[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14499-14502]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, our Nation has gone through a difficult, 
bruising Presidential election. Normally, we would be making the pivot 
to healing those wounds, but this election has been particularly rough, 
and the wounds sustained during the campaign continue to haunt our 
Nation. Many groups of Americans across our country are frightened for 
the future, of being deported, of being targeted as Muslims, of 
resurgent racism toward African Americans, of anti-Semitism, of losing 
their right to marry the person they love.
  Unfortunately, they have good reason to be afraid. We have seen a 
surge, a wave of hateful bigoted, racist, sexist attacks happening in 
communities across our country since the election. The divisive 
rhetoric and conduct of President-Elect Donald Trump's campaign over 
the past year and a half is responsible for unleashing this blight on 
our country. He has the responsibility to turn things around, to put an 
end to this division, and to start the healing.
  That is why, earlier today, 10 of my colleagues in the Senate joined 
me to send a letter to President-Elect Trump, demanding that he stand 
up and condemn these verbal and physical attacks occurring around this 
country, that he denounce his own past campaign rhetoric that gave life 
to so many of these acts of hate and violence, and that he exclude 
proponents of hatred and discrimination from the ranks of his 
administration, including immediately firing white supremacist Steve 
Bannon as his Chief Strategist.
  Here is what the text of the letter says:

       Mr. President-Elect:
       Your campaign conduct and Electoral College victory have 
     unleashed a wave of verbal and physical assaults against our 
     fellow Americans. In just the last six days, the Southern 
     Poverty Law Center has documented hundreds of acts of 
     discrimination and violence toward many of the ethnic and 
     social groups you attacked in your campaign. These attacks 
     are absolutely unacceptable. We condemn them. We stand united 
     with our fellow citizens.
       Unfortunately, these acts of hate have been enabled by your 
     campaign strategy of promoting bigotry, racism, and sexism. 
     It is the logical consequence of your campaign attacks on and 
     discrimination aimed at Hispanics, African Americans, 
     veterans, immigrants, women, Muslims, Jews, and individuals 
     with disabilities. Millions of Americans see a President-
     elect who has chosen to knock them down rather than to lift 
     them up. Your conduct has empowered too many Americans to act 
     on their darkest impulses.
       This is the wrong vision for America and the wrong path for 
     your coming Administration. We call on you to change course. 
     We urge you, as our future President, to join us in rejecting 
     hate and embracing respect for every ethnicity, race and 
     gender. We urge you to join us in fighting for a nation free 
     of discrimination, where every child has the opportunity to 
     thrive and contribute according to his or her ability. We 
     urge you to join us in fighting for our Constitutional vision 
     of equality and opportunity and the vision in our Pledge of 
     Allegiance of liberty and justice for all.
       As you assume the mantle of leadership in office, it is 
     your responsibility to put an end to the crimes of hate and 
     prejudice sweeping our nation. These wounds to our national 
     citizenry are of your making. It is your responsibility to 
     rectify the damage. You have the power as President to move 
     beyond the hate-filled rhetoric of your campaign.
       We call on you to repudiate your campaign attacks against 
     diverse communities of Americans.
       We call on you to address the American people and demand 
     that all Americans end these verbal and physical attacks and 
     replace acts of hatred with acts of kindness.
       We call on you to exclude the proponents of discrimination 
     and hatred from the ranks of your Administration, and that 
     includes immediately firing Steve Bannon as your Chief 
     Strategist.

  The letter concludes:

       It is time for you to act boldly and powerfully to put the 
     nation on a path of healing. For the sake of all Americans, 
     we call on you to rise to the challenge.

  In addition to myself, it is signed by Senator Mazie Hirono, Senator 
Elizabeth Warren, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Ed Markey, Senator 
Bernard Sanders, Senator Al Franken, who spoke so eloquently a few 
moments ago, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator-Elect 
Chris Van Hollen, and Senator Tom Carper.
  I thank my colleagues who have appropriately said that at this 
moment--at this unusual moment in our history, in our time here in the 
21st century--that we have a President-elect playing on hate and 
prejudice and bringing a white supremacist in as Chief Adviser is 
unacceptable.
  Some will say that President-Elect Trump cannot himself be 
accountable for what is happening across our country, but they are 
wrong. His words and his conduct are directly connected to the 
harassment and the physical and verbal assaults that we are seeing.
  I am going to share with you all the comments of the campaign and the 
acts of citizens in category after category to show how these are tied 
together--how, indeed, these verbal assaults and these physical 
assaults are motivated by and justified by the campaign of our 
President-elect--just to emphasize that it is time for our President-
elect to take responsibility, to change course, to embrace the 
connectedness of our American communities, the vision of equality and 
opportunity in our Constitution, the vision of a nation with justice 
for all, and the fact that our President should be working to raise up 
all families--not raising up a few by tearing down the rest.
  Let's start by looking at what Mr. Trump said about our Nation's 
Latino citizens. At the start of his campaign, Mr. Trump said:

