Christopher Murphy

“I want the Senate to pass this bill. Immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens, so they are not a threat just because they are immigrants. Immigration officers can enforce the law without doing it at school bus stops. Even past Republican administrations kept certain places off limits. It makes no sense to claim this bill will turn bus stops into sanctuary camps.”

“Mr. President, just three final points. I think Senator Banks articulates the Republican position, which is that immigrants are by definition a safety threat to the United States of America, and that is just not true. I don’t draw an issue with the fact that there are immigrants who commit crimes, but there are natural-born citizens that commit crimes at higher rates than immigrants do. The fact of the matter is that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than people who were born here in the United States. We should just keep people safe in this country no matter the country of origin or birth of the perpetrator. Second, I think you can make the decision that ICE should be able to operate in the interior while keeping certain sites off limits. In fact, this was the Trump administration policy in the first term. So Republican administrations in the past have come to the decision that certain sites should be off limits for ICE. In fact, when I talk to Trump supporters in Connecticut, who broadly do support the President’s immigration policy, they also believe that they went too far in Connecticut. There were a lot of Republicans who showed up at our big rally the day after this incident happened. So it is not true that you can only support robust enforcement operations in the interior if you support ICE being even at schoolbus stops. And then finally, I will be honest with you, I did not anticipate that one of the arguments against this bill would be that it would lead to the development of sanctuary bus stops. What do we imagine here? People are going to live at bus stops? We are going to have encampments around bus stops of people who are here without documentation? I just think it is an example of how this whole debate has gone way off the rails. It is just fundamentally detached from the reality. You want to support Trump’s immigration policy--you can do that while still saying that we shouldn’t have ICE officers patrolling schoolbus stops with the purpose of traumatizing little children. That could be a consensus position, and we could choose to still disagree over the broader Trump immigration policy. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The Senator from Idaho.”

“I oppose this bill. College sports is not in a crisis. It makes more money and has more fans than ever. The Supreme Court already ruled that schools cannot ban together to stop players from getting paid. This bill tries to make that illegal system legal again. It caps what players can earn and limits when they can switch schools, but it does nothing to stop huge coach salaries and buyouts. It lets schools make billions more from TV deals while sharing very little with the athletes. If we pass this, talented players will leave college sports entirely. Congress should vote no and let schools negotiate directly with the players instead.”

“Mr. President, the legislation that we’re going to be voting on tonight is predicated on a simple idea, the idea that college sports is in crisis and that it requires a fairly extraordinary act of legislative intervention to address this crisis. I am speaking in opposition to this bill, and I think it is important to start by answering the question: Is college sports in crisis? Is it in chaos, as Senator Cruz is fond of saying? Well, the facts don’t back up that characterization of college sports. I am a huge college sports fan. I watch a lot of college basketball, a little bit less but still a lot of college football, and I know that there are more people than ever showing up to these games and watching the games. The Big Ten just signed a $13 billion contract to broadcast its games. The revenue of the NCAA, broadly, is at an alltime high. The SEC and the Big Ten are both making over a billion dollars. Women’s sports is growing--92,000 people recently filled the stadium to watch a women’s volleyball match. Schools are adding, not subtracting, women’s programs. In fact, more people are paying attention to college sports than ever before. College sports is growing both on the men’s and the women’s side. And so, what is this crisis? Well, the crisis, it appears to me, is pretty simple. Young athletes who perform a service that would be worth billions in the free market are finally getting what they lawfully deserve. A system of exploitation--an illegal system of exploitation--in which the colleges and their industry allies colluded to keep as much of the $13 billion that the college sports industry generates for themselves, that system started to crumble because courts--as high as the Supreme Court--came to the inevitable conclusion that that system of exploitation was illegal. Justice Kavanaugh, in a 9 to 0 decision, says the current NCAA model is ``suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges [each] year.’’ Ruling 9 to 0, essentially, that that system was unlawful. And so this system of collusion by the colleges designed to keep the compensation of athletes as low as possible, it was ruled illegal is essentially what happened here. And the industry had two choices. They could either work out a new set of rules with the athletes. That is generally what has to happen if you want industry-wide rules that limit compensation, that limit that applicability of a free market. You have to negotiate with your employees--in this case the athletes--or you could come to Congress and get your illegal system deemed legal. And that is what we are essentially doing here today. We are taking a system that the Supreme Court said could not persist under our law, and we are changing the law to allow that illegal system to persist. How do we know that this bill is about solving that narrow crisis that I identified, that crisis of college athletes finally making money, and the adults in charge of the system not liking that the kids were making money? Well, the first way we know that is that the bill does really nothing to stop the runaway overall costs of college athletics, in particular, some of the biggest drivers of costs being facilities and the salaries of adults. Let us just take one example. And I see my friend from Louisiana is on the floor, currently. Just last week, LSU’s president said the school’s sports program is projected to carry a $26 million deficit, and the president said ``We have got to stop that bleeding.’’ A $26 million deficit. But LSU just agreed to pay their new coach Lane Kiffin $91 million over 7 years, along with other bonuses to him like 65 hours of private jet travel, temporary housing, courtesy vehicles. LSU also just paid a buyout of over $53 million to the coach they fired. In fact, last year, the buyouts for just three coaches at LSU totaled over $169 million, six times the annual operating deficit of the entire athletics program. So if you want to know what is driving the deficit at these big schools, it is not simply the amount of money they are paying the students. Those numbers are dwarfed by the amount of money that is going to coaches and the facilities. But yet, this bill constricts only--only caps--the money going to the players. It does nothing to cap the money going to the coaches. It does nothing to stop the continued billions of dollars going in to feed this facilities’ arms race. Second, what about the antitrust exemption? Why is that in the bill? Well, certainly not to help athletes. This antitrust exemption will allow schools in some cases to continue their practices that compromise athlete safety because now they have a broad antitrust exemption to do that. Perhaps we will pass an amendment that will help with that later today. What it primarily is in the bill for is to allow the schools to be able to bargain collectively in order to get a better TV deal. If the schools don’t have to worry about antitrust law, one of the things they can do is join together across conferences to bargain for additional TV revenue. And in this bill, only one-fifth of the revenue that comes in will have to be shared with the athletes. Whereas, in the professional leagues, about 50 percent of the revenue, including TV revenue, goes to the athletes. So, the antitrust exemption allows the schools to make a whole lot more money, and other provisions in the bill allow the schools to keep that money for themselves rather than share it in the same way that professional leagues might share it with the athletes. And then what about the transfer restrictions in the bill? Why do those only apply to players? I admit that the current system in which players can move from one school to the next every year is probably not in the best long-term interests of the sport. But if the goal is really to control costs, that provision would apply to coaches as well because one of the ways costs go up is that coaches can freely move after every season from one program to the other, bidding schools against each other. This bill says that a coach can’t leave in the middle of the season, but that almost never happens. The reality is this bill only says players can only transfer once without penalty. It doesn’t say anything about coaches. Now, as I said, I think that there are rules inside college athletics that don’t make a lot of sense right now: unlimited transfers; the potential ability for pro players to come back to college. These agent fees look ridiculous to me. But you don’t need a bill of this sweeping scope to address what are a set of minor but important practices in college athletics that have gotten out of control. We could have either passed a very narrow bill here to address the aging issue and the transfer issue, or we could have done what happens in most industries which is just say to the NCAA and to the colleges: Tough luck. Congress isn’t going to come in here and micromanage your relationship with the athletes. If you want to work something out, sit down and talk to the athletes about it. If you want rules that apply across the industry, then do what every other industry does, which is have a dialogue with the workers. Now, whether you want to admit that the athletes are workers or not, the Supreme Court has basically ruled that they need to be treated as such for compensation purposes. And so we have two other options besides this sweeping bill that, in my belief, preserves this system of exploitation. We could have either passed a much more narrow bill that I think would have gotten even broader consensus here, would have had an easier time passing the House, or we could have just said: You know what? Congress doesn’t want to get involved in litigating the details of the arrangement between players and coaches and schools. You guys work that out, just like we require every other industry to do this. I think in the end, this bill, if it passes and becomes law, is actually going to be a long-term threat to college athletics. And I will just end here. In the short run, I get it. It makes coaches’ lives easier. They don’t have to worry about players leaving if they are treated badly, if they are not compensated adequately. By Congress stepping in, dictating the terms with which students can play college athletics, it empowers coaches. But especially in football, where every single additional year you play, you are doing more damage to your brain, more damage to your ability to make money once you get into the pros, students are not dumb. They are not going to sit in college sports with a cap on their earnings and currently an inability to get to the pros until they have played 3 years of amateur athletics. They will find a way around college sports. That will be the primary impact of this artificial cap on compensation, this massive antitrust exemption for colleges. I think it may well, in the end, be the unwinding of college sports. The way to save college sports is to admit that these kids provide an incredibly valuable service, as the Supreme Court has judged as well, and they deserve to be fairly compensated. That, in the long run, would have been the best way to have made sure that we preserve college sports, which I agree with my colleagues is worth preserving. One of the most basic, fundamental American pastimes is the ability for us to come together, no matter our religion, our race, or our political affiliation, to root for our State’s team. That binds us together as Americans. In the end, I think this bill--maybe not in the first few years but in the long run--will be a greater threat to the stability of college sports than doing nothing. I yield the floor.”

“I want the Senate to pass this resolution to end the war with Iran. Most Americans believe this war is hurting our country. It is driving up gas prices, mortgage rates, and the cost of shipping oil. Our troops are under terrible strain, and our military has not stopped Iran from rebuilding missiles or working on nuclear weapons.”

