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Congressional Daily Record
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June 23, 2026
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Download official House Record PDFReturn to issue contextUnder the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. Hageman of Wyoming was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.)
Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about something spectacular, something worthy of a year-long celebration, and something that will shortly be lighting up the skies from sea to shining sea: the 250th anniversary of the creation of the greatest country that has ever existed.
am honored to stand on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, in this beautiful Capitol, in this glorious and dynamic city, to describe what that means to me, the lone Representative of the least populated State in our country.
Middle Ages monarchy, has survived 2\1/2\ centuries and is today stronger than ever, with all of us being a testament to what our forefathers envisioned, being a free people, participating in self- governance, with an understanding of the vision and divine intervention that created this country 250 years ago.
Mr. Speaker, 250 years that at times has involved struggle, hardship, discrimination, and war, while also yielding 250 years of freedom, opportunity, respect, compassion, and unprecedented prosperity.
warrants a generational celebration to confirm that Americans have the right to be proud of our country, to celebrate what it means to be an American.
should ignore or rewrite our history, but that we should look upon that history with a full and accurate understanding of what it means, both in terms of our dark periods and our incredible accomplishments.
I will say it again because it bears repeating: America is the greatest country in the history of the world.
serve in this very body and who are running for office, who claim otherwise, and who seek to tear us apart from within so that they can replace this Republic with the same type of failed states that exist elsewhere in the world.
They claim that we have no American culture. They argue that slavery is our original sin and that we should be forever and only defined by that history. They claim that our forefathers, the Founders of this country, are not worth honoring, but should instead be excised from our collective consciousness.
our society, there has been an organized move afoot since at least the 1960s to undermine our reverence for this great country. Those actions have taken several forms, such as with claims that America was never great; with the retelling of our history; or with slanderous accusations about who we are, what we believe in, and the contributions that we have made to the world.
Considering the fact that we are celebrating 2\1/2\ centuries of America's existence this year, I think it is high time that we confront those sentiments head-on and expose those narratives for what they are—an effort to destroy our republican form of government to make way for the implementation of failed policies, moral bankruptcies, and the human suffering found in socialism and Marxism.
Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to remind everyone as to what has made us such a great country, why our history is worth defending, and to emphasize that the future of America is bright indeed.
American Shame
Ms. HAGEMAN. Just this last summer, we learned that the number of American adults who claim to be very proud of their country reached another record low.
one in five American adults, reported that they were very proud of being an American.
back over our history with honesty and accuracy, we will reverse these declines.
enjoyed are currently inspiring a new sense of purpose in our national identity, and I believe that we are on the right track to making America proud again. Watching the soccer sports revelers who are discovering the United States for the first time should make us all proud. I know it does me.
pride in our country portends in the long term, while forcing us to confront what the sustained attacks on our American identity have done in the past and are doing to us now.
decline when there is so much to celebrate about the United States of America. What is behind this self-hatred that has permeated many of our institutions? What is the ultimate destination of this downward spiral into despair? What does intentional disparagement mean for our younger generations?
The answers to these questions are not a mystery. They lie within the deep, dark caverns of our political divisions and are boiling up into the public square by those individuals and organizations who seek to turn us into yet another failed state.
unacceptable morality, and our self-image has been tarnished by a novel self-flagellation as part of a new revolution. It is a familiar revolution; a color revolution; a digital revolution illuminating a national dysphoria; a rapid onset extortion of American identity.
Self-Reflection to Self-Hatred
Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, our 250-year quest to become a more perfect union has always involved asking hard questions and self-reflection:
context of governing this vast country from east to west and north to south?
How do we couple self-autonomy and liberty with civic responsibility?
sight of the promise of America. We know that there are aspects of our history during which our ancestors failed to live up to what this country stands for, and I am not standing here today to pretend that there is no shame in parts of our past. Like so many countries around the world, the barbarism and shame of slavery is a stain on our early identity. Slavery is, in fact, an indelible part of the history of almost every country, from Western nations to the Middle East, to South America, to Africa, and beyond.
apart. We overcame slavery's horror to eliminate this demon in our national spirit. We tore our country apart with the Union fighting to abolish slavery from our shores.
our own standards as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, we have had a moral redemption of the American character. Unlike the other countries around the world who had slavery or continue to practice it to this day, we endured the exorcism of a Civil War, and we emerged to secure a stronger, more equal, more just, and more determined union.
brothers against brothers to eradicate slavery. Through the focus, leadership, and determination of the great men and women, such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman, righteousness prevailed.
