Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Deporting Fraudsters Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Bill to Outlaw Wounding of Official Working Animals Act of and Relating to Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody. I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, the distinguished chairwoman of the Rules Committee, for whom I have much admiration and respect, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, what on Earth are we doing here? Yesterday, the President of the United States spent an hour at lunch talking about the Kennedy Center--you know, the place he slapped his name on before basically running it into the ground.

Today, the Congress of the United States is spending an hour debating messaging bills that totally ignore the realities of what is going on in people's everyday lives.

Does anyone on the other side of the aisle realize that the United States of America is at war right now? Does anyone in the Republican Conference want to acknowledge that costs are up, corruption is running rampant, and everyday people are getting screwed?

They promised lower costs on day one. That is what Donald Trump promised. Guess what. Gas is up, thanks to the war in Iran. Groceries are up, thanks to the tariffs. Rent is up. Childcare is up. Healthcare is up, with millions of Americans paying double and triple for their health insurance and over a million losing it altogether because of Republican inaction.

Do Republicans plan to do anything about any of that? No.

This is what they did instead. They jammed through a big, ugly bill to help billionaires. They defend Trump's tariffs that are raising costs on working people. They continue to cover up for the predators in the Epstein files. Now, they are backing another illegal war in the Middle East that is costing over a billion dollars a day in taxpayer money.

But they are not talking about any of that. They keep bringing distraction after distraction to the House floor, bills meant to waste time, divide people, and shift the blame from billionaires onto immigrants. That is their whole playbook.

Don't look over here at Epstein elites and billionaire corporations who are ripping us off, breaking the law, and getting away with it. No, no, no. Blame the immigrants. Blame trans kids. Blame Joe Biden. Blame everybody but the President and his billionaire buddies. It is getting old, and I, for one, am sick and tired of it.

This President and my friends on the other side, who are refusing to rein him in because they are all afraid of him, are burning a billion dollars a day of American taxpayer money on a war halfway around the world. That is $1 billion a day. Let me repeat that: $1 billion a day.

There is no more money to help seniors heat their homes. They say we don't have it. There is no money to help kids get healthy breakfasts in school. There is no money to restore SNAP benefits to help seniors and veterans afford groceries. There is no more money to help working families breathe easier or sleep better at night.

I am just sick and tired of this, Mr. Speaker. There is always money for war. There is always money for another tax break for multimillionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations. There is always time to debate silly bills that try to shift the blame onto immigrants and trans kids, but there is never the time or the money to address the real and pressing issues that the American people are begging Republicans to help them with.

This is an embarrassing debate. This is an embarrassing moment for this Congress. While everybody in this country is in an uproar over rising costs, people are begging us to address that issue, to lower costs, and to help make their lives easier. While that is what is on the minds of the American people, Republicans can't bring themselves to bring legislation to the floor to address those issues. It really is sad. It really is sad.

Again, I think that my friends are going to realize come the midterm elections that people have had enough of this. But really people can't wait until the next election. People need us to address these concerns now.

This is an embarrassing debate, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to respond to the gentlewoman because she wants me to address some of the underlying bills. One of them, H.R. 4638, is the so-called BOWOW Act of 2025. We are debating something and saying that it should be illegal when it already is illegal. It is kind of redundant.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a noncitizen who is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude is subject to removal. In 2018, the Board of Immigration Appeals found that the crime of animal fighting is a crime involving moral turpitude because there is a clear intent to harm an animal.

Let me read to you how this bill we are talking about came to be. On June 24, 2025, canine detective and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Beagle Brigadier Freddie and his handler were inspecting baggage from Cairo, Egypt. Beagle Brigadier Freddie's job is to sniff out prohibited agriculture products at the border that could threaten vital agricultural industries.

