Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1276 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res 815.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to; that the substitute amendment to the preamble at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res 820.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to; that the preamble be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following resolutions, which are at the desk: S. Res. 843, S. Res. 844, S. Res. 845, and S. Res. 846.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, if the motion for the Senate to adjourn with pro forma sessions scheduled until September 14 would have been a recorded rollcall vote, I would have voted no.

Mr. President, so I think it is important to clear up a couple of things in no particular order. First of all, I did not cosponsor the HONEST Act. I was the cosponsor of the PELOSI Act, which was a tribute--an honor--to the Member of the House of Representatives that made grift on this job an absolute master class.

Your Representative from Northern California came here almost five decades ago and has managed to build a $300 million net worth. Her Twitter account is one of the most followed accounts, as my colleague from Nebraska pointed out. So I was very proud to sponsor the PELOSI Act. In fact, it is extraordinarily similar to the exact same measure my colleague from Utah and my colleague from Nebraska have proposed, as has the Presiding Officer, my colleague from Ohio. So just to clear that up.

Then the next question was: Well, why would you not sponsor a bill called the HONEST Act? I mean--my God--how do you be anti-honest? Well, that bill basically bans the ownership of all

assets. You can't even own them. So if you have mutual funds, stocks, equities, investments, you have to get rid of all of that.

So, basically, that would be insane. There is no other way to look at that. The Democrats put that in place during a Homeland Security meeting which went something like this. We sat down to talk about the PELOSI Act, and they gave us 15 pages of amended documents and said: Hey, we are going to vote on this right now.

And, again--I should have predicted it, honestly, because it was a tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who said: Well, you have to vote for the bill before you know what is in it.

Of course, Republicans said: We are not going to vote for something we haven't read--because, again, that is insane. But it wasn't as insane as what is actually in that bill.

Now, let's go back to what we are really doing here tonight. We could pass this today. Tomorrow, the President of the United States could sign into law a ban on insider trading. This is a 100-percent zero issue. Sometimes we talk about 80-20 issues. There is not an American citizen--well, maybe Paul Pelosi--who would be against this.

But all Americans want us to get this done, and it is very commonsense. My colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on this. It is a great bill. It says if you own stocks when you get here, you can't buy more--so, therefore, you can't use the information--and you can't sell stocks without a 7-day notice period, which, in effect, eliminates any kind of advantage that you would have.

It is a very good bill. It applies to all Members of Congress. We should be able to get that done. We should be able to ban insider trading without Democrats blocking that vote.

My colleague, I believe, from Nebraska--if the Presiding Officer could ask him; I want to be clear--he has asked for a vote at 60; is that correct?

Mr. President, so I would ask unanimous consent that we do that.

I am objecting. Sorry. Well, let me--just continuing. So let's talk about voter ID really quickly.

My colleague from California said that the Republicans are not united on voter ID, and that is absolutely, absolutely, positively false. This is really important because you can't make accusations here that are false.

My colleague from Ohio, the Presiding Officer, has put forward the exact, in essence, voter ID bill, and it was 53 out of 53 Republicans that voted for that--53 out of 53. That is 100 percent of Republicans. If I did that math correctly, I believe that 53 out of 53 is 100 percent.

Where he is correct is that Democrats are united in their opposition. There wasn't a single Democrat that voted for a stand-alone voter ID bill. Tonight, we have the opportunity to do that--ban insider trading and get voter ID on the floor.

Because my colleagues don't want to do what the American people want them to do, I object.

Mr. President, reserving my right to object, the bill that my colleague from Nebraska, my colleague from Ohio, and my colleague from Utah is proposing is a bill that has already passed the House of Representatives. It has massive bipartisan support. Lots of Democrats voted for that in the House. If we pass it, it can become law. Putting that bill on the floor at 60 is a very low-threshold ask.

I think the American people deserve to know what each Member of this Chamber decides to do on banning insider trading and voter ID.

The proposal that my colleague from California is putting on the floor is a bill that has neither gotten through any committee where it has been actually read by committee members. It is a bill that has not been presented to the House of Representatives, so they would have to take it up over there. It would, of course, be modified and come back. In other words, it is what I say--it is the DC two-step--or if you want to have a headline that says ``I am for banning insider trading'' knowing nothing will actually happen.