But what do these words mean? Do we define them differently today than in years past? Have we evolved? What does it mean to be proud to be an American? I think that we all know, but we have allowed numerous malign influences to take control of the dialogue and to try and convince us that our history is not worth celebrating.
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Representatives today, to remind all of us as to who and what we are and, perhaps just as importantly, what we are not, despite what has been claimed as of late.
sacred pride and to challenge the slander of those who despise the freedom of personal responsibility and self-governance, and we have an obligation to be honest about what America is and what it isn't as we enter the golden age of America's next 250.
American is Not an Idea
Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I stand here to remind Americans about how our united history, culture, language, literature, art, music, traditions, and innovations that define us as a nation long predate our independence.
I start by being unequivocally clear: America was born with the very best ideas put forth and memorialized by some of the very best minds. I want to emphasize, however, that our country itself is far from a mere idea or a state of mind. America is a nation of people who share common values, traditions, history, and fate.
We have been a charitable people from the beginning. We have long been a blessing to the world because of our culture of giving, hope, perseverance, and redemption. We are united by the Judeo-Christian values that compelled our first ancestors to come to America to pursue their destiny and to create a country based on freedom—freedom of the individual, of religion, and of family.
John Jay wrote in Federalist Paper No. 2: “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
we must be careful to always remember those characteristics that we share as our common denominator. This is what makes America, America. The fact that we have a unique shared culture, one that is worth acknowledging, defining, preserving, and protecting.
This does not mean that we reject other cultures or traditions. America has, in fact, been one of the most gracious countries in history to welcome people from across the globe to our shores.
not obligated to subjugate our American history, culture, and traditions for theirs. We instead welcome them here to partake in and succeed in the American way of life.
abstract concept is the moment we forfeit our shared culture as a nation. America has been the most potent force for good in human history. The erasure of the very culture that underlies our success as a country will be a dark moment for all of Western civilization if we allow it to happen.
than on this 250th anniversary, being optimistic that in 2026, while looking both
backwards and forwards since Ronald Reagan professed it to be “morning again in America,” we will realize that it is a bright, golden sunrise shining over the new horizons of a novel American Pax Romana, the dawn of a truly golden age of America.
American Dream
Ms. HAGEMAN. The existence of America to those who came before this country was willed into existence by our forefathers and those willing to die for their noble cause was a dream: a paradise of freedom away from religious persecution and in harmony with neighbors, a place united by the Christian values that championed the family and preserved individual liberty.
what that meant in a speech for the ages in 1963. He shared a dream just 2 miles west of this Capitol on the grand steps to the monument of the Great Emancipator.
He dreamed “ . . . that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Dr. King was assassinated just 5 years later, but his words carry his legacy as a living memory. A memory which to be both proud and careful of as a warning about our present decade.
We are locked in a competitive space race with a nuclear rival.
fascist, and totalitarian regimes across the world who have no respect for human life, value, or dignity.
to destroy the social contract that has allowed differing groups, religions, and philosophies to not only exist in harmony but to actually thrive, and for our people to love each other like brothers.
We have faced these trials before.
frightening future, an anxious uprising inspired by the demonic impulses of envy and greed embedded in racial, classist, and sexual resentment. These weaponized emotions threaten to divide us further and represent yet another obstacle to conquer on our crusade to deliver a more perfect union.
to slice and dice us into the smallest subset possible to further a victim mentality, isn't designed to strengthen our core as a country but to conquer us as a united people and to sully our shared society.
American nation have always been our salvation, and it will be the resurgence of our shared Judeo-Christian values on this 250th anniversary that will save us again.
I come from the mountain west. Being born and raised in Wyoming is one of the greatest blessings of my life. There are six generations of my family who have called Wyoming home, and we, along with our extended family, have worked tirelessly to build the State to represent the heart and soul of America's destiny and legacy.
of opportunity for freedom's endeavor, as we united this country from shore to shore.
the Women's Suffrage Act on December 10, 1869, a full 50 years prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting this right to women nationwide.
cowboy and Western heritage, coming to Wyoming to homestead and create communities. We are proud to be the home of the Northern Arapahoe Tribe and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe of the Wind River Indian Reservation, whose cultures and traditions have enriched our cultural history.
shining exceptionalism to our respect for the environment, beauty, serenity, and the sublime. The pulsing geysers at Yellowstone beat the heart of a humble people whose character defines the mission-driven stoicism within the American spirit.
