Richard J. Durbin

“I will vote against Matthew Schwartz to be a federal appeals judge. He is currently Donald Trump's personal lawyer, defending him against criminal convictions and civil fines. He also helped Elon Musk keep a fifty billion dollar pay package. I do not think he should be a judge.”

“Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Matthew A. Schwartz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Schwartz joins the growing line of Trump personal lawyers who have been nominated to the bench during Trump’s second term. Even as we consider his nomination, Mr. Schwartz is actively representing the President in two cases on appeal: Trump’s 34-count conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money case and the $464 million judgment against him, his family members, and businesses for inflating business assets. During his hearing, Senator Booker asked Mr. Schwartz about the President’s reported outstanding $400,000 debt to Sullivan & Cromwell, an obvious conflict of interest. Mr. Schwartz downplayed that sum as ``an extraordinarily small amount.’’ Mr. Schwartz also represented Tesla in its successful appeal of a judgment from the Delaware Court of Chancery voiding Elon Musk’s $50 billion compensation package. While Musk raked in the billions Mr. Schwartz helped secure, he took a chainsaw to nearly every aspect of our government. For these reasons, I will be opposing Mr. Schwartz’s nomination.”

“Three Democratic senators are away today.”

“I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Hickenlooper), and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 44, as follows: The nomination was confirmed. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate’s action. The majority leader.”

“I am voting against Arthur Roberts Jones for federal judge. He joined an extreme gun-rights group and would not answer clearly about whether he thinks gun safety laws are legal.”

“Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Arthur Roberts Jones to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Mr. Jones’ association with a far-right organization and refusal to disavow that organization’s extreme views on firearm safety are disqualifying. Mr. Jones joined Gun Owners of America in 2025. This group has criticized the National Rifle Association for being too moderate, called for ATF to be abolished, and argued that all gun safety laws are unconstitutional. I gave Mr. Jones the opportunity to explain his choice to join this group. In response, he disputed that Gun Owners of America has radical views on firearms and stonewalled on the question of whether he believes the Second Amendment renders all gun safety laws unconstitutional. His refusal to admit that the Supreme Court has, in fact, upheld various regulations on firearms under the Second Amendment is unacceptable for someone who seeks a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench. I cannot support his nomination.”

“Senator Lindsey Graham has died. He was my friend and a dedicated public servant. We disagreed on many issues, but he kept his word and was willing to work across party lines to solve big problems like immigration. I honor his memory and send my condolences to his family.”

“Mr. President, last week, I joined several of my colleagues from the Senate and from the House at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkiye. It was a historic meeting in terms of the future of NATO and the future of Ukraine and so many other issues that relate to that critical and important alliance. Last Wednesday, we had a dinner that was hosted by the U.S. Ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack. There must have been 50 or 60 people there who all shared concerns of the summit conference. Among them were Members of Congress, Turkish leaders, and representatives of other countries around the world who had gone to that famous summit. At the heart of that dinner was my colleague and friend Senator Lindsey Graham. When I arrived that night, it was no surprise that he had been there before me and had been working the crowd. He had been speaking to each and every person who was there--business leaders and political leaders from all parts of the world--about his concerns. Lindsey was walking them through, one at a time, his vision on how we could end the war in Ukraine and the legislation we needed to accomplish that, which was typical of Lindsey Graham. We all shared that concern, but he was buzzing around that crowd like an aspiring candidate, convincing everybody that there was a way to end this war the right way. Only a few days after that dinner, my friend Lindsey Graham passed away. It was a shock. I would like to take a moment to recognize his lifetime of public service both in the State of South Carolina and for our Nation. I served with Lindsey Graham in the Senate for more than two decades, and during that time, I counted him as a trusted friend. I will tell you that my friends and supporters back in Illinois many times would just shake their heads and say: Durbin, what are you doing with Lindsey? You shouldn’t be working with him. They didn’t know how the Senate works, and they certainly didn’t know him. Lindsey, for many years, was the only Republican who was willing to cosponsor the DREAM Act, a bill that I introduced over 20 years ago and had reintroduced in successive Congresses, which provided protection to undocumented immigrants who had been brought to this country as children. His support took guts. At a time when issues surrounding immigration were becoming politically toxic, Lindsey stuck his neck out for me and for these young people. I will never ever forget it. I will also never forget a meeting that Lindsey and I had with President Trump in his first term in 2018. It was a meeting to discuss a possible comprehensive immigration reform package. It didn’t go well at all. President Trump made what I considered to be profane comments about some immigrants, but I won’t repeat them here. Lindsey, while sitting next to me in the Oval Office, passionately, vocally, and with real commitment disagreed with the President, arguing that America is not defined by race or color but by its ideals and of the many contributions that immigrants have made to our Nation. He said to the President, as I sat right next to him in the Oval Office, that he was just wrong; that these people who are immigrants make a difference in America. It was the story of our country, and Lindsey said it was the story of his family. Lindsey spoke publicly about this interaction after it occurred, and despite the scorn that he earned from certain segments of the Republican base, he stuck to what he believed was right. When I happened to become the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 4 years, Lindsey Graham was my ranking Republican. He sat right next to me in every session of that committee. We had our share of disagreements over issues and nominees, but I knew that his word was always good. If he told me he was going to vote for something or some person, he did--he delivered--and we had a good working relationship between us--no cheap shots, no stabs in the back. He voted in favor of 75 percent of the judicial nominations that we considered while I was chair, and there were 235 lifetime appointments that came out of that committee. Even though they were nominated by a President from a different political party, he announced early on that, if I expect Democrats to vote for Republican nominees, I have to support Democratic nominees to show the same spirit of cooperation. And he did. He kept his word. That was who Lindsey was. He was proud to be a fierce Republican partisan, but he never lost sight of the need to work across the aisle to make a difference in the lives of Americans. Loretta and I send our condolences to Lindsey’s family and his legion of friends in South Carolina and around the world. He was an extraordinary Member of the Senate. He helped to make it work. There was never any bipartisan meeting of a gang--or however you would characterize it--during which Lindsey wasn’t within its ranks. I remember when John McCain and he led the Republican side of an immigration reform effort, and I was part of that on the Democratic side. After months--literally months--of negotiating, we brought a package to the floor, which passed with an overwhelming bipartisan vote, showing that we could do things like that and that we should still be able to. For those things to occur, it is not just a matter of having a good idea; you need good people who are willing to be respectful of one another and to work hard to find common ground. Lindsey was one of those people.”