       When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best 
     . . . they're sending people with lots of problems and 
     they're bringing those problems with them. They're bringing 
     drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. . . . And 
     some, I assume, are good people.

  Later in the campaign he promised to build a wall--``a great, great 
wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. 
Mark my words.''
  When discussing Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a U.S. district judge presiding 
over a lawsuit against Trump University--by the way, an American-born 
citizen--the President-elect said the judge couldn't be impartial and 
should be removed from the case because ``this judge is of Mexican 
heritage.''
  Judge Curiel was born and raised in Indiana.
  Mr. Trump's right-hand man, his designated Chief Strategist, Steve 
Bannon, used his position at Breitbart News to continue attacks against 
Latinos. Under his leadership, Breitbart frequently used anti-immigrant 
slurs and published ``war on Spanish'' and nativist-appealing content 
in his quest to make his platform a platform for White nationalism.
  It is important to note that even many Republicans and conservative 
commentators believe that Mr. Bannon is a man with unconscionable views 
and frightening ties to white supremacist movements.
  John Weaver, a former top adviser to Governor John Kasich tweeted of 
Mr. Bannon's selection as Chief Strategist: ``The racist, fascist 
extreme is represented footsteps from the Oval Office.''
  Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist, called Bannon: ``White 
supremacist, anti gay, anti Semite, vindictive.'' Ana then said: ``Be 
afraid, America.''
  Glenn Beck, known to all of us as a rightwing radio commentator--a 
very conservative commentator, a person who has attacked virtually 
every idea to help working America that comes from the blue side of the 
aisle--said Bannon is ``terrifying'' and said that he has helped to 
give voice to White nationalists.
  Former KKK leader David Duke and the American Nazi Party have praised 
Bannon's elevation to the White House. So there should be no mistaking 
or sugar coating what precisely this individual, Steve Bannon, stands 
for.
  Under his leadership, Breitbart became a leader in anti-Latino, 
nativist material--one headline after another attacking Hispanics here 
in America.
  So when we look at what is happening right at this moment to Latinos 
today, what do we see? We see students in our schools taunting and 
bullying their classmates. At DeWitt Junior High School in Lansing, MI, 
White students formed a human wall and refused to let their Latino 
classmates into the school.
  In Ventura, CA, a Latino mother reported seeing fifth graders at her 
child's school chanting: ``Build a wall.''

[[Page 14500]]

  Latinos all across our Nation are being harassed and told they are 
going to be deported, they don't belong here in America, even if they 
were born here in America.
  In Andover, MA, a group of white men in a car threw a water bottle at 
a young Hispanic woman and screamed: ``Time to go back to your 
country''--insert expletive--``my man Trump is on top now and we don't 
want you here!''
  In Southern California, a college student was accosted by a man who 
said:

       I can't wait until Trump asks us to rape your people and 
     send you back over the biggest damn wall we're going to 
     build. Go back to hell.

  Then he inserted a racist slur for a Mexican and then threw water in 
the young woman's face.
  Walls all across the Nation are being spray painted with phrases such 
as: ``Build the Wall Higher.''
  In the face of attacks such as these, it is hard to remember that we 
are, indeed, a nation of immigrants. Unless you are 100-percent Native 
American, you are the child, grandchild, great grandchild, or the 
descendent of immigrants. Your forefathers and foremothers came to our 
country and felt they had come to a place where they could thrive. We 
have those beautiful words carved into the base of the Statue of 
Liberty: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning 
to breathe free.''
  It inspires all of us. Each one of us--again, unless we are 100-
percent Native American--have an ancestor who came to the country and 
felt that moment of freedom and opportunity no matter where they had 
come from.
  Latinos are not the only group of Americans suffering because of the 
rhetoric of the Trump campaign. African Americans have become a 
significant target in post-Trump America, as too many take their cues 
from our next President's words and actions towards that community--
words like the ones President-Elect Trump used to talk about African 
Americans who work for him. He said:

       I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. 
     Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of 
     people I want counting my money are short guys that wear 
     yarmulkes every day.