Beagle Brigadier Freddie alerted to one of the suitcases being transported by Hamed Ramadan Bayoumy Aly Marie, an Egyptian national. As Beagle Brigadier Freddie continued his investigation, his handler began questioning Mr. Marie who abruptly and violently kicked the canine detective. The kick was of such force that it launched Beagle Brigadier Freddie, a 25-pound beagle, off the ground. After examination by a veterinarian, it was determined that Beagle Brigadier Freddie suffered contusions on his right ribs following the attack.

Mr. Marie was taken into custody and charged with harming animals used in law enforcement under the law. He pleaded guilty. He was ordered to pay Freddie's vet bill, and he was deported back to Egypt. That is the law.

What the hell are we doing here? I mean, we are repeating what was already in the law.

I guess the difference would be if the bill that the gentlewoman is advocating actually became law, then Mr. Marie would escape any kind of financial responsibility of paying Freddie's vet bill. I don't think we want that. But this was a deportable act, and this gentleman was deported.

When I say that this is a distraction, this is what I am talking about. Again, we are spending a billion dollars a day, my friends, on this war in Iran, and nobody knows what the hell is going on.

Gas prices are through the roof. The cost of everything is going up. We are here on the floor basically trying to bring bills that restate current law?

I would even say that in this case it weakens current law.

I have got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I think things are screwed up around here when our focus is on the stuff that we are bringing to the floor today and not on trying to lower the costs for the American people.

Life is hard. I don't know whether my friends go home and talk to their constituents or do townhalls or do town meetings, but if they do, they are hearing what I am hearing: Life is too damn expensive.

People want us to address the high costs, and we are not doing that. We are not doing that, and Republicans refuse to bring legislation to the floor to address that issue. Instead, we do this.

Mr. Speaker, I am a huge animal rights advocate, and so I want people who abuse animals to be deported. I don't have any problem with that, but that is the law. We are bringing this to the floor, and we are not doing a damn thing about addressing the high costs that Americans are facing each and every day. Something is wrong with this place.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me read for my colleagues a statement from the national director of the National Economic Council, Mr. Hassett, who works for President Trump.

This is his quote: ``If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about what we'd have to do about that, but that's really the last of our concerns right now.''

This is from Trump's top economic adviser. This is a direct quote from him.

He says that hurting consumers is the last of our concerns right now.

This guy should be fired. This is outrageous. We all should be worried about consumers. Those are our constituents. When prices are going up, people cannot make ends meet. They can't afford their rent, they can't afford their healthcare, and they can't afford their groceries.

Madam Speaker, they can't afford a damn thing, and this is what Trump's top economic adviser says: The consumers are really the last of our concerns right now?

Does anything outrage my Republican colleagues?

Can anybody in the Trump administration say anything that might give them pause and that might cause them concern?

This is outrageous. Three out of four Americans say that groceries are so expensive that they have been forced to cut down on other spending.

Madam Speaker, I hate to tell my Republican friends this, but here is a news flash: The American people are struggling. They are desperately looking for us to take action to make their lives easier, to help them be able to afford groceries, to be able to afford gas prices, and to be able to afford to support their families.

While we are spending $1 billion a day on a reckless and illegal war in Iran and the President with no end in sight has money for that, my friends on the other side can't bring themselves to bring legislation to the floor that will address the high cost of living.

Madam Speaker, when you have people in the administration saying that consumers are the last of their concerns, I mean like, I am just like every time I think this administration can't say something that will shock me even more, they do. This is one of the more outrageous comments coming from one of the President's top advisers.

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

I just want to say the gentlewoman is doing exactly what I predicted she would do: blaming immigrants so that people who are watching this debate don't focus in on the fact that prices are going through the roof and everything is more expensive than ever.

She said that Trump is doing better than Biden in terms of gas prices. Well, when Biden left office, the average gallon of gas was $3.11. It is now close to $3.80. It is creeping up to nearly $4. I mean, that is just the reality. People can google that. Don't take my word for it. You can google it.

The other fact is that, if I remember correctly, Donald Trump said that when he became President, he and Republicans would lower costs on day one and everything would go down. What a crock. Everything has gone up. Everything has skyrocketed. Gas, rent, the price of food-- everything has gone way up.