Now, maybe you don't think that the bill that my colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on is perfect, but it is a massive step in the right direction. This would get us to 99.9 percent of the way there on banning insider trading. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen tomorrow. And the voter ID law, which virtually all Americans support, could happen tomorrow.

So what we are dealing with is one bill that can be signed into law that has been vetted, that has massive bipartisan support, versus a bill that, quite frankly, the person talking about it wasn't even on that committee, is not 100 percent sure what was in that bill, doesn't know the history of the bill. It wasn't a year ago; it was a few months ago. It is a smokescreen, and for that reason I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

There is an expression that says don't let facts get in the way of a good story. What we just heard is a good story. Let's, unfortunately, dissect the facts that are completely inaccurate.

I am on the Homeland Security Committee; my colleague from California is not. That was not the bill that we sponsored. The bill that we sponsored was something called the PELOSI Act, your longtime Member of Congress from California, who perfected the grift of insider trading, who came to Congress, I think when I was born, when the Presiding Officer was born, and well before our colleague from Florida was born, and has somehow managed to be worth $300-plus million. That is why I thought it would be in honor of her that we would introduce the PELOSI Act, the ability to just stop insider trading.

Let me just also be clear about where we stand on this bill. This is a massively bipartisan bill that came out of the House. Every Republican voted for it and 13 Democrats, which never vote unless every Democrat is voting together, voted for this bill.

And if not for the objection that you just heard, if not for the objection from my colleague from California, tomorrow the President of the United States would have signed this bill into law. And what would it have meant? What would the President tomorrow have signed had this objection not been heard?

No longer can Members of Congress or their spouses or their adult children buy stocks with inside information. They would not be able to sell stocks without a 7-day public announcement period, which would, in effect, end forever the practice of insider trading that has plagued this Congress.

We could have gotten that done. So I want you to process that for a second. There are commercials 99 days before the midterm elections in which Democrats, including the Presiding Officer's disastrous opponent, that are talking about banning insider trading. That guy was here for 30-plus years. My colleague from California has been here for 5 years. The three of us have been here for 18 months, and we could have passed a bill tonight to ban insider trading.

Democrats have blocked the ability to ban insider trading. Those words don't even make sense to me as I say it. Why? It is the classic DC two-step: introduce an alternative measure that they know will never pass so they can keep the grift operation going.

Be able to say: Oh, look, we oppose that, too, but this doesn't go far enough.

My colleague from California worked with me diligently--I might add, which I appreciated--to ban prediction markets for the entire U.S. Senate. We got that done. It didn't touch the President. It didn't even touch the House of Representatives. We got it done here in the U.S. Senate.

I am proud of that. I am proud that now people--the American people-- know that no Member of the U.S. Senate or their staffs, by the way, can participate in the prediction markets. We got that done because we advanced the ball.

We can advance the ball tonight and ban insider trading for all of Congress. The House handed us a bill. We say yes; the President signs it tomorrow.

You sent the letter. My colleague from California sent a letter to the CFTC, talking about the downside of insider trading among Congress back in January. We could avoid it. We don't need to send letters. We could ban insider trading tonight. Democrats have refused to do that.

Now let's talk about voter ID. By the way, it is called the SAVE America Act, not the SAVE Act. It is called the SAVE America Act. We have talked about it in this Chamber for hundreds of hours. Let's get the name right.

This is not the SAVE America Act. The SAVE America Act, for some reason, is unanimous in its opposition by

the Democrat Members of this Chamber. They are totally, completely united on not passing the SAVE America Act, which does two things, by the way. You have to prove you are a citizen when you register. You have to show voter ID when you vote. That is it--two things.

This particular measure in this bill is just photo ID. If you get the all-you-can-eat, Never-Ending Pasta Bowl at Olive Garden, you have to have a photo ID to get another bowl of spaghetti in California. So if I go to my favorite Olive Garden in Los Angeles and I have my Never- Ending Pasta Bowl, I have to bring my ID. But if I go vote, I don't have to.

I think most Americans would think that is insane. I think most Americans would think that is nutty. Why would you not have to show your ID?

