I want to speak about the extreme cuts that have affected the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control. First of all, the DOGE…

The building code is the next frontier after the zoning code.

there are just two issues: One is about the policy, the energy policy, that the Trump administration is announcing, and we can have a debate about that. I am in full support of the comments that my colleagues have made. But there is…

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Department of Government Efficency

I would like to speak about DOGE. The verdict is in: It has been a colossal failure. It has done immense damage to many of our institutions and inflicted immense pain on innocent people. Also, it is not going to be successful in its stated…

I ask permission to speak up to 10 minutes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

I oppose Kash Patel. I believe he is the dangerously wrong choice to serve as Director of the FBI. We all have great admiration for the FBI. The men and women there serve our Nation, do hard work every day. For decades, they have served as…

really delighted to be here with my colleagues: the Senator from Wisconsin, the Senator from Rhode Island, and the Senator from New Hampshire. There are a couple things that just need to be faced directly. One is that the President of the…

I would like to speak about the importance of FEMA, the importance of fixing it but not destroying it. Mother Nature, this week, provided yet another reminder of the devastating impacts of natural disasters. In Kentucky, we had…

turning back to the topic at hand--a serious question for all of us. The Health and Human Services Secretary plays a vital role in the well-being of every citizen in this country and is extraordinarily powerful in every respect. It has to…

I am here to follow my colleague from Georgia Senator Warnock to talk about the Robert Kennedy nomination. But before I start, I just want to share some good news I just learned about with the success of DOGE. As we all know, Mr. Musk is…

I want to speak about what Elon Musk is doing to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development. Here is what is happening. Mr. Musk--of course an unelected billionaire who knows really nothing and cares less about how the Federal…

Donald Trump, as we all know, won the last election in November, and he is now the 47th President of the United States. But Donald Trump did not, contrary to what he and the Vice President want people to believe, win by anything close to a…

on behalf of Vermont first responders and Vermonters who need Medicaid, I vote no. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XII, no debate is permitted during a vote. The Senator will suspend. The clerk will continue to call the roll. The…

I thank the Presiding Officer. I want to thank all the folks on the floor from the Parliamentarian's office, the floor clerks for spending the night on this important effort. I want to thank the Presiding Officer and your colleagues for…

over the past 2 weeks, political operatives in the administration of President Trump and Elon Musk have shown the American people and the world that they plan to destroy as much of the professional workforce in the executive Agencies as…

I believe that the Attorney General may, in fact, be the most important position in a President's Cabinet, and if it is not the most important, it certainly is the most difficult. Whoever is our Attorney General is a person that serves all…

everything my colleague, the senior Senator from New Hampshire, said about New Hampshire and about how people are really struggling to pay their bills, the cost of rent, the cost of housing, home heating fuel in the winter, which has been…

on January 14, 2025, Norwich, VT, lost a beloved member of one of the town's oldest farming families. David Pierce grew up on a small dairy farm on a hill with a view down the valley, less than a mile from Dan & Whit's General Store in the…

like all of us, I was enormously relieved by the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza, the gradual release of hostages, and a surge in humanitarian aid for the 2 million desperate Palestinians who are trapped inside Gaza. Despite the…

I thank my colleagues. You know, President Trump likes to think that chaos is a useful tool. He can create disarray and disruption, and things will end up all right. There is another word that more aptly describes what he did: ``cruel,''…

we are here discussing the nomination of the next potential Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Of course that job, as we all know, is probably the second most difficult job in the country. He presides over the welfare of 3.4 million…

in the United States, we believe in the peaceful transfer of power. In the United States, we believe that the people--not elected politicians--decide who is their President. And both of those principles have served our democracy very well…

in his last week in office, President Biden removed Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, a designation imposed by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the final days of the first Trump administration. That designation has…

4 months ago I made a statement about the murder of Honduran indigenous environmental defender and anti- corruption activist Juan Lopez, on September 14, 2024, who at that time was the latest victim of an ongoing epidemic of vigilante…