What Christopher Murphy said, and what was done

“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.”

“MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED,'' he posts. Two days later, the strikes start again. On May 5, Trump says: Great Progress [being] made toward a Complete and Final Agreement [with the Representatives of Iran.] Complete is capitalized; final is capitalized; agreement is capitalized; representatives is capitalized; Iran is capitalized.”

“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.”

“Mr. President, I come to the floor with good news. It is really important news, but it is news that not a lot of people in this country know about.”

“Mr. President, colleagues, over the last year and a half, our President Donald Trump has turned the White House into a 24-7 corruption operation. This is a national crisis, and we should start acting like it.”

“Mr. President, I have long wanted this war with Iran to end. Every single day, this war has become a deepening, cascading disaster for the American people as gas prices eclipse $6 a gallon in many places, as Americans are killed, as new wars break out in the region, as farms go bankrupt with the ballooning diesel prices.”

“Mr. President, I am glad to join Senator Kaine on the floor today in support of his resolution. I have admittedly lost count on how many of these resolutions we have brought before the body.”

“Mr. President, I am glad to be on the floor--sixth, seventh, eighth week in a row; I have lost count--this week to support Senator Merkley's resolution to end the war in Iran.”

“Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Schiff for bringing another War Powers Resolution before this body. I have lost count on how many votes we have had, but we are doing this for one reason and one reason only: The Republican majority refuses to do its constitutional and statutory responsibility.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I think Senator Cornyn and I share a goal--actually, multiple goals--one is to adequately protect children who are crossing the border by themselves to make sure that they are in adequate, humane, and appropriate placements; but also to vet individuals, including young unaccompanied minors who are crossing the border to make sure that they are not a danger to themselves or to others.”

“Mr. President, I was out in the hallways a week ago, and a reporter asked me a reasonable question. She said: Do you think Democrats overplayed their hand in the negotiations over the DHS budget?”

“Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator Baldwin and others for continuing to bring this debate before the Senate again. It is just extraordinary that this is the most significant military action that the United States has taken in decades.”

“Mr. President, in a building filled with history, Mario D'Angelo is an institution of the Senate in his own right. Born in Orsogna, Italy, in 1947, Mario traveled to the United States with his mother and sister at the age of 13.”

“Mario's handiwork on display. Giants of the Senate, including the late Senator John McCain, not only trusted Mario with their hair, they considered him a personal confidante and friend.”

“Mr. President, pursuant to section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J.”

“Mr. President, whatever you think about this war, it should be unacceptable to all of us that we have not had a single public hearing, a single opportunity for the American people to hear directly through their representatives the justification and the endgame for this war.”

“Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks from my friend from Minnesota. I think she laid out an unassailable case about how this is going to greatly constrain people's abilities to cast their votes, how it is a broad assault on democracy, how it effectively makes up a problem that doesn't exist.”

“There are 4 million Americans who are losing their healthcare as we speak--4 million Americans. There are 20 million Americans who, right now, are getting ready to sit down at the kitchen table and figure out how they are going to afford a 100-percent increase in their healthcare premiums.”

“Mr. President, I am humbled to follow my colleague from Illinois. No one is more articulate on the question of the cost of war than Senator Duckworth, and I agree with everything that she said about the importance of this moment.”

“Mr. President, yesterday and today, Democrats have been on the floor asking for something very simple: Let's open up TSA. Let's open up CISA, which protects this country from cyber attack.”

“I thank the Senator for the question. I do. Especially at a time when the United States is at war, we cannot afford to have our coastlines undefended.”

“My friend, you have lost the argument with the public. You just have. The public thinks that ICE is out of control. The public does not want ICE to continue operating in the way that they are operating.”

“Mr. President, first, I am grateful to be on the floor to hear those moving words about Senator Lee's father--an exceptional man. I thank him for sharing those stories with his colleagues.”

“Mr. President, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans have learned nothing from decades of American hubris in the Middle East, believing that U.S. troops, U.S. planes, U.S. guns, and U.S. bombs could fundamentally change realities in a far-off land.”

