00:00Senator from Texas.
00:06Mr. President, I know all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, are anxious
00:14to be able to go back home and talk to their constituents, perhaps have a long, delayed
00:25medical procedure or doctor visit, or simply take a family vacation during the traditional
00:35August recess.
00:38My Republican colleagues and I are likewise eager to go back home and talk about the benefits
00:46of the one big, beautiful bill.
00:48I was in Amarillo, Texas, in the Texas Panhandle on Friday, and just in having a back and forth
00:55Q&A with the folks who were there, it's evident to me that there's so much in the bill that
01:03it takes a while to really explain the benefits.
01:07We know we avoided a tax increase that would have totaled trillions of dollars, roughly
01:13benefiting $3,000 per Texas family.
01:18But there were other benefits that helped our agriculture community, things that ordinarily
01:25we would have put in a farm bill, but made sure we strengthened the safety net for the
01:31folks who produce our food and fiber.
01:34And then there are other provisions like the no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security or
01:41overtime.
01:42So there's so much in the bill, it is hard to communicate, which means we need to get back
01:48home and talk about that, and why it is a Grand Slam home run for our constituents.
01:59But having said that, I don't believe, Mr. President, that the Senate should leave town without ensuring
02:08that President Trump has his nominees and his team in place.
02:13We still have somewhere on the order of 140 backlogged nominees by this president that have been
02:22obstructed by the Democrats.
02:25We find ourselves really in an unprecedented situation where Democrats, rather than picking
02:31and choosing, the nominees they choose to object to, have simply chosen to object to all of them,
02:40forcing us to burn a lot of valuable floor time that we could be using for other more constructive
02:47purposes, and delaying President Trump, who after all won the election last November, the team that he's
02:55entitled to, to help him govern and carry out his policies.
03:00It is absolutely unprecedented, the sort of stonewalling that we are up against.
03:07Our Democratic colleagues, after all, are the ones that are holding up this process.
03:13I know some people listening may say, well, isn't this sort of partisan gridlock normal?
03:21Well, the answer is no.
03:24We certainly have our fights here, and that's okay.
03:27That's all well and good.
03:30But the reason why Republicans are complaining and the president is complaining about Democratic
03:35obstruction is that there is no precedent for objecting to nominees by a president by allowing
03:47either a voice vote, which is a non-roll call vote, or unanimous consent, when they are non-controversial
03:55nominees.
03:57So this chart to my left indicates that civilian nominees as opposed to military nominations,
04:08which the Senate also confirms, but non-military nominees confirmed by voice vote, or on an expedited
04:16basis, or unanimous consent, during a first term.
04:20You see George Herbert Walker Bush, 98% of his nominees to Senate-confirmed positions were
04:30confirmed by voice vote, or unanimous consent.
04:34Again, Clinton, similar numbers, 98%.
04:39Then you get to George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
04:45That number dropped from 98% to 90%, still a pretty good record of expediting these nominees,
04:52making sure that the president, whether that president be a Democrat or Republican, have
04:58their team on board, which is what the American people voted for when they were elected.
05:04But then you see when President Trump came along, the rules of the road changed, where only 65%
05:12of his first-term nominees were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent on an expedited
05:20basis.
05:21It literally took years for President Trump to get all of his nominees on board because
05:29of the foot-dragging by our Democratic colleagues back in his first term.
05:37And then you see what goes around comes around.
05:41And then Biden's nominees, roughly 57% of them, handled on an expedited basis.
05:49But what we've seen this term, after this most recent election, is without any precedent,
05:56as you can see here, basically what our Democratic colleagues are saying is we will agree to no
06:03confirmation votes on Trump nominees during his second term.
06:09This is part of what I guess you'd call the resistance and the polarization of our politics
06:15and the fact that our Democrats are not the Democrats of old.
06:21These are radicalized people who cannot agree to anything, even when it really is not something
06:29that is controversial.
06:31Again, it's fine to disagree about things that we do disagree on, that we see the world
06:37in a different way, or we think we have different and better ideas about what would serve the interests
06:44of the American people, but to mindlessly object to President Trump's nominees and to deny the
06:52American people the benefit of their vote in the last election is simply unfair.
06:59It's unfair to the American people whose interests are being harmed by denying these people from
07:06being in place and doing their job.
07:09It's unfair to President Trump, who's being denied the team that he's entitled to to help
07:15him carry out his policies.
07:17And finally, it's unfair to the nominees themselves, many of whom have quit their jobs, sold their
07:24business, and are simply waiting month after month after month to be able to be confirmed.
07:33And these are people who are, by and large, not political partisans.
07:37These are people who are interested in serving their country in some capacity or another.
07:45Many of these nominees, I think roughly 30 of them, are Senate-confirmed nominees to serve
07:52as an ambassador in our embassies around the world.
07:56I don't have to remind all of us that the world has become a much more dangerous place.
08:02And the idea that the United States would not have a Senate-confirmed ambassador in these
08:09embassies around the world is simply shooting ourselves in the foot.
08:15China and Russia and our other adversaries, they certainly have their ambassadors working
08:21in each of those countries to further their interests.
08:25But the idea that the United States would be absent because Senate Democrats simply refuse
08:32to confirm these ambassadors is really beyond the pale.
08:38And it hurts not only the United States and our foreign policy and our diplomatic efforts,
08:44but it also, again, causes harm to the individuals who volunteered to give up their life and their
08:53livelihood to serve our country, just to be left hanging without any real hope of getting
08:59confirmed on a timely basis.
09:06We are not talking about lifetime-tenured judges.
09:12Those obviously are sort of a different category.
09:15We are not even talking about the President's Cabinet, which is a handful of his most key and
09:22most important advisers.
09:25What we are talking about really are rank-and-file people who are confirmed by a vote of the Senate.
09:32I personally believe that we should change the law and not require Senate confirmation for
09:38many of these positions.
09:44It is a formality, really, to have to vote on some of these nominees.
09:50For example, the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration.
09:56I'm not sure exactly why the Senate should be voting to confirm at all on somebody who's been nominated
10:03to that provision, or the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, or the General Counsel for
10:12the Veterans Administration.
10:15But regardless of whether or not they should be confirmed by the Senate, they currently are
10:21required to be confirmed, and the Democrats simply are mindlessly obstructing the confirmation
10:31of these non-controversial, really apolitical nominees.
10:37We also have people like the Federal Transit Administrator, the Director of the Amtrak Board
10:44of Directors, all waiting for confirmation.
10:51The level of partisan gamesmanship that we're currently seeing is really something we have
10:58never seen before.
11:00And this is not healthy for the country, it's not healthy for this institution, and again,
11:07what we've tended to see is what goes around comes around.
11:11And the temptation will be, if President Trump can't get his team confirmed, when the next
11:17Democrat gets elected President of the United States, what's the natural reaction to that
11:26President's nominees?
11:28Well, it's going to be to try to do to them what they did to President Trump.
11:36I don't think that's good for the country.
11:38We need to break this logjam, and we need to do it now.
11:43And I believe if we can't reach some sort of negotiated outcome that's satisfactory to President
11:48Trump, then we need to either stay here or change the Senate rules.
11:56I believe that the status quo is unacceptable and something that has to give.
12:03But the Senate Democrats are the ones who brought us to where we are today, and they're the ones
12:08responsible for the blame.
12:11But more important than that, the American people deserve the service of these individuals
12:18who've been nominated for these various Senate-confirmed positions.
12:22President Trump's entitled to his team.
12:25And this mindless obstruction has to come to an end now.
12:31Mr. President, I yield the floor.
12:44Good answer.
12:47mak
12:50addressing
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