people with its story being told by a proud, bold, patriotic clan in pursuit of prosperity and autonomy. The individual's birthright to self-determination declared in our founding documents characterizes our unapologetic crusade for justice, liberty, and expanding what is possible.
distance, wilderness, weather, and hostile conditions. Our ancestors survived against harsh elements, and they connected a continent.
including those promises embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, thereby establishing a country that spans North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, where all people are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
Western crusade for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The promise of private land ownership became a uniquely American ambition, available to the calloused hands of hungry settlers who built a nation and a culture shaped by shared trials and a common destiny.
are not. The world comes to America not because we are racist or sexist but because we are not. The world comes to America not because of the tired mantra that “diversity is our strength” but because of our shared culture and history. The world comes to America not because we have nothing to offer but because we are exceptional.
Earth, including in the very European country that birthed America, whose leaders are currently openly renouncing the Magna Carta's civil contract in order to push policies that will ultimately destroy Western civilization if they are not reined in.
There is no German dream or French dream. There is no Guatemalan dream or Haitian dream, and there has never been a Somali dream. It is the American Dream: the idea that anyone can realize success regardless of their circumstances, where race, sex, ethnicity, and background are not barriers to harnessing someone's full potential.
I am an example of that American Dream. When I was born, I was my parents' fifth child, and my oldest sister was just 5 years old. When they brought me home from the hospital, they had just recently bought a ranch, were over $200,000 in debt in 1962, and had $35 in the bank. This is the home where they brought me as a new infant, and our family continued to grow even after that, with more brothers being added later.
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We all worked to make that operation a success. I learned to drive when I was 4 so I could help my father feed cows. We were on horseback working cows almost before we could count them. We fixed fences, irrigated, did the chores, and milked cows. I graduated from Lingle-Ft. Laramie High School with a class of around 30 students. We were taught English, literature, history, science, social studies, calculus, and trigonometry. We built pig barns and learned how to weld, although I was not very proficient at the latter.
and presented we with the rich mosaic of the real world so I could succeed in the real world.
Mr. Speaker, I realized fairly early that I probably was not going to make
livestock judging scholarship. I then attended the University of Wyoming where I have to confess I drank a lot of beer, played a lot of pool, and had more fun than was probably legal. I worked highway construction to help pay for school. I lived in a truck stop one summer. I later obtained both my bachelor's degree and my law degree and practiced law for 34 years representing farmers, ranchers, businessowners, gravel pits, municipalities, oil and gas companies, and most anyone who was being persecuted by the Federal Government.
I could travel every mile of this beautiful country and relish being an American. In the meantime, here I am.
our heritage? Because I am absolute proof of what our forefathers sought to implement in showing that it has come to pass.
We are a government of, by, and for the people. I am everyman U.S.A. My history and my story are the history and story of tens of millions of people in this country.
Cheyenne to Deadwood Stage Trail with no telephone and limited access to the outside world, and I am today standing on the floor of the United States House of Representatives speaking on behalf of the millions of my brothers and sisters everywhere. Only in America is my story possible, and I celebrate that every day.
desire for improvement, and a quest for innovation that are ingrained in our pioneer DNA. Our evolution is guided by an unrelenting passion for liberty's progress, 250 years of being guided by our instincts to confront new frontiers.
throw off the limits of arbitrary boundaries previously established by a European monarch. The first Americans had already begun pushing West on the eve of our national independence.
exploration with a trailblazing expedition across the Cumberland Gap. The millions who followed over the subsequent 250 years have done so in Boone's footsteps chasing prosperity by conquering the elements and mapping their own future.
expansion after having doubled the land mass before turning even 50 years old. The Louisiana Purchase unleashed the budding ambition of American frontiersmen defining a new era of self-determination by driving further westward.
carried Boone's legacy into the wilderness. Beaver trappers pioneered the first global economy. The next 50 years featured a mass migration to settle the continent. Farmers, builders, artists, intellectuals, gold miners, businessowners, dreamers, second sons, and even some storied outlaws moved West to claim their future in the new frontier.
