense. Small businesses are not billionaires. Small
businesses are often just struggling entrepreneurs employing a few
people or maybe a few dozen people, going with the vicissitudes of the
economy up and down, taking a loan and trying to pay it off, getting a
grant from the Small Business Administration and trying to launch a new
line of business. It goes up and down.
But what they said was that the element of the ``Big Ugly Betrayal
Bill'' that slashes the tax credits is devastating to them.
One individual runs an event lighting company, and he has a small
number of employees--I believe four. He said he talked to each of them,
and they told him they are not going to buy insurance. They are not
going to buy insurance because they have looked at the initial rates on
the Oregon healthcare exchange, and the premiums went up and the tax
credits came down, and the gap in between is simply not affordable.
So back in 2009, 2010, we strengthened regular Medicaid; we expanded
Medicaid. We established the Romney plan. And Romney later came and
joined us as a U.S. Senator, having gone out to the State of Utah and
been elected and joined us. We established that vision, and it vastly
increased the number of folks who could go to the doctor. And I say
``go to the doctor'' because if you don't have insurance, you tend not
to go to the doctor because you can't afford it.
So all those efforts in 2009, 2010 to improve the healthcare system--
and it wasn't just those elements; it did other things. Back in 2009,
2010, we said: A lot of folks can't get insurance because of
preexisting conditions. Let's require the insurance companies to cover
preexisting conditions. Oh, by the way, often people don't get
preventive treatments because they aren't sick yet, and it costs money,
so let's make those free because an ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure. Oh, by the way, children in transition often fall
between the cracks, so let's let children stay on your policy until age
26.
So in 2009 and 2010, we worked intensely to strengthen the healthcare
system in the United States of America, but now we are in 2025, and the
exact opposite is happening. The ``Big Ugly Betrayal Bill''--the one
Trump called his Big Beautiful Bill--slashes healthcare. The first
thing it does is, those tax credits that are helping people buy
insurance on the exchange are slashed. The result is that 20 million
people are going to see vastly increased costs. In fact, the average
increase in cost is expected--projected to be 114 percent.
Now, I know folks who get upset when inflation is 5 percent. They get
really angry when it is 10 percent. But the lump of coal that my
Republican colleagues put in stockings across America is a doubling of
the cost, on average, of buying insurance on the healthcare exchange.
That is not all they did. They also said: By the way, we are going to
slash Medicaid.
Now, Medicaid in each State has a different name. In my State, it is
the Oregon Health Plan.
Well, they decided to implement this in January of 2027, not now. And
why not now? Because the result of the tax credit attack, amplified by
the attack on Medicaid, means 15 million people will lose their
insurance in the United States of America--15 million people without
insurance. Well, they didn't want to do that before the November 2026
election because people would be pretty damn angry about this ugly
treatment they are receiving through the big, ugly betrayal of a bill,
so they placed it very carefully in January of 2027 so people wouldn't
see the impact before the next election.
If this is such a good idea, I asked my colleagues, if you think this
is such a fabulous strategy--attacking, diminishing, demolishing a big
piece of our healthcare structure across America--why not do it now?
Why not do that piece now so people can say: Oh, that is so great. We
are so glad you did that. We will vote for you in November 2026.
No, they hid it on the back side of the election, and that tells you
a whole lot.
By the way, that attack on Medicaid in my State on the Oregon Health
Plan is projected to result in 235,000 Oregonians losing their
insurance. So I have been hearing a lot from my medical establishment
about the importance of reversing that.
Now, one way to think about how important Medicaid is to children is
to look at what percentage of children are actually covered through
Medicaid. In my State, the Oregon Health Plan--in my State, 60 percent;
in poorer States, more. In rural Oregon, which is less affluent than
urban Oregon, it is 70 percent. Almost three out of four children get
their healthcare through the Oregon Health Plan.
Well, does it make sense for thousands of children--235,000
Oregonians, adults and children included--to lose their insurance?
Because we know bad things happen when people lose their insurance.
They forgo seeing a doctor. A modest problem--maybe a lump--becomes
out-of-control breast cancer. A modest problem like managing diabetes
might become a foot amputation or blindness. And because the problem is
worse, it becomes more expensive. Because folks don't have insurance,
they go to the emergency room, which is the most expensive place to
treat anything in the medical system, so it drives up the cost of our
healthcare system. And then because the folks who waited because they
didn't have insurance don't have insurance, they can't pay a bill
because they can't afford to pay it and they have no insurance to pay
it. So the bill goes unpaid. What does that mean? That means less
revenue for the clinics, and that means less revenue for the hospitals.