“World War II and our operations against Hitler are the exception, not the norm. Whether it be in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or Libya, over and over again, trillions of dollars in American taxpayer money has been spent to try to create regime change, and we have been frustrated and denied in those efforts, and we have lost lives in that process.”

“Mr. President, we all swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and that means that we have an obligation to fund the government--but only a government that is complying with the Constitution, that is obeying and being restrained by the Bill of Rights, that is upholding the laws of the land.”

“I wanted to walk you through what is happening. This is all still happening. Just because all the TV cameras aren't in Minneapolis any longer doesn't mean that these practices aren't still real.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I think our caucus was confused and frustrated by how long it took for our Republican colleagues to come to the table and start discussions.”

“Mr. President, I just want to reiterate that we got the language last night. We have been in a 2-week continuing resolution, and last night, we got the first offer of legislation from the White House.”

“Mr. President, the tendency here in the Senate often, when Democrats are lodging a complaint about Donald Trump, is for our Republican colleagues to issue an argumentative equivalency: Well, Donald Trump did this, but so did Joe Biden.”

“Madam President, over the course of the last year, President Trump has been engaged in just a stunning array of acts to enrich himself and his family using government policy, the power of the White House to essentially trade away U.S. policy, U.S. national security secrets in exchange for investments in Trump himself, making himself rich off of being President of the United States.”

“Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my friend from New Jersey. Mine will sound very familiar. Listen, ICE is out of control right now. They are killing American citizens.”

“While I was there, I was asked to accompany two young parents and their 2-year-old daughter out of the courtroom to see if maybe, because they were talking to a U.S.”

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Kelly for bringing us down to the floor today. It is hard to believe it has been 16 years since our politics were upended, since the floodgates were opened to corporate money in an unlimited way, in an anonymous way, coming into our elections.”

“Mr. President, I come down to the floor in support of the resolution, but I am hoping to use my few minutes to step back from the dizzying torrent of news that we have been delivered, often contradicting sources of news from the President and his advisers, and just ask some basic questions about the wisdom of this extraordinary military endeavor and the administration's future plans in Venezuela.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, my understanding is this is a resolution that has been fairly recently introduced, so I just got a chance to look at it just really minutes ago.”

“Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut for convening us here. This is a pretty normal thing that we do on a regular basis. We come down here and talk about something we care about.”

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Merkley. Let me just say how much I appreciate, his colleagues appreciate, and many Americans appreciate the labor that he has put in to raising these alarm bells tonight, and I would appreciate the chance to ask the Senator a question.”

“I thank Senator Merkley. In having done this before, I know that the language is important. So the Senator and I have had a number of conversations over the past 6 months about the importance of being straight with people about what is happening in this country.”

“Thank you. I wanted to ask you about--and I am sure you have talked about this many times already--what is happening, what has been happening in your city, what is happening in Chicago.”

“Mr. President, colleagues, I think there is a tendency in this place, but probably in the country, writ large, to compartmentalize each news cycle, to get outraged by every new contest to free speech or to the rule of law or to the power of Congress, but to really never see the full picture.”

“Mr. President, the House of Representatives is not coming back into session, reportedly, until next week. The government is shutting down tomorrow night, and the Republican House of Representatives isn't here, and they aren't coming back until the government has been shut down--reportedly for days.”

“Mr. President, I first note that we are horrified watching images and following the news out of Utah and we are sending all of our thoughts to Mr.”

“Mr. President, every year, there are 6,400 veterans who die by suicide. This is an urgent crisis that I know matters to colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”

“Mr. President, eight times since 1974, when Congress created the rescissions process, one party has controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives--eight times. It is actually four times Democratic control and four times Republican control.”

“Mr. President, at the foundation of this bill is something very simple: the most massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of the country.”

“Mr. President, in a 1793 letter to William Cabell, James Madison said this: In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.”

“So I am very glad to be on the floor today, as a big fan of the wisdom of our Founders, to support Senator Kaine's resolution. I appreciate his consistency in bringing this question before us.”

