Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. President, our nation's youth are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis, and we need to take immediate action to address the root causes and ensure adequate access to care. I stand here today with my friend and colleague, Senator Katie Britt, to implore continued action to solve this crisis.

This issue is one that is personal for me, as it is for Senator Britt. We both have young children, and so we see what they and their peers experience firsthand. There is no issue more urgent, more critical to our Nation's future than the health and safety of our next generation.

The challenges are well-known; and, frankly, the data is shocking. Over the past decade, cases of severe depression among young adults have nearly doubled. In the 2010s, suicidal behaviors among high school students increased by more than 40 percent. And since 2017, the number of youth hospitalized for anxiety has increased by 50 percent; the proportion hospitalized for self-harm has nearly doubled.

I repeat: The proportion hospitalized for self-harm has nearly doubled.

Youth and young adults ages 10 to 24 account for 15 percent of all suicides--an increase of over 50 percent since 2000. It is the second leading cause of death among our young people.

We can point to numerous stressors feeding this crisis. And I have discussed on this floor with great honor before, social media lands at the very top of that list. Social media has altered not only the way our young people interact but the very way in which they see themselves and even the way their brains develop.

Senator Britt understands this issue and has been a leading voice in this Chamber and throughout Congress. I turn to her and thank her for her leadership.

Thank you, my friend.

The Senate, as divided as it may seem, can and has acted decisively. We have all witnessed this with the Kids Online Safety Act, led by my friends and Senators Blumenthal, Blackburn, Markey, and Cassidy, which sailed through the Senate unanimously. The bill protects both youth currently impacted by social media but also seeks to address the root causes of the danger: the addictive design of the algorithm. This decisive action shows me that this body can and will do big things together to protect our young people. This is proof that there is that hope.

And I now turn back to my colleague Senator Britt for her leadership on yet another bipartisan bill that I hope will also pass through this Chamber.

I will, Senator Britt, and thank you.

I just want to say that I applaud your leadership, and while I appreciate your mentioning our wanting us to come together, I would just make a point that all of the bills you have mentioned have one thing in common--not only the general thematic but that they are bipartisan. I think what that says--and it is a tribute to your leadership, your thoughtfulness, and your doggedness on this issue--is that this Chamber reflects and recognizes that there is a serious crisis and is willing to come to hold Big Tech accountable but also make them a part of the solution in the resolution. So I applaud your leadership.

So why Stop the Scroll? I think this is also a tribute to the success of this Chamber with the Kids Online Safety Act. Senators like Senator Britt and others were able to make the case for the issue and come up with real solutions that helped Americans understand the problem. It passed through this Chamber, and I hope it will pass through the other Chamber.

But like that bill, Stop the Scroll seeks in a bipartisan way to address issues we have heard from our great mental health and medical professionals.

Like the warning linking cigarettes to cancer and mortality, the Surgeon General issued a truly unprecedented warning last year confirming the serious risks to our youth from social media. In an effort to learn more, I reached out and spoke to him just last month, and the data and the science that I was presented and that he explained are clear. There is an urgent need to act now and raise awareness on the issues of social media use. Just like we have warning labels on cigarettes, we must also have them on social media, and that is why I was so proud to join Senator Britt and other cosponsors to Stop the Scroll.

While I will leave the Senate in a few weeks at a time when partisan divisions may run high, when I go home, however, I will tell many doubters that despite what the partisanship is that they see on the news, there is indeed reason to be incredibly hopeful for our next generation and generations to come. This piece of bipartisan legislation is proof of that hope, as are the many other pieces of legislation that my friend Senator Britt discussed. We must hold on to and continue fighting for a better future for all of our children.

Senator Britt, I thank you again for your leadership here, and thank you for reaching out to me across the aisle, even before I was appointed, on this important issue.

I turn it back to you.

Thank you so much for your kind words, my friend. I am honored, frankly, to be by your side--two former staffers uniting on an important issue here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is like ``The Avengers'' uniting. Working with you on this issue has been a highlight of my time here and foundational to the hope I feel being back in the institution.

I would be remiss if I didn't note the presence of a great leader of this institution, a storied Senator from Texas who is in the Chamber.

In my 100-day plan, I had vowed to spring toward progress with youth mental health, which, again, is an issue that I had seen firsthand with my own experience. In addition to speaking with the Surgeon General, I know Katie and I both spoke with key government leaders, nonprofit organizations, and youth leaders who truly told us what they were experiencing as young people and the experiences of their friends, which are vastly different than the experience I may have had as a child, growing up.