That is what I have been hearing from our medical healthcare leaders
in my home State, saying: This is wrong.
[[Page S7580]]
This is going to mean we will have to shut down programs.
Some of our rural clinics have added things like mental health care,
drug treatment, addiction treatment programs. They added programs that
they will have to cancel, or they say they might have to shut down the
maternity ward.
We had already a hospital in Baker City have to shut down its
maternity ward before this bill went into effect, a couple of years
ago, because they were on the edge because maternity care is expensive.
How does it feel in rural America when your hospital shuts down the
place you would have gone to give birth, and now it is wintertime, and
you have to go 50, 60, or 70 miles down the road and hope there is no
ice or snow that is going to prevent you from getting to the hospital
or just go that far to see your doctor round trip and back again? Not
good.
When a program is shut down, everyone in the community sees
diminished healthcare. When a clinic is shut down, everyone in the
community has less healthcare. When a hospital is shut down, everyone
in the community is affected.
So for all those affluent individuals that say ``You know, I have
mine,'' well, you don't have yours if your hospital or clinic shuts
down. Everyone is affected.
Shouldn't we all be in this together anyway to make things work for
families across our country? Shouldn't we all be working to make our
healthcare system work better? You know, it is certainly not perfect.
It has many, many problems. But making it so much worse deliberately is
an assault on millions of Americans and all Americans who live in
communities where they might lose their healthcare clinic or their
hospital.
Trump put forward this big, ugly betrayal of a bill that created this
mess, this healthcare mess, and now Trump and my Republican colleagues
have shut down the government because they are unwilling to clean up
this mess--unwilling to clean up this mess; in fact, unwilling to
actually even hold a conversation about cleaning up this mess.
The House of Representatives has been on vacation for a month. They
haven't been in this building. They haven't been in their wing of the
building. I heard the Speaker of the House say that there is nothing to
discuss. Nothing to discuss? Twenty million people are facing a 100-
percent increase in the cost of their healthcare, and already, programs
are adjusting in anticipation of what is going to happen in January of
2027. After all, it is not that far away. We are in the month of
October. There are 2 months left in this year and 12 in next year. It
is only 14 months away before the second part of this diabolical plan
kicks in. Already, clinics and hospitals are shepherding their
resources, and that means some of them are already starting to shut
down or tailor programs.
There is nothing to discuss here? I think there is a tremendous
amount to discuss.
I would like to encourage the leaders of both Chambers to sit down
with the leaders on the other side of the aisle--our Republican leaders
to sit down with the Democratic leaders. I have heard that the leaders
don't want to do that because Trump has told them not to.
Let me tell you, that is an inversion of the vision our Founders laid
out for this country. The first section of our Constitution is not
about the executive branch, and it is not about the judicial branch.
Article I is about the Senate and House Chambers, where representatives
of the people chart the course for our Nation, where they craft the
laws, and they argue with each other, and they vote.
Sometimes, those laws are fairly simple. For example, the very first
law ever debated by U.S. Senators was a tariff bill. They said ``A keg
of molasses--how much tariff should we put on that?'' or a box of nails
or so forth. They went through a couple of hundred products, and they
assigned tariffs to them. They were charting the course--the first
piece of an economic course--for our Nation, planned here and planned
down the hall, because the job of the House and the Senate is to argue,
bringing together the perspectives from our very disparate sections of
the country.
Oregon doesn't look like Florida. Florida doesn't look like Maine.
Maine doesn't look like Iowa. None of them look like California. So we
come here, and we bring our different life experiences and the
different visions we bring in understanding what our home States need,
and we craft the vision. It is for the Executive to implement it--to
implement it--not to make the vision.
Certainly, scholars on how republics become strongman states will
tell you that one of the first warning signs is a legislature that
decides it is a rubberstamp for the Chief Executive, the President,
because you have flipped on its head the fundamental responsibility
laid out where this target of where we head is crafted here in Congress
and the President executes it.
But if it is the President crafting the vision and the legislators
are just saying ``We have to do what the President says,'' then we have
abandoned our constitutional role, and in the course of it, we have
created a strongman state. The powerful President says ``I want this,''
the leaders of the House and Senate say ``You got it,'' and we are
suddenly without the separation of powers, the checks and balances of
our Constitution.
So when I hear leadership saying the President is not ready for us to
hold a conversation, that worries me because I think leaders here
should be saying to the President: We in the House of Representatives
and we in the Senate--it is our responsibility under the Constitution
to craft the vision going ahead. We have a big problem ahead of us, and
that is that 20 million people are going to the web right now and
looking at those marketplace exchanges and seeing that the price of
their insurance is going to double, and we are going to sit down and
talk about it and work out a fix.
