“President Trump used taxpayer money to air a political campaign ad during prime-time television. I want the administration to say which agency paid for it, who ordered it, and how much it cost. He also illegally cut nearly a billion dollars from schools, small businesses, and healthcare programs that Congress already approved. Republicans should join Democrats to fight these cuts. Finally, the war in Iran is in its eighth month, and Republicans must vote to end it.”

“Madam President, this is on the taxpayer-funded Trump political ads. Every day--every day--Trump comes up with a new corruption scheme to abuse American taxpayers for his own benefit. That is why corruption is a hallmark of this administration. Yesterday, Trump aired another partisan campaign ad on multiple channels during prime time. And if you can believe it, who paid for it? The U.S. Government. The U.S. taxpayers paid for a political ad by Trump. These ads are virtually indistinguishable from those made for Trump’s 2024 campaign, and yet you the taxpayer is funding them. It is an absolute violation of what democracy is supposed to look like. Americans sat down to watch football, not to be force-fed Trump’s propaganda on their own dime. Only Trump would have the audacity to force Americans not only to watch his propaganda, but to pay for it. We can add these campaign ads to the list of vanity projects that Trump has egregiously charged to the American taxpayer: his arch, his ballroom, upgrades to his luxury foreign jet, his MAGA slush fund, and so much more. The corruption goes on and on; it is endless in this administration. Every week, Trump thinks of a new corrupt measure so he can rip off the American taxpayer and enrich himself. I am calling on the administration to reveal which Agency aired this illegal propaganda, on whose orders, and exactly at what cost to the American taxpayer. These ads send a clear message, just not the one Trump intended. It sends the message that Trump and the Republicans are scared; they are desperate; and they know the American people are done buying what they are selling. Madam President, on the Trump rescissions, Trump has no problem wasting billions of American taxpayers on his vanity projects but suddenly gets stingy when there is an opportunity to support American families. Over the weekend, Trump illegally cut nearly a billion dollars from programs designed to help American families and communities to get ahead. Trump’s rescissions package eviscerated funding that supports kids, K through 12 students, small businesses, health, and clean air research. These cuts are just another slap in the face to the American people as they struggle to afford the skyrocketing costs of Trump’s never- ending war and spiraling economy. Here is an idea, Donald: Instead of burning billions of taxpayer dollars on the arch or the reflecting pool or the ballroom or any of your hundred vanity projects, Trump, you ought to invest that money in American families and keep these programs intact. Trump cut funding that Congress approved--Democrats and Republicans. Every Senate Republican who voted for any of the bills providing this funding ought to be up in arms. Senate Democrats are going to challenge Trump’s illegal cuts every chance we get. Unless Senate Republicans want to remain nothing more than a rubberstamp for Donald Trump and his grim reaper Russell Vought, they need to join us to stop the Trump administration from robbing the American people blind. Madam President, finally on the Iran war, it now enters its eighth month, and Trump continues to drag America through the mess he has made in Iran. It was going to end in a week or a month or 2 weeks or 3 weeks or 2 months. We are in the eighth month. When Trump started his disastrous war, yes, he said it would only take a few weeks, but Trump’s campaign is now entering its eighth month--its eighth month. Trump is starting the eighth month of his war the same way he started the first month, with empty promises to the American people that victory is right around the corner. Yesterday, Trump told FOX News: Well, it has been going up for 8 months, Mr. President. The American people are out billions of dollars out of their pockets already. Nobody wants to wait any longer. Whatever timeline Trump thinks is ``very soon,’’ isn’t soon enough for the American people. We are getting crushed by the cost of this war every time we go to the gas station. Trump shows no signs of ending this war, not when he just launched a pledge for new strikes on Iran after the midterms. How much longer is Trump going to continue his failed war? another month? another 7 months? another year? Trump’s costly war with Iran will end whenever Trump Republicans find the courage to listen to the American people instead of the hysteria from the President. Republicans could have shown that courage last week by supporting our War Powers Resolution to stop the fighting in Iran and bring costs down. Instead, Senate Republicans chose to leave Americans waiting and voted for Trump’s war to continue. Every American ought to ask these Senators whether appeasing the President is truly worth the cost of this horrible war. I yield the floor.”

• Personal attack
  ?

  Speech in the House

  Respect 89 of 100

  This statement targeted a person rather than their actions or views: “his grim reaper Russell Vought”.

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“I want the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate reports that a Russian oligarch paid for Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding reception. President Trump is also wrongly cutting money that Congress approved, and his illegal war in Iran is driving up gas prices. Finally, I am glad our committee is finally letting Special Counsel Jack Smith testify under oath about his investigations into Donald Trump.”

