And our country is spending a thousand billion dollars every four months in the red.
Okay.
Leon, apologies.
I have to keep it there only because we've run out of time.
Thank you for all who participated today.
And another edition of Washington Journal comes your way at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning.
We'll see you then.
And a live picture here as the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree is arriving at the Capitol this morning.
It's an 80-foot Sitka spruce from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
The Tongass is the largest national forest in the United States with nearly 17 million acres and the largest continuous temperate rainforest in the world.
Now this is the second time a tree has come from Alaska and this year's theme is Alaska's National Forest where nature, people, and tradition all come together.
The tree was named Spruce Wayne by a social media vote.
It was harvested on October 19th.
The tree then traveled from Wrangell, Alaska to the U.S. Capitol, making stops in communities all along the way.
After it's secured in the ground later today, the tree will be decorated with thousands of ornaments handcrafted by Alaska communities.
All right, yeah, we got to go upstairs, okay, thank you, thank you.
We are waiting for the arrival and the removal of the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree from a truck that came all the way from Alaska.
It's an 80-foot Sitka spruce from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
And this was the second time that the tree has come from Alaska.
The first was back in 2015.
And the theme this year is Alaska's National Forest, where nature, people, and tradition all come together.
And the tree was named by a social media vote.
It was named Spruce Wayne.
How about Alaska?
Woo!
You did it!
Alaska is here.
It was 80 degrees last week, and we got some Alaska weather with this Alaska tree.
This is great.
So welcome.
Thank you for joining us all here for the 2024 Capitol Christmas tree.
My name is Jim Kaufman, and I'm the director of Capitol Grounds and Arboretum at the Architect of the Capitol.
And I am honored to accept this year's tree on behalf of the United States Congress.
Lighting the Capitol Christmas tree has been a holiday tradition since 1964 and it's one that we're always happy to be a part of.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Capitol Christmas Tree and we are honored to have this Sitka spruce all the way from the Tongass National Forest located in the great state of Alaska.
For more than half a century, the Forest Service has been an incredible partner in making sure we have the perfect selection for the people's tree and we are proud to have this Alaskan tree this year for the second time.
I'd like to thank the United States Forest Service and especially the awesome team from the Wrangell District.
Y'all did a great job in finding the perfect tree in the world's largest temperate rainforest.
What an experience.
So this year, the tree had quite a journey.
It traveled more than 700 miles over the sea and more than 4,000 miles on land.
Made many stops all the way around on its journey to the Capitol.
I also want to have a special thanks to the Wrangell, to not just Wrangell community, but Wrangell High School students that use technology and innovation to help this tree stay fresh during its long journey.
We truly appreciate all the efforts to help bring the holiday spirit to Washington, D.C., our nation's capital.
Today, we're going to set the tree in the west front lawn.
The Capitol Grounds and Arboretum team already hard at work.
We'll spend the next several days decorating the tree with thousands of LED lights and thousands of handcrafted ornaments handcrafted by the people of Alaska.
We look forward to seeing the tree lit up in all its splendor for the 60th annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony on December 3rd.
And we're so glad to have a beautiful tree that Alaskans and Americans can be proud of.
It's now my pleasure to introduce Miss Barbara Miranda, the Tongass National Forest Deputy Supervisor.
Woo!
Thank you so much.
And it is such an amazing day for Team Alaska from the U.S. Forest Service.
It is with the deepest gratitude and pride that I am looking out there at our Forest Service colleagues and all the work that they did over the course of the last year to get a tree from the Wrangell Ranger District on the Tongass National Forest all the way here to Washington, D.C. I'd like to extend my gratitude also to the Capitol Grounds crew.
They're going to have a job ahead of them to get this 80-foot-tall Sitka spruce off the truck after its 4,000-mile journey.
And we're going to be delighted to come back in a week to see the lights go on on the tree.
This is a year of first for the people's tree.
Not only is it the first time the tree has come from the Tongass National Forest, but there's also some innovative firsts that made it stay as fresh and green as what you see here.
It's bright and green and fresh with no needles falling off of it yet because it was harvested with the complete root ball intact.
And some really innovative, ingenuous Alaska kids figured out a system to keep that tree moist all the way across the country.
It's a wonderful tradition and one that the U.S. Forest Service is really proud to have been a part of for the last 54 years to deliver a tree from a national forest in the nation to the capital here in D.C.
And so to have it come from Alaska where people are diverse, very, very creative, and really resilient is a real honor to be here to be the one to be able to speak to the fact that Alaska is an amazing place.
And I'm just thrilled to represent the people in the communities and cultures of Alaska as we traveled across the country, making whistle-stop tours all the way across as we came.
It's really something that brought the people together.
And in this time, that's something that we can all use.