That is the responsibility we have here.
Colleagues, I am coming tonight to the floor of this Senate to ring
the alarm bells because we have become an authoritarian nation over the
last 9 months. We are deep into an authoritarian takeover. We never
thought this could happen in the United States of America, not in a
million years. We watched it happen to republics all over the world. We
see how, suddenly, constitutional term limits are just ignored, or we
see how corruption results in the legislature not actually being
elected to reflect the will of the people because the integrity of the
elections has been deeply compromised. We see courts with hand-selected
jurists in other countries who decide to hand power through judicial
rulings to the President. But not here. This was not going to happen in
the United States of America. Not here. Not here.
I say not just to my colleagues tonight but to the citizens of the
United States of America: Authoritarianism is here on our doorstep. It
is acting right now.
We have the three core elements of an authoritarian rule. The first
is a rubberstamp Congress. The second is a Supreme Court which proceeds
to hand more power to the Executive. The third is an aggressive
authoritarian personality as the President. Those are the three
components. They are all present here right now.
You know, I was struck by a ruling called Trump v. the United States
of America. This ruling stemmed from President Trump's first term, but
it was decided during the Biden administration. The Supreme Court was
being given a case in which the question was, Is the President of the
United States above the law? Can the President commit a crime but cloak
it as a government action and be immune from prosecution?
When I heard that, I said: Well, hell no; this is the United States
of America. Hell no, you can't do that here. We have above the Supreme
Court those four words: ``Equal Justice Under Law''--no exceptions.
I can pull out a copy of the Constitution--``We the People''--and you
page through it, and you find article II. Well, article II is about the
executive branch. You start looking. Is there anything in article II--
anything at all--that says the President is above the law? Nothing.
Nothing here says that.
Think about our Founders, who were so concerned about the possibility
of a President trying to be a King, so concerned about a President
trying to use
[[Page S7581]]
military forces against our own people, they didn't even want a
standing army. They created these carefully balanced checks and
balances so that a President could not be an authoritarian.
But, suddenly, the Supreme Court says--article II starts out ``The
executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States . .
. shall hold office during the Term of four Years'' and so on and so
forth. If you can find anything in here that says the President is
above the law, well, then, please bring it to my attention because this
article is really not that long. You have sections 1, 2, 3 and 4. That
is it. Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4. Where does it say the President is
above the law?
I said, you know, there is no way that our Supreme Court will place
an enormous power to break the law like a crown on the head of the
President, because we don't have Kings; we have Presidents. No way the
Court will do that.
A bunch of the Supreme Court Justices like to say they are
originalists. What does that mean, they are originalists? It means they
try to take the clauses of the Constitution as they were understood at
the time. Well, I can assure you, there is no member of the Founders of
our Nation who thought the President was above the law. If some of them
wanted it to be the case that the President is above the law, they
might have argued to put it in the Constitution, but it is not here
because, collectively, they knew they would end up in an authoritarian
state if the President is above the law. That is the Supreme Court
handing more power to the Executive, power that doesn't exist in the
Constitution.
So we have all three factors now. That is why I am ringing the alarm
bells tonight.
We have a rubberstamp Congress that is saying: We will lead the
Chambers of the Congress to do what the President wants as opposed to
what the people of the United States want. We have the Supreme Court
handing over vast power that doesn't exist in this document that guides
us--this document they are supposed to defend--to the President of the
United States of America; and we have a President so willing, so
determined to actually exercise the powers of a King--the authoritarian
powers.
We are in deep trouble. We are in deep trouble. That is why so many
citizens across the country are in deep distress. That is why, on
Saturday, 7 million Americans took to the streets on No Kings Day to
say this authoritarian takeover is absolutely outrageous, illegal,
unconstitutional, unacceptable, and it must end. Seven million people,
in the largest demonstration in the history of our Nation--people in
the street in a 1-day protest--saying: Pay attention. Pay attention,
Members of the House of Representatives. Pay attention, Members of the
Senate. Our Constitution is being shredded by the President, and you
are helping. So, stop, and, instead, exercise your responsibility in a
Republic. Defend the separation of powers. Defend the checks and
balances. Set the vision for the Nation as a Congress and remind the
President that it is his job to implement that vision, not the other
way around.
The authoritarian takeover is not down the street. It is not around
the corner. We are in the middle of it right now. That is why 7 million
Americans, in some 2,700 individual protests, took to the streets on
Saturday--to send us a message.