We worked across the aisle to cosponsor and lead legislation with not only Senator Britt but with my mentor, senior Senator, and friend Cory Booker, and tremendous colleagues, like Senators Casey, Butler, Klobuchar, Fetterman, Durbin, Wyden, and Coons, to name a few.

I go back home, and I am working with these nonprofits and young activists to learn the issue better and understand both on the front and the root cause of the issues related to access to care when they do present with a problem, and what I have seen is incredible.

As a former staffer, I believe in this institution, and I believe in the U.S.

Senate. I have always believed in this country--especially now--but still there is obviously more work to do.

As I stand on this floor, asking for continued action, we need to pass Senator Britt's and Senator Fetterman's Stop the Scroll Act, and their counterparts in the House should pass the Kids Online Safety Act, which, as mentioned, passed unanimously through this storied Chamber.

Finally, I note that just yesterday, I introduced a new piece of legislation--the Youth Revenue Transparency Act--to hold Big Tech accountable.

We know that technology companies are finding profit in this crisis. These companies can quantify how much their revenue is driven by minors, and they can certainly quantify how much marketing they are putting into targeting minors. We know the transparency in big corporations is critical for efficient markets, as it is critical for accountability, and I believe both investors and parents have the right to quantify this as well. They need to know how the investments and business decisions made by Big Tech are driving the youth mental health crisis. That is why, in my bill, the Youth Revenue Transparency Act, I am asking Big Tech to disclose data on the share of revenue driven by our kids and the amount they spend targeting our children with marketing.

Why, you ask, introduce legislation with just a few weeks left in this Congress? Because, as a former staffer, I believe in the role of this institution, and I believe in the role of a Senator and maybe in the role of all Americans to raise our voices for what is right--that one day these small acts will, I hope, rise to a crescendo of action and create meaningful and lasting change for this generation and the generations of Americans to come. We may start small, but we can do big things. We can hold these companies accountable for their actions and for their harm to the next generation. We can and we must.

I look forward in the coming years--maybe not in this institution but alongside the storied Senators in this Chamber--to working on this vital issue regardless of our politics, cheering you on and supporting these efforts. As John F. Kennedy powerfully said, children are the world's most valuable resource, and it is our only and best hope for the future.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor today as a New Jerseyan, as the only Arab American serving in the U.S. Senate, and as a human being utterly devastated--broken, even--by the unfathomable scale of human suffering taking place right now in Gaza and the West Bank as a direct consequence of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

This war has already claimed an estimated 44,000 lives across Gaza and the West Bank. Almost half of those killed by the bombshells and bullets of this war have been women and children--teens, toddlers, infants. That is not to mention the millions more who have been displaced from their homes by this conflict and threatened by famine and illness.

According to current estimates, every hour, this conflict claims the lives of 15 innocent people--every single hour. It is reported that fully rebuilding Gaza and the West Bank after the war could take at least 200 years or more--literal centuries from now, well beyond our lifetimes.

It should not matter what one's politics are, what one's religion is, what one's nationality is, or one's ethnicity. These facts should shock our conscience to the very core. On our watch, right before our eyes, we are witnessing one of the most rapid decimations of human life in recent history.

Now, let me be clear about a couple of things. I have always and continue to firmly, unquestionably support Israel's right to exist and defend itself against all forms of terrorism and those who sponsor terrorism. I vehemently condemn Hamas and the barbaric attack against Israel and its civilians on October 7, 2023, when 1,200 innocent Israelis lost their lives--a dark day in history during which Hamas also took hundreds of innocent hostages, including U.S. citizens. One of those hostages is New Jersey resident Edan Alexander--a 20-year-old Tenafly High School graduate who should be immediately returned home safely along with all remaining hostages.

Again, all human beings, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, should be devastated by the widespread loss of human life and human suffering on all sides, but I have some real, some hard questions about what is causing the scale of suffering in Gaza and the West Bank and why we are seemingly unable to alleviate it in any significant way. These questions are not abstract. They stem from what I have seen and heard with my own eyes and ears during a recent official trip to Jordan to assess the state of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

What I saw was this: There is a de facto blockade of even the most basic aid supplies getting through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the only viable point of entrance for aid to Gaza and the West Bank. This blockade has severely restricted the amount of aid to make it to the desperate Palestinians, whose lives literally depend on it. Just today, it was reported that nearly 100 trucks transporting lifesaving aid were violently looted at gunpoint, adding yet another unique challenge to getting aid to civilians.

