[Pages S838-S840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are living in an extremely dangerous 
time. Future generations will look back at this moment--what we do 
right now--and remember whether we had the courage to defend our 
democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and 
authoritarianism. They will remember whether we stood with President 
Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg who, in 1863, looking out over a 
battlefield where thousands of people had died--thousands of soldiers 
died in the fight against slavery--and he stated that ``this Nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that a government of 
the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the 
earth.''
  Do we stand with Lincoln's vision of America, or do we sit idly by 
and allow this country to move into a new vision, and that is a 
government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, for the 
billionaire class?
  But it is not just oligarchy that we should be concerned about, not 
just the reality that today three people own more wealth than the 
bottom half of American society, 170 million--three people, more wealth 
than the bottom 17 million Americans. It is not just that the gap 
between the very, very rich and everyone else is growing wider. And it 
is not just that we have more income and wealth inequality today than 
we have ever had.
  On top of all of that, the reality is that today we are moving 
rapidly under President Trump toward authoritarianism, more and more 
power resting in fewer and fewer hands.
  Mr. President, as we speak, right now, Elon Musk, the wealthiest man 
on the planet, is attempting to dismantle major Agencies of the Federal 
Government which are designed to protect the needs of working families 
and the disadvantaged. These Agencies were created by the U.S. 
Congress, and it is Congress's responsibility to maintain them, to 
reform them, or to end them. It is not Mr. Musk's responsibility. What 
Mr. Musk is doing is patently illegal and unconstitutional and must be 
ended.
  Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, President Trump attempted to suspend all 
Federal grants and loans, an outrageous and clearly unconstitutional 
act. As I hope every sixth grader--every kid in the sixth grade--in 
this country knows, under the Constitution and our form of government, 
the President can recommend legislation, he can support legislation, he 
can veto legislation, but he does not have the power to unilaterally 
terminate funding passed by the Congress. It is Congress--the House and 
the Senate--that controls the purse strings.

  But in this move toward authoritarianism, it is not just the Congress 
that is being attacked; it is our judiciary.
  This weekend, the Vice President of the United States--a graduate of 
Yale Law School who clerked for a Supreme Court Justice--said:

       Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate 
     power.

  Really? I thought that one of the major functions of the Federal 
courts was to interpret our Constitution and, when appropriate, serve 
as a check on the unconstitutional power of the Executive. That is not 
just what I believe; that is what I suspect every legal scholar and 
lawyer in America understands to be the case.
  Further, Mr. Musk, meanwhile, has proposed that the ``worst 1 percent 
of appointed judges be fired every year,'' and he demanded the 
impeachment of judges who have blocked him from accessing sensitive 
Treasury Department files. No doubt, under Mr. Musk's rule, it will be 
him and his billionaire friends who determine who the worst judges are.
  And no, Mr. Musk, I must tell you: You don't impeach judges who rule 
against you here in the United States. You may or may not know this, 
Mr. Musk, but under the U.S. Constitution, we have a separation of 
powers, brilliantly crafted by the Founding Fathers of this country in 
the 1770s, and it has worked pretty well throughout our country's 
history. We have an executive branch, we have a legislative branch, and 
we have a judiciary.
  What we are seeing now is not just an organized attack on the power 
of the Congress and the responsibility of the judiciary; Mr. Trump and 
his friends are not just trying to undermine two of the three pillars 
of our constitutional government--the Congress and the courts; they are 
also going after the media in a way that we have never seen in the 
modern history of this country.
  Trust me that every Member of Congress will tell you that the people 
working in the media and media organizations are not perfect. We have 
all had our experiences with the media. Media, like everything else, 
makes mistakes every day. But I do hope that every Member of Congress 
understands that you cannot have a functioning democracy, that you 
cannot have a free-flow of information, that you cannot have the 
pursuit of truth without an independent press--a press not intimidated 
by Presidents of the United States but a press who writes it and sees 
it the way they understand it to be.
  In that regard, I want to mention to my colleagues what President 
Trump has done just in recent months.
  Mr. Trump has sued ABC and received a $15 million settlement. He has 
sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and received a 
$25 million settlement. He has sued CBS and its parent company, 
Paramount, and is right now in negotiations over a settlement. He has 
sued the Des Moines Register for poll results that he didn't like, and 
his FCC is now threatening to investigate PBS and