American individualism, as our Nation settled the West. The lone cowboy riding on the distant horizon staked his claim in the American identity, a male model of resilience epitomizing strength, integrity, and stoicism. The image of his determined drive stays with us as a defining character in American culture, an aspirational figure of self- sufficiency and adventure to guard his herd, his Nation, and his neighbor.
from Texas, eventually settling in Wyoming where he lived for the next 60-plus years and leaving a legacy as an honest cowboy and rancher that continues to impact our State to this day. There are many like him in Wyoming and elsewhere, yet another layer in the glorious traditions and history of our great Nation.
industrialization of a united continent. New networks of transportation and communication collapsed distance by using innovation. Our expansion reached far beyond our shores. Hawaii and Alaska represented the ripe new territories beyond the edge of the Western frontier.
escaped into orbit as we approached our 200th birthday. The mission to the Moon had just been accomplished by the bicentennial of 1976. The Apollo landings became an instant legacy to our pioneering endeavors, delivering the next generation of frontiersmen in the form of a new American hero defying gravity: the astronaut.
of American exploration into the future. The new path forward is a trail blazed upward, unlocking space-based industry and a colony on the Moon as America reaches 250.
desperation to determine their own story and achieve the impossible that we conquered the first Moon landing—250 years of a nation reaching forward, westward, and upward, escaping gravity, breaking previous realities, and unleashing endless new possibilities. Our national compass stopped pointing West. It started pointing up into the heavens. Our celestial neighbors marked the latest boundary of the American frontier. The sky is no longer the limit. In America, Mr. Speaker, it never has been.
said we should 60 years ago but because the Moon represents the next stop as we continue to realize our manifest destiny.
to carry the banner of our cowboy legacy, an otherworldly wilderness for American frontiersmen to tame for God and for country.
to battle for our freedom. They fly again on the wings of heroes blasting themselves to convey America further than we have ever gone before. Deep human space flight is the ambition of our generation.
glory, the banner that waved over Fort McHenry, the flag our heroes raised amid the costly battle at Iwo Jima, the Stars and Stripes planted by the astronaut cowboy on a distant crater.
wars as our ancestors fought to keep the Union together and abolish slavery. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong would plant the flag in the vast lunar mare known as the Sea of Tranquility, in almost total silence a century later.
Stripes that draped our most famous 1980 hockey team waved once again at an Olympic triumph over Canada, a miracle on ice in the year of our 250th.
The American flag is the ultimate unifier. We wear them. We hang them, and we pledge allegiance to them as the declaration of commitment to our country, our neighbors, our heroes, our culture, and our history. The colors conceptualize our gratitude for those who are willing to lay down their lives for our great country and for what it means to be connected to each other as Americans.
We honor each other when we honor those servicemembers. The flag has always been the reminder throughout our 250 years of how far we have come, how much it cost, and how much is possible.
we all share, and a how a price has always been paid, willingly so, by those who believe in everything that America stands for.
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liberty this year in Iran. They join the more than 1 million men and women who gave their lives for our country since 1775.
On Veterans Day, we thank those who served and survived. On Memorial
Day, we honor those who died, making the ultimate sacrifice. It is because of them that we are able to celebrate Independence Day.
They are why we made it to America 250. They did not die for a mere idea. They died for the values embedded in our flag, the ultimate representation of pride, love, and commitment to our great American Nation, free and united by the best ideas.
banner of our character, the symbol of our shared identity as Americans in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, a star-spangled emblem for hope and harmony.
Now, for some reflection on where we are and what ails us, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have worked mightily to weaponize our history to indict our Nation as irredeemable. Radical academics glorify The 1619 Project so that they may dismiss the miracle of 1620, when our ancestors planted the seeds of our country on their historic voyage aboard the Mayflower, the inaugural expedition westward that would define the direction of American destiny.
Christian values and who began the construction of the shining city on the hill.
milestone just 167 years after they arrived on our shores, when the Founders kicked off 250 years as an independent nation.
Thirty-five million Americans trace their lineage to the Mayflower. What a legacy, and what a history. What they began based on faith, freedom, and hope has now evolved into a miracle, the miracle of our forefathers creating a country based not on government control, but on individual freedom.
America's true founding. The year the first slaves were imported to America has become the defining moment for a new generation of cultural revolutionaries hellbent on tearing our society apart. They lionize past pain to drape themselves in a toxic form of victimhood, antithetical to America's true values.
through the lens of racial injustice, however, dismisses our great legacy and history, as does their characterization that America was built for the sole purpose of oppression.
That is simply not true. Acknowledging the horrors of slavery does not justify ignoring the greatness of America or counsel against celebrating the accomplishments of Americans from all walks of life.
spite of everything we have done. Yet, it takes very little imagination to recognize that the world would be a dark place, indeed, were it not for America. I mean that both figuratively and literally.
bulb in New Jersey, soon after visiting Wyoming to witness the total eclipse of the Sun and enjoy our world-famous fishing.
powered flight across the Carolina sky. American aviators would pioneer jet age travel within just half a century thereafter.
