Providing for Consideration of H.R. Sanctioning Tyrannical and Oppressive People Within the Chinese Communist Party Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fix Our Forests Act; Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Ensuring Accountability for Key Officials in the Biden-Harris Administration Responsible for Decisionmaking and Execution Failures Throughout the Withdrawal From Afghanistan; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, since day one of this Congress, the Republican majority has been a complete and total disaster--failed speakerships, failed rules votes, failed bills, failure to address real problems, failure to pass real solutions, and failure to even send bills to the Senate. Today is more of the same, more failure from this dysfunctional Republican majority.

Speaker Johnson promised he would get all 12 appropriations bills across the finish line before August. They couldn't even pass half of them. He tried to coax the MAGA extremists into voting for a continuing resolution by tacking on more election fraud conspiracies. That plan went down in flames.

Here we are, a week before the government shuts down, and Republicans had to move on to a new plan. Despite the Rules Committee taking testimony from appropriators last night on the continuing resolution, there is no CR in this rule. I checked. I double checked. I made sure nothing was stuck to the pages. I looked under the table.

What was the point of that exercise last night in the Rules Committee other than to once again demonstrate that this Republican majority cannot fulfill its most basic function, keeping the government open without help from Democrats?

Let's be clear. Their majority is not a working majority. They don't have the votes without Democrats, so my friends are putting up a continuing resolution on suspension and, once again, they are asking Democrats to bail them out.

Madam Speaker, when will the other side stop letting the MAGA extremists run this place?

Look at the bills that are coming to the floor today: More MAGA messaging measures that will never, ever become law. It is pathetic. There is a bill that claims to be tough on China. Well, let me tell you, there are very few people who are as tough a critic as I am when it comes to China's human rights record. I think I am one of a handful, only a handful, of legislators in this body and the other body who have actually been sanctioned by China. I am not even allowed in the country nor is my family. Believe me when I say this is a stupid way to handle a complicated geopolitical challenge. We need to be smart on China. We need to pass bills that actually get results, not just pass bills that sound tough on paper, which is all this bill is.

Then, we have another no-good bill that Republicans claim will tackle crime, but we all know what this is really about. This bill's only purpose is to attack Vice President Harris.

The former President keeps spinning the narrative on the campaign trail that crime is at an all-time high. He has trouble with facts.

last year, FBI data shows.''

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Mr. McGOVERN. This report was released yesterday, by the way. The data shows that violent crime has dropped in recent years, but Republicans are ignoring these facts and choosing to push messaging bills like this one instead.

It really is quite sad that that is kind of the state of affairs on the Republican side.

Look, I get it. I get it. My Republican friends are afraid because Vice President Harris was a prosecutor who put felons in jail, and, well, I will just let everyone who is watching fill in the rest.

Then, we have an absurd, nonbinding resolution that politicizes the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Playing politics with this is disgusting.

This is not about honoring our fallen soldiers. This is about politics at its worst.

This bill didn't even go through regular order. It was introduced 5 days ago and didn't go through committee.

Republicans were so anxious to get this resolution to the floor before the election that they didn't even get Members' input. Was it written by the Trump campaign? I mean, give me a break.

This is not the way we honor our fallen soldiers. We don't play politics with tragedies.

Let me just state for the record, thanks to President Biden and Vice President Harris, for the first time in decades, the United States is not at war anywhere in this world.

Finally, we have the Fix Our Forests Act. In my opinion, this is a pro-polluter bill that ignores the realities of climate change when it comes to wildfires.

I will be opposing this bill because the so-called Fix Our Forests Act will not fix our forests. Instead, I think it would bypass critical environmental laws, cut out scientific input, and undermine our Nation's core environmental laws.

Madam Speaker, look, here is the reality: Republicans have fumbled left and right over the last 2 years. They really have become the party of broken promises, wasting everybody's time and wasting taxpayer money on absurd messaging bills that are going nowhere.

While we have real challenges in this country, this is the junk they bring to the floor. People want us to work together to get things done, and instead, this majority spends their time fighting amongst themselves and accomplishing absolutely nothing for the American people.

It is simple, really. The other side wants to come down here and talk about anything other than their plans for the future because when they do that, people see how weird they are.

They don't want to talk about Project 2025, their dystopian plan to take total control of our country, dismantle our system of checks and balances, and take away people's freedoms.

They don't want to talk about how their draconian abortion bans are killing women and putting them at extreme risks.

They don't want to talk about how 9 years after starting to run for President, Donald Trump still doesn't have an actual plan to provide better healthcare for the American people.

They don't want to talk about how Donald Trump's big economic plan would result in average families spending an extra $4,000 per year-- $4,000 more per year that families would pay if his plans were enacted.

They come down here and bring up some absurd messaging bills to avoid talking about how weird and unpopular their agenda is.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Texas says that the Biden administration is weak. I guess the gentleman and I have a different definition of what weakness looks like.