  He then went on to say:

       I think the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault 
     because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I 
     believe that. It's not anything they can control.

  Those are the words of our President-elect.
  When he talked about the Black Lives Matter movement on FOX News, he 
said:

       I think they are trouble. I think they're looking for 
     trouble.

  He often shows a startling disconnect with the African-American 
community, generalizing that they all live in inner cities that he 
regularly describes as poverty-stricken war zones.
  This disconnect started very early on in his real estate career when 
President-Elect Trump was publicly sued twice for discriminating 
against African Americans who were trying to rent apartments in his 
buildings.
  Of course, we can't talk about Mr. Trump's--President-Elect Trump's--
relations with the African-American community without bringing up his 
longstanding promotion and advocacy of the birther movement, which 
tried to delegitimize our country's first African-American President.
  Those efforts go back to 2011, when Mr. Trump was considering a run 
for the White House and said on one talk show: ``If he wasn't born in 
this country, which is a real possibility . . . then he has pulled off 
one of the great cons in the history of politics.''
  He went on and on and on--month after month--questioning the 
legitimacy of our President in office.
  To his credit, on that particular point Mr. Trump has recanted 
himself, but he used it as a race card time after time after time to 
delegitimize our President--President Obama--because he is African 
American.
  The views of President-Elect Trump's right-hand man, his Chief 
Strategist, Steve Bannon, aren't any better. Under Bannon's leadership, 
Breitbart created a news section titled ``Black Crime.''
  Just 2 weeks after the Charleston massacre in which nine African-
American churchgoers were slaughtered, Breitbart ran this headline. By 
the way, in that attack, the attacker used the Confederate flag as a 
symbol--a racist symbol--to justify attacking these nine individuals.
  What did Steve Bannon do? He ran this headline: ``Hoist It High And 
Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.'' In a 
lengthy July post on Breitbart, Bannon accused the left of a ``plot to 
take down America'' by fixating on police shootings of Black citizens. 
Well, the list goes on and on, but he proceeded to say: ``There are, 
after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and 
violent.'' That is certainly a direct racist statement.
  And what is the result we see today of all of this racism from our 
President-elect and from his Chief Strategist? Well, we have seen a 
startling rise in people's willingness to use the ``N'' word in public.
  At a school in Maple Grove, MN, the boys bathroom was defaced by 
graffiti that included racial slurs such as the ``N'' word and porch 
monkeys, alongside pro-Trump messages such as ``Trump Train'' and 
``Make America Great Again.''
  Students from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse who were living 
off campus found the quote ``Go Home'' and the ``N'' word written on 
their front door.
  A man in Knoxville, TN, woke up one morning to find his car 
vandalized with the phrase--and I am paraphrasing--expletive deleted 
``U'', insert ``N'' word, and then the word ``Trump'' spray-painted on 
his car.
  We have seen incidents harkening back to a time in history of 
discrimination and segregation.
  At a high school in Jacksonville, FL, an individual put up these 
signs: ``Colored'' and ``Whites Only''--the time of Jim Crow in 
America, where African Americans were treated as second-class 
citizens--and a ``Whites Only'' sign was found on the door of a 
bathroom stall at a high school in Duluth, MN.
  These are just a few of the incidents. There are the assaults as 
well, one incident after another of African Americans being assaulted. 
There is the softball field dugout in Wellsville, NY, where the phrase 
``Make America White Again'' was spray-painted and the defacement of a 
wall in Durham, NC, where someone decided to write ``Black lives don't 
matter and neither does your vote.'' There was a horrific incident in 
my State of Oregon in which an African-American woman was attacked in 
the parking lot of a grocery store in Hillsboro, OR. A group of three 
men threw a brick at her, broke her ribs, called her the ``N'' word, 
threatened to rape her, and they said: Now we finally have a President 
who feels how we feel.
  It is hard to imagine how our President-elect, with his own racist 
commentary, his own past acts of discrimination, his own racist 
campaign, his own racist Chief Strategist, isn't at all connected to 
these events sweeping the country. They are directly connected. And 
that is why we are calling on the President-elect to change course. The 
election is behind us. Before the President-elect is 4 years of 
opportunities to improve the lives of Americans. Take the assaults of 
the past and make them the assaults of the past. Look to the vision of 
partnership to build a better America in the years ahead. Leave that 
past behind.
  Martin Luther King, Jr., once said:

       Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. . . . 
     Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, 
     suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and the 
     passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

  Let's make that the spirit of the next 4 years, where together we are 
dedicated to progress for all Americans toward reaching that goal of 
opportunity and equality and justice.
  Another target has been our women across the country. Our President-
elect repeatedly treated women as sexual objects. Women have worked so 
hard to be seen as equals in our society. Women have flown as 
astronauts. They have reached the heights in science. They have reached 
peak after peak in leadership across our country. They bring their 
insight and wisdom to this Chamber here in the U.S. Senate and in the 
House of Representatives 100 yards across Capitol Hill.