I am going to read this again because I can't get this out of my head that somebody in this administration would say this out loud. Again, this is what the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Kevin Hassett, said: If the war ``were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we would have to think about . . . what we would have to do about that, but that is really the last of our concerns right now. . . .''

This is one of the President's top economic advisers telling the American consumer: The hell with you. You don't matter. You are at the bottom of our list.

That tells you everything you need to know.

I heard the gentlewoman's 1-minute speech before we got into this debate, when she kind of defended the tax cuts for the rich and basically said that we have a spending problem in this country.

Okay, we have a spending problem. We are spending a billion dollars a day on a reckless, illegal war in Iran, and nobody on the other side seems to give a damn about that. We don't have money to help make sure that we can lower energy costs for senior citizens. We don't have money to make sure our kids get nutritious breakfasts and lunches in schools. We don't have money for anything, for childcare, eldercare, our veterans, or our healthcare in general.

We are told we don't have the money, but no debate and no concern about a billion dollars a day on Iran? Come on. I mean, enough is enough.

The focus of Congress, the focus of government, should be about helping people, not screwing them over, not hurting them. The focus of our government should not be about enriching the rich, protecting the Epstein class, the people who are well-off and well-connected and who have tons of money.

The focus ought to be on how to lift up working families in this country. That is what Democrats have been fighting for. That is what we stand for. There is a difference here.

Again, going back to Kevin Hassett, his comment today. He says the quiet part out loud. The consumers, according to him, are the last of our concerns right now.

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

Madam Speaker, I am almost at a loss for words. I don't even know how to respond to that. That gets like five Pinocchios. I don't know what the gentlewoman is talking about. She talked about the debt and reducing the debt. My friend, who I respect and enjoy working with, voted for a reconciliation bill that added nearly $5 trillion to the debt.

Let me say that one more time: It added nearly $5 trillion to the debt. Most of that additional cost to the debt were in the form of tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires.

She talks about the Republicans trying to cut fraud, waste, and abuse. They cut programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to help senior citizens and veterans and low-income families be able to put food on the table, a benefit, by the way, that is on average about $2 per person per meal. That is what SNAP is.

They cut money for child nutrition programs. They cut money for school nutrition programs. They cut money for environmental protection, for infrastructure. I go right down the list, economic development for our farmers, everything.

They had Elon Musk come in with DOGE, and they claim they saved all this money. Guess what. All of the cuts that they made, by the way, I think we are going to pay for down the road because they are going to add costs in a whole bunch of other ways. All of that so-called savings has just been eliminated by what has been spent on the war in Iran, a billion dollars a day. We are at $22, $23 billion already on that war.

We are not anywhere near done. They tell you that we can't deal with the fact that we have so many senior citizens in this country who can't afford to put food on the table. We can't do anything about that. Then they say nothing about the billion dollars a day on an illegal and reckless war in Iran.

For the record, I will include the CBO score, that is the Congressional Budget Office, on their reconciliation bill in the Record because I want the Record to reflect that what I am saying here is backed up by facts. This is a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Both Democrats and Republicans rely on the CBO for scores on how much things are going to cost.

This is crazy that we are having this debate, all the while the cost of living for every person in this country, who is not a multimillionaire or billionaire who is not part of the Epstein class, is going through the roof.

By the way, when you talk about taxes on people, what my friend didn't mention was the tariffs. That is a tax on every American. That is a tax on every American. We are now told that these tariffs are costing the average citizen of this country an additional $1,700 per person per year. I don't know who is asking for this stuff, but it is certainly not the people that I talk to.

Madam Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question. If we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 7481, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2026, sponsored by Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, a bill which only funds law-abiding agencies under the Department of Homeland Security and not the unlawful actions of ICE and CBP.

