00:00Mr. President, appropriations season is well underway.
00:07The Senate Appropriations Committee has so far passed six bipartisan appropriations bills,
00:11and Republicans are ready to consider a package of appropriations bills and have a floor process,
00:16one that involves serious amendments from both sides of the aisle,
00:19amendments designed to improve the bills, not score political points,
00:23or sink the bills with poison pill measures.
00:26And there have been some encouraging signs that some of my Democrat colleagues are ready to come to the table on this.
00:31And I hope that will prove to be true and that we'll be able to finish an appropriations package in the coming days
00:37and then work with the House in August to get the legislation ready to send to the President.
00:42We're going to have a lot more appropriations work to do in September,
00:46and I will continue to push for a regular order process with debate and amendment on the Senate floor.
00:53And hopefully my Democrat colleagues will support that effort.
00:57It is in the interest, Mr. President, of both parties to have a regular order, bipartisan process,
01:02and at least some Democrats have acknowledged as much.
01:05It would be nice to see that attitude prevail in the Democrat Party generally.
01:10I will say, Mr. President, it was disturbing to see the Democrat leader threatened to shut down the government a few weeks ago,
01:16and I hope, I really hope, the Democrats will not embrace that position.
01:23Mr. President, in addition to moving forward on an appropriations package,
01:27the other thing we need to get done in short order is a package of nominations.
01:31Now, while Senate Republicans have made excellent progress on confirming nominees,
01:36we could be a lot farther along if Democrats hadn't so far decided to slow walk every single civilian nomination from the President.
01:48I don't need to tell anyone here that it's usual for Presidents to get a percentage of their nominees confirmed quickly here in the Senate
01:57by either unanimous consent or voice vote.
02:01That's been the practice for decades.
02:04By this point in his Presidency, Joe Biden had had 121 civilian nominees confirmed,
02:10and 49 of them had been confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent.
02:1749!
02:20Or a full 40%.
02:23Mr. President, you want to know how many civilian nominees President Trump has had confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote?
02:30None.
02:32Zero.
02:33Zero percent.
02:35Now, Mr. President, I think it's important, I've got a chart here,
02:39just for purposes of informing people about what this looks like, as I mentioned, over the past several decades.
02:48If you start with President H.W. Bush, 41,
02:5398% of his nominees to positions in the federal government were confirmed by either unanimous consent or voice vote.
03:02In other words, basically the recognition was that these are people who need to be in these positions,
03:07these are important jobs that need to be filled in our government,
03:10so people can carry out their responsibilities and duties on behalf of our country.
03:14Ninety-eight percent of the nominees were confirmed either by unanimous consent or voice in his first term.
03:21So let's go back to a Democrat President, Bill Clinton.
03:25Same thing, Mr. President.
03:27Ninety-eight percent of President Bill Clinton's nominees were confirmed either by unanimous consent or by voice vote.
03:36In other words, both sides agreeing in a bipartisan way that it's important to have positions in our government filled.
03:45So that's Bill Clinton, Democrat President.
03:47Then we had George W. Bush, 43.
03:50Ninety percent of his nominees were confirmed either by voice or unanimous consent.
03:56Ninety percent.
03:58Meaning that pretty much everybody here on both sides of the aisle recognized that there are important positions in our government that need to be filled,
04:08most of which, at least many of which, like they are today, are bipartisan when they come out of the committee.
04:29Well, then we move into President Trump's first term.
04:32That number dropped down to 65.
04:34And then, of course, in the Biden administration, Republicans also started to say,
04:39well, if the Dems are going to do it, we will too.
04:41That number dropped down to 57.
04:43But it's still important to point out, Mr. President, that even in the last Democrat presidency with Joe Biden, 57 percent, 57 percent of his nominees to positions within the federal government were confirmed either by unanimous consent or voice vote here in the United States Senate.
05:04And then you look at the current President, President Trump in the second term, zero.
05:13This isn't sustainable.
05:15We can't keep on this track, Mr. President.
05:17This has got to change.
05:19And it will change.
05:22Either Democrats are going to play ball or we're going to figure out a way to change it.
05:26We can't have a federal government.
05:28By the way, there are 1,100 executive branch nominations, which in my view is way too many to start with, that have to come through the Senate for confirmation.
05:391,100 of them, many of whom at this rate aren't going to get in their jobs before President Trump leaves office.
05:48You just can't do this.
05:50This isn't a sustainable practice.
05:52So something's going to give.
05:55The Democrats are going to start to play ball and do what every other Congress, Republican and Democrat,
06:03with every other President, Republican and Democrat, has done when it comes to allowing the President,
06:10who won an election fair and square, and tens of millions of people voted for him,
06:16to be able to put his people into their respective offices so they can do the job that the American people,
06:22and he can do the job the American people voted for him to do.
06:26So I'm just going to say one more time, Mr. President, zero.
06:31Zero.
06:32And as recently as the last presidential administration,
06:36a Democrat President, Joe Biden, 57% were confirmed by unanimous consent.
06:43So let me just say, Mr. President, there are important jobs in the government that are currently standing empty,
06:52eight months now into this President's term, because Democrats have dragged out the confirmation process
06:58and denied President Trump the courtesy that Republicans and Democrats alike in the past have extended to previous Presidents.
07:08Mr. President, I will say that I do think there are at least some of my colleagues, Democrats on the other side of the aisle,
07:16who would like to maintain the kind of courtesy on nominations that prevailed in the Senate before this year.
07:22And I'm hoping, really hoping, that those more pragmatic Democrats will prevail and pave the way for us to work together for the next few days to approve a nominations package.
07:35We have a lot of bipartisan nominees who are available for consideration right now.
07:41And we should be able to quickly approve their nominations.
07:45And again, Mr. President, I hope that my Democrat colleagues will come to the table.
07:50Otherwise, we're going to be spending a whole lot more time here on the Senate floor.
08:00Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
08:05Clerk recall the roll.
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