But I am not sure that message was heard by the Members of this
Chamber. So I am here in this Chamber tonight to ring the alarm bells
and say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: The authoritarian
takeover is here. It is a violation of our Constitution, and we have to
stop it.
The experts tell us that there are two ways when there is an
authoritarian takeover--when the President becomes a self-appointed
King, when a Congress becomes a rubberstamp, when a Supreme Court
ignores the Constitution and hands more power to the President--two
ways to keep that authoritarian, strongman state from becoming
entrenched.
The first is for there to be a visible and loud outcry in the first
year. The reason that that is important is that, if there is no outcry,
people will go: Well, this sounds outrageous to me, what just happened.
I can't believe the President is trying to tell the networks what shows
they can put up. That happens in authoritarian places, but I don't hear
any outcry. So, maybe, do I misunderstand? Is it that unusual?
Oh, the President is suing his own government and asking his Justice
Department to find a settlement that will enrich the President. Oh,
that seems outrageous. The President is asking his own Justice
Department to give the President money? That seems outrageous, but if
there is no outcry, maybe it is not that big a deal.
Oh, the Secretary of State is throwing students out of this country
because of views they expressed on a college campus. That seems
extraordinary. Has that ever happened again? Well, nobody is
protesting. Maybe I am wrong to think that we have freedom of speech on
our campuses.
Oh, the President is weaponizing the Department of Justice to go
after people he doesn't like, including proposing the possibility of
going after a Member of the U.S. Senate. I am sure that 100 Senators
would stand up and say hell no to such an authoritarian act. What am I
missing?
If there is no outcry, if there is no protest, then you are in deep
trouble, but here, in the United States of America, I am so pleased to
say there is an understanding that our freedoms are being crushed. That
is why 7 million people took to the streets on Saturday.
I was in Eastern Oregon, and I went to the small town of La Pine.
Protests are not a common thing in La Pine, OR. It is rural; it is red,
but there were 200 people out on the street with all sorts of creative
signs and creative costumes. I was really struck by a couple of the
veterans I spoke to who said: I fought for my country, and I
volunteered and went because I believe in freedom, and our President is
crushing those freedoms. I am out here to protest and to say what I
fought for must not be undone by a President of the United States.
This is somebody who went and served. That was powerful.
I was not drafted in Vietnam. I was too young by a year or two, and I
did not volunteer to go. But for those who went, they have come back
home to say that our fathers and mothers were engaged in war to defend
our freedom, and I went with this conviction that I wanted to serve my
country and defend that special America where we cherish our freedoms
and defend our Constitution, and I will not see it undone. I will not
see it undone by a President of the United States of America, a
rubberstamp Congress, and a Court that has decided to find things that
don't exist in the Constitution to give power to the Executive--power
that the Executive cannot rightfully claim.
So that is the first thing that you need in order to keep
authoritarian power from becoming entrenched. You need outrage the
first year. You need protests the first year. You need protests inside
the Chamber, and you need protests outside the Chamber so that people
will hear--who are, maybe, one step away from protesting. They think
something is wrong, and they will go: Wow. I didn't go protest, but
those 7 million people--they are sending me a message, and that message
is, we are in a terrible place in our Nation, and we need to be acting.
Americans are standing up because the President is not a King.
Americans are standing up because laws are not suggestions. Americans
are standing up because following the Constitution is not optional.
The second way to prevent the entrenchment of authoritarian power is
the next election. The scholars really emphasize that because one of
the standard things that an authoritarian ruler does is seek to rig the
elections so that you won't have the integrity that allows them to be
dislodged down the line or to allow the strongman state to be dislodged
by an outcry and a vote of the people. You want to rig the next
election.
Well, that is why the next election matters because there hasn't been
as much time to rig it. The next election for us is November of 2026.
It is 13 months away. Well, that is still 13 months in which an
authoritarian President can work to rig the election, but it is not 3
years out--because, in 3 years, an authoritarian President can do a lot
more rigging than they can in 13 months, so that next election matters
enormously. You get that one
[[Page S7582]]
chance to win. Don't mess it up because, with each election, it will
get harder and harder to displace the authoritarian structures that are
created and strengthened by the strongman in the executive.
When you read experts saying that this is the authoritarian playbook,
watch, they say, for what that authoritarian President is doing, and
what you will see is that they will work to rig the elections.
OK. Well, are we seeing that now? Well, yes, we are.
