Unanimous Consent Requests

Floor Speech

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, at a time when hard-working families across this country are being squeezed by skyrocketing costs, you would think that the President of the United States and Washington Republicans would be focused on finding ways to help people afford their groceries, access affordable healthcare, and keep communities safe.

In fact, that is what Donald Trump himself ran on. He promised he would lower costs ``on day one.'' That is a quote, ``on day one.''

Instead, now that he is in office, Trump is completely fixated on his corrupt slush fund where he would give your tax dollars--your tax dollars--to his political allies.

So how did we get here? Donald Trump sued his own IRS and Treasury Department to try to get $10 billion--your tax dollars--for himself. But then, of course, he was so kind that he agreed to drop his lawsuit against his own government--our government--as long as it set up a slush fund of $1.8 billion to pay out to his allies, supporters, and even January 6 rioters who assaulted police officers.

Understandably, the American people strongly oppose this corrupt attempt to misuse their tax dollars. So the Justice Department had to come out and claim that the fund is dead.

But Donald Trump has made it perfectly clear that he still wants his slush fund to move forward so he can pay January 6 rioters who beat up police officers at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. I was here, and, frankly, I don't trust his cronies to put an end to it. It is unbelievable.

Whether it is $1 billion for a ballroom, $1.8 billion for a slush fund, Trump is focused on himself, not on the hardships of our communities--your communities--our families, not on the hardships people are facing.

Our families are struggling to put food on the table. Our families are worried about losing their healthcare. Our police departments are struggling with staffing shortages. That is why Congress has a responsibility to put an end to this wasteful slush fund, once and for all.

So I have introduced a package of three bills that would make sure the slush fund can never happen and would instead redirect that $1.8 billion to programs that actually help hard-working families and keep our communities safe.

My first bill would permanently block the slush fund from being created, and if the Trump administration still moves ahead with it, it would direct the funding to SNAP, the food assistance program that Washington Republicans have gutted to pay for their One Big Beautiful Bill.

So in Nevada alone, nearly 55,000 people lost SNAP benefits between July of last year and January of this year. And as a reminder, 40 percent of SNAP recipients in Nevada are children--are children. Children are going hungry because of Trump's cuts to pay to billionaires.

That means nearly 55,000 Nevadans now have to worry about how they are going to afford groceries at a time when groceries and gas prices are just going through the literal roof.

Now, imagine how many families $1.8 billion could help feed. Imagine how many parents could feed their children with that kind of money instead of paying January 6 rioters and Trump's allies.

And in my State, that kind of money could restore SNAP benefits for all 55,000 Nevadans--55,000 Nevadans who lost their benefits for more than 15 years.

I could feed those families for 15 years.

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, if my Republican colleagues want to make prices lower, they can start by removing tariffs and not entering into unnecessary wars, but I want to get back to the issue at hand, which this slush fund. The slush fund, if it is truly dead like some say, then why not pass my bill?

Why not make sure that it is gone for good? What are Republicans so afraid of? And so if feeding hungry children isn't Washington Republicans' priority, there is another chance for them to do the right thing for our families. Because last year, Washington Republicans gutted--gutted--Medicaid and took healthcare coverage from millions of Americans in need so that they could give more tax breaks to billionaires, people who need it the least.

They gutted healthcare for families to give tax breaks to billionaires. And as of January of this year, nearly 170,000 fewer Nevadans were enrolled in Medicaid compared to 2023. That means fewer people seeing a doctor, fewer people getting preventive care, fewer people being able to afford treatment or the medication that they need, fewer people getting the care they need for their children when they are chronically or terminally ill. It is cruel, and the money that Trump wants for his slush fund could pay for more than 2 years of Medicaid coverage for every Nevadan who lost it because of these Republican cuts for payouts to billionaires.

So instead of rewarding Trump's political allies, we can help families get healthcare because nothing is more important than your health. Nothing.

A diagnosis can change your life in an instant, and I want people to be able to afford their prescriptions. I want people to be able to take their children to see a doctor. A diagnosis changes your life, and they took away healthcare.

And so a much better use for taxpayer dollars, that is what I want to do. I want to put it back into those Nevada families who are struggling with those life-altering diagnoses that we are all so very afraid of. And that is what my second bill aims to do. It will permanently block this slush fund from being created.

And if the Trump administration finds a way to move ahead with this, my bill would redirect the $1.8 billion to Medicaid, to help those mothers that I talked to, those parents, again, with sick children, to help those taking care of their family members. It matters. It is caring. And what they are doing and what they did to cut Medicaid is cruel.

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, the objection is truly a shame because people will suffer and people will be damaged by poor health and some may lose their life from lack of care.

So my Washington Republican friends, they won't agree on funding SNAP and feeding those hungry children in Nevada for 15 or so years, funding Medicaid to help families again.

Perhaps we could agree on giving this funding for the men and women of law enforcement. Surely, they must stand up for law enforcement and for public safety and for community safety because across America our police departments are facing staffing shortages, recruitment challenges, retention issues.

Officers are being asked to do more with fewer resources. So the money from Trump's slush fund could fund more than 3 years of the COPS Hiring Program to help communities hire and retain more officers. It could fully fund more than 3 years of the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program.

What is this program? It helps support the families of officers who are killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. Nothing could be more important than supporting those families. Surely, Republicans want to help families of fallen or disabled officers.

And so the irony here is almost hard to believe, Republicans love to talk about how supportive they are of law enforcement, and yet Donald Trump wants to use your tax dollars to pay people who assaulted police officers right here in this Capitol in this room in this Chamber where we stand today on January 6.

And I think, and I hope, surely we can all agree, that the funding would be put to better use to support our men and women in uniform, our police officers. So my third and final bill would permanently block the slush fund from being created. And if the Trump administration still forges ahead with it, my bill would redirect the funding to Federal law enforcement programs.

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, you know, this is truly a shame. It is extremely disappointing to me because by blocking these bills, Washington Republicans are paying tribute. They are paying tribute to the President, and they are saying that they approve of Donald Trump wasting 1.8 billion taxpayer dollars to pay his political allies and January 6 rioters.

They may claim the slush fund is dead because Trump and his administration say it is. But does anybody believe them? I would say not too many.

And so that is why I tried to pass these bills and create a fail-safe mechanism to redirect funding to food, to healthcare, to public safety, and so if Trump still tries to create this slush fund, we have a way to put it toward something good for our communities.

Unfortunately, Washington Republicans blocked these commonsense efforts.

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