It has nothing to do with registration. You mentioned registering to vote. It has nothing to do with registering to vote. It is strictly voter ID when you vote, and there is not IDs that are banned. That is just not true. Read the bill.

It is simple voter ID: a government-issued ID--your picture, your name, your signature--pretty straightforward--80-20 issue. I think 99-1 issue, honestly, but they say it is an 80-20 issue. They got 13 Democrats in the House that voted for this. They knew that if the Senate took this up tonight, what they did last week would become law.

We could have gotten voter ID in the entire country. Mr. President, 30-plus States already have it. And we would have banned insider trading. Those two things could have happened tonight.

And the fact that they didn't is a decently sad day--July 27, 2026, the day Democrats said we shouldn't have voter ID in America and we shouldn't ban insider trading.

Let me just close with a little anecdote. I was asked by the Government of Colombia to go down and monitor their elections. That was a great honor, being born in Colombia--a full circle of my life. Now I am here in the Senate. Imagine somebody in Colombia has asked me to go down and monitor the election.

By the way, I knew as much as you, Mr. President, about how the elections in Colombia works. Actually, that is not true, you probably knew more. I had no idea. I go down there. And what do they require in Colombia, South America: A country with abject poverty, dramatically less well-off than the United States, dramatically more ethnically diverse, by the way--they require every citizen of Colombia to carry with them a national ID card that proves they are a citizen. They are not even allowed into the hall where the voting happens without that national ID card that proves they are a citizen of the country of Colombia.

And when they go to vote, they have to get their fingerprints done and their signature, show that ID with their photo on it, before they are handed a paper ballot that is counted by hand. And the election results--after 25 million votes--takes 1 hour. The GDP of Colombia is less than the GDP of L.A., and yet the mayor's race in L.A.--3 weeks after the election--they are still counting votes.

Now, I was in the registrar's office, afterward, debriefing on the election. We are obviously speaking in Spanish because we are in Colombia. And I asked them what happens if somebody walks into the hallway--they wander into the hall--they want to vote, and they don't have their ID card?

Now I came to the United States when I was 5. My siblings make fun of me and say my Spanish is not perfect. It probably isn't. So when I said that, the registrar turned to his assistant and said ``I think the Senator has lost his Spanish.'' And his assistant says ``What do you mean?'' He says ``I don't understand his question.''

So he repeated it in perfect Spanish. He turned to me, and he goes, ``What a dumb question. Of course, we wouldn't let somebody come in and vote without their ID. That would be abject idiocy''--his words.

And yet a dozen-plus States in the United States of America--the most rich and powerful country on Earth--does not have voter ID. We could have gotten that done tonight.

For that reason, I object.

Mr. President, very briefly, let me make a couple of things clear. This resolution isn't about insulting Canadians; this resolution is about calling out inept leaders in Canada. I have total and complete respect for the people of Canada. Unfortunately, they are victimized by terrible leaders.

To just turn a blind eye to the fact that they just dumped in your State and my State the equivalent of a year's worth of auto pollution in America, on the Midwest, and pretend it isn't manmade--they don't have centralized response.

This idea that they helped us is totally false. They charge us to come to the United States to help put out our forest fires that, by the way, are also created by ineptitude in Washington, Oregon, and California. And then when our firefighters ask to go to Canada to help them, they prevent them from coming in.

So this is completely a manmade disaster, but it is not made by the people of Canada; it is made by the leaders of Canada. And shame on them, and shame on anybody apologizing for what they are doing to the people of our States.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me say a few things.

One, resolutions like this sound very much mild. It actually is just a bunch of words that basically just say:

Resolved, That the Senate recognizes unchecked climate

change poses severe risks to national and global economies.

What is wrong with that? What is wrong with saying something like that?

So let me explain where these kinds of ideas go.

When the Democrats had control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, they had the opportunity to help working Americans--the people who work every day to build this country, the middle class that all of us should be advocating for, the very people that--the New England Democrats that I once knew--J.F.K., et cetera--would have made their entire party platform about helping working Americans.

Instead, what did they do? They betrayed working Americans with a wide, open border that lowered and suppressed wages. They passed electric vehicle subsidies.

Let me walk you through exactly what the Democrats did, taking this kind of resolution to the maximum.

