Joint Session of Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, tonight President Trump will take the podium, and he will have a joint address to Congress, and, clearly, to the Nation.

I just heard the minority leader of the Senate come to the floor and talk about President Trump's promises. Well, let me talk about those promises--promises made, promises kept by President Trump.

He has only been in the office now for 7 weeks, and he has a very strong record of accomplishment in those 7 weeks. What did he promise he would do? He said he would cut wasteful Washington spending. Well, that is a promise that he has kept.

What we are seeing is the most comprehensive audit of Federal spending of money in history. This administration already, in just these short weeks, has identified $55 billion of savings.

President Trump promised to secure the border. Well, he has kept that promise as well. He immediately began deporting criminal illegal immigrants. They are here in the country illegally, and they were criminals--heinous crimes. We are talking about murderers, rapists, drug dealers. The word got out around the world. Illegal border crossings in February dropped to an alltime low.

President Trump said he would unleash American energy. He has kept that promise as well. On day one, President Trump declared a national energy emergency. Now, this is going to unlock America's full energy potential. He withdrew from the Paris climate accord. Did it once before, but Joe Biden put us back in.

What we saw in the Biden administration is they applied handcuffs to American energy producers and American energy production. President Trump said: No, we are not doing that. He has opened Alaska's vast amounts of energy for the American people.

He pulled the plug on Biden's electric vehicle mandates. He reopened 625 million acres of offshore drilling. Remember, Joe Biden, in the final days of his administration, with his midnight regulation to ban that exploration for American energy.

President Trump promised to protect women who participate in sports. He kept that promise. The Trump administration marks the return to common sense.

We have seen that return to common sense, also, Mr. President, in here in the U.S. Senate because we are determined to get America back on track. There is no time to waste.

One measure of our rapid start is the historic pace with which we have been able to confirm members of President Trump's Cabinet.

Senate Republicans have now confirmed 20--20--members of President Trump's Cabinet. We confirmed President Trump's Education Secretary just last evening. So compared to previous Presidents, this is a remarkable pace. More confirmations than President Obama had at this point in 2009; more confirmations than President Biden had in 2021. It surpasses the timeline of any President in recent history.

President Trump's nominees are strong. They are smart. They have a history of success, and that history is going to continue now that they are members of the Cabinet.

Our success has had a direct impact on President Trump's agenda. With his team in place, President Trump has been able to execute effectively and efficiently.

The Senate has also acted decisively to secure the border. Within days of taking office, Senate Republicans passed the Laken Riley Act. The Laken Riley Act is named after a young nursing student in Georgia. She was murdered by an illegal immigrant. She was just out for a jog. We named the bill in her honor. The Laken Riley Act saves American lives. It requires illegal immigrant criminals to be deported. It was bipartisan legislation. And 12 Democrats voted with us to pass this legislation, and it is now law of the land.

The Laken Riley Act sends a clear message that tragedies like this never be allowed to happen again in the United States of America, that the era of open borders is over.

Senate Republicans mean business. After years of crises, we are now securing the border. The numbers tell the story. We are deporting illegal immigrant criminals on a daily basis, and we are also working with the House of Representatives on our shared agenda. We are delivering on the promises that we made to the American people. We are going to secure the border, we will restore peace through strength, we are unleashing American energy, and we are going to stop the Democrats' oncoming freight train of a $4 trillion tax increase.

Democrats oppose all of these things. They want to raise American public taxes by $4 trillion. Mr. President, we are going to stop that. President Trump is only 43 days in this office in his historic Presidency, an incredible comeback victory--the comeback king, as I call him from his ability to win this election. He won 312 electoral votes, every one of the battleground States, and this President has not wasted a second, a minute, an hour, or a day in office because he knows how important it is to act quickly.

He is doing that. He is solving the urgent problems facing our Nation, what American people elected him to do, what the American people expect, and it is what the American people are seeing. So the President is working with the House and the Senate, all of us working together to get America back on track, and we are going to deliver what the Americans have asked for: safety and prosperity for the people of this great country.

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