WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke on the Senate floor to voice her concerns regarding President Biden’s nomination of Xavier Becerra to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

To watch Senator Blackburn’s speech, click below or here.

You can read the transcript recorded in the Congressional Records below or click here.

MRS. BLACKBURN: Madam President, it appears that President Biden

arrived at the White House prepared and willing to grant himself and

his administration a mandate that American voters didn't agree to give

him.

His party lost ground in the House, split the Senate, and maintained

their trailing minority of governorships, but they seem to ignore that.

In his first 50 days, he signed 34 Executive orders--more than anyone

in history. He dismantled existing immigration controls, threatened

protections for small businesses against the radical climate agenda,

and destroyed thousands of jobs and the potential for greater energy

security promised by the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

Meanwhile, my Democratic colleagues got busy laying the groundwork to

transform not only the Senate into a majoritarian institution but also

to radically transform the country. They used budget reconciliation to

ram through a $1.9 trillion bailout bill without a single Republican

vote--the largest spending bill in our Nation's history--and now they

are reversing their own positions on the filibuster to avoid debate on

radical immigration reform, the Equality Act, and an already infamous

bill that would federalize elections. They just don't want to talk

about these things--just do it.

The more people learn about what the Biden White House is up to the

more questions they have for those of us who represent them.

Some of my Democratic friends in Tennessee say to me: I may have

voted for Joe Biden, but I did not vote for this.

They do not want to radically change the country. They do not want to

be tied to legislation that has a nice-sounding name but that does the

exact opposite of what the Biden administration would have you believe

that it would accomplish.

They have noticed that the President's Cabinet picks have come to

their confirmation hearings ready and willing to move the goalposts

away from the Constitution and the rule of law in order to accommodate

their radical agenda.

Last week, this body voted to discharge from committee Xavier

Becerra's nomination to the Health and Human Services Secretary

position. I voted no, and I will vote no on his confirmation as well,

not only because he is unqualified and has no experience in

healthcare--Middle Tennessee has more than 100,000 individuals who are

employed in the healthcare industry, and all, all are more qualified in

healthcare than Xavier Becerra--and not only because his radical views

shock just about everyone who speaks to me about him. Oh, yes, it was a

topic of conversation at church on Sunday but also because, time and

again, he has abused his power and weaponized the full force of the

government against people whose deeply held, personal, political, and

religious views don't align with his own: submit, conform, or else.

It is in the nature of our job as legislators to recognize that, yes,

elections do have consequences and that, yes, the President has a right

to assemble his own Cabinet, but we cannot be expected to green-light a

nominee who has so little patience for diversity--diversity of thought,

diversity of opinions--that his first and only instinct is to destroy

the diversity: Barrel in. Burn it to the ground. Build it back in their

own image. That is not what the American people want President Biden

and his administration to do, but that is what they are getting with

this nominee.

I strongly oppose Xavier Becerra's nomination, as I have from the

start, and I would urge my colleagues to consider what you will be

approving if you vote in favor of this confirmation: radically anti-

life, radically anti-religion, radically anti-border security,

radically anti-free speech, radically unqualified to lead.

I yield the floor.