In 1908, Henry Ford rolled the first Model T out of the garage. His assembly line would unleash the American car as the ultimate freedom machine to explore our wide-open country, while also changing the very nature of manufacturing and, thereby, altering the world forever.
nanosecond. You can charge them in the car or while flying in an airplane.
Mr. Speaker, my mother is 102 years old. I want you to just think of the changes that she has seen in her lifetime. Having grown up on a farm in Minnesota, they spent their days tending the garden, working in the fields, taking care of the animals, chopping wood, and canning food.
affordable and reliable energy, the last 100 years have seen changes unrivaled in human history: an increase in life expectancy, a decrease in the infant mortality rate, central air, warm homes, and abundant food sources produced right here.
that my mother has experienced, and we should be forever grateful for those who have dedicated their lives to making our lives better, both with regard to incredible technological and medical advances, as well as creating the arts and music that we so enjoy.
Americans' advancements. Computers, the internet, GPS, flight, fracking, and vaccines have been delivered from the laboratory of American democracy.
best innovation. American free market capitalism has done more to relieve human suffering than any other system in human history, making every invention I just mentioned even a possibility.
nowhere else on Earth and like no time in human history. I encourage any skeptics to look at Iran if there is any doubt, where women are barbarically abused and gays are thrown off roofs.
been oppressed for over 60 years, while their government overlords have become filthy rich by exploiting their suffering.
America 250 is a reminder of America's world-changing contributions. Our ideas lifted more people out of poverty than any other civilization that has ever existed. Our heroism and bravery saved the world from two global wars. Our values inspired hundreds of millions to rise up for liberty.
history is a national tragedy and must be exposed as the intellectually lazy pablum that it is.
country of citizens pursuing a common cause. They flood the Nation with third-world immigrants who do not assimilate into our culture, with their militant refusal to do so tearing the American spirit while feeding waste, fraud, and abuse.
rally around the same glorious flag that we all recognize in the year of our 250th. The Star-Spangled Banner reminds us how there is more that unites us as a nation than there is to drive distrust, envy, and anger among neighbors.
throughout our historic anniversary. Reject the rainbow banners of identity politics and division. Embrace tradition. Embrace America.
destiny, a call sign to conquer the frontier, and a symbol of our national redemption.
America Has Too Much To Be Proud Of
Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am calling on all Americans to embrace this once-in-a-generation chance to be a part of this historic celebration. Honor our war heroes. Practice gratitude for their service. Make patriotism contagious. Redouble your efforts to make your own communities places of wholesome, caring, productive, and embracing enjoyment.
Mr. Speaker, celebrating everything we made possible everywhere is impossible because there is simply too much to be proud of. In fact, our national anniversary cannot even fit into a single day on July Fourth. America 250 has become a yearlong celebration, coinciding with the kickoff of a decade of global sports on American soil.
welcoming spectators from around the world to experience America as we begin another chapter in our 250-year journey.
social media with expressions of wonder and
abundance of resources and the benefits of a high-trust society. It is sad when some of our own neighbors fail to see it, but our visitors can.
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This summer, Washington, D.C., will host the INDYCAR series to race the Freedom 250 Grand Prix through our Nation's Capital. This high- octane expression of American patriotism joins the endless parade of cross-country events as an encore for our Independence Day celebrations.
unapologetic and bombastic celebrations characteristic of our shared identity, there are countless ways that we can celebrate with our neighbors every single day—most importantly, celebrating America and being an American and continuing to break bread with our families and neighbors.
Our history has not been perfect, Mr. Speaker, but there is so much to be proud of as a nation and as Americans.
scratched by the Artemis program: They are simply too great for us to fully appreciate unless we are willing to actually study who we are, what makes us different, why America has succeeded as a beacon of hope and renewal, and why we must fight every day to make sure that the next 250 years are even more spectacular than the last.
of our exceptionalism, but we can do it when we put our mind to it by reminding ourselves of the glorious things that have been wrought over the last 250 years because America exists.
beyond the wildest dreams of our forefathers and Founders when they began to put together a country that would ultimately become the American Dream.
God bless America.
Yes, thank You, God, for blessing America.
Mr. Speaker, in gratitude for being able to serve in this august body of men and women dedicated to protecting and defending our Republic, I yield back the balance of my time.