It was Republicans, by the way, not Joe Biden, who held up aid for our allies for 9 months because their side buys into Kremlin propaganda. I think that is weak, quite frankly.

It was a Republican President who went to North Korea and tried to get a brutal dictator to like him. He actually said they wrote each other love letters. He went there and groveled to Kim Jong Un. I don't think that that is a sign of strength. I think that is a sign of weakness.

It is the Republican candidate for President who praises Putin on a regular basis, calls him Vladimir, loves Xi Jinping, says Viktor Orban is fantastic.

Don't even lecture us about human rights when the majority can't bring itself to be critical of what the Republican standard-bearer says on a regular basis. That is not strength. That is pathetic. It makes us look weak.

Meanwhile, after they wrecked our image on the world stage, it is President Joe Biden who has had to rebuild it. I don't call that weakness. I call that a sign of strength. Standing with our NATO allies, standing with the people of Ukraine as Russia drops bombs on them on a regular basis, that is not weakness. That is strength.

The gentleman from New York, I mean, listening to him speak, one would think that we are living in 14th century Europe during the black plague.

The fact is that we live in the best place in the world. There is no other place in the world I would rather live than in the United States of America, and it is the best time in history, quite frankly, for a whole bunch of reasons.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that none of our soldiers were in harm's way. I said we are living in a time when we were not at war with any country. That is what I said. I have to insist on accuracy when it comes to my words.

We can do better, and we should work to improve the lives of the people we represent.

Crime is down. The gentleman from New York who just spoke apparently wasn't here when I inserted the FBI report, but that is facts. Crime is down.

The economy is strong and growing stronger.

Science is improving our lives in new ways every single day. It is amazing.

The Republican agenda of division and hate only takes us backward. Let's go forward. Let's work together on something, and maybe we can start today. Rather than politicizing the tragic deaths of American servicemen, maybe we can start the day today by actually helping our veterans, something that my Republican friends have a hard time trying to do.

Madam Speaker, I urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to include an additional $12 billion in the continuing resolution that our Nation's veterans need for their healthcare.

Madam Speaker, let's remember how we got here. Republicans talked a big game all Congress about how they were going to return to regular order and pass 12 individual appropriation bills, but consistent with the theme of dysfunction for this Republican majority, they instead spent months fighting amongst themselves.

What was the result? How many awful, partisan, go-nowhere appropriation bills were they actually able to pass? Madam Speaker, 5, 5 out of 12, and they didn't even send the Homeland Security appropriations bill over to the Senate. Why? Because they threw a tantrum and refused to send their Homeland Security appropriations bill to the Senate unless their awful H.R. 2 border bill got signed into law.

That is not how this works. They need to watch ``Schoolhouse Rock!'' Maybe they can learn something.

Once again, Democrats are the adults in the room who are being asked to come in and clean up the Republican mess--in this case, to ensure that our basic responsibility of governing is met: Keeping the lights on.

Now, the continuing resolution that we will consider later this week has some good pieces in it, and it will keep the American people's government open for another 3 months, but there is always room for improvement.

That is why I am offering this amendment to provide an extra $12 billion to maintain medical care for veterans, money that the Department of Veterans Affairs says that they will need. Our veterans deserve our support. It is our responsibility to provide the care that they have earned.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Deluzio) to discuss our proposal.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just say to the gentleman from Texas that I am sorry that I guess I hurt his feelings with some of the things I have said, but it is the truth, and I guess the truth hurts.

Madam Speaker, earlier I said that this majority has turned the Republican Party into a circus of chaos, broken promises, and failures.

Let's talk about that just a little bit more, shall we?

Since last January, this majority wasted 26 entire days, nearly a month, on fighting with each other as they tried to elect a Speaker of the House. Madam Speaker, 5 days were spent electing Kevin McCarthy, who was then booted out of the speakership and ended up leaving office. Madam Speaker, 21 days were spent as the Republican Conference argued about who was next in line. We ended up with Speaker Johnson, and we went from a bad Speaker to an even worse one.

That is nearly a month. That is nearly a month completely wasted on nothing more than bickering amongst themselves.

I will also remind you, Madam Speaker, the House was held hostage for days in June of last year because a tiny, extreme faction of the Republican Conference chose to throw a fit over the debt deal negotiated by President Biden and Speaker McCarthy.

Republicans struck down a rule on the floor for the first time in over two decades, holding the House floor schedule hostage all for camera time while MAGA threw a fit.

Now, we have seen a total of seven failed rules in this Congress, seven. Hell, we have even seen Republicans vote down not just the rules but vote down their own bills because there are times even conservative Members have thought the MAGA weirdo bills are just too weird and too extreme.

Get this, Madam Speaker, even when House Republicans manage to succeed, they fail to govern.

We keep hearing them complain about the border.

News flash, they passed the Department of Homeland Security funding bill 3 months ago, and they never sent it to the Senate. They put it in a filing cabinet and locked the door.