The logo that you see on the truck here that was created by an Alaskan artist symbolizes the iconic features that inspire the allure of Alaska and acknowledged the collaborative effort that was made to steward the resources in Alaska and offers a special greeting from the Alaska Native people.
With our 19 federally recognized tribes that call the Tongass National Forest home, they are the people that have stewarded those lands since time immemorial and they offer these words in greeting to the people of the nation.
Kayeh, Sagu, Ka, Tuwuke.
And that means peace, joy, and happiness.
And we hope that's what this tree brings to the nation here today.
So thank you all.
Thank you to all the Alaskans that are standing here in this crowd and all the Alaskans back in my home state.
And Merry Christmas, everybody.
Thank you, Barbara.
And prior to opening up for any kind of questions, just again, really awesome.
And I want to express our gratitude to so many different people from the community of Wrangell, to the Forest Service all over the people of Alaska, to our very own Architect of the Capitol staff, our Capitol Grounds and Arboretum team, and the U.S. Capitol Police.
Just a great job and a great effort to really come together to make the people's tree what it is and everybody will be able to celebrate.
So thank you.
Yeah, questions?
A couple of words, a round of applause for the truck drivers.
Absolutely.
There you go.
Tell us about the voyage.
Thank you, everybody.
I'm glad to be here for the second time.
Could you state and spell your name?
Honor the Alaskan tradition that we started here last few years.
It's been a great ride.
We had at the events, we're welcomed all over coming down the highway and whatnot.
The events were awesome.
And I'm glad to see everybody from Alaska here.
Mr. Sullivan and his crew.
Mrs. Murkowski we've seen yesterday.
It was great.
And I hope everybody have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
I appreciate it.
Welcome everybody.
I'm glad you're all here together.
The highlight of the trip is a show and tell.
Driving the truck is just plain work.
But every stop we went at was happy faces.
It's a happy way to make a trip.
John, how long have you been driving a truck?
71 years.
First 71.
How long have you been driving the truck?
In March of this coming year, I'll be doing my 50th year with Linden Transport.
640 years combined.
Could you pronounce and spell your name for us, both of you, please?
My first name is John, J-O-H-N, S-C-H-A-N-K.
And the other gentleman?
Fred, F-R-E-D, Austin, A-U-S-T-I-N, Think, Texas.
And to top things off, me and Fred combined, we have 10 million miles driving in Alaska.
There's a lot of miles.
It is.
Back in 10 years.
You've got to do the speech.
Okay, I'll speak for you.
I hear they have their own social media influencers here, too.
So they're quite the Instagram stars, I hear.
Excellent.
Any other questions that we can answer for you from Sparservich?
Yes.
So, forgive me, I don't know if it was two years ago or last year, both the Capitol Christmas Tree and the White House Christmas Tree fell over.
Could you talk about precautions?
That's wrong right there.
Oh, I apologize.
The Capitol Christmas tree has stood strong and mighty through everything.
No issues last year.
My apologies.
What precautions will you take just in case there are high winds?
So we have, we go through and we test our system to be able to anchor it in.
So our system's tested each year.
We have, as you'll see, the crane will go up.
We have our crane operators that will monitor the conditions that we're seeing right now.
It'll get mounted, and as we mount it in, we have a series of precautions to make sure that it is secure in the ground from not just guy wires, but other methods that are used to stake it in.
So thankfully, we haven't had an issue, and it's a safe system that we have.
Thank you.
Great question.
Any other questions or concerns?
How long did it take you to find this tree?
Oh, that was a fun trip.
So the entire selection took about a week.
And really, thankfully to the hard work of the Forest Service and the community, they narrowed the search down to about eight trees.
So they went through their over million acres of forest to really narrow down a selection of Canada trees that I would be able to take a look at.
So we were able to venture out to each location and inspect each tree and really look at what is involved to make the perfect tree.
So 30 foot, 25 to 30 foot bottom skirt to being roughly 70 foot tall.
This one topped out at 80.
It's big.
It's Alaska.
That's the way it's supposed to go.
And we were able to really see how that tree had to look perfect 360 degrees so that it looks great for the people's tree right in the middle of the west front lawn.
You know what?
Any chance we could have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
That's the beauty of our nation's farce is it's the importance of the land and the management of the land.
And trees in farce don't grow like you get them at Home Depot.
So that's why the job of selecting a tree is really difficult.
Trees in Farce grow together and you often get shaded outsides and trees that are not what people consider the perfect Christmas tree.
That's why it's so hard.
But the Forest Service, they work really hard to find those candidate trees that do look great 360 degrees all the way around.
Any other questions?
Forest Service or for the architect at Capitol?
Good.
Excellent.
Okay.
So thank you.
Thank you all for coming out.
