00:00The one and only Sheldon Whitehouse. What a tough act to follow, but I will try my best.
00:06Thank you, Ezra. I'm going to echo him in a couple of themes, beginning with thank you to Public Citizen
00:12for your relentless advocacy.
00:15It is necessary. It is appreciated. It is impactful. Thank you, Co-President Lisa Gilbert.
00:23And as I reflected on what remarks to share, what thoughts to share, I couldn't help but recall Watergate.
00:32Because for a long time, Watergate stood as the example of corruption in government.
00:38It's the one story that most people can remember and what most people know was significant.
00:45It was a scandal that, at the time, led to the resignation of a president, right?
00:52The political headwinds were so strong as a result of Watergate being exposed that a president of the United States
01:00resigned for fear of being impeached.
01:06That was huge. You know what else was huge?
01:08It shook Congress into bipartisan action in response to Watergate.
01:16Among other things, campaign finance laws were strengthened.
01:21Flash forward to today.
01:24A lot of those very laws and those that followed have been gutted over the years to the point that
01:29the Federal Election Commission has been unable to function now for the better part of a year.
01:34I know a lot of you care about the FEC and look forward to nomination hearings after the upcoming recess.
01:44But here's the thing.
01:48Watergate was about a president trying to hide corrupt activity.
01:54We're living now in a time where the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, is describing the
02:04corruption about Donald Trump in a very different way.
02:08He now refers to Watergate as what would be today just a 12-hour news story.
02:15Donald Trump isn't trying to hide his corruption like Richard Nixon was.
02:22Far worse, he's normalizing it, or trying to, anyway.
02:28He and the people around him are trying to convince the American public, this is just the way it is.
02:35When a president uses the office for personal profit, that is not just the way it is, despite what Trump
02:41wants you to believe.
02:44Which is why gatherings like this, which is why the work of public citizen is so important, and it's why
02:51I'm proud to join the efforts with my Senate colleagues.
02:54You heard from Leader Schumer earlier, the Senate Democrats' anti-corruption working group.
03:01Why this work matters so much, because corruption needs to be called out, for starters, but also to be responded
03:10to.
03:11So much of the work that we've done over the last 18 months, even more so than Trump's first term.
03:17How do we resist the corruption?
03:20How do we resist the bad stuff that's going on?
03:24We exercise every legislative tool we have.
03:29Tough when you're in the minority, but we have to, and we have to continue.
03:32Of course, there's the courts working with attorneys general around the country, other leaders, to litigate when we have to,
03:40which is a lot, and we're winning a lot.
03:42And, of course, there's organizing, right?
03:45Educating the public, not just our personal friends and personal networks, but the general public, for them to understand what's
03:52going on, to call them into action.
03:54And the action can take the form of a no-king's protest.
03:59It can take the form of writing to your representatives, and it especially needs to take the form of making
04:06a plan to vote and voting in the midterm elections.
04:13Because of where we are today, one of the things that I want to emphasize is that corruption isn't just
04:18about someone breaking the rules.
04:23What I see is an effort, a corrupt effort, to change the very purpose of government itself.
04:32That's what I've been watching over the last 18 months, and I think we've all been seeing that over the
04:36last 18 months.
04:37We've seen a president of the United States leverage the position to make over $2 billion since returning to office
04:47at a time when hardworking Americans are struggling to make ends meet, to pay the bills.
04:55You see the cost of everything going up, cost of housing, cost of health care, cost of groceries, while Donald
05:06Trump is brazenly using the presidency for personal profit.
05:10That's not a coincidence, whether it's the billions that his family has made in the crypto ventures that they've invested
05:18in, the illegal acceptance of a luxury jet from a foreign government for his personal use long after he's out
05:27of the White House,
05:29selling early access to inside information on his own social media platform.
05:35Did you guys hear about this?
05:37He's offering early access, $100,000 a month, for the low, low price of $100,000 a month, inside information
05:44on his announcements, because this is where he makes his official announcements to those willing to pay.
05:51Meanwhile, he's made 21,000 stock trades, and counting in the last year, promoting the very companies that he's investing
06:00in.
06:02That averages, by the way, to 85 trades a day.
06:05That's a lot.
06:07Does that sound like somebody who's singularly focused on bringing down the costs for American families?
06:12I don't think so.
06:12It's the opposite.
06:13So, with Trump, there's clearly no effort to hide the corruption.
06:20Corruption is his governing philosophy.
06:25And it's not just him and his family.
06:27It includes others around him willing to help enrich him.
06:31Donors receiving influence.
06:34Billionaires receiving government contracts.
06:37Political allies receiving appointments.
06:40Governance loyalists receiving pardons.
06:45Just look at Elon Musk.
06:47Elon Musk thought it was going to be a great return on investment when he spent $300 million to help
06:54elect Donald Trump back to the White House.
06:58And then he was given unprecedented powers for a non-federal government employee.
07:05He, the Doge experiment, the data, not just of so many federal employees, but so many of the American people,
07:14while his companies pursued billions in federal contracts.
07:19I can go on and on, but I also want to be clear that rewarding your friends is only part
07:26of this story.
07:27Another dangerous part of the Trump corruption story is punishing perceived enemies.
