WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) delivered floor remarks regarding the radical Democratic agenda.

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

You can read the transcript below or in the Congressional Record.

Madam President, it seems that for the past month

Senate Republicans have watched as our Democratic colleagues send up

one partisan test balloon after another.

They threatened a battle over a so-called equal pay bill, which

turned out to be chum in the water for the trial lawyers but really not

much else. Then they, once again, threatened the Second Amendment, but

they couldn't find a friend across party lines to join them in that

fight. So that trial balloon was popped.

And who could forget their promise to bring the improperly named

Equality Act to the floor for a vote? Well, that balloon didn't take

flight either. And, yesterday, the Democrats' democracy-destroying

election takeover bill almost survived, but it too came crashing back

to Earth after failing to clear a procedural hurdle.

Still, they have made the most of their time over the past month,

holding up their string of failures as evidence that it is the

filibuster and not the radically partisan nature of their agenda that

is thwarting their progress.

As the Republican leader said at the beginning of this month, it was

an agenda that was designed to fail. It failed to bring them the power

that they are craving to have over the lives of millions of Americans.

It failed to kill the filibuster, and it certainly failed the millions

of Americans who have been forced to watch, dumbfounded, as this circus

played out in realtime on their television screens.

It was a complete waste of our time. It is what one of my Tennesseans

said this weekend, talking about these trial balloons, talking about

this lurch to the left--and Madam President, this was a friend of mine

who is a Democrat--as he said, it was a complete waste of our time, the

American people's time. He added: It was a complete waste of my dime--

for the tax dollars that he sends to Washington, DC. He went on to say:

Think about the problems you could have solved if you had been focused

on making some progress instead of creating chaos.

Yesterday, the Commerce Committee held a hearing on achieving

broadband resiliency. As you well know, this is one of the most

important infrastructure problems that not only faces our committee but

also faces this body. We had a great discussion, and I thanked Chairman

Lujan for that hearing. But I can't help but wonder how much more

progress we would have been able to make on this issue if the 14

million unserved rural Americans--yes, unserved; they have nothing--

think about the progress we could have made if those 14 million

unserved Americans had taken precedence in the minds and in the agenda

of our friends across the aisle. It would have been great to focus on

that.

Speaking of infrastructure, perhaps we could have focused more energy

on giving the needed authority to our local officials so they can fix

crumbling roads and bridges and getting regulations out of their way so

they can go to work helping people get to work and helping children get

back to school. Certainly, I know a few officials in Memphis who would

love to see us start thinking long term about practical infrastructure

support that doesn't include the Green New Deal fantasies that are

favored by this White House.

The American people have noticed this lack of focus and this

freewheeling attitude when it comes to spending taxpayers' money. When

they look around, they see real need. There are businesses and families

who are still struggling to pull themselves out of the ashes of the

pandemic. Policies that are favored by the Democrats would be policies

that would bankrupt their businesses, that would drive up the debt, and

that would cause massive inflation. Tennesseans know these policies are

not going to help them. What it does do is to frustrate them. Neither

will the Democrats' continued failure to manage President Biden's

border crisis.

In April, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 178,000 people

attempting to illegally cross our border. Fourteen thousand of these

were unaccompanied alien children. It is a record year for drug

runners, for the cartels, for bootleggers, for human traffickers, and

for sex traffickers. We caught the Department of Health and Human

Services actually finishing the work of the cartels, trafficking many

of those unaccompanied minors through the Chattanooga Airport without

the knowledge or the involvement of local officials.

Meanwhile, my Democratic colleagues are treating this humanitarian

crisis as if it is nothing more than a logistics challenge. But perhaps

if we had spent more time on this in the past month, we could have

convinced them that until they get this crisis under control, they

would have to admit, in this country right now, every town is a border

town; every State, a border State. Just ask your local law enforcement.

They will tell you. Perhaps they didn't want to put the time there

because they had been busy putting a show on for the cameras and their

friends on the left.

Tennesseans noticed what went on here this month. They are not happy

about it. They have been reaching out. They don't have the luxury of

playing political games. They don't have the spare resources to gamble

on woke politics. They are trying to keep the doors of their businesses

and their churches and their schools and their factories open.

We did a lot of talking this month, but the friends on the left chose

not to take action to solve problems. I would encourage them to do a

little soul-searching over the next couple of weeks and address the

agenda that the American people would seek to have addressed.

I yield the floor.