“Mr. President, I am on the floor today to support yet another resolution to end the war in Iran. Here is the latest poll regarding public support or approval. Eighteen percent of respondents--this latest CNN poll--say that President Trump’s decisions around the war in Iran are helping the United States. Seventy percent of Americans say that his decisions around the Iran war are hurting Americans. That is a stunning number. Basically, it is only the hard-core MAGA supporters that still believe this war is a good idea. Everybody else--Independents, Democrats, independent-thinking Republicans--have all decided that this body needs to vote to end this war. And it is not hard to figure out why. Here is a chart that is familiar to my colleagues. This is the unreal spike in gas and diesel prices that has occurred solely because of this war. If you are in Indiana right now, diesel is $7 a gallon. That is why farms are going bankrupt right now in the Midwest at record rates; the tariffs and the high price of diesel. But for American consumers who are just filling up their tank with gasoline, the same disaster: in California, above $6 a gallon; in many States, above $5 a gallon. And it is just going up and up and up. But Americans also see this has been a national security disaster for the country. It has obviously been an economic nightmare. Mortgage rates are at 7 percent again, by the way, if you hadn’t noticed. That is because of the war, primarily; the tariffs as well. But Americans oppose this war 70 to 18 in the current poll because they know that it is hurting our national security. We have not had a resolution on the floor in a number of weeks. So I just want to talk about four things that have happened in the last few weeks that show how this war is spiraling and spiraling out of control. Every single day, this war becomes more dangerous for the region, more of a disaster for the United States. One of the things that the administration said that was a motivating factor for the war was getting rid of Iran’s missiles. I don’t know how many times we heard Secretary Hegseth tell us that the goal was to destroy Iran’s missiles and missile capacity. And back in April, he claimed that they had functionally destroyed--that is his word-- ``functionally’’ destroyed Iran’s ability to make new missiles. Well, the Wall Street Journal just reported that Iran is producing ballistic missiles again at scale. And we only were able to eliminate around 30 percent of the missiles. They have most of their stockpiles from before the war, and now they are producing missiles. Again, satellite imagery shows that Iran is rebuilding bridges and roads to production sites; they are restoring tunnel entrances; and they are building capacity again. Iran is building missiles again. This is the whole reason we were going into the war--a total failure--to eliminate Iran’s missile capacity. What is the strain on our servicemembers? Well, we just learned this week that eight Navy sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have attempted suicide. Two of those sailors, as we all know, tried to jump overboard to end their lives. This is a ship that has been without a port call--was without a port call for 286 days. That is abdication of leadership, an abdication of the responsibility to care about our troops’ safety by our Department of Defense leadership. We have sailors and soldiers and airmen that are in crisis right now because we have put them in harm’s way for far longer--for far longer-- than any brave man or woman who has signed up to defend this Nation deserves to be in harm’s way. We have a new war that has broken out. A new war has broken out in the last 2 weeks. This was totally predictable. Everybody said: If you go to war with Iran, the Houthis are not going to stand put. They are going to start firing inside Yemen and at the Saudis, and that is exactly what has happened. Drone strikes from the Houthis have knocked out Saudi Arabia’s bypass pipeline earlier this month. They have seized control of routes along the Red Sea. And, functionally, the Red Sea is now shut down as a means for the Saudis to move oil out of the region. This is part of the reason why gas prices continue to go up. The Strait of Hormuz is partially open again, but at what expense? Prewar, it cost a supertanker $200,000 to move through the strait. Today, it costs--this is a per-day cost. Today, it costs $1 million per day for a supertanker to move through the strait, five times the cost before the war. That alone adds $26 to the cost of each barrel of oil. So, even though we are moving some transit through the Strait of Hormuz, it is at a cost that consumers can’t afford. Finally, there has been satellite imagery in the last few weeks that has shown new construction inside Iran around a complex called Pickaxe Mountain. This is probably their new, most important nuclear site. It looks as if they are digging a very deep bunker--deeper than Fordow--to restart their nuclear research program. As one expert said, the window to strike Pickaxe Mountain has already expired because the regime has dug so far underground that we can now not hit it. So they are restarting the nuclear program. They are restarting their missile production program. We have not eliminated their drone capability. We are leading up to a mass suicide and self-harm crisis amongst our servicemembers. Costs are spiraling out of control for consumers and for farms. A new war is breaking out in the region that threatens the stability of the Middle East and further drives up gas prices. That is why support for this war is at 18 percent in this country. We are supposed to be a democratic body that listens to the will of the people. The people--whether they are Republicans, Independents, or Democrats--are telling us loudly and unequivocally: End this war. And it is not like we can’t. This resolution is a chance for this body to end the war. So we are pleading, once again--it is the tenth time that we have had a resolution like this--for our colleagues to join us. The American public is making it clear: They can’t handle the costs of this war, and they can’t stand for the national security harm it is doing to the United States. I yield the floor.”

