- 1 year ago
In Senate floor remarks on Thursday, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) spoke about the low number of successful confirmations to President Donald Trump's staff.
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00:30.
01:00Mr. President.
01:07Do you recognize the senator from Oklahoma?
01:09Is the Senate currently in a quorum call?
01:11It is not.
01:12Thank you, Mr. President.
01:15Mr. President, when my girls were little, and they're not little anymore, they're adults now.
01:21When they were little, I can remember at times I'd be working from the house in our little office space in the house,
01:28and one of the girls would crawl up in my lap, and she would look at me while I'm working on a computer,
01:34and she would say the same thing every time.
01:37What you doing?
01:39Every time.
01:41What you doing?
01:43I think about that when I think about the last seven months here in the Senate.
01:48I have folks at home that'll look at the United States Senate and said,
01:53what have you been doing for a while?
01:56What you doing?
01:58What's been good is to be able to answer the question a lot.
02:03This has been the most productive beginning point for a new president in the first seven months of a Senate in decades.
02:12Let me just walk through just a little bit of what we've been doing.
02:16We began this year by passing the Lake and Riley Act, which requires ICE to start arresting illegal migrants who have committed crimes.
02:25Amazingly enough, that wasn't a requirement before.
02:28We fixed that.
02:30We passed and made law, the Take It Down Act.
02:33This is about revenge porn that we're seeing that has affected so many young lives,
02:39that they're posting their images and sometimes using AI to destroy the lives of people they either hate, used to date, or whatever it may be.
02:47We now passed that and made that federal law to be able to protect the youngest generation from that kind of vulnerability.
02:53We passed the Halt Fentanyl Act, permanently classifying fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs.
02:59Amazingly, we had to do that year after year. It was always a challenge.
03:02We started dealing with fentanyl in the serious manner that it needs to be dealt with.
03:06We passed that and made that law.
03:09We passed the Genius Act, which puts the United States on the forefront of digital currency.
03:13This is not cryptocurrency. This is dealing with stable coin.
03:17It's similar to a traveler's check, only in a digital form, to say dollar for dollar.
03:21This creates new competition for credit cards and online shopping.
03:26It creates a way to be able to do this, to be able to put the United States and American currency in the lead on the digital world,
03:33while still protecting physical currency and guaranteeing physical American currency continues to exist.
03:41Just those alone would be significant to be able to begin out a session.
03:46But we're not close to being done.
03:48The Senate has held more than 440 votes just this year so far.
03:53That is more than most years of the Senate in total in the last 30 years.
03:59We've done just in the first six months.
04:01That's more votes at the beginning of any session since the Reagan administration.
04:05We began with 10 straight weeks, day after day after day, of just pounding away to be able to get stuff done.
04:12We've worked on nominations, as this body is still working on confirmations even right now.
04:17We've confirmed so far 119 of President Trump's nominees.
04:22To compare that to this same spot eight years ago in the first term of the first Trump presidency,
04:30they had 56 that were done at this point.
04:34We've now done 119.
04:36We've done twice as many confirmations now as what we did under the first Trump administration,
04:42but we still have quite a few to go.
04:44This has been, though, we can do this the easy way or the hard way for the past seven months.
04:50You see, confirmations typically are done by voice vote here in the United States Senate
04:53because we have work to do on legislative work as well.
04:56Unlike the House, we do personnel and we do policy.
05:00We have to switch back and forth between the two often,
05:03but every time you're working on the personnel side, the confirmation side,
05:07every single nomination takes about three hours, both to file on them,
05:11to be able to go through the whole period.
05:13There's also a day of waiting for those.
05:15But those are typically done just for the high-profile nominees.
05:19They're not typically done for every nominee.
05:22There's about 1,200 people that have to be confirmed.
05:25So typically things are done by voice vote.
05:28Under President George W. Bush, 90% of his nominees were actually done by voice vote in the Senate.
05:34Under President Obama, 90% of those were done by voice vote.
05:38Under the first President Trump, 67% of his nominees were done by voice vote.
05:44So far in this Senate, zero. Zero.
05:50Every single nominee, even if it was the protocol officer for the State Department,
05:55or a legislative affairs person in an agency, or the deputy secretary assistant of something,
06:01literally that no American other than their family knows who they are,
06:06they've had to go through the full three-hour process, the intervening day, to slow this down.
06:12That has not happened to any president ever in the history of the country. Ever.
06:16No president has ever faced this kind of obstruction, ever, for their nominees.