They passed a subsidy that gave multimillionaires the ability to get $7,500 of taxpayer money to lease a luxury imported vehicle. And 250,000 of the wealthiest Americans got $7,500 each to lease a luxury electric vehicle because for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that somehow would solve the issue of climate change.

Not one single Democrat has ever answered the question: Why on Earth would you have possibly put forward horrific public policy like that?

No. 2, if you notice, in the Senator from Rhode Island's presentation, there wasn't a single time he mentioned the largest polluter on Earth, which happens to be the People's Republic of China.

We have been enabling the Chinese economy for decades. It was this body that normalized relations with China in 2000, that allowed them to come into the World Trade Organization and systematically pollute the planet. They are building coal facilities every week, while the Democrats, when they had control of government, were shutting them down.

You could describe what was just discussed as an absolute China-first policy--America last, China first.

One-third of all global pollution comes from China, and yet my colleague comes up here to talk about climate change and doesn't say a single word about that country. In fact, he continues to espouse policies that enable the Chinese.

For example, in the aforementioned electric vehicle subsidies, most of those batteries that were in those electric vehicles came from Chinese battery manufacturers--made with slave wages, slave labor; using power derived from the very carbon emissions that you denounce.

You live in a State that derives its electricity from the worst possible carbon footprint. You have electricity that comes over from Canada--propane, delivered on diesel trucks--because you refuse to build a pipeline from my State, where we can give you clean, natural gas that would reduce carbon emissions. The hypocrisy goes on and on.

Then let's talk about recent events. My colleague, I have heard him, because I sit where you sit periodically, say the same thing many, many times in my 18 months that I have been here. He talks about electric vehicles: We have got to get off of internal combustion engines--a big policy of the Democrat Party.

Let me give you a little statistic on automobiles. If you took every single car--automobile--off of the roads of America, nobody could drive a car for 12 months. That is nuts. I would suggest that is bad public policy. But follow me on that one: no automobiles on American roads for 12 months.

The amount of carbon emissions that has polluted mostly the Midwest, over the last 2 weeks, because of mismanagement of Canada's forests, is equivalent to an entire year of carbon emissions from automobiles. Yet my colleague has not once called into question the fact that the Canadians do not allow our firefighters to go into their country to help, that they have mismanaged the way they coordinate these fire responses. They don't have a central entity to control it. No comment on the fact that millions of people in my State have been absolutely poisoned with carbon pollution coming from Canada.

But what does he want? He wants our industries to be collapsed, our industries to be held to a different standard--not one word from China--and espousing policies like this electric vehicle subsidy for the richest Americans, while, at the same time, there are people flying around in private jets to global conferences to talk about climate change.

Spare me the hypocrisy.

And for all of those reasons and many, many more, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask that the previously scheduled rollcall vote start immediately.

Mr. President, that may be a rule XIX violation.

(Laughter.)

We have heard a lot of arguments tonight, and I feel badly for the people at home, honestly, because they are only hearing one side of the argument, and I think most Americans want to hear both sides of an argument. I think that is what makes the U.S. Senate--at least theoretically--interesting, because this is billed as being the most deliberative body on Earth.

Yet, 2 hours ago, there were 40 Democrat Senators who came to this Chamber--who walked into this Chamber--and voted. Yet there isn't a single, solitary Democrat Senator sitting here today, this evening, listening to any of this conversation. You can't really persuade people if they are not even willing to listen to the conversation or, quite frankly, to even debate the issues.

So I thought what we would do tonight is, maybe, debate it for them.

So, if you could summon your inner Democrat Senator--I would ask my colleague from Utah and my other colleague from Ohio to summon their inner Democrat Senator and start with No. 1.

The objection that I have heard of this conversation--we heard it at committee the other day--is how this bill absolutely rips apart States' rights.

You talked about that, Senator Lee, in your conversation. I am not going to repeat what you said because you said it much better than I could ever say it, but I will point out that, back in 2023, the Democrats wanted to pass a bill called H.R. 1. H.R. 1 means it was the No. 1 bill proposed by the House of Representatives at the time. There was a Senate version called S. 1, meaning it was the first priority of the Senate's.

