Xavier Becerra is Radically Unqualified to Lead

March 11, 2021

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke on the Senate floor denounce the 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. Mr. President, I have to tell you, you can always

tell how controversial a nominee is by how fast his supporters work to

finish the confirmation process, and last night, at 6:12, we found out

that the Democrats tried to pull a fast one on Xavier Becerra's

nomination. They were trying to fast-track this, and I was able to

object to that hotline request, but the fact that they tried it shows

that they are worried about this nominee, and they should be. After two

unimpressive hearings and seeing the split vote on the Finance

Committee, I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have

come to realize that his lack of experience in the healthcare sector is

one of those big things.

You know, we have over 400 healthcare companies in Tennessee and tens

of thousands of employees in that sector. They all--each and every one

of them--have more healthcare experience than the Biden

administration's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

His greatest hits from his job keep coming back to haunt him, and as

much as his allies here in the Senate try to spin his record, they just

can't seem to convince people that he is fit to lead. I was curious how

wide the divide is between Tennesseeans and the Becerra nomination, so

I asked my staff to look through our mailbag and see what people were

calling and writing about.

This nomination was in the top five issues of concern. People in

Tennessee are not happy. As I mentioned, healthcare, our religious

organizations--what they are seeing is somebody who has crossed the

line too many times. They do not see him as fit to lead.

His lack of experience in the healthcare industry explains why so

many people would oppose him. He thinks it would be a good idea to take

private health insurance away from 160 million Americans and throw them

into a disastrous single-payer system. If that is what you want, then

he would be a great Secretary of HHS for you.

If he has his way, he will use his new position to further undermine

our immigration laws. He has admitted--his own admission--that given

the chance, he would decriminalize illegal entry and extend Medicaid

benefits to anyone who manages to make it across the border. It is like

winning the lottery. If you get across that border, we are going to

give you healthcare benefits, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

We cannot afford to keep confirming nominees who have zero respect

for the rule of law--zero--and even less respect for the value of human

life. Throughout his career, Mr. Becerra has made his appallingly

radical positions on abortion very well known. He is proud to support

abortion up until the moment of birth. He even opposed the 2003

partial-birth abortion ban. He defended a truly evil California law

that forced pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advertise abortion

services offered by State-run clinics.

Recently, a physician friend of mine made a comment about Mr.

Becerra's nomination that has really stuck with me. She said:

I'm horrified--

Bear in mind, this is a physician.

I'm horrified by his position on abortion because he would

abort a baby that I would resuscitate. He would abort a baby

that a family is willing to adopt.

Now, think about that. This is a guy, in his congressional career and

in his job as the attorney general for California, he is a radical on

abortion--a radical. You have physicians who stand there to resuscitate

these babies that have difficulty during birth. He would allow those

babies to be aborted when a physician would choose life, would choose

to help that baby live.

According to Mr. Becerra, religious exemptions should be a thing of

the past. He relentlessly harassed religious employers like Hobby Lobby

and nonprofit organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor as part

of his crusade to uphold ObamaCare's contraception mandate. I think it

is clear why the Finance Committee split their vote on this nomination.

It has nothing to do with politics.

Xavier Becerra's obsession with dismantling American society and

rebuilding it in his own image can't be boiled down to a simple policy

position. Instead, it signals his desire to force Americans to live

their lives according to his twisted world view.

He may have the approval of leftists, but the American people and

thousands of Tennesseans have already written him off as radically

unqualified, and, frankly, so have I.

 I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this motion to discharge

and opposing the nomination. He is radically anti-life, anti-religion,

anti-border security, anti-free speech. He is unqualified to lead.

 I yield the floor.