“Madam President, before I start my remarks this afternoon, I would like to make note of two interesting events this weekend. I was asked to speak at a dinner in St. Louis right across the river from my hometown of East St. Louis, and it was known as a Harry Truman dinner. And I told a story about the former President from Independence, MO; that when he returned from Washington in 1953 to his home State of Missouri, he and his wife moved back into their home in Independence, and he reported to the press that when they arrived, he took the ``grips’’ up to the attic. For those who don’t know the term ``grips,’’ it was the word that was used to describe luggage. So former President Harry Truman was reporting that he was back home again now, and his life would be much the same. He proceeded to also tell how he had turned down many opportunities for payment, salaries, fees, rewards that were available to former Presidents even in the early 1950s. And he said at the time that as far as he was concerned, although it was perfectly legal to do the things he was asked to do--to serve on boards, for example, or be chairman of various undertakings, or even to play the piano on television, and he was offered money for that--he just didn’t think it was appropriate. In his words, it reflected poorly on the prestige and integrity of the Office of the President, the prestige and integrity of the Office of the President. Doesn’t that sound quaint these days, when we have a President who, in his first year of his second Presidential term, made $1.4 billion from his investments, particularly with the cryptocurrency bunch? Think about that for a second. Here are this President and his family, who are making billions of dollars--if you include the family-- from investments that directly relate to his office. The most recent one that was reported was just 2 weeks ago when Donald Trump, Jr., had his wedding reception on some island somewhere, and it leaked to the press that the entire festivity reception was paid for by a Russian oligarch who is close to Vladimir Putin. Surely, Senator Durbin, you are making this up. No, I am not. We are virtually at war with Putin and Russia for their invasion of Ukraine, and the son of the President of the United States gets married, goes to a private island for a lavish reception, and it is paid for by a Russian oligarch. That picture is so wrong from the start. As my colleague Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, said when he heard of this: You expect a toaster for a wedding gift; you don’t expect a Russian oligarch to pay for the reception. But that is what happened. I might add, Senator Curtis--and I praise him for this--said: Why wouldn’t the Senate Judiciary Committee be looking into this? I have the same question. I approached the chairman of the committee and other members of the committee and said: You know, if such a thing had happened with Hunter Biden, for goodness’ sake, you would have had much more than a hearing; you would have had a subpoena and depositions and God knows what. But the fact of the matter is, there is scarcely a peep when Senator Curtis, a Republican Member of the Senate, made what is a perfectly reasonable suggestion--that Congress look into any possibility of corruption and self-dealing when a member of the President’s family receives such a lavish gift from a Russian oligarch. I might add so that the record is clear that Senator Curtis said he wanted Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, to also face the same questions as to whether he used his connection with his father to make any money or to receive any gifts during the Biden Presidency. What was the reaction of Hunter Biden? He said: ``Bring it on.’’ I have had two sworn depositions before Congress on the subject. I am happy and content with my answers, and I will do it again if necessary. And I will sit right next to Donald Trump, Jr. We can both testify under oath as to our personal experiences. That was Hunter Biden’s response. What was Donald Trump, Jr.’s response? Crickets. Crickets. I wish I knew the Russian word for ``crickets.’’ Not a word. Nothing to suggest anything happened that was wrong. We know better. We know exactly what happened, what was wrong. I thought of the President one other time this week. I have a Ford F- 150 truck--it is an older truck--in the driveway of my home in Springfield, and I took it into the gas station to fill up. I am sure that most Americans had the same feeling I had at that moment: For God’s sake, what is happening to gasoline prices? I believe I paid $4.59 a gallon for the lowest octane gas for my old truck. But I can just imagine what families and individuals are facing as they go to the gasoline pumps every day and witness these dramatic increases in gasoline and energy prices under the Trump administration. Why is this the case? Well, it is the case because we are in the eighth month of the first year of President Trump’s war in Iran. Do you remember when he came to the American people and said he was going to invade Iran? Of course you don’t. He didn’t do that. He just did that. He ignored the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to declare war, and went forward and invaded and attacked Iran. We have lost--I believe 18 is the last count of brave American service men and women who have died as a result of that conflict. There is no end in sight. Every day you fill up your gas tank, a trucker fills up their diesel tank, a farmer goes out in the field--and we are harvesting now in Illinois--and sees the cost of diesel fuel, every day, you remember this is a creation of the President of the United States for a war that was unnecessary, illegal, and didn’t follow the Constitution at its outset. No end in sight. The President has reported over 40 times that we have Iran on the ropes, that they can’t wait to negotiate a settlement, and it never happens. This is affecting U.S. families and businesses, but it is affecting countries all over the world, this unnecessary and illegal war, as far as I am concerned. Now more and more, Republican Members of Congress, who have not stood up in Washington to assert the responsibility and right of Congress to declare war, are going back home, campaigning for reelection, and saying they got it wrong; war is a mistake. Where have they been for 8 months while we have been having these votes on the floor as to whether Congress approves of the war of Iran? Democrats, but for one or two, consistently voted against this war. The Republicans now, in the closing days before the midterm election, have found religion on the subject. Madam President, on Friday night, the Trump administration announced the President has unilaterally rescinded nearly $1 billion in funds Congress had approved for spending on a bipartisan basis. This funding was meant for education programs, health research, assistance for businesses, immigration