The effects of this chokepoint have resulted in other absurd outcomes. I recently toured warehouses, including one that U.S. Secretary of State Blinken toured himself, stocked to the very brim, practically overflowing with lifesaving aid supplies. This blockade has prevented the safe transport of those supplies into Gaza and the West Bank, where just miles away women, children, and families are literally starving. These are pallets, upon pallets of food, medication, pillows, latrines, and winterized tents to keep families warm as winter sets in, all of it just sitting there because of a manmade blockade.

What I heard was this: I met with medical surgeons and doctors of the Jordanian Armed Forces serving in Gaza who recounted harrowing stories of amputations on children, futile attempts to keep the malnourished alive, and operations in makeshift tents under live fire and drone strikes. These frontline providers--heroes--told me that a number of partially operational hospitals are resorting to using everyday materials like sewing thread for clothes to stitch up patients after surgeries because they have run out of appropriate medical supplies. That should appall every one of us.

Israel's recent passage of two laws to totally ban UNRWA from operating anywhere in Palestine has, of course, threatened to make the problem even worse. It is irrefutable that UNRWA is the primary, on- the-ground provider of aid, food, and other essential services to the people of Gaza and the West Bank. Shutting down UNRWA at this time is shutting down the very nerve center of humanitarian aid and assistance within Palestine.

These insights have left me with many questions: Do these actions intent on limiting aid into Gaza and the West Bank, taken under the pretense of security operations, comply with international humanitarian laws and norms? Are these the actions we should expect from one of our closest democratic allies in the world? Perhaps these are questions for people far more versed in the matters of war and legal compliance than I, but Members of this body should be asking these same questions. Many are, and I thank them for their bold leadership.

And what exactly are we doing to ensure that our closest ally in the Middle East is living up to the humanitarian principles and human rights that we claim to embrace and enforce around the world?

My conversations with Americans of all walks have revealed a deep desire for the United States to take a more aggressive role in protecting innocent civilians suffering from the brunt of this war, and on occasion, we have done that. I thank the Biden administration for their efforts thus far to alleviate the chokepoints and expand the flow of aid into the region.

I also think it is important that the administration agreed with the U.N. Security Council's statement that ``UNRWA remains the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza'' and that ``no organization can replace or substitute UNRWA's capacity and mandate to serve Palestinian refugees and civilians in urgent need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.'' However, so much more needs to and must be done.

As we enter a new Congress and a new administration takes office next year, the U.S. Government will and should continue debating the enormously complex policy and geopolitical issues that are at stake in the Middle East, but I am not here to opine on the Gordian knot of Middle East policy nor do I pretend to have cure-all solutions to the problems that have been plaguing the region for many decades.

I traveled through several States over the last 2 months and spoke with many students--Arab and Muslim Americans and many others--who are deeply concerned with the crisis. The

conversations were thoughtful and reflected the complexity of the situation. One can call terrorism what it is--terrorism. One can stand up and support Israel and the Jewish people worldwide, and yet one can speak to the truth that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank is simply unacceptable.

When I asked a young man what he hoped to see, he said to me, simply: I want to see the world say and show that the life of a Palestinian child is just as valuable as the life of a child anywhere else in the world.

I simply will conclude where I began. My fervent plea is for all of us in this body and in our country to see what is happening in the Middle East through the lens of our humanity, first and foremost. No human should be worth less than another based on which side of a checkpoint or crossing they may live on.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if we keep the principle at the center of our approach, we can do better by the innocent people of Gaza and the West Bank who so desperately demand and need our humanity.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it is a distinct honor to stand in this esteemed Chamber as a Member of the world's greatest deliberative body, the U.S. Senate. That I am even standing here, just as the 81st New Jerseyan, the 204th American, currently the only Arab American, and the first member of the Coptic Church to hold the title of U.S. Senator, is something I had never imagined and still struggle to accept.

For many years, I proudly served as a staffer for two U.S. Senators from the great State of New Jersey: first, the late Senator Frank Lautenberg; and, as fate would have it, my friend, mentor, now colleague, and senior Senator, Cory Booker. As such, it was always my job to be the guy behind the guy. It was my job to make sure they were prepared, that they had the best possible counsel, and were ready to make the consequential decisions required of every U.S. Senator. So standing here now is a little odd, a little overwhelming, and very humbling.