“A rich Russian man close to Vladimir Putin secretly paid for Donald Trump Jr.'s private island wedding. This is open corruption. Donald Trump's sons use their father's office to get rich, and the President has changed American foreign policy to help Russia. Both parties in the Senate need to stand up and say this is wrong.”

“Colleagues, the story broke today that the Trump family has confirmed that a Russian oligarch, a close ally of Vladimir Putin-- a man whose fortune was gifted to him by Putin--paid for the private island wedding of the President of the United States’ son. I am here on the floor because I am scared to death that this is all going to start just feeling normal. Let me say it again. A Russian oligarch, a close ally of our enemy Vladimir Putin, a man whose fortune was gifted to him by Vladimir Putin, paid for--secretly--the private island wedding of the President of the United States’ son. The President’s son Donald Trump, Jr., tried to hide this fact. He posted pictures of his wedding celebration online. There was a public conversation about whether the President was going to attend or not. But the President’s son made no mention that the whole thing, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, a private island, was bankrolled by the Russians. In fact, the only face of the 50 guests that is hidden in the group photo that you can look at right now online, the only person’s face that is hidden, is the oligarch. But he is there because he secretly paid for the celebration. The Russians paid for the private island. The Russians paid for the fireworks show. The President’s son even put this oligarch in charge of planning the logistics. This was a Russian party, organized and paid for by someone in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. This has never happened before in the history of the United States of America. Never before has a foreign enemy of the United States paid for the family wedding of the President. Why? Because it is naked corruption, in plain view. It is as close to treason as you get, accepting lavish gifts, millions of dollars in gifts perhaps, from the enemy of this Nation. Let us spend a minute on this oligarch. We just learned this today, so forgive me if we have scant details. I think we are going to find out a lot more about this guy in the coming days and weeks. But his name is Umar Kremlev. He is a convicted criminal. He runs a boxing company that is funded by Putin. More specifically, by Gazprom, Putin’s state-run gas company. He is not just some ordinary oligarch. He is one of Putin’s favorites. In addition to running this boxing association, he runs the Russian lottery. He has a monopoly on Russian sports betting. Shortly before financing and attending the Trump wedding, Kremlev and Putin were together in China. Putin brought him on a really important state visit to China. Putin has given Kremlev the highest Kremlin honor, The Order of Friendship. The Ukrainian government has sanctioned Kremlev because he is part of Putin’s inner circle. All of Kremlev’s money is Putin’s money. He operates as an arm of Putin, as do all the Putin-made oligarchs. Before today’s disclosure of his secret financing of the Trump wedding, there was no record of Donald Trump, Jr., and Kremlev being great best buddies because they aren’t. It appears that they just recently met. And shortly after meeting, this close ally of Vladimir Putin offered to pay for Donald Trump, Jr.’s wedding. Here’s what Eric Trump said today, when a reporter asks his office about Umar Kremlev, this close friend of Donald Trump, Jr.’s. This is Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr.’s brother, his business partner, has never heard the name of the close associate, the close friend of Donald Trump, Jr.’s who paid for his entire wedding. Why? Because they are not friends. This is a business between the Trump family and the Russian Government. This all fits two patterns. The first is the Trump family’s reliance on Russian support for their business empire. Donald Trump, Jr., said this, prior to when his father became President. He is talking about his family’s business. More recently, those who have looked at the individuals who are buying Trump’s cryptocurrency have noted that there is evidence that the Trump family’s cryptocurrency is backed perhaps heavily by Russian buyers. But the second and more significant pattern is this: Trump’s sons, particularly Donald Junior, just brazenly profit off of their access to the White House. Donald Junior, he just basically stuffs money into his pockets from anybody who wants a favor from his father, and he just gobbles up government contracts as fast as he can. Don Junior’s net worth was $50 million before his father’s second term. In the first year that Trump was President, in his second term, Don Junior’s net worth didn’t double; it didn’t triple; it didn’t quadruple; it grew by six times in one year--$50 million. A year later, $300 million. At least 13 companies tied to the Trump brothers have captured $1.8 billion in long-term Federal contracts and commitments and $103 million in direct cash from the Trump administration. Five of those companies got their first government contracts ever after the Trump sons invested. That is corruption. It doesn’t matter whether this is a Republican administration or a Democratic administration. Now, you could be offended at all of that, but you might say: Well, this isn’t that. This isn’t Trump Junior taking money from the taxpayers. This is just his taking money from the Russians. Isn’t that better than his taking money from taxpayers? Of course, it isn’t because Putin doesn’t pay for a wedding just to be nice. This is an arrangement in plain sight. Donald Trump has done a 180-degree turn in U.S. policy on the Russia- Ukraine war. He has cut off funding from Ukraine. Even after we appropriate money, he refuses to spend it, which is illegal. As recently as this weekend, he said publicly that it is Ukraine’s fault that the war continues, not Russia’s. In addition, Trump has suspended sanctions on the export of Russian oil and gas, which, by the way, specifically helps Gazprom, the company that funds Kremlev. Trump has become one of Putin’s most important allies. And so, like everything else in Trump’s corrupt