services, and support to other countries-- particularly those we have an obligation to help. This move is an illegal power grab by the Trump administration, plain and simple. We have seen this movie before. Last year, President Trump canceled $4.9 billion in foreign aid with his so-called pocket rescission maneuver. Earlier in 2025, my Republican colleagues supported President Trump’s rescission request that clawed back $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcast funding. Rescission requests are made under a fast-track process in which a President can request Congress to rescind Federal funding with a simple majority vote in each Chamber. The law requires that if Congress does not pass a bill rescinding the funding within 45 days, the President must release it. However, President Trump--surprise--is attempting an unlawful maneuver called the pocket rescission. He is seeking to rescind funding less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year, believing this provides him with power to cancel funding with or without the approval of Congress. Here is the surprise ending to this scenario: He will be challenged in court, as he has been again and again and again. Overwhelmingly, he has lost in court with his ideas of what the Constitution really means again and again. The Government Accountability Office has stated that the President’s pocket rescissions are illegal. Democrats fought for pocket rescission protection in the continuing resolution we passed earlier this year to prevent the White House from doing exactly what they have done. Not surprisingly, Republicans in the Senate and the House refused to stand for the law for fear that they would anger their President. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle might express some concern now about the items that have been cut by the administration, but where were they this summer when they had a chance to fix it? For Donald Trump, billion-dollar ballrooms are full speed ahead. Money for schools? Cut. Vanity projects like the Trump golden arch are priorities, but medical research is cut. Taxpayer-funded political ads of the wartime President looking very resolute are a must. Medical care for children? Cut. Over the past 20 months, Republicans have continuously bent the knee, kissed the ring, and handed Donald Trump more power and authority on a silver platter. Now the question is whether they will finally find their collective backbone and do something about this illegal Executive maneuver. Madam President, tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to hear from Special Counsel Jack Smith. This is a historic event, and let me tell you why. Jack Smith is a nonpartisan career prosecutor appointed to investigate President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his effort to illegally retain highly classified government documents. In 2020, President Trump spent months spreading the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. I have heard this so many times, I can understand what was going on in the Soviet Union when the communists were in control. If they had an item in history that was embarrassing in the history of their country, they would simply change the history textbooks. Well, we have the same thing going on when it comes to the 2020 election. This President, who cannot bring himself to even consider the possibility--the possibility--that he lost an election, continues to hammer away at the Big Lie, but he lost by 7 million votes. Joe Biden won the 2020 election. This President has pressured State officials, his own Vice President, the Justice Department, and Members of Congress to overturn the results of the election. This culminated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, where President Trump’s supporters tried to violently prevent the constitutional certification of the 2020 election. I was here, right here at my desk when this happened, when the mob started coming into this Chamber, and we filed out that door with police protection to avoid this effort to overturn the 2020 election. These MAGA Trump loyalists were trying to defy the Constitution, and they haven’t quit to this day. Instead of condemning this egregious criminal conduct on January 6, my Republican colleagues are spreading baseless conspiracy theories and attacking career prosecutors and FBI agents, claiming the so-called deep state is out to get Donald Trump--the deep state. Now, after years of criticism and multiple hearings about the investigations, Senate Judiciary Republicans are finally holding a hearing with Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated these matters. You say to yourself: Well, he must have resisted, hired some lawyers, fought the Republicans, refused to appear, wouldn’t stand and answer questions under oath. Exactly the opposite is true. Jack Smith asked the Republicans in Congress, who continually berate him for his conduct, for an opportunity to testify under oath to the committee, the Judiciary Committee. He asked for that opportunity a year ago--October of 2025. They ignored it. At the time, Judiciary Committee Democrats--of which I am proud to say I am the ranking member--sent a letter urging the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to stop complaining about Jack Smith and bring him before the committee under oath. Stop making speeches and ask the man, who you believe to be responsible for wrongdoing, questions that he has to answer truthfully. He had agreed to do that a year ago. Yet they would rather give a speech than actually hear a man under oath defend his position. We made this request again in February of 2026. Well, soon, in just a few days, Jack Smith will appear under oath before the Judiciary Committee. The chairman had declined to bring him before, claiming they needed more time--more time--to gather information. Still, Republicans on the committee have made no effort to obtain a copy of volume 2 of Jack Smith’s report, which details the findings from the criminal investigation into President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified materials. You remember the classified information that was found near the bathroom in Mar-a-Lago? I remember it. If this hearing is really about getting answers, we will finally get our chance--Jack Smith will get his chance to tell his side of the story under oath. Despite these impediments, I am glad my Republican colleagues will finally address these concerns directly. It is about time and, in fact, it is well past time for this committee, the Judiciary Committee, to move on and stop spreading political rumors and get down to the truth. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Armstrong). Under the previous order, the time until 5:30 p.m. will be equally divided between proponents and opponents of the bill, with the opponent time under the control of the Senator from New Jersey. The Senator from Connecticut.”