And we're live near the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, where the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree has arrived all the way from Wrangell, Alaska, 4,000 miles.
This year's 80-foot Sitka spruce is from the Tongass National Forest.
That's the largest national forest in the United States.
The tree will be decorated with thousands of ornaments, handcrafted by Alaskan communities.
This U.S. Capitol Christmas tree is an 80-foot Sitka spruce from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
The state's U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan spoke about the tree and its trip from Alaska on the Senate floor yesterday.
We're going to bring a little bit of Alaska here to D.C. That's right, the Capitol Christmas tree, which will be lit up in front of the Capitol building for the month of December, is coming all the way from the Tongass National Forest.
Presiding officer cares a lot about the Tongass, we know that.
Just outside of Wrangell, Alaska, that's a journey of almost 5,000 miles.
And this is no living room-sized Christmas tree, folks.
It is an 85-foot Sitka spruce.
That's a big tree.
You're going to see it out in front of the Capitol here very soon.
Now, I'm sure everybody listening, and we know there's millions of people listening to this Alaska of the Week speech, millions, they have a lot of questions.
Wait, how do you transport a tree that size almost 5,000 miles across America?
There's a lot of moving parts, including seven different vehicles, multiple force service members on tree watering duty.
You don't want your tree to dry out when you drive it across the country.
And of course, the intrepid truckers, truck drivers, who have taken up this charge to successfully and safely deliver Alaska's Christmas tree to America's mall, to the Capitol.
These Alaskans, Fred Austin and John Schen, longtime Alaska truck drivers, both Teamsters, are the men responsible for driving for three weeks to deliver this tree to Washington, D.C.
And they, Madam President, Fred and John, are our Alaskans of the week.
By the way, I love the Teamsters.
Big fan of the Teamsters.
During the pandemic, I went out in our backyard in Anchorage and gave a speech making all the Teamsters our Alaskans of the Week because they were keeping our economy open when essentially the rest of the country, rest of Alaska was shut down.
So here's to the Teamsters.
Here's to Fred and John.
So let me give you a little background on this tree that Fred and John shared with me and my team recently.
This gigantic tree was cut down outside of Wrangell, Alaska, as I mentioned, in late October and was shipped from southeast Alaska, that's where Wrangell is, to Seattle, presiding officer's hometown, on November 3rd, escorted by Forest Service members who are caring for the tree, like I said, watering it, keeping it fresh the whole trip.
When we checked in on Fred, and they're here now, they're going to be here tomorrow morning, we checked in on them.
They were just about to stop in Omaha, Nebraska.
By the time they conclude their journey, which will be tomorrow, they will have stopped in 12 states, 17 towns across America.
And if you were lucky enough to be one of those Americans to live within driving distance of any of their stops, these guys would have been hard to miss.
Now, thousands of Americans have come out to see this tree going across the country.
The upper half of this tree is already covered in Christmas lights and is visible through plexiglass.
And the 85-foot custom-built trailer serves as a gigantic autograph book that has collected thousands of signatures across the country from Americans and Christmas enthusiasts all across our great nation.
So let's talk about these two great Alaskans, our Alaskans of the Week.
Fred, first, transporting a tree of this size that many miles requires, like I said, a cracked team, which is why Fred and John were chosen.
Two Teamsters, get this, with combined trucking experience of over 130 years.
Do the math.
These guys know how to drive trucks.
Fred has been trucking for 71 years, Madam President.
He's only 89 years old right now.
Born in 1935, a good year for wine, he says, Fred started trucking at the age of 18.
He's literally probably the most experienced truck driver in America driving that tree.
Like so many Alaskans, Fred is a veteran.
By the way, Alaska has more veterans per capita than any state in the country.
We're very proud of that, our patriotic heritage in Alaska.
And I would venture to guess that there are few Navy veterans still around today who are part of the U.S. Navy blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Big point in American history.
Well, guess what?
Fred was.
He served on the USS Mullenix and was in the Navy for six years.
He was defending democracy then and spreading Christmas cheer now.
Fred literally has done it all.
Fred came to Alaska with his family in the mid-1960s and, no kidding, settled in North Pole, Alaska, a very fitting hometown for what would be his task today, delivering America's Christmas tree.
Some of you Alaskan of the Week fans might remember the Alaskan of the Week about a year ago, last December, when I spoke about the North Pole, Alaska's Miller family and their Santa Claus house.
So again, Americans who want to come out and see a great part of our great state come to North Pole, Alaska in the interior.
The Santa Claus house is still going strong.
If you write a letter addressed to Santa in North Pole, your letter will end up at the Santa Claus house in Fred's hometown.
When you get a reply, it's postmarked North Pole, Alaska.
No kidding.
So why did Fred decide to head north to the great state of Alaska?
He said, quote, it's in our blood to go find the frontier.