As the Presiding Officer knows, I think we are up to S. 7000 right now. There have been lots of bills introduced. But this was the first one--meaning top priority. What was that bill called, you ask? It was called the For the People Act.

Personally, I don't know how anybody could be against a bill that is called ``For the People'' because you would have to be against being for the people. It is pretty good. I know, in the car business, they accuse us of bait and switch and false advertising. I think the FTC would take that one up in a heartbeat as false advertising.

What did the For the People Act do? What did H.R. 1 do? It nationalized our elections. It literally took all of the power away from States and concentrated it here in Washington, DC.

You think: Was this done to improve voter integrity?

Oh, no, no. You would be grossly mistaken. This was about eliminating States' rights to enforce voter ID, proof of citizenship, controls on mail-in balloting, controls on how people register to vote.

So imagine, just a few years ago, Democrats wanted to nationalize elections to strip away voter integrity, and now they are saying it is an affront to States' rights to insist on simple voter ID and proof of citizenship.

Would you consider that hypocrisy, Senator Lee?

So I think we should let the Democrats respond to that point. It is a good one.

You know, in debate, they taught me, if there is nobody who objects to your point, that that point is made. So I think the Democrats have ceded that point.

The response?

Hearing none.

All right. We are going to move on to objection No. 2; that is, it is already illegal. It is interesting because that is a good point. I look and that and go: Wow, they just made a really good point. This is already illegal. What problem are we trying to solve?

Now, of course, we know it is already illegal. What we are asking is to have the integrity of it. So what they are trying to do is say: Speeding is illegal, but you can't check to see if anybody is speeding, which makes it legal. Because if you are not enforcing laws, aren't you, in effect, eliminating those laws?

So if they are saying: Well, it is already illegal. You don't need to prove you are a citizen because it is already illegal to vote as a noncitizen, but if you are not allowing inspections of voter rolls, making certain that people are purged properly, wouldn't that be basically ignoring the law completely?

Democrat response?

Hearing none.

The other objection that we get is our elections are already secure. Our elections are very secure.

But doesn't it kind of override common sense to say: If you are not having to prove you are a citizen to vote, if you are not having to show your ID, if we just automatically mail out ballots without really knowing that that person is there and that person didn't request it, aren't we opening the door to having that lack of integrity of our elections?

I will tell you a quick anecdotal story. I was asked to be an election monitor by the Governor of Colombia in a recent Presidential election. I knew as much about the Colombian election as any American, meaning nothing. So I went down there, and they require all the things I just talked about. They require everybody to be a citizen of Colombia to vote in Colombian elections. They require that ID to be shown. They actually have facial recognition scanners and fingerprint readers in case there is a question whether that picture matches you. You know, like, if you are the Realtor that has the picture of you 40 years ago, sometimes it is like: Is that really you? So they have the facial recognition, the fingerprint, paper ballots.

So I was huddling with the registrar afterwards. And, of course, we are in Colombia; so we are speaking Spanish. And I said to him: Well, what happens if somebody doesn't show up with a voter ID, like, his ID? What do you do?

And we were having a pretty good conversation until I asked that question. And he turned to his assistant and in Spanish says: I think the Senator has lost his Spanish because I don't understand what he is asking me.

And his assistant repeated it.

And he completely looked at me like I was a knucklehead and said: Why would you possibly let somebody vote that doesn't have an ID to prove who they are?

In other words, the question was so ridiculous that he thought it had to be a language barrier.

Is there any way to justify the other position, since our colleagues--who were just here. They all ran off. During your speech, the majority leader ran through--is there any justification for not having to do this?

But they wouldn't make that case to the American public.

Do you think it is possible that in a country like Colombia that has incredible amounts of ethnic diversity and Hispanics--like myself, I was born there--that when you are Hispanic and you are in Colombia, you are able to find your ID, but that when you cross the border, you lose that ability? And I am thinking to myself: Is that true?

And then I went to find my driver's license here. I actually do not currently possess my ID on me. So maybe there is something to this idea that Hispanics who enter America cannot find their ID.

Do you think that is possible?