“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 bill. It protects college athletes. It guarantees their scholarships for ten years, covers their healthcare for sports injuries, and lets them share in the money their sports make. It also limits what agents can charge them and lets players sue if schools break these promises. I also want us to vote on an amendment to make sure athletes can still sue schools under state laws for abuse or hazing.”

“Madam President, I rise today to speak about the Protect College Sports Act as one of the 10 cosponsors of this bill. A question I asked myself when I first got involved in this issue, now some time ago, was, since I didn’t play college sports myself: What would I want if my child or the child of a good friend of mine were playing college sports? What would I hope for for them in terms of protections-- protection from people pretending to be agents showing up at the home of a family with a really capable, really promising young athlete but who have no experience in negotiations? What would I want in terms of protection from agents? What about their ability to continue their college education if they get recruited to a promising school as a promising athlete but three games into the season, they tear their ACL? What about the opportunity to play an Olympic sport or play DII or DIII? What about future care for a lifelong injury? All of those and more are protected in this bill. One of the things that brought me to supporting this bill was the rough-hewn bipartisan compromise, which is the essence of what legislating here is, that provides a 10-year guarantee to finish out the scholarship that drew a young athlete to a school regardless of changing a major or leaving for a few years or having an injury; wraparound healthcare for the 5 years they are playing and for 5 years after playing for any injury related to college sports; and then lifetime medical trusts; and then last, registration, certification, and transparency for agents and a cap on the rate they can charge. This bill makes all of those protections real. In some ways, most importantly, it enshrined in statute revenue sharing and NIL compensation--name, image, and likeness compensation--for college athletes. It more than doubles money currently available for athletic programs to share with student-athletes, and it has a $5 million fund for women’s and Olympic sports. As I have said, there are a number of protections for college athletes on the field. One that hasn’t been mentioned much here is return-to-play decisions that, when made, have to be made by a medical professional whose responsibility is to the athlete--not by the coach, not by the athletic director. All the things I just cited--the scholarship protection, the healthcare protection, the return-to-play decision, the transparency and certification of agents--there are new Federal private rights of action, the ability to sue. If these aren’t provided, if colleges make these promises and don’t keep them, you can sue as a college athlete. This bill does not solve the question of collective bargaining. I support collective bargaining. I think we should have collective bargaining to protect the rights of college athletes. This bill is silent on that question. It also explicitly protects a majority of current lawsuits that have been filed and that will continue to go forward. In a few moments, it is my hope that we will lock in a whole series of amendment votes, and one of the amendments would make perfectly clear the protections that are already in this bill for allowing future lawsuits--lawsuits based on State tort claims that don’t conflict with this bill, for things like hazing or abuse or CTE injury. If you just happen to be the best wrestler or the best fencer or the best rower in a small town in a rural part of America and you are looking to get a scholarship for college and an agent pitches up on your doorstep and makes a story to you, this bill protects you. In my view, this is an example of what bipartisan compromise can produce. I just wanted to say I am grateful to Senators Cruz and Cantwell for their extensive discussions with stakeholders. This is not a dream Republican or Democratic bill, but it will protect the dreams of more than half a million young American athletes across our country. That is why it is supported by the U.S. Olympic Committee, by Olympians, by those who became Olympians playing college sports, the Team USA Athletes’ Commission. It is supported by the players unions that are professional--the National Basketball Players Association, the NFL Players Association--and by the DI, DII, and DIII NCAA Student- Athlete Advisory Committee chairs. It is my hope that we will soon vote on an amendment offered by my colleagues Senators Durbin and Baldwin that will clarify the intention of this bill, that will make it clear that State law claims don’t conflict with this bill and survive and that student-athletes can sue schools, conferences, and the NCAA for misconduct. At the end of the day, when we gather as families later this fall at Thanksgiving, I don’t know about your family, but mine will avoid painful and difficult conversations about political differences, religious differences, or even who likes which stuffing, but we will gather to watch college sports. At the end of the day, the chaos that has been caused by transfers, by eligibility, by uncertainty about the future, and by the destruction of conferences will be lessened by this bill. There is, for all of us who are fans of college athletics, a moment and an urgency to act, and this bill, this bipartisan bill, deserves passage in this body today. I yield the floor.”

“I do not want the Senate to pass this bill. It protects the NCAA and wealthy schools instead of college athletes. It adds red tape to athletes making money, shields the NCAA from antitrust lawsuits, and leaves athletes with no real way to protect their rights.”

