Floor Speeches

The Texas senator challenged Sen. John McCain over warnings about the dangers to the GOP of blocking a budget conference. 

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned members of his own party that if they continue to block progress on a budget that Senate Democrats might vote to change the rules.

“If we continue to block things like this and block what is the regular order, then the majority will be tempted to change the rules of the Senate,” McCain said Thursday. “That would be the worst outcome.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday accused Democrats of trying to "blow the Senate up" in order to jam through President Obama's nominees.

The Republican leader blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for considering the "nuclear option" — changing Senate rules through a majority vote — to prevent a filibuster of Obama's judicial and Cabinet nominees.

“He’s been trying to get 51 votes on his side to blow the Senate up,” McConnell said. “What I fear is that the majority leader is working toward breaking his word to the Senate and the American people and blowing up this institution. … He wants to have no debate — ‘Do what I say and do it now.’”

The Texas Republican said that he doesn’t trust members of his own party to negotiate a budget conference report.

A member of the House who spoke on the floor wearing a USO sticker drew a quick warning on Wednesday that members are not permitted to wear "communicative badges" while speaking in the chamber.

Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) was the first to deliver a "one minute" speech on the House floor on Wednesday. He had just been assembling a care package for overseas members of the Armed Forces and had left his USO sticker on his suit jacket.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats are trying to exercise a "power grab" by rushing the nomination of Srikanth Srinivasan to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court.

“Senate Democrats were incensed that Republicans had the temerity to exercise their advice and consent responsibility to block a grand total of one — that’s right, one — nominee to the D.C. Circuit,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

“What did our Democrat colleagues do in response? They consulted with the White House and pledged to pack the D.C. Circuit with appointees, quote, ‘one way or the other’ — meaning using the nuclear option.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called on Republicans to work with Democrats to keep student loan rates low.

If Congress doesn’t act by July, student loan interest rates will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) bucked members of his own party Tuesday by objecting to a GOP request to prohibit budget committee conferees from raising the debt ceiling.

“If my colleagues on this side of the aisle think that we are helping our cause as fiscal conservatives by blocking going to a conference on the budget, which every family in America has to be on, because of certain requirements that they demand, then we are not helping ourselves with the American people at all,” McCain said of his own party.

North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven (R) and Heidi Heitkamp (D) warned their colleagues not to support a farm bill amendment that would change subsidies for sugar farmers.

“This [sugar] program is critical to the compromise of the farm bill itself,” Heitkamp said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Let the bill stay intact.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday said the House would continue to investigate the growing list of scandals plaguing the Obama administration, and said it would do so because people "deserve the truth."

"We have a responsibility to the American people to provide oversight of the Executive Branch," Boehner said in rare remarks on the House floor. "And I think Americans understand, and our colleagues understand, that the American people deserve the truth."

"Whether it's Benghazi, whether it's the IRS, whether it's the Justice Department investigating journalists, the Congress of the United States and the American people need to know what the truth is, to hold this administration accountable. Those of us in public office understand that our job is to serve the American people, not the other way around."