world in his second term, it just becomes this mutually beneficial deal. Trump withholds support for Ukraine and pads the pocket of the Russian Government with sanctions relief, and the Russians funnel money to the family. Doesn’t everybody see this? Shouldn’t everyone here be outraged today that the President of the United States’ son just had his wedding--his multimillion-dollar wedding--paid for by the Russians, and he admits it? I know that there are a lot of Republicans in the Senate who are aghast at what Trump has done to abandon Ukraine, and I know there are a lot of Republicans here who are furious at this spiraling corruption. I don’t know that there is a single Member of this body, Republican or Democrat, who would go on TV tonight and defend the Russian Government’s paying for the Trump family’s private island wedding. But at some point, there just has to be a bottom that the U.S. Senate unanimously recognizes. Does any Republican here think that you would say nothing if Hunter Biden’s wedding or Malia Obama’s graduation party were financed by Iranian allies of the Ayatollah? You guys would shut this place down if that were to happen. And, of course, you can’t even imagine that happening under a different administration because, despite all the histrionics over the ``Biden Crime Family,’’ never before in the history of this country have we had a White House where the financing of a family wedding by a foreign adversary would pass as a minor scandal that barely makes the front pages. Just because the corruption happens so routinely that, to some, it feels normal doesn’t mean that it is. If we don’t, on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate, draw a line in the sand soon, it will be the end of our Republic. It just will be. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”

“The war with Iran is a disaster that is raising gas prices, hurting our military, and wasting billions of dollars. President Trump keeps lying about peace deals right before the markets open, and he is charging people money for early access to his foreign policy choices. I want Republicans to join me, stand up to the president, and demand an end to this war.”

“Madam President, colleagues, the Trump administration has us stuck in a humiliating quagmire, a total deadlock in Iran. We are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars dropping bombs and firing missiles at Iran. Iran responds with escalation. They keep the strait closed. They attack our bases. They attack our allies in the region. The war just expands and expands and expands. In the last week, for instance, a new war is threatening to break out between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which would likely result in the other strait at the bottom of the Red Sea being closed as well. Trump personally pays no price for this stalemate. His corruption schemes, his cryptocurrency, his insider trading, the contracts to his sons, all of that has practically tripled his net worth in just 18 short months in office. No, the price of this war is being plainly paid, first and foremost, by our soldiers who are being put in harm’s way for a war that is making America weaker every day. They are getting killed. They are sustaining life-altering injuries. Many of our soldiers and sailors and airmen have been in the region far past their scheduled deployment. They haven’t seen their families in years. And, of course, American consumers are paying the price as well. Here is the most relevant chart. This is familiar to you. This is what gas prices were doing until the war. They are creeping back well above $4 a gallon right now. That is not affordable for regular Americans, especially Americans who have to travel great distances for work, especially small business owners who rely on reasonable gas prices in order to be able to make their bills work. Diesel prices are through the roof as well. Fertilizer prices are through the roof as well, all because of this war. No other reason--the war. The prices are this high because of the war. It is farmers, it is small business owners, it is the American public who are paying the price--not Donald Trump. And so that is why the war is just wildly unpopular, like except for Trump’s sort of hard-line supporters, the folks who just don’t believe he can ever do anything wrong, nobody wants this war. If you are in a red State or a blue State, this war is deeply unpopular. The American public is smart; they are smarter than a lot of my colleagues give them credit for. They know a war with Iran is unwinnable. They don’t want America stuck again in a quagmire, a stalemate in the Middle East. So how does Trump handle this, a deeply unpopular war, a war that he is losing, a war that is driving up prices for the American public? Well, this is how he handles it: He gaslights. He tells lies. And the essential gaslight is that: The war is about to end, don’t worry. Yes, it appears that there is no end. It appears that you are going to have to continue to pay these prices forever. It appears that America has no endgame, but, don’t worry, the war is about to end. And so I just want to go through this pattern with you because it is really important to talk about the fact that the White House is just not being straight with the American public about what is going on in this war. Over and over again the President declares that the war is about to be over. He is not telling the truth. He normally declares that the war is about to be over on Sunday night or Monday morning, right before the markets open. But now that we are 6 months into this war, we can see the pattern. Let me go through it with you quickly. On March 23, Trump announces a deal. I am just going to give you his quotes, these are his words. He says: The market impact is immediate. That post sends oil prices tumbling nearly 11 percent, but there is no deal. He just made it up. Two days later, the U.S. military is back to conducting strikes. On March 30, Trump announces another deal. This is Monday morning right before the markets open. He says: end-- One week later, there is no deal. The opposite. One week later, Trump posts that he is going to wipe out the entire civilization of Iran, ``A whole civilization will die tonight,’’ he posts, ``never to be brought back again.’’ That is a war crime. The President is promising to kill millions of civilians. He tries to dial it back, but later on that same day he is back to announcing a deal. Literally, ``I am going to wipe out a whole civilization,’’ that morning. That night, on April 17, he says: Five days later, there is no deal. Trump announces a resumption of the war with Iran. Now let’s fast-forward 10 days later to April 17. He posts that a deal with Iran is imminent. ``THIS PROCESS SHOULD GO VERY QUICKLY . . . MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED,’’ he posts. Two days later, the strikes start again. On May 5, Trump says: Complete is capitalized; final is capitalized; agreement is capitalized; representatives is capitalized; Iran is capitalized. Two days later, the deal is off. Surprise, surprise. Every time Trump announces a deal is imminent, it just disappears. ``U.S. forces intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes,’’ CENTCOM announces 2 days later. On May 25, right before the markets open: A deal is imminent. Right before the markets open. That same day the U.S. military conducts strikes on Iran: Next Monday, right before the markets open, Trump posts: How is this working out well for the American public? How is that working out well for the American public? The next day there is no deal. The United States conducts strikes against Iran. On June 17, Trump actually signs the deal, but it is not a real deal. He does this whole pomp and circumstance signing ceremony in Versailles. That deal was negotiated by diplomatic amateurs. There was nothing actually agreed to. There were words on a page, but from the literal moment the ink was dry, nobody could explain what they had agreed to. Most significantly, Iran thought that the agreement obligated Israel to stop its military operations in Lebanon. Israel did not agree to that. Iran thought that it had been given control of the strait in that agreement; apparently the American delegation didn’t think they made that concession. Anyway, that agreement lasts 10 days. On June 27, Trump posts that strikes on Iran have resumed. Let’s just fast-forward to the last week because Trump is doing it again. On August 1, Trump posts--I am not sure that I transcribed this wrong or not, but it looks like it says: I will give him credit he said parameters. On August 2, ``The deal is imminent, having to do with the [Strait of Hormuz] and also, ultimately, the denuclearization of Iran.’’ The deal is imminent on the denuclearization of Iran. August 4, just a night or two ago, Trump tells Fox News: Meanwhile, there were reports that Iran isn’t even talking to the United States. Trump is saying a deal on the denuclearization of Iran is imminent, and Iran is saying: We are not even in the room. I mean, we should not accept this level of gaslighting. The word of the President has to matter. Over and over again on 11 different instances, Trump says: A deal is about to happen, don’t worry; the war is about to be over. There is no deal. None of it is real, these promises. I wish it were real. I want to be clear about that. I want the war to end. I would basically support any agreement at this point to end this war. I was glad that the President got a cease-fire, but I could tell by the terms it wasn’t going to last. It wasn’t a real agreement. But at this point, many of us are willing to support almost any agreement. It will be a humiliating agreement. It will be one in which Iran will essentially declare victory. But this war is a disaster. America is losing. Consumers can’t afford to pay these prices. Businesses are going under. We had a record of farm bankruptcies in the last year. We look like a laughingstock, and we are running out of munitions. We don’t have what we need to protect ourselves anymore. Reports are that we have gone through half of our Tomahawks. Our allies in the region have fired 70 to 80 percent of their Patriot missiles. This is a crisis. It has to end. But maybe there is an explanation for why Trump continues to do this gaslighting, particularly right before the markets open. Trump announced now a week or so ago that if you pay him $100,000 a month, he will give you advance notice of American foreign policy decisions. I don’t understand why that is acceptable to anybody in this Chamber. If you pay Donald Trump $100,000, he will give you advance notice of America’s foreign policy decisions. If we are about to sign a peace treaty, and you give him $100,000 a month, he will give you advance notice of that. If strikes are going to resume against Iran, if you pay him $100,000 a month, he will give you advance notice of that. That is a subscription service for insider trading, and it is unquestionably lucrative. On August 1, Trump posts that a deal is imminent. Remember, people still take him seriously. Not everybody knows about this history of gaslighting. On August 1, Trump says that a deal is imminent, and the market impact is immediate. Oil prices fall by 5 percent right as the markets open. The next day, right before the markets open, Trump says again ``The deal is imminent’’--another 5 percent drop. And so you see how his statements move the market, and you can see how if you get advance notice of those statements, even by a few seconds, you can capitalize on that market movement. You know that if Trump says a deal is imminent and the markets are going to move 5 percent and you pay $100,000 to Donald Trump to get that information early, you can make a boatload of money. And so maybe the war continues because Trump has found a way to monetize the war in a disgustingly corrupt way. I get that at some point we become immune to all of this, but can any of my Republican colleagues defend the President selling announcements from the White House for $100,000 a month in the middle of a war? Is any Republican Senator willing to come down to this floor and defend the President of the United States setting up a subscription service for public policy announcements from the White House so as to advantage certain players in the marketplace who are willing to pay that amount of money? Of course not. And if you know in your heart that it is corrupt, that it is wrong, then you should say something about it because the war might be continuing--not just because of