06:20We've still done 119 of those by staying and working at night, by staying and working on weekends.
06:28We'll continue to be able to do this the hard way or the easy way.
06:31But quite frankly, President Trump should have the same respect of every other president in American history.
06:36They should be able to get to their staff.
06:39So we'll continue on this process, as we already have.
06:44We'll just keep moving through the process.
06:46Because what we're doing is trying to get the work done for the United States Senate.
06:50We've taken on some issues that haven't been taken on in a long time.
06:53We did a rescissions package, not been done in 35 years.
06:57We not only talked about it, we passed it, we made it law.
07:00We as this body examined some areas that we said,
07:03this seems like wasteful spending to me, we shouldn't do it, literally voted,
07:08took it out and saved the American taxpayers $9 billion from this year's budget.
07:14That's not happened in 35 years to be able to do that.
07:18How did we do that?
07:20Well, we identified some areas of waste in foreign aid and said,
07:24do we really need to have this as a top priority?
07:27We took away the funding that was used last year
07:30to create environmentally friendly reproductive health decision education
07:36for children in foreign countries.
07:38We took away the funding for the Iraqi Sesame Street
07:41and for the Malaysian Youth Climate Corps.
07:44We took away the funding that created the grant for vegan food in Zambia.
07:49We took away the funding for the Pride Festival in Southern Africa.
07:53We took away the funding for social media mentorships in Serbia and Belarus.
07:59We took away the funding for gender diversity for the Mexican street lighting industry.
08:06And we took away a billion dollars of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
08:11that many people said, oh gosh, this is going to lead to the end of NPR and PBS,
08:16and it absolutely is not.
08:18Because NPR, 90% of it is funded by corporate and private funding already.
08:23This was the last 10%.
08:24Literally, this was something that was attempted to be done in 1983 under the Reagan administration
08:31to say, why do we have federally taxpayer-paid journalists?
08:36Why don't we have that in the free market?
08:39If it made sense in 1983, it certainly makes sense now.
08:43In 1983, there were about four channels.
08:46Now there are thousands.
08:49So what Reagan couldn't get done, we just got done.
08:54That's a pretty productive Senate.
08:56But we're not close to being done with the things that have already been accomplished
08:59just in the last seven months.
09:01The One Big Beautiful Bill has been an interesting, big, beautiful conversation.
09:05The One Big Beautiful conversation is about what all is in it.
09:09Well, it's been public for a long time.
09:12The House passed it, and it was over two months before the Senate was able to take it up.
09:16And even when we took it up in the Senate, we brought it out committee by committee
09:20so everybody could see it, read it, review it.
09:22It was 940 pages, but it was very public for weeks.
09:28We wanted everyone to be able to see what's in it.
09:31But quite frankly, there was so much that got done in that bill
09:35that people are still digging through it and going, oh, I didn't know that happened.
09:39It's been interesting the number of people that I run into that say,
09:42I'm finding out more about the bill, and the more I find out about it,
09:46the more I'm grateful for its passage.
09:49It's been really encouraging when I get to get back home on weekends
09:52to be able to chat with folks.
09:54My favorite so far was when my wife and I had dropped by a Dollar Tree store,
09:58and I'm there at the cash register, and there's a very nice lady
10:01who looked like she was in her mid-70s, and we were chit-chatting,
10:05and she said to me, I saw you on the news explaining the bill.
10:08I've looked at it even more, and I am so grateful because as a working senior,
10:13I'm going to get a big benefit for my taxes, and I need the help.
10:19And then she smiled at me and she said, you put some new work requirements into that bill.
10:24Thank you, because everybody needs to work like I do.
10:31It's a great conversation, actually, to be able to chat with her
10:34and to be able to hear that she gets it.
10:37This bill and the things that we're able to work in,
10:39we did a lot of things we've tried to do for a long time.
10:41We were able to get done.
10:42One of the things that I worked on a lot was the issue of what's called full expensing.
10:46This is used by a lot of manufacturers and a lot of small businesses.
10:49You see, when they buy a big piece of equipment,
10:52they're allowed to be able to write off the expense over several years.
10:56Well, that works for their taxes except for the first year often,
11:00and it's a killer for them.
11:01Because when they get a big new piece of equipment,
11:03they often have to borrow money to pay their taxes that year
11:07because they can't afford to get both a new piece of equipment
11:10and still pay their taxes and the other expenses,
11:12so they either don't get the new equipment
11:15or they have to delay, delay, delay, delay to do it.
