Condolences to the Family of Charlie Kirk

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, first and foremost, I rise today with our deepest condolences for the family of Charlie Kirk.

Violence of any kind, especially violence that we have seen in this country way too often, should never be condoned. Whether it is the Kirk family or the families of the kids who were shot in Colorado, it is gut-wrenching and sorrowful that our Nation continues to go through this plague of gun violence.

Madam Speaker, it has been 13 years since Sandy Hook in my home State of Connecticut. It is long overdue for Congress to have a vote. Universal background checks are a commonsense way that we can deal with this, and I see no reason why we can't pass this as a Congress. Frankly, I believe that we should ban assault weapons, as well.

Hopefully, people in this body will come to their senses and have Congress take a vote, at a minimum, for the families who were impacted and for our future. That is all that is required of us.

Again, our hearts go out to the Kirk family and, certainly, the families of the students at Evergreen High School in Colorado. Demanding Answers from DOGE

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I rise this morning because Democrats have introduced a resolution of inquiry to get the information from the whistleblower who has talked about what happened to the more than 300 million Americans who depend on Social Security. This impacts all 435 congressional districts.

Madam Speaker, you have 161,000 Social Security recipients in your district. I know that you do not stand for having their personal information gone through, looked over, and utilized for anything that was unintended, let alone having been taken from its secure position in Social Security and stored in a cloud that no one from the Social Security Administration has access to. That makes everyone's information vulnerable.

Democrats are calling for DOGE to come before the Committee on Ways and Means so that they can tell the American people, number one, why they needed to look at their personal data to begin with and, number two, what they are doing with it and why they took it from a secure location.

No one on DOGE has been vetted by the United States Senate or Congress. None of them are accountable for what they are doing. For the President to allow them to have access to every American's personal data is an outrage.

Democrats and Republicans should join together and do our responsibility as a separate branch of government and the branch of government that has control over Social Security to make sure that these DOGE individuals are held accountable.

Democrats demand answers, and I am proud to be joined by Rich Neal in making sure that, on the Committee on Ways and Means, the committee of cognizance for Social Security, we have DOGE come before us. If they are doing such a great job and are exposing all of this fraud and abuse, why aren't they in front of Congress to tell us about it? Democrats demand that DOGE be held accountable for what they have stolen and put into a cloud.

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