“Madam President, I am so grateful to be recognized. It is amazing how for more than 14 years in this place, I was trying to get Congress to step in to do something to help athletes, but the answer was no, no, no. But suddenly, when college athletes start winning cases in court against a $20 billion gravy train that has been benefiting everybody but college athletes, suddenly there seems to be this race to pass a bill to allegedly protect college athletes. But really, we know who this bill is protecting. The Senate is on the verge--it really could happen tonight--of passing a bill that could reshape college sports for generations to come. It is a bill that was written without input from college athletes themselves, whose lives will be directly affected. It violates a simple rule: nothing about us without us. Well, this is a bill, going forward, where college athletes and the organizations that represent them have not had a seat at the table. It is a bill that was actually shaped by millions of dollars in lobbying from the NCAA and other powerful interests that control that industry. And at its core, it is a bill that undermines the rights of young people who pour their blood, sweat, tears, countless hours of work, and more into their craft. Their voices should have shaped this debate. We should have listened to their wisdom before voting today, before rushing to this vote as the last thing we do before a long recess. Plain and simple, athletes produce this wealth, produce these opportunities, create this industry, and they should have been at the table, but they weren’t given that chance. So, today, I am going to do my best to elevate the concerns of college athletes, the concerns that over this last decade they have shared with me, concerns that I have learned myself because I love college sports. In an increasingly divided country, college sports is one of the few things that actually bring us together. There is something special about college sports, and U.S. college sports--heck, there is something uniquely American about them. I was lucky enough to be a part of that. I played Division I football at Stanford. I know firsthand what athletes sacrifice. I know what the system too often denies them in return. That is why I have spent my entire Senate career fighting for justice for college athletes. This is not a new issue for me. Back in 2014, I said to the then- president of the NCAA when he testified before Congress--very bluntly, I told him: That was me back in 2014 to the then-head of the NCAA. Twelve years later, athletes have won important new rights through their own tireless advocacy at State legislatures, in courts, but now what do we see? We see that the NCAA’s desire for control has not subsided. In fact, it has grown. The NCAA has spent years now pursuing a legislative strategy here in Congress to cement their control over athletes, to put it into Federal law that they alone have the power and the control over those athletes. With this bill we are about to do--should it be passed in the House and signed by the President--it is a bill for the control and power of the NCAA and member institutions. It is not about athletes, who are winning their rights, winning court cases, gaining leverage, and now are having that taken away from them. It is important to understand just how big of a business this is. This is why we see commercials during games we are watching, millions of dollars of lobbyists--because this is a $20 billion industry. Today, more than 40 college football coaches make more than $5 million a year. In most States, it is the highest paid State employee. In 2025 alone, 15 fired coaches secured buyouts worth nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. That is $250 million paid to coaches not to coach. You hear people running around here lobbying, saying: Oh, we have a financial crisis in college sports. Nobody is trying to deal with that issue. And now we see the TV deals growing bigger and bigger and bigger. The SEC has a deal worth about $3 billion over 10 years. The Big Ten’s deal is worth $7 billion over 7 years. The wealth and money are growing. That is why the lobbyists and millionaires were down here lobbying. This is big business, folks. It has been big business for years. What has changed is that the athletes were finally beginning to be able to have the fight for the share in the value that they create. They have developed over recent years more power and more leverage, and that is a scary thing for the NCAA. I want to be honest about one point--about who creates a disproportionate amount of that value. That is actually Black athletes. They have an outsize role in building college sports into the economic powerhouse it is because they are overrepresented in the revenue- driving sports. Think about this: In men’s basketball, Black Americans are 44 percent of the players. In football, it is 40 percent of the players. They are overrepresented in these powerful, money-generating sports. For decades, these athletes were shut out from sharing in the value they created, the billions of dollars of revenue they created. They were shut out of it. So this is not just a college sports issue; it is an economic justice issue and a civil rights issue. Any effort to limit athletes’ ability to earn will fall especially hard on Black athletes and many athletes of different backgrounds, and that is why the voices of athletes are so critical. That is why the diverse voices of athletes are so critical and why civil rights leaders have been condemning this bill. Listen to Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who is the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. She said: Or listen to Derrick Johnson, the President of the NAACP. President Johnson said: So now, just as athletes all across America are finally starting to share in the value they are creating, they are starting to finally get voices that are recognized by courts and State legislatures, we are told that Congress must immediately step in, 30-plus days from an election, to save college sports. But who are we saving it from, and what are we saving it for? The answer to those questions is actually in the text of the bill, to know what this is really about. Let me walk through some of my specific concerns that point to the hypocrisy here. First, this bill would make it harder for athletes to sign NIL deals. Section 101 relates to athletes’ NIL rights, but it is important to remember athletes already have NIL rights. They fought for them. They earned them. They won them in court and State legislatures. What this section actually does is add new layers of review, redtape, bureaucracy, and uncertainty between athletes and the opportunities before them. Second, this bill limits athletes’ ability to seek justice in court. Section 118 gives the NCAA sweeping immunity from antitrust liability-- a sweeping immunity we scarcely have ever given any other industry. For decades, the NCAA used its market power to restrict athletes’ rights, and then it lost in court again and again. It is so exceedingly rare for Congress to grant exemptions from the Nation’s antitrust laws, and it is rarer still for Congress to do so for an organization with the NCAA’s track record of antitrust violations. The NCAA has violated antitrust laws and the trust of college athletes over and over again, and yet they are the big winners here. This bill would permanently shield the NCAA from the kind of liability in these key areas--a permanent shield. They don’t have to come back to Congress in 10 years, 15 years, 25 years; it is permanent. This means less accountability for the NCAA and fewer tools for athletes to challenge the NCAA’s abuses of power when they have an incredible track record of abusing their power. Third, this bill puts the burden of enforcement on athletes. Think about this: Section 119 of the bill creates a private right of action for athletes. It is the sole enforcement mechanism in this bill. There is no role for States’ attorneys general, no role for the Federal Trade Commission, no role for anyone. The sole enforcement mechanism is on the student-athletes themselves to somehow sue powerful, powerful entities. A young athlete whose rights are violated would have to enforce their own rights. So let’s play this out for a second. Put yourself in the position of one of these young athletes, teenager. Say you are 18 years old. You are new on campus. You have worked your entire life to find this opportunity. Maybe you are from a low-income community. You might not come from a lot of money, but you realized your dream to play ball at a collegiate level. And in a few weeks, something terrible happens. Your coach has violated your rights in some way. Maybe they demanded you play through a serious injury, leading to permanent injury. Maybe they sexually harassed you. Maybe they kept you on a practice field in 110-degree heat with 90 percent humidity without a water break. This 18-year-old knows something is wrong. They know their rights are being violated, but under this bill, they would be on their own to seek justice. They would have to file a lawsuit against their coach, the person who controls their playing time, their roster slot; the person who controls their future. Can you imagine that ever happening? Well, it rarely would. It is fundamentally unfair to put all of this on the college athlete and for this body to hand over permanent antitrust exemptions and give no enforcement mechanism than to trust the institution that has been violating athletes’ rights for decades. We are basically telling teenagers and young people in sports: You need to come up with the time, the money, the lawyers to challenge the