11:18What does that do? That decreases productivity.
11:21It makes no difference to the federal income in the treasury
11:25to say you get to write it off in one year
11:28or you get to write it off in several years,
11:30but it makes a huge difference to that small business
11:33or that manufacturer to say the year you have the big expense
11:37is also the year you get to write it off.
11:39We got that done, and not only did we get that done,
11:43we made that permanent tax policy to say it is just the right thing
11:48to be able to do to say when a business has a major expense,
11:51they get to write that expense off in the year that it happens
11:54like every other expense.
11:56For years I've worked on an issue about charitable giving.
12:00The top 9% of Americans can write off their charitable giving.
12:05Everyone else cannot.
12:07I think that's wrong.
12:09I've always thought that was wrong.
12:11We were able to put in this year into the One Big Beautiful Bill,
12:14a bill that I had to be able to make sure that if you give to a nonprofit,
12:19you're able to write that expense off completely.
12:23You're able to write that off and to say this expense up to $2,000
12:28is a deduction on their taxes.
12:30That's helpful to every single nonprofit.
12:32That's helpful to every single taxpayer that actually gives the nonprofits
12:36or their church, whatever charity.
12:38It makes a big difference to be able to do that.
12:40We didn't just talk about that.
12:42We actually got that done.
12:44The no tax on Social Security for seniors I've already talked about.
12:47The tax credit for businesses that create a childcare facility on site
12:52to encourage more childcare facilities
12:54and to be able to do it closer to the workplace.
12:56That's very beneficial for their families.
12:58Extending the paid family medical leave.
13:01That's something we were able to get done, not just talk about.
13:04We were able to get done.
13:05My Democratic colleagues and President Biden created a new requirement
13:09that if you have more than $600 that you do on Venmo or PayPal,
13:14you have to have a whole new reporting system in the IRS.
13:18Well, that drove Americans crazy to say, what in the world?
13:21Why do I have to do that new reporting system?
13:23For many families, that's how they'll reimburse their kids
13:27or another family member for a purchase or whatever it may be.
13:29But if you exceed $600, you're going to have to now do a new IRS reporting for it.
13:34You know what we got done this year? We killed that.
13:36And so that's ridiculous.
13:38People shouldn't have to be able to report all that what's actually happening
13:42in their Venmo and PayPal back and forth with their family members.
13:46That's not something that the IRS needs to be able to track.
13:51For family farms, we were able to do a significant amount of the farm bill already.
13:56A change in reference prices and a lot of the different programs
13:59that were desperately in need of an upgrade.
14:02We didn't just talk about that as we have for several years.
14:04We actually got that done.
14:06We also fixed the death tax.
14:09That's something that was about to expire.
14:11And a lot of folks on family farms, they may be liquidity poor,
14:18but they're asset rich.
14:20They've got land.
14:21They've got tractors.
14:22And the fear is always for their family,
14:25when the family passes away, that the kids are going to have to sell the farm
14:28just to be able to pay the taxes.
14:30Well, you know what?
14:31We fixed that for family farms.
14:33And finally got that done.
14:35This has been an incredibly busy season.
14:39We improved and modernized air traffic control.
14:42We not only talked about that, we got that finished
14:45to allow additional funding to be able to modernize that system,
14:48which people all over the country have looked for.
14:50We're modernizing our Navy.
14:52We finally got the opportunity to be able to modernize our Coast Guard,
14:55which has been in desperate need for literally for decades
14:58for improvement along our ports.
15:00We were able to make changes on our southern border.
15:03Now, I've passed on several different bills that I've actually filed
15:07that we're working through the process on to be able to do more inspections southbound,
15:11more inspections northbound.
15:13But in the meantime, we were able to add new border walls.
15:17We were able to add new border patrol agents, new ICE agents, new detention facilities.
15:22We've not just talked about those things.
15:24We've actually passed it and made it law.
15:26Those things are done.
15:28It's been an incredibly busy season.
15:31When I was in May at the Ote Mesa Port of Entry in California,
15:36right along the border with Mexico,
15:38it's one of the busiest ports in the world.
15:41I could see the infrastructure problems that were there.
15:44When I visited with the Coast Guard when I was there off the coast,
15:47I talked to them about the challenges that they have with the land port of entry being so closed now
15:53and so few people, thankfully, even trying to cross our southern land borders.
15:59Now, literally, people are getting on jet skis in Baja, California,
16:02and trying to head out to the ocean to try to land in San Diego,
16:05and our Coast Guard is the one that's interdicting that.