Well, obviously, we are being sarcastic, and the reason we are being sarcastic is this is really ridiculous. It actually is just blatantly ridiculous that we are sitting here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, not debating--at all, by the way, clearly--not talking about the problems that everyday Americans are facing, but trying to get some 80-20, 90-10 issues across the finish line, and Democrats won't even engage in the conversation. Because it is so ridiculous that we have the Olive Garden require ID for the all-you-can eat pasta bowl, but we allow people to vote without showing who they are. That is just truly, patently absurd.

What is even more absurd is that my colleague from Ohio put forward a very simple voter ID. Just said: Hey, look--by the way, photo ID means the ID has to have a photo. That is in the word. So you have to have something that has your photo, your name, and your signature in order to vote. He put that bill forward because he is a good guy. He wants to get things done. He is somebody who genuinely in his heart of hearts is drawn to service. That is who Senator Husted is.

They had said they would vote for voter ID. He put it on the floor three times. That bill has been on the floor of the Senate three times. And all three times Democrats have voted against simple voter ID.

That makes no sense.

I have also--next objection--I have heard Democrats talk about: Well, States already have voter ID. In fact, one of our Democrat colleagues was on ABC yesterday talking about how there is already voter ID, except not in his State. And it was the moderator who had to point that out to him.

That was embarrassing because you really should know the voter laws in your own State.

But clearly not all States require voter ID. So all we are saying is: Let's just have all 50 States require voter ID, and let's have all 50 States require proof of citizenship.

Final one I hear quite a bit--in fact, I hear it most from the minority leader--is that this is Jim Crow 2.0.

For those of you who are under the age of 60 who may not know what that means, it basically means this is racist--which is, of course, the ultimate laziest way to attack somebody because they just label you a racist: This is Jim Crow 2.0.

And those are dark, dark, dark times in American history. And I think using those kinds of references is just grossly inappropriate.

That would be the Democrat Party.

And what is even more interesting about that is that phrase, Jim Crow 2.0--you know how sometimes you are like: Haven't I heard that before? And we have heard that before. When Georgia reformed its elections laws, I think 2021--I don't know the exact date--the Democrats called it Jim Crow 2.0. In fact, the Major League Baseball moved the All-Star Game from Atlanta because they said they couldn't support these kinds of racist actions in Georgia. Companies boycotted Georgia because of this. Georgia was persona non grata as a State.

But they went forward with their elections reforms. And what was the result? Record voter turnout. Zero issue with anybody having voter ID.

In fact, the Senators from Georgia--one of them is running right now under the very laws that he called Jim Crow 2.0, and he hasn't given one speech in which he says that Georgia's voter laws are anything other than common sense.

Now, you remember even celebrities went out and did videos bemoaning Georgia. If that is not hypocrisy, what is?

But here is how I will end for my colleagues: I think the American people deserve a debate.

By the way, not just on this issue. I have been here for 18 months. Mr. President, you have been here for exactly the same period of time. This is exactly the number of debates I have seen in this Chamber: zero--zero debates. I think most Americans--I think you and I are probably shocked by that. Because when you and I were running for office, we are like: We are going to get ready. We are going in to debate.

We don't do debates. We do things like this: empty floor, not a single Democrat hearing the argument.

I am bringing up: Hey, how about this? There is nobody to respond. Let's have a debate.

When 80-plus percent of the American people support a piece of legislation, it boggles the imagination of how the U.S. Senate can't, at a minimum, debate the issue.

So to my colleagues, my Democrat side, we don't need to get rid of the filibuster--just like you wanted to, by the way. The Democrats wanted to get rid of the filibuster to pass the For the People Act, by the way. Thanks to Manchin and Sinema, that didn't happen.

But we don't have to do that. Let's have a debate. Come out here point by point and explain to the American people why you feel the way you do.

I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I can tell you the Republicans are ready for that debate. We look forward to that debate. The American people deserve that debate. Let's do it.

Mr. President, I want to urge my colleagues, at 4:30 today, to vote strongly in objection to S. Res. 616.

This resolution, introduced by our Democrat colleagues, is a relic of a failed past approach to Central America, one that imposes a leftist ideology and a purity test and ties our hands, while cartels flood our streets with poison and chaos spills across our borders in the hemisphere. It demands a report dredging up old allegations against a former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernandez, focusing on events from his administration.