person who has violated your rights, the same person who happens to control your destiny. It is not a serious way to make sure this bill is properly enforced. Congress puts independent groups together or assigns it to oversight committees like the FTC to enforce rules all over this country. Why not now? Fourth, this bill undermines States’ ability to protect college athletes’ rights. Section 121 preempts certain State-level laws related to civil rights, privacy, and data breaches. That means, if an athlete’s civil rights are violated, if their health records are leaked online, or their personal information is somehow misused by their conference or the university, the athlete will have fewer legal protections and fewer options available for them to seek justice. How can we have a nation that is basically saying: We are not just going to put the NCAA in charge of your lives, but we are going to take away your ability to seek legal redress? Fifth, this bill offers only temporary protections for women’s and Olympic sports while permanent antitrust exemptions for the NCAA. The sponsors of this bill say it will protect women’s and Olympic sports, but section 125 has a sunset. The protections expire in 4 to 9 years, depending on the size of the program. The NCAA’s antitrust exemption is permanent. The protections for women’s and Olympic sports are only temporary. And athletes are noticing. Listen to Caitlin VanderKlok, a cross-country athlete at the University of Tennessee. She says: Commercials are claiming that the Protect College Sports Act will protect women and Olympic sport athletes like me. But simply mentioning women’s and Olympic sports in a bill does not mean those athletes are actually protected, she writes. Even where protections apply, they expire, and athletes are not given a right under this bill to go to court and enforce them. If we are going to tell athletes that this bill protects their opportunities, we should also tell them the facts. Well, Caitlin, you are right. People are lying to you. People in this body that say it protects women’s and Olympic sports are lying to you by not telling you the whole truth; that those protections expire. Listen to Meghann Burke, executive director of the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association. She says: There is a profound contradiction at the center of this legislation: the claim that the Protect College Sports Act protects women in sports. In reality, the bill risks undermining the promise of title IX. Schools should not be able to evade their title IX obligations simply by calling revenue-sharing payments compensation rather than athletic benefits. At a time when college athletes are beginning to exercise their collective power, we should not be putting new barriers in their path toward collective bargaining. Listen to college athletes. Listen to the people that represent college athletes. Listen to the people that represent athletes who have come out of college sports and are now playing in the pros. But this is a bill not about college athletes; this is a bill about wealthy people, wealthy coaches, wealthy institutions, and an NCAA that has enjoyed unbridled power for decades as we watched discrimination, hardships, injustice. And finally--finally--athletes started getting some power in the equation. And this body--after my trying for 10 to 15 years to get them to step in and help college athletes, this body rushes in to suddenly say: We are protecting college athletes. Well, that is not true. So, look, I know how things work here. I have offered some ways to try to improve this bill. I and colleagues Murphy and Blumenthal and others offered a series of amendments built on a simple principle: If we are going to impose rules on athletes, we should apply the same rules to coaches. Take compensation, this bill caps what schools can share directly with athletes. So we offered an amendment to cap what schools can pay coaches to $5 million a year. That is still very good money. This amendment is not going to get a vote on the floor today. Take endorsement deals, the bill subjects athletes’ NIL deals to fair-market value review, a valid business purpose standard, approval, and disclosure. So we offered an amendment to require that same process for coaches’ deals, for their endorsement deals. Well, we are not going to be voting on that amendment because it is not about the athletes, it is not about fairness; it is enforcing hypocrisy. Let’s take transfers, which I have heard already some of my colleagues talk about on the floor. This bill allows an athlete to transfer one time. If they transfer again, they have to sit out a year. Well, reasonable people could disagree on that policy, but if you are going to restrict athletes’ ability to move between schools, the same rules should apply to coaches. We offered an amendment to make that happen. It was not accepted. Imagine you are that athlete, promised by coaches everything, and that coach gets to leave and go to as many schools as they want, but you are stuck. Let’s take the buyouts. Do you remember the 15 fired coaches and their buyouts being worth--this last year--a quarter of a billion dollars? We offered an amendment to simply cap future buyouts at 1- year’s salary. This would protect schools across the country from being forced to plunge millions of dollars into college coaches who are not even coaching. It would give them the opportunity to not have to pay these exorbitant prices when they could be investing in things to improve education of all kids. Well, that amendment is not going to get a vote today. Common sense. Take women’s Olympic sports. I offered a simple amendment to strike the sunset provision and make those provisions permanent just like the NCAA’s antitrust exemption. Hey, you are going to give permanent protection to the wealthy and the powerful, then protect women’s sports and Olympic sports where our Olympic athletes come out of pocket all their lives, trying to get into the Olympics to represent the United States of America. If this is about patriotism, if this is about our Nation, then protect Olympic sports. Don’t let that provision expire. Well, that is not going to get a vote today. The hypocrisy in this bill, the refusal to accept amendments exposes that hypocrisy. And, finally, this is the most insulting part of the bill. Take HBCUs, the sponsors have been putting people on TV to talk about how this does so much for HBCUs. They point to an authorization of funding, but an authorization guarantees nothing, not a single penny. Senators Warnock, Alsobrooks, Blunt Rochester, Murphy, and I offered a simple amendment: turn that authorization into an appropriation. If you are going to parade Black people in your millions of dollars’ worth of ads, saying you are giving money to HBCUs, maybe the text of this bill should actually give money to HBCUs. Let’s deliver on that promise today. Let’s actually cut a check to historically Black colleges and universities. But no, no. This bill says we should deal with a promise, an intention, and this amendment is not going to be voted on. I am not alone in my concerns about this bill. There are so many people in this Nation--who stand up for the underdog, who stand up for the little guy and the little gal, who represent athletes or fight for equal rights--that object to this bill. I want to bring the concerns of more of those people into this Chamber and make sure it is a part of the official Record. Listen to a group of athletes who survived sexual assault and parents who lost children during college sports activities. They wrote a powerful letter pleading with Senators. Here is an excerpt of their letter: These are not abstract policy concerns to us. We know firsthand the consequences when institutions are allowed to police themselves, when reports of abuse or dangerous practices remain inside the institution, and when victims are left without meaningful accountability after harm is done. They continue: Universities, conferences, and other powerful college sports’ interests have had extensive opportunities to make their case as this legislation has developed. Before Congress grants sweeping new protections to the college sports system, we ask that you hear directly from those of us who have experienced the consequences when that system fails athletes. Is anybody listening? Have we had them at the hearings? Have their voices been taken into account? Listen to some of our labor leaders, listen to the AFL-CIO as they write: The Protect College Sports Act is not a compromise between competing interests but a legislative effort that preserves institutional control at a time when courts, lawmakers, and the public are increasingly questioning the fairness of the existing model. The bill gained its current momentum not when athletes’ interests were satisfied but when the richest intercollegiate conferences in the country voted to endorse the bill. That should tell you everything you need to know about who this bill protects. Listen to former senior Justice Department officials, including a former principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, a former Acting Associate Attorney General, and a former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. Listen to what they write: Not since 1945 have we seen what Congress is about to do today. These former attorneys general continue: In other words, there is no oversight from the Federal Government. The only hope athletes have is to sue. The letter continues: They write-- And listen to the athletes’ own organizations. Here is athletes.org: I add ``well-paid’’-- The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). The Senator’s time is expired.”