His first tactic--Trump's first tactic--to consolidate authoritarian
control is to consolidate the States' voter registration files. If you
have control over those files, it makes it easier to manipulate them in
the next election. Now, we have already seen what some of the
individual States have done to manipulate the voter files. They have
gone on purges and said: Let's think about how we can purge the names
off this list, so people will go to the polls and find out they are not
even registered to vote.
It is not too late. Well, maybe if there are a whole lot of Hispanic
names that are matching, we will eliminate them or maybe we will say:
If there is the same name in this State and the same name in the next
State, we will assume that person has moved, so we will pull him off
the polls, off the registration lists.
That has actually gone on here, and that is the type of manipulation
that can happen across the country if the President has a consolidated
national voting registration file.
A second tactic is to encourage States to gerrymander their House
districts so that you break up, say, a congressional district in a city
that, perhaps, elected a Democrat, since we know that cities tend to be
somewhat bluer and rural areas tend to be somewhat redder. You split it
up, and you split it up between a bunch of red districts. That type of
gerrymandering creates disproportional power for the Republican Party.
Well, we have seen that happen before. We have seen it often. In the
past, we had a law called the Voting Rights Act that said you couldn't
manipulate the congressional districts to destroy the voice of the
people by race because race tends to differ according to rural and
urban areas as well. But the Supreme Court--hell-bent on accentuating
authoritarian power--is considering a case right now that will not only
allow the type of redistricting that Texas has been undertaking but
will create a constitutional rule that will make it hard to empower the
voices of minorities in this country to be represented in the House of
Representatives.
So the effort to gerrymander even larger numbers of the House in
support of an authoritarian state is well underway.
The third tactic is to kill vote by mail. You heard what Trump said.
He wants to make it illegal to vote by mail.
Now, I am the Senator from Oregon. Oregon invented vote by mail. It
actually started with the Republican Party. The Republican Party in my
State said: We know that when we encourage people to vote by mail, we
get a higher turnout, and we are more likely to win campaigns--
statewide campaigns--and campaigns for the House, the Oregon House, and
the Oregon Senate. So we are going to go on a big campaign to encourage
people to vote by absentee ballot.
And the Democrats observed that, and they said: Well, they have a
point. There is better turnout if you get people to vote by mail
because those folks will not end up failing to vote on election day
because they forgot or they had childcare or they couldn't get out of
work or the line was too long. So if you can get them to vote by mail,
you are going to have more people vote. And then you had both parties
encouraging people to vote by mail. And back in the 1998 election, half
of the ballots were being cast by mail and half were being cast at the
polls.
Now, I started my campaign to run for the Oregon House of
Representatives in that year, 1998. And I am a big believer in door-
knocking. I just wanted to knock on as many doors as I could and say:
Here is what matters to our community that is not getting done at the
capital. I would like to have your support.
And I had a lot of good conversations. But I kind of liked the idea
of everyone, on election day, having a big act for the community and
going and voting together. That tradition just felt good to me.
And as I am knocking on doors and I am talking to people about the
next election, people started saying: Well, I will tell you one thing;
I sure do love the ability to vote by mail.
And I would say: Well, tell me more about that.
And they said: Well, listen, here is the story. I like to sit down
with my husband or sit down with my wife and talk about the candidates.
We can read what is in the campaign brochures and discuss it, and I
like doing that at our kitchen table.
And others said: You know, I really like that vote-by-mail because I
can't get out of work to be able to go vote. And when I do get out of
work, I have got childcare to pick up. And if you are late for
childcare, you get charged. So that is a big problem.
And I had others who said: You know, here in Oregon we have
initiatives, and the initiatives are complicated. They are basically
creating law not through a legislature but through a vote of the
people. And I really have to understand this stuff, and there are a lot
of arguments, pro and con, in the voters' pamphlet, and so I really
like to sit and read through that.
And yet others said: You know why I love vote-by-mail? Because my
back hurts, and I don't want to stand in line for an hour.
And I had others who said: I really like vote-by-mail because I bring
my children to the table and talk to them about what it means to be a
citizen in a free country, and that we the citizens get to express an
opinion, and that opinion counts because when we fill in that circle--
in Oregon, it is done by paper--when we fill in that circle, we are
weighing in on the future of our community, on the future of our State,
on the future of our country. And I want my children to understand
that, yes, you have rights as a citizen, but you also have
responsibilities as a citizen.
And so, as I heard these stories, I thought, well, those are a lot of
good points being made.
But I will tell you, those points are not why Trump hates vote-by-
mail--not at all. The reason he hates vote-by-mail is because there is
such integrity with vote-by-mail.