Madam Speaker, House Republicans are trying to use President Trump's illegal war in Iran as pretext to force Congress to fund ICE and CBP without any reforms, even though these agencies are harassing, detaining, beating, and killing American citizens. This is a cheap trick to score political points, and we are not buying it. I don't think anybody in the country is buying it.

You can't make this up. The President's own National Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who Trump himself appointed and basically every single Republican in the Senate voted to confirm this guy, resigned this morning stating that he cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran and that ``Iran posed no imminent threat to our Nation.''

Also, Republicans already funded ICE and CBP in their big, ugly bill so why are they holding up funding for TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA? Republicans should allow a vote to fund the law-abiding components of DHS while negotiations on critical reforms to ICE and CBP continue.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and the sponsor of this bill.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

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

Madam Speaker, nobody disagrees that we should have a secure border. That is not the debate.

Where there is disagreement and, quite frankly, where there is outrage is when we have a Federal agency that goes into our communities and kills American citizens. This is not at the border but in our heartland. That is where we believe there is a line that has been crossed. We are outraged over that.

I am sorry that my friends on the other side are not. They control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. They are in charge. If they want our votes, we are not going to vote to continue to fund agencies and departments within agencies that are rogue, where there is no accountability and where there is no transparency. We are not going to do that.

We support TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA. We will vote to support them, but don't ask us to fund agencies that do harm to our constituents.

By the way, is there any end to what my Republican colleagues want for CBP and for ICE? They have got money in the big, ugly bill for them, billions and billions of dollars for them. I don't understand what the deal is.

In any event, for whatever reason, they have a problem with TSA. They have a problem with FEMA. They have a problem with the Coast Guard. I don't understand why. We don't. We support them.

Madam Speaker, the pattern here is obvious. It is broken promises, higher costs, more war, more hate, alternative facts, and unbelievable corruption. That is what is happening in this country right now because of Republican leadership.

Republicans said they would fight for ordinary people. Instead, they helped billionaires. They said they would keep us out of war. Instead, they dragged us into another one. Madam Speaker, 13 American troops are dead. Over 140 are wounded. Our Nation is, once again, sending $1 billion a day over to the Middle East on another reckless, illegal war of choice.

They said they would tell the truth. Instead, they protect the Epstein elites and peddle distraction after distraction after distraction, hoping it will all go away.

At the center of it all is a President so hollow, so unwell, and so morally lost that he is fundraising off of dead American troops. I can't believe I am saying that sentence out loud.

The President of the United States went to a dignified transfer of remains ceremony. He refused to take off his ball cap. Then he took a photo of himself standing behind an American servicemember in a casket coming home from war in the Middle East. He slapped it on a fundraising email, asking people to donate money to his campaign. Let me say that again.

The President used a dead American servicemember as a photo op for his campaign fundraising. When he was asked about it yesterday, he said he saw nothing wrong with that.

Can anyone imagine if Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden had done that? My Republican colleagues' heads would explode. That is what happened after Joe Biden checked his watch during one of these ceremonies. Yet, there was not a word after this disrespectful President dishonored our troops in the most outrageous way by using them as a prop for his own personal benefit.

I challenge any Republican, any single one, to come down here and defend this. Come down here and explain to their constituents why the leader of their party is fundraising off of dead American servicemembers.

I think it is one of the most disrespectful, inappropriate, awful things I have ever, ever seen in all my time in Congress. I doubt a single Republican will have the guts to say it was wrong.

The American people deserve a hell of a lot better than this chaos and cruelty. They deserve better than this President. They deserve better than this Republican majority. They deserve elected officials who care about them and who want to fight to lower the cost of living, who want to make their lives better and easier and more manageable. That is not what is happening here.

With all that is going on--$1 billion a day on a reckless illegal war in Iran, gas prices creeping up to nearly $4 a gallon, and the price of groceries going up because of these stupid tariffs that my friends don't want to deal with--I can go on and on and on about how the Republican policies are making life more miserable for average Americans. With all that is going on, they can't be bothered to come down here.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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