“I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill. We should not rush to pass this right before an election. This bill lets the government limit what college athletes can earn, and it does not do enough to cover their medical bills. Athletes deserve a voice and fair treatment from the NCAA. We should hold hearings and wait for the next Congress instead.”

“Here is the National College Players Association: I could go on with all of the compelling, painful letters that have been written. This is the wrong focus for Congress 30 days before midterm elections. There is one more question we should be asking about before we take this vote: Is this really what we should be spending our time on? Our country faces real challenges. Gas is at $5. Diesel costs are at a record high. We are at war abroad. Healthcare expenses are skyrocketing. And the U.S. Senate is spending precious time on the floor rewriting the rules of college sports while athletes, athletes groups, survivors of sexual assault, labor, and civil rights leaders are all begging Congress to slow down and listen to their voices. What does this say about our priorities? It is also worth noting that many of my Senators are supporting this bill. They like to preach the gospel of small government. They talk about the love of free markets and small government; the importance of freedom and America’s right to pursue the opportunities that are best for them. But there seems to be a major exception to that kind of philosophy when it comes to young people who are disproportionately Black. There seems to be this high-and-mighty rhetoric about freedom and free markets when it comes to every other area of our economy but not this $20 billion industry. Under this Federal bill, the Federal Government will decide how many schools can join an athletic conference, when certain games can be played, and how much revenue athletes can receive from their own schools. This is a massive amount of market intervention. Where else does the Federal Government step in to limit what people can earn while allowing the institutions that control the market to pay their executives anything they want? There is not one single industry. My playing days are long over--that is obvious--but I think about athletes that are playing today and former athletes who have been calling me about their pain, about their suffering, about their reaching in their own pockets to pay for medical costs, who see that this bill’s medical pool is inadequate to the rising costs of CTE and more. I am thinking hard about athletes who are going to come after them who are joining this institution of NCAA with such a long history of exploitation and violating people’s rights. Young people who work 40, 50 hours, dedicate themselves to their craft; young people who literally put their bodies on the line; young people whose talent generates billions of dollars for others--they deserve a voice in the decisions that are determining their future. They deserve a system that does more to protect their rights than saying: It is all on you. Sue if you want to. Sue your coach. They deserve to know that when they stand up and demand a fairer system, when they win in the courts and State legislatures, this body won’t betray them by pulling the rug out from underneath them. They deserve leaders in this body who will stand with the athletes first. We may lose this vote today, but athletes know how to come back from a loss. They know how to get back up and go to work. They know how to keep fighting for what they believe is right. I am going to keep fighting alongside these athletes. I am going to keep fighting against an institution called the NCAA that has violated their rights all throughout my lifetime. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. I urge my colleagues to stand up for justice. I urge my colleagues not to race to get a bill done right before an election. I urge my colleagues to hold hearings and actually listen to survivors of sexual assault, parents of dead college athletes, to the kids who have serious, debilitating injuries right now and are paying their own medical bills. I beg my colleagues not to do this. It is wrong. The next Congress would give us time. The next Congress would give us a chance. But, no, billionaires and millionaires and lobbyists and funding has poured into this place, and suddenly, right before we leave, the last thing we are doing is a bill that is going to hurt so many. I regret this day. I regret watching my colleagues do this. But the fight continues. I yield the floor.”