It is so easy to manipulate election day. If you have to go to a
precinct and vote, it is so easy to decrease turnout. There are so many
strategies that have been so carefully developed over time to prevent
people from voting.
What do you do? You change the location of the voting precinct so
people are confused about where to go. You put out information about
the date and say, ``Sorry you missed the vote,'' making people think
they actually missed the vote when the next vote is actually the next
Tuesday. You take and you put machines in that voting precinct that
don't work very well to slow down the vote. You understaff the precinct
voting location to slow down the vote. All of these are tried-and-true
methods for decreasing the vote in places where you don't want people
to vote, and President Trump fully understands that. It is easy to
manipulate election day.
When people are worried about the integrity of our election and they
say, ``We are worried that maybe somebody will vote two ballots in a
vote-by-mail,'' well, we have had audit after audit after audit. The
integrity of vote-by-mail is 1,000 times better than a vote on election
day, where you can manipulate the vote.
You put the precinct where there is no parking; that is another
strategy. You send intimidators out to make people feel uncomfortable
while they are waiting in line. You pass laws that say you can't hand
out a glass of water, like Georgia did, so that thirsty people waiting
in line give up. You want those wait times to be so long that people
give up.
And if we thought this was some sort of fantasy, that this doesn't
really happen, take Georgia, where we have seen elections where the
wait time in urban areas is many hours longer than the wait time in
rural areas because of the strategy set up for people to vote, making
it difficult for people to vote.
[[Page S7583]]
That is why Trump hates vote-by-mail--because it has high integrity;
it stops the manipulation.
So here we are, deep into this authoritarian takeover: the President
attacking the integrity of our elections, attacking the separation of
powers, trying to steal the power of the purse that belongs in that
Constitution with us, but grabbing it and saying: I will decide what
gets funded; I will defund things through grant cancellations, and I
will defund by slow-walking the disbursement of funds and freezing and
impounding and rescissions. I will use every tactic ever imagined
because I want to decide what is funded and what is not funded.
Every time you hear the President or one of his Cabinet members say,
``We are defunding that program because it is not in line with the
President's priorities,'' that is an authoritarian statement. The power
of the purse in this Constitution--this one right here--belongs with
the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, not the Oval Office.
So when the President says he is funding programs he likes and
defunding those he doesn't like, he is stealing the constitutional
power of the purse.
The Supreme Court has weighed in on this twice. President Nixon
decided to do this, just simply not disburse funds for programs he
didn't like. And so this challenge went to the Supreme Court: Can the
President do that? Can the President impound funds?
The Supreme Court resoundingly said: Hell, no. It is in the
Constitution. It couldn't be clearer. The power of the purse rests with
the House and Senate, not with the President.
Well, that was decided by the Supreme Court in 1975, based on things
that were done back in 1972, 1973, when President Nixon was still in
power, before he resigned under the Watergate scandal.
But then we fast-forward to 1996--1996. Realize that we were in the
time period between January 1995 and January 1997, which was the first
legislative term for the Gingrich revolution. And the first agenda item
was to do a line-item veto--to pass a law saying the President could
strike any program he wants and defund it.
So the line-item veto goes to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme
Court says: Did you not read our decision in 1975? Have you not looked
at the Constitution of the United States of America? It is in here. It
is the people, through their elected representatives, who decide which
programs and how much money to give them, not the President.
If you want an authoritarian state where the President decides which
programs are funded and how much money to give them, you have to go to
some other country because, here, we have separation of powers; here,
we have checks and balances; here, we have a Constitution. And the
power of the purse rests with Congress.
So we have the 1970s, where the Supreme Court weighed in and said the
President cannot impound funds. We have the 1996 issue, with a bill
that gave line-item veto to the President being struck down by the
Supreme Court.
But here again, more than a quarter century later, we have another
President and another majority here in the Chamber that wants to ignore
the Constitution and hand over the power of the purse to the President.
So look at all that we are facing, every aspect of this authoritarian
takeover: the separation of powers being crushed; the power of the
purse being transmitted to the President, grabbed by the President, and
this Chamber doing nothing to stop it; the attack on due process,
people being apprehended and deported without hearings, people being
stopped on the street because of their accent or their skin color;
attacks on the freedom of speech of individuals and by networks using
the coercive power of government to suppress what the free press can
write or the free media can put on film or on programs; the attack on
law firms as a center of power; the attack on universities as a center
of power; the weaponizing of the Justice Department; the effort to
mobilize troops into L.A. and into Portland and into Chicago, when
nothing is happening that local police can't handle and there certainly
is not a rebellion or an invasion; and a President undermining the
integrity of the voting system of the United States of America by
attacking vote-by-mail, by seeking to consolidate and manipulate the
voting registration database, by encouraging States to gerrymander in
order to have more of one voice than a proportional representation of
the population should merit.