“Mr. President, Senator Booker and I have now spoken multiple times on the floor. The Senator from California has been here multiple times. We are doing so because we saw the look in our colleague's eyes as he was being violently thrown out of that room.”

“Mr. President, I agree with my friend from Maryland. This has to be a moment where we just drop our political affiliations, where we decide that we are Americans; that the Constitution matters; that dissent defines America; and we say and do the right thing.”

“Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 54, as provided under the previous order.”

“Mr. President, I am bringing before the Senate an opportunity for us to take a stand, to take a stand against the corruption of American foreign policy. The Senate will take a vote in just a moment to deny the President the ability to move forward with two arms sales--one to Qatar and one to the United Arab Emirates.”

“Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 53, as provided under the previous order.”

“Madam President, the U.S. Constitution and the American people give the American President vast power: the power to decide how billions of dollars are spent; the power to oversee the entire Federal criminal justice system; the power to sell arms around the world, to deploy millions of American soldiers, to negotiate peace treaties.”

“In this case, Qatar really needs to keep the United States on its side. Middle East politics, they shift really quickly, and during Trump's first term, when the Qataris were not close to Trump, they paid a price.”

“Mr. President, thank you. I appreciate the Senator's remarks. I look forward to getting to know him as a new colleague. But let me explain to the Senator why I am objecting.”

“Republicans need to loudly oppose President Trump's pardons because if you don't, you are sending a message that if you are carrying out attacks on police officers in the name of President Trump's political agenda or you are carrying out attacks on police officers who are defending Democrats, those attacks might end up being pardoned or excused.”

“Mr. President, you are right. The Senator from Ohio was not here on January 6, and your political affiliation mattered that day. It mattered that day. Those rioters were here to harm not allies of President Trump but opponents of President Trump.”

“I understand he has that power. Regardless of whether he has that power, do you agree with his decision? Mr. MORENO.--and there is no mechanism with which this body can change that, but what we can change--what we can change--is what happens from here forward.”

“Let's decide it was not OK for Donald Trump to let the people who brutally beat police officers out of jail early. Let's find common cause right now.”

“Mr. President, I understand the Senator is new. I will remind him you are not allowed to impugn the motives of Members of the Senate. Listen, I think it is unfortunate that you cannot and other Republicans cannot say that the individuals who beat the living hell out of the police officers who protect us should not have gotten out of jail free.”

“Mr. President, usually, public corruption happens in secret. The politicians that do it know it is wrong to accept money in exchange for favorable government treatment, and so they hide it until they are found out.”

“You cannot make this up. The obvious question for the average American is, OK, what does this mean for me? Like, somebody living in New Britain, CT, might think it is kind of gross that Trump is lining his pockets as President, but they want to know, how does this actually affect me?”

“Mr. President, I want to come to the floor today to talk about a success story but, potentially, a success story interrupted. Back in 2022, we all were shocked to watch news playing out during an afternoon that we were here, working in the Senate, of another mass shooting--this one of just unthinkable size and scope--in Uvalde, TX.”

“There is an appropriations bill rider that says the ATF can't do this, but the message was sent: We actually think that dangerous people should be able to get their gun rights back.”

“Mr. President, my colleagues, you are going to hear a lot of stories about the first 100 days of President Trump's second Presidency, and, indeed, there are a lot of stories.”

“Mr. President, I was sitting with the CEO of one of America's biggest and most influential companies last month, and I asked him a simple question: What could President Trump do that would be a bridge too far for you?”

“Only if we come together are we going to have a chance to save ourselves from the fate that has befallen so many other countries that have slowly, too quietly, seen their countries transition from real democracy to fake democracy.”

“Mr. President, the budget that we are debating really comes down to one simple idea: the massive transfer of wealth and resources from the poor and the middle class to the ultrawealthy.”

“OK, now, you would say: Well, that is because they make a lot more money; so, of course, they are going to get a bigger tax cut. But let's do the math a different way.”

“Thank you, Senator Whitehouse, first of all, for all the work you have put into passing that legislation, which has given access to millions of people across the country who are struggling with addiction and recovery access to services.”