I will, as I have for many years, continue to do my utmost to live up to the faith placed in me by Governor Phil Murphy to be thoughtful, diligent, and a forceful voice and representative of the people of New Jersey. And I have a very short window in which to do just that. In fact, it is my stated intention to resign from this post once the general election is certified by Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way, who also serves as our secretary of state, at which point Governor Murphy has said he will appoint my duly elected successor.

So there is a possibility that my tenure in this body will last all of 73 days. Should that be the case, that means I will tie for the 10th shortest ever tenure as a U.S. Senator, which also means I will forever be rooting for the good health and good fortune of those who follow so that I can make at least one top 10 list at some point in my life.

As with those who have come before me and those who will follow me, no one comes to this august and revered Chamber because they were a wallflower before they got here. So, then, no one seeks to be a wallflower, whether they are here for a day or for a decade.

The challenges facing our Nation are many, but that means so too are the opportunities, and I am going to lean into these opportunities so that, while my time here may be short, my impact may be lasting. So I intend to be focused and I intend to be busy, and I intend to make every single day count for the people of New Jersey.

One vital issue close to my heart and which I will spend much of my energy on over the next 9 weeks is that of our Nation's youth mental health crisis. As a father of two sons--Joshua, age 15, and Elijah, age 12--I know that I cannot make them immune from the strains and stressors that impact their or their friends' mental health, but I can at least try to mitigate the harmful impacts of those stressors while I hold office--and longer, while the Lord gives me life and voice.

The challenges are well known and, frankly, shocking. Over the past decade, cases of severe depression among young adults have nearly doubled. Since 2010, suicidal behavior among our high school students increased by more than 40 percent. And since 2017, the number of our youth hospitalized for anxiety has increased by half, and the proportion hospitalized for self-harm has nearly doubled.

Allow me to repeat that. In just 7 years, the number of youth hospitalized for anxiety has increased by 50 percent, and the proportion of our kids hospitalized for self-harm has increased by nearly 100 percent.

The kids are not OK. Last year alone, 40 percent of our Nation's high schoolers reported feeling so sad or hopeless that they stopped doing their usual activities. That is a truly tragic statistic. Childhood and adolescence should be a time of great hope and optimism, not hopelessness and pessimism.

In our home State of New Jersey, up to one-half of our youth are experiencing poor mental health, and we know this is even more prevalent among young women. In 2021 alone, in New Jersey, nearly 60 percent of female students reported experiencing persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. That is double the rate of their male peers. And nearly one in four of our female students have made suicide plans-- one in four.

I am incredibly grateful to welcome two teens from New Jersey who have overcome their own struggles with mental health and are now looking toward college and a brighter future.

Emma Baez, sitting in the Gallery, is a senior from North Arlington High School. After experiencing her own challenges, she is now a junior commissioner in the Bergen County Commission on the Status of Women, an important commission serving women like her.

Valeria Gimenez, also in the Gallery, just graduated from Carteret High School. She participated in the Pathways Program, an important counseling center in New Jersey, and says it changed her life. Valeria is starting college in the spring and wants to be a physician one day.

Thank you so much for being here, Valeria and Emma. I deeply admire your courage and perseverance. It gives me great hope that we can and must do more to support teens like you.

The statistics revealing the scope of the suffering among our next generation are unconscionable and unacceptable. We need far more support for our American youth in this acute crisis, and to that end, I am cosponsoring the Supporting All Students Act. The bill will lead to peer line support to provide the critical support our youth need during these moments of crisis, and the bill would also allocate the required funding for more professionals who can support these youth.

Among the LGBTQIA+ youth, the numbers are even more dire, with nearly 40 percent having contemplated suicide and with 1 in 10 having actually attempted to take their own lives. That statistic should break our hearts. I have signed onto a bill with my colleagues, including my mentor and friend Senator Booker, called the Pride in Mental Health Act.

Before I go on, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the senior Senator from New Jersey, Senator Cory Booker, who is seated to my left here today. I am in awe of the relentless fight that he has undertaken for the voiceless and marginalized, both back home in his beloved city of Newark, throughout our entire State of New Jersey, the Nation, and beyond.

Senator Booker, your work ethic and compassion inspire me every day. I am beyond blessed to have you in my corner. Both Cory and I are known for quoting the same line because of the upbringing that we have had. And we like to say in our speeches that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Well, let me say now, that from the moment I met Cory in 2012 up to this very moment standing here on the Senate floor, I have stood on his.

I am excited to partner with my senior Senator and others on the Pride In Mental Health Act, which will enhance mental health support for the LGBTQIA youth, both by providing grants to provide and improve mental health and substance abuse outcomes, in addition to mandating the cultural competency and training for our caregivers that we know is so needed.