What is this, hide and seek? They are passing bills and hiding them in the basement so they can complain about the border more and more and more instead of trying to fix it. Someone needs to show these guys ``Schoolhouse Rock!'' I mean, we are talking about their number one priority, and they don't even send the bill over to the Senate.

It just shows how fake all their outrage is about the border.

I will leave you with this, Madam Speaker: Despite all the talk from this Republican majority that the 118th Congress would be the most open Congress ever, last night Republicans, again, broke their own record for the most closed Congress in the history of the country.

In addition to being the most ineffective and dysfunctional Congress in history, it is now also the most closed. Republicans have advanced 106--I am sorry. It is actually now 108. There are two more closed rules in the rule we are talking about today. Before they broke their record, their previous record was 103 closed rules when Paul Ryan was Speaker.

That means that they broke their own record for the most closed Congress in history. They are going to be unbeatable when it comes to a closed Congress.

Madam Speaker, it is more than about numbers. It is about what they represent.

As of this week, Republicans have now blocked 5,822 amendments from debate. They have even blocked the majority of their own Members' amendments from coming to the floor from debate.

It is ironic, the party that calls us snowflakes is afraid to even allow debate on the merits of these amendments.

Every amendment they block is another idea that is prevented from a vote on the House floor.

Now, let's look at some of the examples of what they thought was too crazy to bring to the floor.

They blocked an amendment blocking smuggling of U.S. firearms across the Mexican border. They thought that was too radical to bring to the floor.

They blocked an amendment protecting food for seniors participating in Meals on Wheels.

They blocked an amendment providing postpartum mental health information to pregnant students. By the way, that was a Republican amendment.

Look, we know Republicans have the majority. These amendments might lose, but a truly open and inclusive process that Republicans promised would let us debate these issues on the merits.

It is all part of a pattern. They are afraid of debating because they don't want to engage on policy. For them this is all just a game. It is about trying to hold onto power for the sake of holding onto power.

It is one broken promise after another from these guys. The truth is, Republicans have nothing, nothing, nothing to show for their time in power, just incompetence and chaos.

That is why I think people will be rejecting them in November.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman just put forward a straw man argument. The way it usually works is the Rules Committee sends out a notice asking for amendments that sets a deadline. It gives a week for our people to construct their ideas and send them to the Rules Committee.

On this package, they never sent out a notice or a deadline. I mean, the reality is, I think everybody already knew what was coming.

I am going to tell you, there is no defense for being the most closed Congress in the history of the United States. They fight amongst themselves and they basically work overtime to prevent thoughtful ideas from coming to the floor. They are good about debating trivial issues passionately, but they are not very good about debating important ones. Everything that they bring to the floor is not about moving the ball forward in terms of helping improve the quality of life for the American people. It is all about messaging and gotcha and division and pushing hate in this country. It just has to stop, and hopefully it will.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how many speakers the gentleman has remaining?

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I have already spoken about why these messaging measures will do nothing to help Americans, what a complete disaster this dysfunctional Republican majority has been, and how their weird, unpopular agenda is wrong for this country.

Now, I want to speak to you, Madam Speaker, and to the American people about the alternative, about what President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats here in Congress have accomplished and what we will continue to fight for in the years to come.

Democrats delivered the American Rescue Plan, helping to end the COVID crisis and reopening our economy that was shut down under Donald Trump.

Democrats delivered the CHIPS and Science Act, bringing jobs back from China and supply chains back from overseas.

Democrats delivered the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a historic investment that will rebuild our infrastructure for generations and generations to come.

Democrats delivered the bipartisan Honoring our PACT Act, expanding VA healthcare and benefits for millions and millions of veterans who have been exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances.

Democrats delivered the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant piece of gun violence prevention legislation in nearly 30 years.

That is what leadership looks like. It looks like making this country better. It looks like imagining and doing big things. It looks like finding common ground across the aisle where and when we can. It looks like delivering real, concrete results for the people of this country.

Democrats fight for lower prices. We fight to build an opportunity economy. We fight to protect our freedoms. We fight to ensure liberty and justice for every single American.

We believe good policy can unite people. We want to bring people together and focus on what we have in common in this country because there is so much more that unites us than divides us.

Madam Speaker, people are fed up with this majority's dysfunction. They are fed up with Republican incompetence.

What we Democrats, President Biden, and Vice President Harris offer is the opposite. Instead of division, Democrats offer unity. Instead of talking about the past and complaining, Democrats talk about the future and giving people hope. Instead of dysfunction, we will run this country like professionals and get stuff done to make America the best it can be.

The choice this November is a consequential one, Madam Speaker, and we can continue down the same failed path of dysfunction and disarray, or we can fire this failed MAGA majority. We can let Republicans keep sowing anger and hate, or we can let Democrats bring some decency and dignity back to this place. We can let Republicans continue fighting with each other, or we can let Democrats fight on behalf of the American people.

That is what is on the line this November, and the choice could not be more clear.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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