[[Page S839]]

NPR--major news outlets in our country.
  In other words, we have a President of the United States who is using 
his incredible power and the power of his Agencies to go after media in 
this country that are saying and doing things he does not like. How are 
we going to have an independent media if journalists are looking over 
their shoulders, fearful that their reporting will trigger a lawsuit 
from the most powerful Executive in the world?
  In the midst of all of this, I think that now is the time to ask a 
very, very simple question, something, I think, that is on the minds of 
millions of Americans: What do Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump, and their fellow 
billionaires really want? It is not really taking over Greenland or the 
Panama Canal and all of that stuff. The real question is, What is their 
endgame? What is their goal? What are they striving for?
  In my view, the answer really is not complicated. It is not novel. It 
is not new. It is, in fact, exactly what ruling classes throughout 
history have always wanted and have always believed to be their right--
their right--and that is more power for themselves, more control for 
themselves, and more wealth for themselves, and in their pursuit of 
more power, more control, and more wealth, they are determined to not 
allow democracy and the rule of law to get in their way.
  For Mr. Musk and his fellow oligarchs, the needs, the concerns, the 
pain, the ideas, the dreams of ordinary people are simply an impediment 
to what they, the oligarchs, are entitled to, and that is really what 
they believe. They are entitled to all of the wealth and the power they 
have, and they are determined to stop anyone who gets in their way.
  This process--this phenomenon--that is going on right now is not the 
first time that we have seen this in our country's history. As I think 
many Americans understand, in pre-revolutionary America--before the 
1770s, before the creation of the United States and the writing of our 
Constitution--the ruling class of that time governed through a doctrine 
called the divine right of Kings--the belief that the King of England 
was an agent of God, that God appointed him, and that he was not to be 
questioned by mere mortal human beings. He was appointed by God.
  In modern times, we no longer have the divine right of Kings. What we 
now have is an ideology being pushed by the oligarchs which says that, 
as a very, very wealthy group of people--often self-made, often the 
masters of revolutionary new technology--and as high IQ individuals, it 
is their absolute right to rule. In other words, the oligarchs of today 
are our modern-day Kings.
  It is not just power that they want. Despite the incredible wealth 
they currently have, they want more and more and more. Their greed has 
no end. Today, Mr. Musk is worth $402 billion, Mr. Zuckerberg is 
worth $252 billion, and Mr. Bezos is worth $249 billion. With a 
combined wealth of $903 billion, these three people own more wealth 
than the bottom half of American society--170 million Americans--and, 
not surprisingly, since Trump was elected, their wealth has soared. 
Musk has become $138 billion richer, Zuckerberg has become $49 billion 
richer, and Bezos has become $28 billion richer since election day in 
November.