The irony is striking. Many of these activities and challenges occurred during the Obama administration, when Democrats were asleep at the wheel in the Western Hemisphere. They allowed narcotrafficking to flourish and created the Western Hemisphere's worst migration crisis, without decisive action.

This resolution also fails to mention the radical, leftwing Castro administration, which ravaged Honduras with policies that exacerbated migration and opened the doors to China.

Yet this resolution remains completely silent on the Biden administration's foreign policy failures and the open borders agenda that poured fuel on that fire.

Honduras suffered under the Biden and Castro era, but now it has absolutely turned a page. Under President Tito Asfura, who I had the chance to go visit in person a little less than 2 weeks ago, it is a new day in a bilateral relationship. He is aligned with the ``America First'' priorities. He is a key partner in the Shield of the Americas and the Counter Cartel Coalition.

Honduras is working with us on intelligence sharing, going after the cartels, extraditions, and securing the hemisphere from Chinese and criminal influence.

President Asfura is hyperfocused on fixing what Castro and Biden broke and restoring stability and prosperity for the Honduran people.

This resolution singles out past issues under a previous government, while the current administration in Honduras and our own administration are focused on results: dismantling trafficking networks, ending the migration crisis, and building long-term prosperity.

As a side note, as you just heard from the Senator from Virginia, this actually has nothing to do with human rights. This has to do with clickbait speeches that are all intended to embarrass the President about a pardon.

Of course, it is ironic, given that President Biden pardoned tens of thousands of serious criminals.

But, back to Honduras, this resolution risks undermining the very security assistance and cooperation we need to keep Americans and Hondurans safe.

Section 502B is a tool, but in the hands of those who prioritize bureaucratic processes over results, it becomes a bludgeon against effective policy.

President Trump's approach? Security coordination, economic incentives for partners fighting cartels, and putting the stability and prosperity of the Western Hemisphere first.

It is delivering results: zero illegal border encounters this last 12-month period.

We are seeing deportations of criminals, revived extradition efforts, and a coalition that is actually confronting the cartels instead of studying the cartels.

Colleagues, the American people are tired of hollow and ideological resolutions that achieve nothing but clickbait headlines. They want secure borders, safe communities, and a foreign policy that puts our hemisphere's stability ahead of nonsense reports.

Objecting to this resolution isn't ignoring human rights. It is refusing to let the past paralyze the future.

Let's come together. Let's support our Western Hemisphere allies, like President Tito Asfura.

I urge my colleagues to reject S. Res. 616.

Let's focus on advancing the Shield of the Americas, supporting vetted partners, and delivering real results against the drug cartels that threaten us.

I will say one last thing. The Senator from Virginia has evidently another

resolution on Honduras that is intended to slow the process down of passing actually meaningful legislation here in the U.S. Senate. Let's take that one up, too, now because if not, what you just heard me say you are going to have to hear again for a second time. This is not why people elected us.

I think that when the Presiding Officer travels to Missouri, people ask him: What are you doing? What are you doing to make the country better?

Debating what happened a decade ago isn't making the country better. We should be talking about how to make our economy stronger, how to make our communities safer, and how to make our communities more secure. We should be talking about ensuring--ensuring--that we complete our duty and fund our government, not posturing months ahead of time to defund our government again.

Again, colleagues, let's get this done. Let's deal with this resolution swiftly, quickly, and vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, just really quickly and with all due respect to my colleague from Connecticut, he wasn't part of the negotiation process. He has no idea what conversations were had with the Iranians.

What I do know is that we are on the verge of a historic possibility that my kids and my grandkids will live in a world that is not threatened by Iran and that we won't live under the fear of an Iranian regime with a nuclear weapon.

President Trump is the only President in my lifetime who had the courage to actually do what was needed. What this agreement will get to is what we should all hope for, all of us--Republicans, Democrats, and just anybody who is a citizen of the United States of America. We should be here, hopeful that we have an opportunity to get to this historic place.

It is always just incredibly disappointing to me, as somebody who is new to politics, that everything has to be turned into a political game. It is not a game. People have put their lives at risk to make this country safer. Instead of cheerleading for failure, we should be cheerleading for success.