[[Page 14501]]

  But our President-elect has seen it differently. Referring to the 
media, he said: ``It doesn't really matter what they write as long as 
you've got a young and beautiful piece of''--insert a demeaning term 
for women. He declared that ``You don't give a''--insert expletive--
``if a girl can play a violin like the greatest violinist in the world. 
You want to know what does she look like.''
  Our President-elect derided a political opponent by commenting on her 
looks, saying, ``look at that face! Would anybody vote for that? Can 
you imagine that, the next face of our President?''
  During the campaign, our President-elect called a female lawyer 
disgusting or at some point in passing he called a female lawyer 
disgusting because she asked to take a medical break to pump breast 
milk for her 3-month-old daughter.
  I think we are all aware of the comments he made towards FOX News 
debate moderator Megyn Kelly--words I choose not to repeat at this 
moment. And then he said pregnant women are an inconvenience for his 
business. And of course our President-elect was caught on tape bragging 
about sexually assaulting women, saying:

       I'm just automatically attracted to beautiful--I just start 
     kissing them. Just kiss. I don't even wait.

  Then he went on to talk about groping the women and being able to get 
away with it because he is a star.
  He has brought into the White House his Chief Strategist, Steve 
Bannon, who shares these views about women, putting up a headline: 
``There's No Hiring Bias Against Women. . . . They Just Suck At 
Interviews.''
  Another one said: ``The Solution to Online `Harassment' is simple: 
Women Should Log Off.''
  Here is another: ``Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or 
Cancer?'' as if women's rights are a disease.
  We see that these comments and the conduct of the President-elect and 
the comments of his Chief Strategist have had an impact. Two men at a 
concert in Ohio threatened to ``Donald Trump'' a female security guard 
because she wouldn't let them into a restricted section of the venue. 
According to one teacher, a 10-year-old girl was taken home from school 
after a male classmate grabbed her private parts, and when asked why he 
did it, the boy said that if a President can do it, he can do it too. 
In Oklahoma City, a woman was chased on the highway because of her 
Hillary bumper sticker, while men in another car hurled sexual insults 
at her.
  These are just a small number of the hundreds and hundreds of events 
happening across this country. Every Member of this body, every Member 
of the Senate can relate stories from people who have shared with them 
over the past few weeks, stories from their constituents who have 
written to them to share the harassment they have suffered.
  We have just seen a historic milestone. We have had, for the first 
time, a woman as the nominee of a major political party--and not only 
that, she got a lot more votes than did Donald Trump. The women's 
suffrage movement has come so far since the days when Elizabeth Cady 
Stanton said: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men 
and women are created equal'' and that ``the history of the past is but 
one long struggle toward equality.'' We have come a long ways in the 
few decades since Martin Luther King said that the moral arc of the 
universe is long but it bends towards justice. Across our country, 
citizens have worked to bend that arc in this vision of a nation that 
embraces opportunity for all--not opportunity only for the rich and 
powerful to have more opportunity, but opportunity for all, for every 
child to have the ability to contribute to this country.
  My father, now deceased, was a mechanic. He never went to college. 
But he told me when I was in grade school: Son, if you go through the 
doors of that schoolhouse and you work hard, you can do just about 
anything here in America. That is the vision we want to strive toward, 
where the son of a mechanic, the daughter of a janitor, the child of a 
Hispanic couple or an African-American couple or a gay couple or a 
lesbian couple--where every child has the opportunity to thrive. To do 
that, we have to set aside these racist attacks, these sexist attacks.
  Another target has been our Muslim-American community. For the last 
year and a half, they, like other groups of Americans, have been 
denigrated and insulted by President-Elect Trump and his campaign. His 
campaign has worked to fan the flames of Islamophobia. Take Mr. Trump's 
views on registering Muslim-Americans. When asked whether the United 
States should have a registry of Muslims, he said, ``I would certainly 
implement that. Absolutely. . . . There should be a lot of systems, 
beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems.'' When the reporter 
followed by asking ``Would Muslims be required to register?'' he 
answered, ``They have to be. They have to be.''
  Well, let me share with the President-elect that we are not a nation 
that discriminates because of one's religion. It is called freedom of 
religion. Our vision is opportunity for all. There were nations that 
discriminated based on religion. Those were European nations. That is 
why a lot of our forefathers came here--to escape that oppression and 
to have the freedom to thrive and to maintain the religious views they 
wanted to have, not what somebody else told them they had to have, or 
to be imprisoned, or register them for discrimination because of their 
religious background.
  So when any American attacks our Muslim-American brothers and 
sisters, we need to stand with them shoulder to shoulder. And if any 