  Meanwhile, while the very rich become much richer, 60 percent of 
Americans live paycheck to paycheck, 85 million Americans are uninsured 
or underinsured in terms of healthcare, 25 percent of our seniors in 
this country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less, 800,000 
Americans are homeless, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty 
of almost any major country on Earth, and real inflation-adjusted wages 
for the average American worker has not gone up in 50 years.
  Does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about 
ordinary Americans? Trust me, they don't. Musk's decision to dismember 
USAID means that tens of thousands of the poorest people in this world 
will either go hungry or die of preventable diseases--tens of thousands 
of people. But it is not just USAID and what is happening abroad. Here 
in the United States--mark my words--if we do not stop them, they will 
soon be going after the healthcare, nutrition, housing, and educational 
programs that protect the most vulnerable people in our country--all so 
that they can raise the money they need to provide huge tax breaks for 
themselves and for other billionaires.
  As modern-day Kings who believe they have the absolute right to rule, 
they will sacrifice without hesitation the well-being of working people 
in order to protect their power and their privileges.
  Further, they will use the enormous media operations they own to 
deflect attention away from the impact of their policies while they 
entertain us to death. Mr. Musk owns Twitter. Mr. Zuckerberg owns Meta, 
which includes Facebook and Instagram. Mr. Bezos owns the Washington 
Post and Twitch.
  Further, they and their fellow oligarchs will continue within our 
corrupt campaign finance system to spend huge amounts of money to buy 
politicians in both major political parties.
  The bottom line: The oligarchs, with their unlimited amounts of 
money, are waging a war on the working class of our country, and it is 
a war they are intent on winning.
  Now, I am not going to kid anybody. The problems that our country 
faces right now are enormously serious, and they are not easy to solve. 
Our economy is rigged--the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and 
the middle class struggles. Our campaign finance system is totally 
corrupt. Billionaires can now pour as much money as they want into both 
political parties. And climate change is ravaging our country and the 
world with unprecedented levels of extreme weather disturbances, among 
many other crises our country faces.
  In the midst of all of these crises, this is what I do know, and this 
is what I do believe, and that is that the worst fear of the ruling 
class of our country is that the American people, whether they are 
Black or White or Latino, whether they are urban or rural, whether they 
are young or old, gay or straight--whatever--the fear of the ruling 
class is that the American people will come together to demand a 
government that represents all of us, not just the people on top.
  Their oligarchs' nightmare is that we will not allow ourselves to be 
divided up by race, religion, sexual orientation, or country of origin 
and will come together and have the courage to take them on.
  Will this struggle be easy? No, it will not, and one of the reasons 
that it will not be easy is that the ruling class of this country will 
constantly remind us that they have the power. They control the 
government. They own the media.
  But our job right now, in these difficult times, is to go back and 
remember the great struggles and sacrifices that millions of Americans 
have waged over the centuries in difficult times to create a more 
democratic, just, and humane society. Think about all of the sacrifices 
and the struggles that Americans went through to create a more 
democratic, just, humane society, and think about trying to put 
yourselves where they were in those times of crisis.
  Think about what was being said at those times. Think about the 
1770s. Overthrowing the King of England--the most powerful person on 
Earth--the British Empire, to create a new nation and have self-rule 
here in the Colonies--impossible. So many people thought it could not 
be done.
  Establishing universal suffrage, the right of all people, whether 
they were wealthy or not, to vote--imagine that. What a radical idea: 
extending the right to vote to poor people--impossible. It couldn't be 
done. But it was done.
  Ending slavery and segregation, taking on all of the power of the 
slaveholders--impossible. But it was done.
  Granting workers the right to form unions and ending child labor, 
taking on the power of big business--impossible. But it was done.
  Giving women control over their own bodies, taking on sexism, taking 
on the powers that be--it couldn't be done--impossible. But it was 
done.
  Passing legislation to establish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, 
a minimum wage, clean air and water standards--impossible. It couldn't 
be done. But it was done.
  In other words, I think back to what Nelson Mandela told us, and he 
said: Everything is impossible until it is done.

[[Page S840]]

  So in these difficult days, when we find ourselves arrayed against 
the wealthiest people in the world, the most powerful people in the 
world, people who want to expand the power of the oligarchy, people who 
want to move us toward authoritarianism--I know. I know that people get 
discouraged that we can't take them on; that we cannot create a 
government that works for all and not just the few; that we cannot do 
what every other major country on Earth does--guarantee healthcare to 
all people as a human right--that we cannot raise the minimum wage to a 
living wage so that tens of millions of people do not earn starvation 
wages; that we cannot make sure that all of our kids get the quality 
education that they deserve; that we can't expand Social Security or 
lower the poverty rate among seniors. I know that, in this moment, 
people say: Well, that is an impossible dream; it can't be done.
  But I think, if you look back on American history, you will find 
that, in very difficult and dark days, when people came together, they 
did the impossible.
  This ain't going to be easy. We are taking on enormously powerful 
people who really do not believe in democracy or the rule of law. But 
if we stand together, we are going to win this fight. And not only will 
we save American democracy; we are going to create the kind of Nation 
that I think most of us know we should become.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.