How is it possible that anyone cannot see that we are in the middle
of this authoritarian takeover--freedoms devastatingly diminished,
government by and for the people replaced by authoritarian, strongman
power?
So I am here tonight to ring the alarm bells. Seven million Americans
who were at the protests on Saturday, they are ringing the alarm bells.
Let those bells ring so loud, so powerfully that every citizen hears
them, every elected Member of this body hears them, every Member of the
House of Representatives hears them and responds by saying: I took an
oath to the Constitution, and I am going to stop this authoritarian
takeover.
In my townhalls--and I hold one in each county each year. I have 36
counties in Oregon.
Senator Wyden started this tradition of going to every county--open
townhall. When I ran for Senate, I said I would do the same thing. I
have had well over 600 townhalls--except for Senator Wyden, maybe more
than anybody among the 100 Senators.
I give a short introduction, and then I listen to people. And we
start out--I start out--after that short introduction, I say, Senator
Wyden and I are about the only Senators who hold townhalls like this.
And we hold these townhalls in Oregon successfully because we have
``The Oregon Way.'' ``The Oregon Way'' means that if somebody is
speaking that you strongly disagree with--in fact, that person's
speaking infuriates you--you still listen to that person respectfully,
and then we ask that everyone else in the gathering listen respectfully
when you are speaking.
And so despite incredibly vast differences of opinions on hugely
important and often emotional topics, people express their views. And I
listen to their views, and Senator Wyden does the same in his
townhalls, and it affects what we fight for here in the Senate because
we are carrying the hopes and dreams of our citizens into this Chamber.
We are carrying their aspirations for a better future.
And so often that better future is about the fundamentals for
families, about a better healthcare system, about better job
opportunities and living wages, an honest day's pay for an honest day's
work. Often, it is about education and the hope that education will
provide a pathway of opportunity for their children, healthcare,
housing, education, good-paying jobs. I hear a lot about those four
issues in my townhalls.
But you know what I heard this year? I heard something that I have
not heard other years. I heard maybe a little of it during the first
Trump administration, of concern about the checks and balances of our
Constitution. Certainly, I heard a fair amount of concern and outrage
about the stealing of a Supreme Court seat that opened up under
President Obama. But this Chamber, for the first time in U.S. history,
refused to hold a debate and a vote on the nominee from the President--
first time in our history, a Supreme Court seat stolen.
So, yes, I did hear some feedback about concerns about our
Constitution, our democracy during Trump's first administration, but
nothing--nothing--like I heard this year.
You know, a modest number of people come out to my townhalls. It
averages about 100 a townhall--some areas, larger; some, smaller. In
the last year, in 2024, I had about 3,400 people come in person. This
year, I had 15,000-plus come--a five-fold increase come--to my
townhalls, and so many came, just like the 7 million people who
protested on Saturday.
So many people came to say: How the hell is the U.S. Senate letting a
President crush our freedom and shred our Constitution?
And they would say to me: Do more. Find some other way to push back,
to organize, to persuade your colleagues on both sides of the aisle the
time for action to defend our freedom is now, not next year, not after
next election, not a month from now. The time is now.
[[Page S7584]]
They would say: We see what you have been saying and doing in
protests about so much of what has been happening. But you, Senator
Merkley, need to do more.
And, quite frankly, to my colleagues, that is the reason I am on the
floor tonight, trying to think of one more way I can ring the alarm
bells, one more way I can use this office and this opportunity afforded
to be a Member of the U.S. Senate to say: We cannot let this happen.
I received another question at those townhalls--at one townhall after
another: And what can we do to do more?
And I said the following: You have asked what everyone can do to do
more to save our Republic. First, get off the couch. You can't change
the future with a pillow over your head.
Second, fiercely hold your electeds accountable. Call their phones.
Write letters. Protest outside their offices. Fiercely hold them
accountable. And me too--hold me accountable--as they were in the
townhall and as they have when they have been protesting.
And join an affinity group, because to be angry and alone is to be
depressed. But to be angry and organized with others, that is to be
energized and effective. When it comes to stopping an authoritarian
takeover, we need our citizens to be organized, energized, and
effective.