other religious group is attacked, we need to stand with them shoulder 
to shoulder and stand for the vision of opportunity and equality for 
all. That is what every Member of this Chamber should be coming down 
here to say--that when those groups are attacked, we will stand with 
them because that is not the vision of America. That is not the spirit 
of America. That certainly is 100 percent contrary to the vision of 
America.
  Our President-elect tried to foment fear of Muslims seeking refuge in 
our Nation from war zones. He told a crowd in Minneapolis that allowing 
refugees into our country ``will import generations of terrorism, 
extremism and radicalism into your schools and throughout your 
communities.'' This statement is so far diverged from the truth as to 
make it impossible to recognize where he got this notion. Every expert 
will tell you that if a terrorist wants to come into our Nation, the 
hardest path is to come as a refugee: You have to go to refugee camp, 
you have to be registered, you have to be vetted for years, and if you 
are male, you are probably not going to make it, but because the goal 
was to foment Islamophobia, this lie was repeated again and again. It 
is much easier to come into our country on a tourist visa, a business 
visa, a student visa, not a refugee settlement visa.
  Our President-elect told the same crowd that refugees settling in 
Minnesota were ``joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all 
over our country. . . . ''
  Now there are reports from some connected with the transition team 
that the incoming administration is considering implementing a system 
for registering Muslim Americans, just as President-Elect Trump talked 
about, and using our country's shameful internment of Japanese 
Americans to justify this idea because it is a precedent. Let me be 
clear: Imprisoning fellow Americans as we did during World War II was a 
shameful and dark chapter and a mistake. We need to make sure we 
remember that it was a mistake and never use it as a precedent for 
action in the future.
  Then, again, here we have our President-elect's Chief Strategist, 
Steve Bannon, who has run headlines like, ``Political Correctness 
Protects the Muslim Rape Culture'' or ``Immediately After Muslim Mayor 
Elected, London's Iconic Buses Proclaim, `Glory to Allah.''' Mr. Bannon 
has personally suggested that we are in a global war against Islam.
  So it is no wonder the rhetoric of our President-elect and the leader 
of the

[[Page 14502]]

White supremacist Web site is causing discrimination and confrontation 
with Muslim Americans around our country.
  Some are being physically assaulted, like the woman at San Jose 
University who lost her balance and choked when a man attempted to rip 
off her headscarf or the Muslim student at the University of Illinois 
Urbana-Champaign campus who reported having a knife pulled on her.
  Then there are those who are being verbally abused and otherwise 
intimidated, including a woman riding the BART train in San Francisco 
who was accosted when another passenger called her a terrorist who 
should be deported, and a pickup truck that has been driving around 
Brooksville, FL, with writing on it that says: ``All Muslims are 
Terrorists,'' ``Deport them all,'' and ``I hate Muslims.'' In Georgia, 
a Muslim teacher found a note left for her that said: ``Headscarf isn't 
allowed anymore'' and telling her to ``hang yourself with it.'' That is 
the level of Islamophobia sweeping our Nation at this very moment, 
inspired by the rhetoric of our President-elect and his Chief 
Strategist, Steve Bannon, and it is unacceptable. It needs to stop.
  As Robert Kennedy once said, ``America's answer to the intolerant man 
is diversity--the very diversity which our heritage of religious 
freedom has inspired.'' We need to embrace that heritage, we need to 
cherish that heritage, and we need to strive to live up to the best 
instincts of our Nation, not the darkest impulses.
  Yet another group that is feeling threatened is our LGBTQ community. 
I will note that Donald Trump in his campaign did not attack our LGBTQ 
community overtly, and he said on ``60 Minutes'' the other night, as 
the question of same-sex marriage came up, the question of same-sex 
marriage is ``settled.''
  Actions speak as well as words, and of all the possible men and women 
he could choose as a running mate, he chose now-Vice President-Elect 
Mike Pence, the most anti-LGBTQ Governor in America. This individual is 
someone who has signed a draconian religious ``liberty law'' in Indiana 
that allows individuals and businesses to discriminate against the 
LGBTQ community. Our Vice President-elect supported conversion therapy 
to change people's sexual behavior. As a radio host, he gave a speech 
and declared marital equality would lead to ``societal collapse.''
  Mr. Trump's Chief Strategist echoes much of this. One headline on 
Breitbart News said: ``Dear Straight People: I'm Officially Giving You 
Permission to Say''--and then it goes on to list anti-LGBTQ slurs. 
Another headline that he put up on his Web site said: ``Gay Rights Have 
Made Us Dumber, It's Time to Get Back in The Closet.'' Yet another 
headline said: ``Kids Raised By Same-Sex Couples Twice As Likely To Be 
Depressed, Fat Adults.''
  How has this kind of rhetoric impacted our Nation since the election? 
A gay couple in Ogden, UT, woke up to find their car vandalized with 
anti-gay slurs painted on the side. Rainbow flags, the symbol of the 
LGBTQ movement around the world, were burned in Rochester, NY. An 
individual in North Carolina found a note on their car that said:

       Can't wait until your ``marriage'' is overturned by a real 
     president. Gay families = burn in hell #Trump 2016.

  Like so many of the other groups of Americans I have talked about, 
the LGBTQ community has struggled for a long time to be accepted, to be 
recognized as full members of our society, to not be discriminated 
against when they seek employment in our country, to have the same 
rights against discrimination that we adopted for race and gender and 
ethnicity in 1964. We have come a ways, but we haven't yet made it to 
the point that we have provided the same foundation against 
discrimination that we provided in 1964 to other groups.
  So while Donald Trump himself did not attack the LGBTQ community, the 
person he chose as Vice President and the person he elevated to Chief 
Strategist for the White House very much have, and that is a powerful, 
powerful message that has unleashed attacks across this country.
  As our next President, Donald Trump has the responsibility to put an 
end to the prejudice and to put an end to the hate crimes sweeping our 
Nation and to calm the fears and anxieties of millions of Americans who 
are frightened about their future in this country--about whether they 
will have an opportunity to contribute to this country, whether they 
will be fired from their job, whether their car will be vandalized, 
whether their children will be taunted and bullied, whether they will 
be attacked in a parking lot.
  Across the Nation, thousands of people have been turning out to walk 
the streets and to protest. They are trying to send a message. 
Sometimes that message has gone off-track.
  In Portland, OR, thousands turned out to send this message to our 
President elect: Put the hate speech and hate acts behind you. Don't 
bring White supremacists or deeply prejudiced individuals into your 
administration. Let's have a next 4 years that embraces all Americans 
and their opportunity to succeed. They are trying to send a message by 
walking with their feet from park to park, across bridges, through the 
streets.
  Unfortunately, some anarchists decided to destroy the effectiveness 
of this protest by breaking windows and setting some fires. The 
organizers of these protests condemn the anarchists and try to keep 
them out, and most of the protests have succeeded.
  I ask for our President-elect, if you won't listen to those of us who 
are publicly asking you to change course, and if you won't listen to my 
colleagues who are privately calling you and saying to you and your 
team to change course, then listen to the people in the streets across 
America who are trying to peacefully convey the message that we are a 
diverse nation, with a fabulous vision of embracing people of every 
religion and every ethnicity and every race. Let's continue that 
tradition. Let's strengthen that tradition. Let's build on that 
tradition. That is the message all of us are trying to send.
  I join my colleagues to repeat the requests we have made on the floor 
in Senate, the letter we sent to you, the message sent privately by 
many of my colleagues sitting across the aisle, the message sent by 
many of our leaders from civil rights groups and other organizations 
who have contacted the transition team, the message that has echoed 
with thousands and thousands of emails sent to Capitol Hill to ask us 
to help convey this message.
  From every direction, Americans are reaching out and saying: End the 
hate speech. End the hate commentary. Bring people into your 
administration who believe in opportunity and justice for all. Change 
directions.
  It is a time for leadership. It is time for our President-Elect 
Donald Trump to rise to the occasion and to help build a nation that 
provides the foundation for every American to thrive.
  Mr. President, 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.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________