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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I would like to address that.
If this were a blanket hold, if these weren't indiscriminate, maybe that would be productive, but these are indiscriminate holds.
I would offer to this body that not only is the Senate broken through this process and this ruse, the Democrats are broken.
By the way, you don't need to filibuster everything. You don't need 60 votes for everything. For goodness' sake, Clarence Thomas--Clarence Thomas--was confirmed to be a U.S. Supreme Court Justice with 52 votes. That was a different era.
But I will also point to another era. We have not seen an effort like this by the minority party to be obstructionists in 50 years. Not since the Ford administration has it taken this kind of effort for every single nominee. That is brokenness, underlain by the brokenness of their party.
I will use a bit of a baseball analogy here. They are swinging at every pitch, every single pitch, and they look ridiculous.
This week, it is this. Next week, somebody will be down in El Salvador at an MS-13 prison--a prison down there--dining with an MS-13 gang member who beats his wife. This is who they are.
They are also the people now standing up objecting to the confirmation of the Ambassador to the Vatican. Yes, you heard that right--the Ambassador of the Vatican, who could be there for the installation of the Pope.
So I don't want to hear anything about how anybody is being reasonable. This is totally unreasonable. By the way, my friend from Hawaii is defending USAID. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about some of the reforms real quickly, a bit of a breakdown.
Heaven forbid we stop $20 million on a ``Sesame Street'' show in Baghdad promoting LGBTQ ideals; $11 million to instruct Vietnam to stop trash burning; $56 million to boost Egyptian and Tunisian tourism; $100 million to build schools in Jordan; $11 million to instruct Vietnam to stop burning trash--I already mentioned that--DEI programs in Burma, and money for Guatemalan sex changes.
Maybe, just maybe, this isn't the hill to die on. But maybe, just maybe, defending people who are deported, who are MS-13 gang members who are terrorizing our communities, that is not the hill to die on. But next week, it will be something else.
But the truth is, this is really about Trump derangement syndrome. The truth is, this is about the Democrats not coming to grips about, you know, getting smoked in November because they don't have a message. So what are they grasping at? All of these ridiculous things so somebody can say they are the chief resister.
I just never thought I would see a day that the resistance would mean holding up the Ambassador to the Holy See to be there for the installation of the Pope, but here is where we are; total brokenness from the other side.
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Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I would just like to respond by saying it is not personal. The Senator from Hawaii, who is my friend, is--by defending USAID--is defending these positions. That is the only remark I made.
But also acting like--and we did have a conversation on the floor about what it would take--acting like there would be some kind of accommodation that would allow this to move forward in what would normally be a normal process here, but where we are at is the Democrats are objecting to everything. That has not happened in 50 years. That is not normal.
So the accommodation for this instance, I think, is reasonable. Evidently, he doesn't. It is not personal, and here we are. But the idea that the Democratic Party is grasping at straws every single day to make headlines and make themselves look ridiculous isn't personal necessarily, but it is the truth.
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