incompetence but because the President has found a way to make money. More people are going to pay him $100,000 for these announcements in the middle of a war. Frankly, people would be willing to pay it absent a war, but he will make more money during a war because his announcements clearly move the markets in the middle of a very complicated conflict where the decisions of the U.S. Government immediately change oil markets. The reason this war is dragging on endlessly--it does matter, and my colleagues should care about Trump’s insider trading subscription scheme. It is just so discouraging that nobody on the other side of the aisle says anything about this when the credibility of the White House and of our country is just getting destroyed and sullied. But my Republican colleagues should also care that the war is being waged with a level of embarrassing incompetence that is making America weaker, that is getting us nowhere. This body works best when the President’s party stands up to him and says ``enough,’’ whether it is corruption or incompetence. That is what Johnson’s party did during the Vietnam war. It is actually what the Democratic Party did with President Obama during the late stages of the Afghanistan war when many of us decided that America had to withdraw and opposed President Obama’s party. It is what many of us did here during the early stages of the war in Yemen that President Obama was bringing the American military into. Many of us opposed it, got up on this floor and explained why we opposed it. Republicans can do that too. You can say that this war has to end. You can say that the President should never ever personally benefit from a conflict overseas. You can say that the President of the United States should not sell access to White House statements. It would make a big difference for our democracy and for the American people, who are paying through the nose for the cost of this war, if you did. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Lummis). The Senator from Florida.”

“We should pass this resolution to end the war with Iran. The war has raised gas prices, used up half of our long-range stealth missiles, and caused chaos across the Middle East. President Trump has not achieved any of his war goals. Iran's military is still strong, its leaders are more extreme, and its nuclear program is not stopped. We need to vote to end this war.”

“Mr. President, in a few moments, we are going to vote on a resolution to end the President’s illegal, disastrous war with Iran. We should pass this resolution. This is day 146 of a war that has no achievable objectives and no ending, a war that has ruined American families as gas prices are back over $4 a gallon, unaffordable for many working-class Americans. We have sky-high diesel and fertilizer prices. We have seen record numbers of farms going into bankruptcy. This is a war that has made Iran stronger, a war that has depleted American munitions so dangerously that we are now exposed, without the munitions and interceptors necessary if there was an actual threat posed to the United States elsewhere around the world. This war has been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. There is a reason why no American President--Republican or Democrat--prior to Donald Trump began a preemptive war with Iran, because everyone with even scant knowledge of the Middle East knew that a war with Iran was not winnable, knew that it would set off a series of other conflicts in the region that would result in chaos. And that is what we have today--chaos--even worse, planned chaos, foreseeable chaos. Every day, as we speak, Iran strikes its neighbors--Israel, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar. Every day, Iran strikes U.S. forces and our bases in the region. They have done billions of dollars’ worth of damage to our forces and to our partners’ forces. Our war against Iran has set off other wars. Israel has invaded Lebanon. In that country, 4,300 people have been killed, 12,000 have been wounded, and 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced from their homes. Let me say this again: The war with Iran has set off another war in which 4,300 people have been killed and 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes. And this week, a new conflict is breaking out between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Iran did not control the strait before the war, but they now effectively control it. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, connecting the Red Sea to global waterways, now appears also closed, and the Houthis--again, another Iranian ally-- have started to attack ships there. There are 17 Americans who have died. There are hundreds of others who have been wounded. Almost 2,000 Iranian civilians have died, including 250 children. The United States has depleted our munitions and interceptor stores to dangerous levels. Over decades, we carefully, methodically built up a stockpile of long-range stealth missiles--mostly in preparation for a possible future conflict with China. Do you know what percentage of that stockpile has been fired at Iran in 146 days? Not 10 percent, not 30 percent--50 percent. We have fired half of our entire stockpile of long-range stealth missiles in 4 months. And the situation is even worse for our allies and partners in the region. Reports suggest that the UAE and Kuwait may have burned through 75 percent of their Patriot missiles, just over the last 146 days. This all sounds like a disaster--correct?