“I thank the Senator for the question. Listen, I read it as just a different kind of thievery. So what we are talking about here is this massive thievery from Medicaid recipients so that we can pass along this big tax break for folks that don't need it.”

“Mr. President, so we have learned that the Republicans think that it is essential to blow up the deficit and debt in order to allow people making $100 million a year to get a tax cut.”

“Senator Booker, it has been a wonder to be with you on the floor these last 24 hours. You indeed did something extraordinary and performed a sympathy filibuster with me 9 years ago where, as I stood at that desk for 15 hours, you stood on the Senate floor.”

“So there is also a third agenda here. We were not necessarily both here at this time, but a few Republican administrations ago, there was an attempt to privatize Social Security, to take, you know, the corpus and move that money into the hands of the private sector for them to manage the money and, of course, charge a fee or a commission for the management of the money.”

“I thank the Senator. What the Senator is outlining is an extraordinary assault not just on education but on the knowledge economy. I want to bring manufacturing jobs back to this country, but I understand--I think everybody understands--that we are not going to be a nation filled with low-skilled manufacturing jobs.”

“So it can't be about helping us create jobs or supporting our economy. This is, no doubt, an assault on the economy. One of the complaints that I hear often about elementary and secondary education is that the Department of Education was engaged in micromanagement, right?”

“The American public was like: Wait a second. We read them. I am not dumb. I know those were war plans. I know that that was classified information.”

“OK. Maybe it is the same agenda with Social Security, just come up with an excuse to privatize it all. Just take all the money that is going to good, public sector research and just move it all into the private sector so it can be a source to reward the friends of President Trump.”

“I take the Senator's point, my friend's point. I am probing tonight for the why because it is the obvious question. It doesn't make sense, right? On its face, this intentional chaos--this intentional chaos in Social Security, in Medicare, in higher education, it doesn't make sense.”

“We are just in a race, and we just decided to slow down to a walk, which is a shame because we are fast. We are fast. This country is quick.”

“I get it that everybody wants this Nation to be a nation of laws, but when an American citizen looks at a child with a medical condition, when an American citizen looks at an individual who will face certain death from a drug gang if they stay in their home country, when they look at individuals in war-torn nations overseas, they believe that America is strong enough, is big enough, is generous enough to be able to protect those people from harm.”

“I just want to drill down on this for a moment. It gets back to a theme that you have been hitting on throughout the evening and early morning, and that is that not everything has to be zero-sum politics.”

“We have a few more colleagues who are going to join us before the top of the hour, but I just wanted you to round this out and ask you the question this way.”

“Senator Booker, first of all, I want to express my gratitude to you for recognizing the gravity of this moment. Your ability to see that we are facing a series of threats that are not normal--a series of threats to families, to children, to individuals, threats to our democracy, threats to our rule of law--I think it is really important.”

“There is so much similarity between the debate that you are forcing this Senate to have tonight and the debate that we were having back in 2016 on this epidemic of gun violence.”

“You would give anything, right? Anything. You would give your life savings, your house. You would perhaps give your own life in order to protect your child or your brother or sister or mother or father from physical harm.”

“Feeling like there was nothing you could do and watching your elected leader stand by and allow for this reality to continue to occur in your neighborhood, where kids are being shot down in cold blood and your elected leaders--the adults in charge of your community--are standing idly by.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object. Listen, come on, this resolution is not about violence or domestic terrorism. It just isn't. This is a resolution that says one thing and one thing only: Elon Musk is in charge.”

“And so when the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is canceled, it is a clear indication that, yes, this campaign of assault on vaccines is going to continue, which--not surprisingly--is likely to make RFK, Jr., even more money.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as I understand it, this bill--this resolution seeks to establish an American Girls in Sports Day. Obviously, that sounds like a really good idea until you read the resolution, and you realize that this resolution actually has virtually nothing to do with the history and the current reality of girls playing sports.”

“Instead, it is just another attempt by Republicans to pretend that the biggest threat to this country is transgender kids or gay kids or drag shows. Republicans don't want to talk about rising costs, rising grocery prices, rising gas costs.”