We need that energy from our citizens as they communicate with us and
challenge us. We need that energy in the streets. We need that energy
in the halls of power. We need to defend the Constitution. We need to
restore our democracy. We need to reinvigorate government of, by, and
for the people of the United States of America.
That is why I have come to the floor tonight to ring the alarm bells.
Here in the Senate, we have attempted to use a number of tools, using
every hour required under the Senate rules to review the qualifications
of unqualified individuals nominated for Trump's Cabinet, like Pete
Hegseth for Defense and Kristi Noem and Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel.
And so often, my colleagues have said: Oh my goodness, I can't even
believe the President nominated this individual, but you know, the
President nominated them. He is our leader. So I will vote. I will vote
for this person. I will put them in office.
To hear my colleagues say they know someone is unqualified but they
are going to vote for them anyway is to hear the failure to understand
our responsibility under the Constitution. Reviewing and voting down
individuals who are unqualified by character or talent or experience
for a position, that is our responsibility. It is to not let them take
positions of power where they can do bad things to the American people,
where they can undermine the efforts to build a better country.
It is our responsibility to exercise our judgment, not to defer to
the President. A ``check and balance'' means nothing if you say I am
abandoning my role to evaluate the qualifications, and I will simply
vote because the person in the office is of my same party.
I voted--I remember one in particular--against one of President
Biden's nominees. I was one of only a few folks on my side of the aisle
to vote against him. Why? I didn't feel the person was suited to the
office, and that is my responsibility under the Constitution.
One of the people that I felt was vastly unsuited was Russell Vought.
As the lead Democrat on the Budget Committee, I therefore had the
opportunity to interview Russell Vought before he came to the hearing
before the Budget Committee. And he basically told me that his belief
was in strong-man government--unitary Executive: The President should
decide what programs are funded and how much they should get--and that
he fully expected to use the powers that the President could use to
achieve that, involving impoundments, slow-walking, frozen funds, and
so forth.
And I said: But the Supreme Court has weighed in twice, and our
Constitution is clear: The power of the purse is here.
And he said, you know, I like the unitary Executive. That is my
philosophy, and that is what I am going to fight for.
I found, therefore, him to be profoundly unsuitable for office
because he did not intend to honor the basic premise of the
Constitution--that Congress decides by law what is funded and how much.
So we had a 30-hour debate. We went through the night here in this
Chamber, debating the merits of this individual, and many of my
colleagues had reservations. But in the end, they voted for him. So we
have a man controlling the Office of Management and Budget who said: I
think the power of the purse should be with the President, and I am
going to do everything possible to make that happen.
By voting for that nominee, we facilitated a crime against the
Constitution in which the power of the purse is being taken by the
President. We facilitated the authoritarian takeover that is underway
right now.
My constituents have asked me in those townhalls to do everything I
can, everything in my power, to stop this authoritarian takeover of our
Nation. So tonight, I have come to the floor to do one thing I have not
done before, and that is give a more extended speech to ring the alarm
bells--the speech I am engaging in right now.
We are in the most perilous moment for our Constitution, the biggest
threat to our Republic since the Civil War. Authoritarianism is not
down the street or around the corner. It is clear and present right
now.
There are a couple of books that I have brought with me to explain
what is happening. One of them is ``How Democracies Die.'' And this
book is written by two scholars, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.
They have studied republics around the world that have slid into
authoritarian states, and they wrote this book to say: Pay attention,
America. We are in danger of the same thing happening.
And I thought, well, I will just come and read this book for the
benefit of my colleagues who haven't read it and the benefit of the
American people who might be listening in, as one way to ring the alarm
bells about the authoritarian takeover of the United States of America
and how we are going down the same path that has happened in country
after country after country, where you get a rubberstamp Congress; you
get a Supreme Court that hands more power to the Executive; you get an
ambitious, power-hungry, strong-man-style President; and with the
combination of those three, you have lost your Republic.
``How Democracies Die''--that is what I am going to share with you
tonight.
And, also, another book: ``On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the
Twentieth Century,'' by Timothy Snyder.
``How Democracies Die''--ours is dying right now with this
authoritarian takeover. Tyranny is what you get when you lose your
democracy.
So if by going on at some length about this I can add a little bit of
attention, ring the bells a little louder and a little longer--the
alarm bells--about this authoritarian crushing of our liberties,
authoritarian crushing of our freedom, then that is what I am doing
tonight.
At the midnight hour, should I make it that long--still 4 hours from
now--I am going to pause to read some stanzas from Longfellow's poem
``Paul Revere's Ride.''
(Ms. LUMMIS assumed the Chair.)
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