07:36The list of names, you know it all too well.
07:39Let me just add to that long list of the punishing your enemy side of it with, if you missed
07:45the story, just the other day, court documents confirmed what many of us knew already.
07:50That this administration is making decisions on a purely partisan political basis.
07:58Almost from the first days of the second Trump administration, I was hearing from constituents from local cities, counties, transportation
08:05agencies, water agencies, you name it, about the cancellation of grants.
08:11In places like California, places like Rhode Island, but not in places in states that voted for Trump.
08:21They canceled, among other areas, more than $7 billion in clean energy projects, whether it's the wind projects that Senator
08:31Whitehouse just referenced, or in California, one of the larger projects was a $1.2 billion investment in a hydrogen
08:40hub for all the same reasons.
08:43You know, hydrogen is cleaner than fossil fuel when done right.
08:47It's the wave of the future for heavy uses of energy.
08:53I suspected what was going on, and I asked Secretary Wright under oath when he was in committee in front
08:59of the Senate if this was true.
09:02And he looked us in the eye, and he said no, that the decisions were made on the merits of
09:08a project or not, had nothing to do with political considerations.
09:11And now we have the court documents, the Department of Energy in court, saying otherwise.
09:19So we have the proof.
09:20Secretary Wright lied.
09:24But that's what corruption does.
09:27Friends get rewarded.
09:29Your critics get punished.
09:31That's why it's also dangerous, because it also sends a message to federal employees, public servants, that integrity matters less
09:44than loyalty.
09:47So, yes, if we care about preserving our democracy for future generations, corruption must not just be called out, it
09:56must be met with action, which is why we need an independent investigation into the Attorney General's and the Department
10:03of Justice's role in the negotiation and acceptance of this luxury jet.
10:10It's why we have called and put so much pressure that even Republicans are calling the administration to abandon the
10:20$1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, as they call it, that represents potential payouts to the January 6th rioters.
10:29There's a reason I was able to get here on time today.
10:32The Senate White House is here on time today, because Judiciary Committee has been postponed.
10:36Todd Blanche doesn't have the votes at this time, because they refuse to put in writing that they're going to
10:43give up on this weaponization fund.
10:47And it's why I'm joining Leader Schumer on this new bill, empowering everyday Americans and state attorney generals
10:56to be able to be able to sue to take back every corrupt dollar that the president and the vice
11:04president or any future president or vice president makes through corruption while in office.
11:1252 years ago, America learned through Watergate that no president is above the law.
11:19And it's a lesson that we shouldn't have to learn again or at least learn again the hard way.
11:26Because, again, the danger isn't that any single president will use the office to grow richer.
11:35It's the biggest danger is when Americans begin to think, this is normal, and that's just the way it is.
11:44It is not.
11:45It is not how government works.
11:47It is not how government is supposed to work.
11:50The American people deserve better than that.
11:52We owe them a government where public office is a public trust, not a private enterprise.
11:58A government that serves and respects and upholds the Constitution, not personal interests.
12:05And that's a government and a country that I fight for, that I know you fight for, and that we
12:11will continue to fight for.
12:13Thank you very much.
12:21I think I have time for two quick questions.
12:23I do have to get back to the Capitol.
12:27Yes, sir.
12:49I would disagree with that.
12:52Well, what's the question?
12:53Get to the question.
12:54So, like, given that he's considered one of the more corrupt members of the Senate, is he the ideal candidate
13:01to be pointing fingers at Trump's corruption?
13:04He's the leader of our Democratic caucus.
13:06Do you think he's the leader of our Democratic caucus?
13:09He's the leader of our Democratic caucus.
13:11Next question.
13:11Yes.
13:26That's a good question.
13:27So, look, I'm hopeful that the midterm elections will result in changes in the majority of Congress.
13:33And while Trump will still be in the White House, just being in the majority gives us a whole lot
13:38more leverage than we have today on negotiating everything.
13:41Not just what bills do get to his desk, what bills don't get to his desk.
13:45The makeup, the structure of our spending plans, things of that nature.
13:50But another very important tool that we will have in the majority, that we'll have to be ready to exercise
13:57come January, not to wait until January to start getting ready, is the power of oversight.
14:01So many issues, so many topics that should be scrutinized by Congress today that isn't, because the Republican majority refuses
14:10to try to hold Trump and the administration accountable.
14:14So we're doing our best to do what we call spotlight forums.
14:17They're not official congressional hearings, but venues to explore topics just yesterday.
14:22The conditions of ICE detention facilities, where more than 53 people have died in the last 18 months, and on
14:33a record pace this year.
14:36Republicans don't want to talk about that.
14:38They don't want to talk about this administration's failure, whether it's federally-run facilities or privately-run facilities, lack of
14:46meeting basic standards that are required by law.
14:54That's just one example.
14:55You know, how ICE has gone about in force on the streets of America that has led to the killing
14:59and broad daylight of United States citizens.
15:01Not once, not twice, more.
15:06The Republican majority is not interested in trying to hold this administration accountable.
15:11When we're in the majority, we will absolutely be doing that.
15:15Thank you all so very much.
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15:31We'll see you next time.
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