I want to begin by welcoming our newest Senator from the State of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts. I don't know him well, but I am sure I will come to know him. I certainly know his family. They have made their impression on the city of Chicago by…

I believe in capitalism, and to have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition.

So they used their power of the marketplace to diminish the number of acts at that venue, and the venue decided they had to go back to Ticketmaster?

The threat is real. It has been documented. It happens across many venues.

We passed a key bill that Senator Lee has been advocating for on venue with the tech companies.

Thank her Ranking Member, Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

I want to thank Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa for his service as Ranking Committee Member in the last Congress.

We need to make sure we have competition to bring prices down and bring innovation in and stop the fiascos.

I would like to thank Senator Klobuchar, who has brought competition policy to the forefront of our national conversation.

I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) and the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) are necessarily absent.

The biggest investment in the arts in the history of America.

I ask unanimous consent that the 5:30 vote commence immediately. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

There's no doubt, look, part of governing is there's going to be give- and-take, on issues, like spending, particularly in a divided Congress. But the question is whether you should use the debt ceiling, and the threat of essentially…

I think they saw what happened, in 2011, where we went right up to the brink. There were significant givebacks made, and they were painful and disruptive. And I don't think they want to say, 'We're going to reward this behavior' because…

But it's interesting that you raised this point, because one of the people, who's now urging Republicans, to hang tough, and use it as leverage, to reverse everything Democrats did, in the last two years, is Donald Trump, who added $8…

I think it makes it easier for Republicans to do what they want to do, which is to create a sense, I think, a false sense of equivalency, with what happened with Trump.

It has made the situation more complicated politically.

Born alive has nothing to do with abortion. Providers are already required, by law, to provide appropriate medical care. Infanticide is murder. What we heard earlier is just not true. It is a lie that should not be repeated. As our…