16:08So I was able to work through a process this year to be able to upgrade the radar system,
16:14the camera systems, all the things they desperately need for the Coast Guard.
16:18We didn't just talk about that this year.
16:20When I came back in May, we worked on the process
16:22and actually got that done, got that passed into law.
16:25That's funded, and now that technology is being added
16:28that is desperately needed to be able to secure our southern border.
16:31Those are the things that need to get done that is getting done this year.
16:37I'm grateful to be able to see the things that we've been able to work through the process on.
16:42We still have multiple things to do, but we have multiple things in process.
16:45For instance, I've worked on cell phone jamming reform issues for years in our prisons.
16:51Tom Cotton and I have partnered together on this to be able to find a way to be able to block those illegal cell phones
16:57in our federal and state prisons and our local county jails that are smuggled in,
17:01that are used to be able to literally stalk victims outside of the prison.
17:05That's got to stop.
17:07We're working through the process to be able to make sure that's available because we want to make sure that we can actually put an end to that.
17:14I've introduced an act protecting children over profits is what it's called.
17:18This deals with tech companies that when law enforcement has to do a subpoena,
17:22when there's child abuse or child pornography on their side,
17:26those tech companies that by their rules are not supposed to have that at all.
17:31Those tech companies then charge local law enforcement to be able to do the search for it.
17:36That's got to end.
17:37They know they're just creating a disincentive to local law enforcement to even follow up on that.
17:42It's not supposed to be there at all.
17:45So we're finding a way to be able to get rid of that.
17:48Something else that really has come up that dealt with our rural nursing homes.
17:52For our rural nursing homes, they've had a real challenge because the Biden administration put in a new rule
17:57that had new requirements for additional nurses and personnel.
18:01That all sounds really good, but in most rural nursing homes,
18:04they flat out don't have the people to be able to do it.
18:08So that was leading to the closing of rural nursing homes.
18:12We were able to reverse that and to be able to say that should not be that way.
18:19Allow the rural nursing homes to be able to handle their staffing and to be able to stay in business.
18:23The last thing we want is a closure of rural nursing homes and that people to get nursing care
18:28have to travel 50, 100 miles to be able to get to it.
18:31That means their family can't connect with them.
18:33We didn't just talk about that.
18:35We were able to get that done.
18:38This year, it's been fun working on a lot of specific Oklahoma projects.
18:42Anyone that's in Tulsa, Oklahoma that drives down I-44 right now will often drive down and see these bridge supports
18:48that those of us around Tulsa affectionately call Tulsa Stonehenge.
18:52It's been up for quite a while, those bridge supports, but no bridge is actually on top of them.
18:56And it does look like a modern Stonehenge.
18:59You know what?
19:00We were able to secure the funding to actually get that finished.
19:04So we don't just have bridge supports up in one of the busiest intersections in all of Oklahoma.
19:10We're able to get that intersection done.
19:12If you're in Southern Oklahoma, you know the Roosevelt Bridge.
19:14And if you've ever traveled across it, you have white knuckles.
19:17A bridge that's named the Roosevelt Bridge because it was built during the Roosevelt Administration.
19:24That bridge is still one of the most important bridges in Southern Oklahoma crossing over Lake Texoma.
19:31School buses and semis and families that are coming back and forth on vacation,
19:36folks coming back and forth to work, literally have a high-risk encounter every time they cross that bridge.
19:43We were able to get the funding secured for that to finally start the process of replacing that bridge.
19:50It's in desperate need to actually get done.
19:53We were able to get so many things done this year, and we're halfway through the year.
20:01One quick story, Mr. President.
20:04I'm so incredibly proud of a lot of our caseworkers that are back home.
20:10We focus on the needs and the constituents in Oklahoma.
20:14The field staff that we have traveling around the state do a remarkable job helping people problem-solve.
20:21But I have to highlight one quick story.
20:27We had a veteran that was 106 years old.
20:29It was a World War II veteran.
20:32He was in Edmond, Oklahoma.
20:34He had actually never received his medals after he served in World War II.
20:39Never.
20:40His family had thought about it, and he had thought about it for a long time.
20:44But the records were long gone.
20:47So my team jumped on it.
20:50We did the research, worked with the United States Army,
20:54able to track down some very old World War II records,
20:57and were able to get to Mr. McGregor his medals.
21:03Mr. McGregor his medals.
21:04Mr. McGregor his medals.
21:25Thank you so much.
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