--like an unmitigated five- alarm disaster. But the administration defends this reality. They, frankly, can’t object to the facts that I just laid out. They simply say that this is the cost of a just war. Lives lost, regional chaos, high prices, low stockpiles, taxpayers footing the bill--it is just all worth it, because the Trump administration says: We are achieving our goals, and the goals are worth the price. And here is the most important thing to understand, as we approach this vote in a few moments: It is not worth it. Why? Because Trump has not achieved a single war goal, and Trump has no path to achieve any single war goal. All of the costs, all of the chaos, all of the death that I just described are going to be for nothing because not a single one of these goals is going to be achieved. Now, I will admit the goals have shifted over time, and so on this chart I am simplifying the set of goals. But the first goal has been articulated many times, in different forms, by the administration: regime change. In Trump’s video announcing the beginning of the war, he says: There is also extensive reporting on the plan, led by the Israelis but supported by the United States, to replace the old regime with leaders friendly to the United States and Israel. But here is the reality. Yes, this war has taken out the previous leadership, but what has happened is that the old regime has simply been swapped for a new generation of revolution-era ideologues that are younger, that are more emboldened, and that are less compromising. The new Ayatollah is well known to be a prominent hardliner. He has surrounded himself with other hardliners--leaders of the Quds Force and those with a history of brutal repression of dissidents inside Iran. And they feel emboldened because they have survived this war. They have emerged controlling the country. They have taken America’s best shot, and they are still in charge. The President, at one point, tried to claim that this goal had been effectuated--that because the old Ayatollah is dead and there is a new Ayatollah, by definition, they had succeeded in regime change. All we got is a younger set of leaders who are more confident they can beat the United States and are going to emerge from this conflict more powerful in the region. The second war goal: destroying Iran’s military capabilities. Now, the administration, basically, as soon as the war began, claimed victory here on day 14 of this conflict. Nearly 5 months ago, the Secretary of Defense said that Iran’s military had been ``destroyed’’ and ``made combat ineffective.’’ And 26 days into the conflict, Vice President Vance declared: But with our own eyes, every single day, we can see that that is a lie, as missiles are being fired at our troops and our partners in the region, as wars break out anew each week. According to public reporting in the New York Times and the Washington Post, U.S. intelligence suggests that Iran has retained as much as 70 percent of its prewar missile stock and 70 percent of its mobile missile launchers. So $100 billion spent and 140 days of war, and we have dented their missile capacity. Along the Strait of Hormuz, where the missiles probably matter the most, a new U.S. intelligence estimate--again, this is open-source reporting--says that, of the 33 sites, only 3 sites are fully destroyed or inaccessible. Thirty missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz are still operational. Military intelligence Agencies have also reported that Iran has regained access to 90 percent of the underground missile storage that we have hit. Iran still has their missiles. They still have their drones. They are rebuilding capacity. We have utterly failed at destroying Iran’s military capabilities, and there is no path to success in this war aim. Finally, the third goal: Eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that they can never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is, of course, a goal that has been shared by Republicans and Democrats, and, as Trump has said, this is the only thing that matters. Secretary Hegseth reiterated several times at the hearing yesterday that the primary objective of the war is now to make sure that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. But let’s just be clear about the facts. According to the IAEA, Iran still has a stockpile of about 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium. That stockpile still exists in the country. Reports suggest that they have moved their highly advanced centrifuges to a place called Pickaxe Mountain and buried them so deep that no airstrike can impact them. Most importantly, because Donald Trump pulled out of the previous nuclear agreement which had frozen Iran’s nuclear research program, Iran has gained the knowledge to enrich uranium up to 60 percent, which everybody knows is effectively weapons-grade. And there is no military strike that can erase that fact. This is a reality that Donald Trump created. Now, Trump’s theory is that this military campaign is going to push Iran to the negotiating table and that the result will be a deal--a nuclear deal--that is better than the one that Iran signed. But this is fantasy. There is no world in which Iran, after this war, agrees to more than they agreed to in the JCPOA. And you just can’t avoid the facts here. The primary reason is that we will have less leverage in these negotiations than the Obama administration had. Why is that? One, this regime is harder line, less willing to negotiate and compromise than the administration Obama was negotiating with. Second, there is no fear of U.S. airstrikes. That was always a sword of Damocles hovering over the negotiations during the Obama administration. Now Iran knows that they can survive, the regime can survive America’s best shot. Our military leverage is just much weaker. Our primary leverage that we had during the Obama administration--the removal of oil sanctions--will not be available to us in these negotiations because we have already demonstrated that those sanctions will be released just to get Iran to reopen the strait. So we won’t have the military leverage. We won’t have the oil sanctions leverage. We will be dealing with a regime that is harder line than the one we were dealing with prior. There is no world in which, at the end of this conflict, we are getting a better nuclear agreement than the one that Trump left. Billions of dollars wasted; 18 Americans dead; thousands of civilians and children in the Middle East killed; our military stockpile is dangerously depleted; new wars in the region breaking out by the week; the Strait of Hormuz and possibly the Red Sea now closed, controlled by our enemies; gas prices skyrocketing; the global economy melting down-- all of this, for what? Nothing. Not a single war objective achieved. Not a viable path to achieve any of them in the coming months. This war was a mistake from the start. Everyone except for Donald Trump knew it would be a disaster. It is a disaster, and we have a chance today to vote to end it. I yield the floor.”