That's been the history of the world.
It was time for me to go north.
And now he's making this almost 5,000-mile trip to bring the last frontier to Washington, D.C. Driving down south is an experience for Fred, much different than driving in the last frontier.
Fred says, quote, there's lots of highways and traffic.
At home in Alaska, if you want to beat Rush Hour, you just have one more cup of coffee.
Not a lot of traffic jams in our state.
Down here, it's a lot more coffee, pots of coffee.
This is his first year transporting the Christmas tree.
And he said the best part has been watching the reactions of people seeing the tree on the road or at one of the town stops.
Like I said, Madam President, there has been thousands of people watching this incredible Alaskan tree going across the country.
Fred said people come out to watch the truck and tree go by.
They wave to us.
They ask us to honk our horn.
We are loving it.
And the tree, of course, at 85 feet is hard to miss.
We're prepping the country for the holiday spirit.
So accompanying Fred is John Schen, also an Alaskan and a capital Christmas tree delivery veteran.
By the way, he's probably the only veteran.
Now, I'm not talking about a military veteran.
I'm talking about he's delivered the Christmas tree before, driving a truck.
This is John's second time delivering Alaska's Christmas tree for the country.
So go figure on that one.
He's probably the only guy in the history of the country who's done this twice.
He did it in 2015, which, by the way, was the only other time an Alaskan Christmas tree has made it for the Capitol Christmas tree since the tree lighting ceremony officially began in 1964.
But this drive is nothing compared to the 6 million miles John has banked during his nearly 50-year trucking career.
Again, these guys, these Teamsters, these great Teamsters are some of the best truck drivers in the country.
I said, Madam President, 6 million miles.
For reference, there are only 17,600 miles of public roads in Alaska.
During his career, John has effectively driven one of Alaska's public roads more than 340 times.
Go figure that one out.
Originally from Michigan, but raised by his family in Fairbanks, John's regular route as a trucker for Linden, which is a great Alaskan transportation company, the route he's usually done from Fairbanks to the oil fields up at Prudhoe Bay.
By the way, those of you who watch the different Alaska reality shows, those are the Ice Road Truckers.
Great show.
Tough duty, by the way, driving a truck from Fairbanks up to the North Slope hundreds of miles in the winter on ice.
John has done this so well that he was nominated for the American Trucking Association Driver of the Year.
Not Alaskan Driver of the Year, American Driver of the Year, both in 2014 and in 2017.
John came to Alaska in 1975 to transport food for dog mushing veterans, but also likes to say that he came up to Alaska, quote, for the adventure.
And I've been here ever since.
It's such a great state.
He said the highlight of his trip so far across the country was their stop in Indiana where he reunited with almost 30 members of his extended family in the Hoosier state who have been tracking the tree and of course their fellow family member John on his trip all the way to Washington DC.
The tree is a family event all around.
During their scheduled stops along the drive, families throughout America, thousands of them have come to admire the tree and get excited about Christmas.
Seeing families, seeing kids looking at the trees, at the tree with rosy cheeks, John said, reminds us it's Christmas time.
So there you have it.
Two jolly Alaskan men, one literally from North Pole, Alaska, spreading special Alaskan Christmas cheer with this beautiful tree right here across America as they transport America's Christmas tree, Alaska's Christmas tree, to Washington, D.C. All they're missing is some reindeer.
You see them right here?
And you know, Alaska, we got a lot of reindeer.
I'm sure my state would happily loan a few reindeer down here to D.C. You can come and see them yourselves, by the way, up in our state.
One of them, Star, a reindeer, actually lives in downtown Anchorage and is always welcoming to visitors.
Well, Madam President, in all seriousness, the tree, as I mentioned, will be arriving here in Washington, D.C. tomorrow.
Alaskans from across the state have been working for months on the over 5,000 decorations that will go on this tree.
It is going to be beautiful.
It's going to reach for the heavens, light up the night sky here in D.C., and Alaskan tree on our nation's capital will truly mark the beginning of a joyful holiday season for all of us.
So thank you, Fred and John, for taking this enormous trek to bring the Capitol Christmas tree and a whole truckload of Christmas spirit across America to D.C. Thanks to all the Alaskans that helped make this happen.
Thanks to the Teamsters who keep our state and country's economy rolling strong.
And Fred and John, Merry Christmas and congratulations on one of the highest honors anyone in America can achieve our Alaskan of the Week.
Great job, gentlemen.
We will see you tomorrow out there with your Christmas tree.
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Live at 3 p.m. Eastern, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and other foreign policy experts discuss the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific strategy, hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Then at 5.30 p.m. Eastern, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin holds a joint news conference in Fiji with the country's prime minister.
His visit marks the first one to the island in nation by a U.S. Defense Secretary.