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Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to mark an important milestone in this new administration. Senate Republicans have now confirmed more than 100 nominees in President Trump's second term.
This is significant progress in filling critical government positions. It took relentless procedural battles to accomplish this. It included full days and long nights. Why? Because Democrats are waging a coordinated campaign of obstruction.
Under the Constitution, the Senate is meant to provide advice and consent. We do it on Presidential nominations. We do it on a number of things. Specifically, with regard to nominations, this means an honest evaluation of qualifications, and it means a vote in the U.S. Senate. Now, for more than 6 months, Senate Democrats have turned advice and consent into automatic opposition. It doesn't just delay President Trump; it damages the country.
Democrats have filibustered all but one of President Trump's nominees, and he was the very first nominee, Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State. He was confirmed on day one of the administration. Since then, it has been a wall of obstruction. Democrats have filibustered positions requiring confirmation that have never before even had a rollcall vote in the U.S. Senate; they have gone by unanimous consent. Democrats filibustered the Chief of Protocol for the State Department--the Chief of Protocol. Democrats filibustered the Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security. They filibustered the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Today, 138 nominees who have already been approved by a full vote in the Senate committees are caught here--in Senate floor purgatory.
Democrats in the Senate seem to have a new litmus test: If President Trump nominates you, Democrats are against you--period, end of story. Yesterday, the Senate confirmed four nominees: the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, the Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Crimes, a district judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the Assistant Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency--all qualified, all vetted, all experienced. Each and every one was filibustered. The Democrats forced the Senate to burn every minute of available time before the Senate was permitted to vote.
When Democrats delay nominations and nominees--people specifically charged to fight drug trafficking, to protect the environment, to track terrorists--it delays justice, and it makes our Nation weaker and less safe. It tells Americans that Democrats care more about politics than they do about problem-solving.
Now Democrats are targeting President Trump's nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. We just heard the Senate minority leader talk about that nominee. By any objective measure, Mr. Bove is qualified--Georgetown law, in the top 5 percent of his class, a decorated former prosecutor, someone who took on and took down violent criminals, drug traffickers, and terrorists--but because he worked for President Trump, he is now a target--a target of a politically motivated hit job.
During his confirmation, he said this under oath:
I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order.
The facts support his testimony.
So, today, Senator Schumer came to the floor and said of Mr. Bove that he was ``as extreme as anyone we have considered in this Chamber.'' Let me recall for the body some of the people who were nominated under the Biden administration and were supported by Chuck Schumer when he makes an attack on such a qualified nominee as we are debating and discussing and voting on today.
The Democrats confirmed as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts someone who released a list of charges that she would refuse to prosecute if she were confirmed. She said: I refuse to prosecute shoplifting and drug possession with an intent to distribute--which was OK under the Democrats. They wanted her confirmed as a U.S. attorney, and they did that for Massachusetts.
They also confirmed in 2021, under Joe Biden, an Assistant Attorney General who supported efforts to ``defund the police''--an Attorney General wanting to defund the police.
Then they supported and nominated and confirmed a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, a judge who worked for a leftwing organization who--listen to this, Democrats--repeatedly called for a complete reimagining of policing in this country.
That is what they are for. That is who they are. That is the Democrats today.
The kicker of all of this is that the Democrats' radical nominee for the Third Circuit in 2024--this same position opposed by more than 20 police groups--20 police groups--served on the board of advisers of a group that called cop killers freedom fighters. The Democrats came to support a nominee by then-President Joe Biden who was a member of a board of advisers for a group that called cop killers freedom fighters and advocated for their release. Nevertheless, Democrats strongly supported the confirmation. They relented only after President Trump won the election.
Republicans are working hard to get America back on track.
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