“Mr. President, I am down here on the floor this afternoon with my colleague Senator Kaine from Virginia and the ranking member of the Finance Committee, Senator Wyden, to talk about the spending and tax bill that is coming before the Congress, driven by Republicans and the Trump administration.”

“Mr. President, the idea that men and women citizens are bound by a common set of laws that are applied consistently and universally, regardless of one's income or political power or political affiliation, is a fairly modern invention because, for thousands of years, laws were simply what rulers used to impose and maintain power, to control people.”

“I think it is two or three times the amount of caffeine that a Red Bull has. There is a reason why the conversion is happening--not that I have an intimate understanding of which beverages have which amounts of caffeine.”

“Yes. And, to your point, when profit is the only motive, somebody loses out as in your example about, you know, a health clinic in a rural area.”

“If there is any internet. So there are places, when it comes to government and government services, for which there is a proper role for the private sector.”

“Listen, if not for lawyers who brought lawsuits, if not for judges who issued injunctions, we would be in a different kind of crisis today. So we are talking about public outrage at an executive action--that was midwived, in part, by the nominee--that only existed for about a day before it was enjoined, before it was stayed.”

“And they dressed that up for, like, 2 days, suggesting that they were reviewing USAID for efficiencies. For 1 day, they said they were folding it into the State Department because it would be more efficiently run inside the State Department.”

“You can't say female; you can't say gender. I have the list here. It is absolutely patently absurd, right? Do you remember, OK, so that is an element of DEI, but there is another element of DEI.”

“And all the Federal employees who have been furloughed from the USAID employees to all the folks who are doing DEI to the FBI agents, they are still getting paid right now, right?”

“And, listen, you had Trump's first term as evidence, right? Obviously, President Trump says a lot of things that he has no intent of doing. News flash: We aren't going to invade and occupy Gaza.”

“I would say 98, 99 percent of Americans are a no on that. In his first term, he said a lot of things that he never even tried to do.”

“Because it was too hard, as he explained, to try to pick out the really violent ones from the nonviolent ones. Later tonight, I am going to read through some of the very easily accessible stories of the really violent protestors.”

“And so his plan, which is to destroy elements of the Federal Government and State governments and the nonprofit sector that help regular people; his plan to try to intimidate and harass Federal workers; his plan to try to make folks who work in government pass a loyalty test to the administration; his plan to destroy access to reproductive healthcare--I mean, all of that is being put into place as we speak.”

“Brian, thank you very much for your work in organizing this effort and always great to be with you on the floor today. I will not hold it against you if you go take an actual nap and get some rest.”

“The reason for that--the reason why that power is vested in Congress--is primarily a check on despotism because if a President has the ability to unilaterally decide how to spend money, then, of course, the natural temptation will be to only spend money in a way that benefits and preserves and advances your political power.”

“Now, I will be honest with you, we don't know why they want access to the payment systems. We don't know what they are doing inside the payment systems.”

“I mean, it is stunning the number of programs that he has access to: Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for all Federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, tax refunds.”

“Mr. President, a lot of Americans turned on the TV today hoping that the President of the United States was going to make a nonpolitical, nonpartisan statement grieving the loss of those who died in the awful plane crash last night.”

“Mr. President, the murder rate in the United States today--the global murder rate--is infinitesimal. It is a fraction of what it was 200 years ago, 400 years ago, 600 years ago--a fraction of what it likely was in the Bronze Age or in the days when native Tribes patrolled this land.”

“Mr. President, I come to the floor to join many of my colleagues in expressing grave alarm over the choice of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as the Senator knows, there are serious concerns that many of us have about John Ratcliffe's ability to distance himself from the political interests of President Trump in his work as CIA Director.”

“Thank you very much, Senator. I just can't believe we are talking about something that nobody wants, right? That is what this comes down to. The No. 1 priority for Republicans is extending and likely expanding a tax cut that benefits the wealthiest 1 percent, .1 percent in this country at a rate that dwarfs--dwarfs--the help for anyone else.”

“So what happened 8 years ago was cruel--a tax cut put on the American public's credit card, 80 percent of the benefits going to the very, very richest, and none of it trickling down.”