“I want the Senate to pass this bill. It sets clear rules for college sports so schools stop cutting women's and Olympic sports. If we do not protect these programs, our athletes will not have the training they need to compete and win for our country.”

“So the American Conference Student Athletes Advisory Committee, Rocky Mountain Athletic Association Student Athletes Advisory Committee, American Rivers Conference Student Athlete Advisory Committee, the New England Conference Student Athletic Advisory Committee--I could keep going and going and going. So there is support by athletes for this bill, but it is also endorsed by the United Negro College Fund because they believe that this bill will help stabilize one aspect of DI football that is really challenging, and that is the system. It is also endorsed by the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the reason it is endorsed by the U.S. Olympic Committee is because they know we are going to help preserve Olympic sports. Now, what are we going to do when we have the next Olympics or the one after that and you literally have not trained and skilled the athletes? Some of our biggest institutions are the ones who provide 70 percent of these athletes, and so if we don’t stabilize and say ``stop cutting women’s and Olympic sports,’’ then we are going to be standing at an Olympics where we are not winning and going to ask why. I didn’t want to deal with this issue, but when a kid from my State-- from a famous part of our State, White Pass, where the Mahre brothers won gold skiing in the Olympics because they grew up on that pass-- basically, this kid couldn’t snowboard for us and went and snowboarded for Russia and won medals. I was like, this is a problem. So I am not for us losing in the Olympics because we undermine college athletics in an arms race because we don’t want to put rules in place. So the Thurgood Marshall Fund also supports this. Team USA athletes all support this. And it is just time for us to get this issue over the top. That is really what we are talking about. It is not the final solution. It is putting a pin in the problems to stabilize the loss of women’s and Olympic sports and to create the opportunity to discuss the larger structure moving forward. That is why I think we have so much support. It doesn’t mean that we have solved every problem, but it means that we are on our way to solving the problems that exist and preserving the opportunities for the future. So let’s get it over the top. I am very proud of this athlete, and she is a perfect example. Okay. She is No. 1 in the world right now, and she is the pole vaulter at University of Washington. But what if we continue to undermine the efforts of women’s and Olympic sports? What if she doesn’t have that roster slot because we are too busy letting billionaires run the race and basically leave people behind? That is not what sports is about. It is about, any given day, the competition. So let’s get back to playing sports again, and let’s pass this legislation. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.”

“I want the Senate to pass my amendment. The bill could let the NCAA argue that state health and safety laws no longer apply. That could delay or throw out athlete lawsuits over brain injuries and sexual assault. My amendment fixes this problem.”

“Mr. President, look, as currently drafted--because the Protect College Sports Act includes health, safety, and wellness standards--the NCAA and athletic conferences could argue that State health and safety protection for athletes conflict with and prevent compliance with this bill. As a result, student athletes bringing such cases, including things like brain injuries or sexual assault, could face unnecessary prejudicial delay fighting the NCAA or institutions’ preemption argument or even have their cases preempted and kicked out of court. This bipartisan amendment addresses that, and I urge my colleagues to support it.”

“Vote no on this amendment. It would erase the bill and let the NCAA make whatever rules it wants. The current system does not work, and Congress needs to set the rules. We just proved we can work together on this issue, so we should keep the bill and protect college sports.”

“Mr. President, speaking in opposition to the amendment, this would simply strike the entire bill and give a major antitrust exemption to the NCAA to write whatever rules they want. I think all of us can agree here that this process isn’t working with the NCAA, and Congress has intervened to set rules. I want to applaud our colleagues for the 96-to-1 vote we just had on the Baldwin-Schmitt amendment--a very complicated part of the law, but nonetheless we can all agree. So it says to me this body can figure this out. I urge our colleagues to continue and not strike the majority of the bill but implement it so we can get on at protecting college sports. I urge a ``no’’ vote.”