Mr. President, I am going to be brief because you don't want to stand in the way of the majority leader-elect. I come to the floor today because at 3 o'clock this afternoon in the house chamber in Raleigh, there is a veto-override. There…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes, followed by Senator Thune for up to 15 minutes. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, my folks were wondering why I am sitting so close to Mitt Romney. He and I are seat mates. These are our assigned seats. I told Mitt that I had not prepared a single comment, but I did want to come down and say a few things…

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to make this very clear to the members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Tribe: This is not about you. As a matter of fact, I know you have been seeking this for--it has…

Mr. President, Senator Rounds--I call him Mike--we are good friends. We came into the Senate together in 2014. We got to know each other before we even got here. He is a man of honor, and he is a man of his word. I have no doubt that he…

Does the Senator from North Carolina have the floor? The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina has the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have been accused of lying. I don't mind that. I mean, I am a politician. People do that every single day. But I believe that someone may be guilty of misleading this body about my position. So I am going to take a…

My state motto is ``Esse Quam Videri.'' That is Latin. It means ``to be rather than to seem.'' Well, ladies and gentlemen, the gentleman from Kentucky suggests that I am against clawing back the Green New Deal and certain things that my…

Mr. President, how much time is left? The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 7 minutes and 35 seconds remaining.

Mr. President, I understand we have about 7 or 8 minutes left. I may need to use all of them. Let's talk about tomfoolery. Let's talk about being disingenuous. The gentleman from Kentucky knows damn well that he proposed an amendment that…

First, I have a parliamentary inquiry. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is to state his inquiry.

Is it the ruling of this Chair that it is out of order to make the parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chair? The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kentucky has not yielded for an inquiry. The Senator from Kentucky still owns the floor.