We can point to numerous stressors which are feeding the crisis. I think all parents like me know them well. Social media lands at the very top of that list. Social media has altered not only the way our young people interact but the way they see themselves and even the way their brains develop. Just last year, the Surgeon General released a historic and alarming report recognizing the detrimental impacts of social media on our youth. Like the warning linking cigarettes to cancer and mortality, the Surgeon General issued an unprecedented warning last year, confirming the serious risks to our youth from social media.

There has been an unprecedented shift in how our young people are spending their time with each other and alone. Over half of our teenagers spend at least 4 hours per day on social media. Frequent users of social media are likely to experience twice as many mental health challenges, including suicide.

The isolation forced upon our youth in the pandemic and compounded by social media has further exasperated stress in their lives and on their families. In the daily beat of news stories, practically every teen sees almost every minute on their phones: school shootings, climate change, political division and animosity, the opioid and fentanyl epidemic, anti-Arab rhetoric and anti-Semitism, and on and on. It has only aided in creating this hopelessness feedback loop.

I have also cosponsored the Youth Mental Health Data Act, which aims to establish a Federal task force focused on improving the data systems needed to help solve the problem.

It can be easy for some of us to sit back and say counseling is what our kids need. And, yes, the resources have been poured by this body and others into communities to provide more and better counseling for our at-risk youth. However, serious disparities remain.

And even in areas where access has been enhanced--particularly in those lower income and immigrant communities which have received funding to address these key issues--the utilization of these services remains unacceptably low.

To tackle this problem, we must first fully understand, for example, why at-risk youth are not availing themselves of the available services and resources.

I am committed to breaking this negative cycle. I am committed to preventing our most precious national asset--our next generation--from falling further into this downward spiral.

Yet here, amongst all this despair, is where I see opportunity, and opportunity means hope. I am hopeful because I know my colleagues on both side of the aisle, led by our majority leader Chuck Schumer, see these opportunities too. From my neighbor colleague representing Pennsylvania, Senator Bob Casey, to my friend and staffer turned Member from Alabama, Katie Britt, I am inspired by the conversations I have had with Members and others about protecting our children. And I am hopeful to continue to find common ground and that both parties can stand to address the universe of issues. The youth mental health crisis is not a Democratic or Republican issue. It is and must be an American priority.

We need not reinvent the wheel. As mentioned, there are numerous good pieces of legislation before the Senate. I have proudly put my name on cosponsoring a number of them. We must also look to the States, the true laboratories of our democracy, for policy solutions that have worked to chip away at this crisis.

During my time serving as chief of staff to Governor Murphy, he led the National Governors Association and committed 1 year of his term to building a national playbook for tackling just this, the youth mental health crisis. I should note that his cochair, whose staff I worked with closely, was Governor Spencer Cox of Utah. No one is ever going to confuse the politics of Governor Spencer Cox and Governor Murphy. But together, our teams proved the power of bipartisanship in taking on seemingly intractable issues.

I will be clear-eyed about one thing. Even if we are successful getting at least one measure to the President's desk and seeing it become law, it will not mean the end of our efforts to address the youth mental health crisis. As with many things in this Chamber,

there will always be more work for us to do together.

As I conclude my remarks, Madam President, it is in this spirit--the spirit of bipartisanship, of partnership, of collaboration for the greater good--upon which I wish to land. I had no intention of ever seeking office. I guess, for me, once a staffer, always a staffer. However, duty called to continue my service to the people of New Jersey.

I have had the great privilege of directly working for two U.S. Senators and a Governor, all who embody the true term ``public servant.'' These jobs afforded me the ability to work alongside many more elected officials, from local council and school board members all the way up to President of the United States.

I draw great inspiration from one of my own esteemed former New Jersey colleagues, our late Lieutenant Governor, Sheila Oliver. She was the first Black woman elected to serve as speaker of the New Jersey Assembly and the first Black woman in our State's history to be elected to statewide office. She was smart; she was funny; and, you bet, she was Jersey tough.

In her first inauguration, January of 2018, Sheila said, ``We make history not in the moment, but in what we do with it.''

During my time in this capacity, I am dedicated to making a lasting impact that will benefit our Nation's youth. When I accepted this position, I told the people of New Jersey that part of my job, aside from representing them here on the floor of the U.S. Senate and in the important work we do in our State offices, was to begin to restore their faith in our democracy and trust in this office. If I can do just that, even for a little bit in my remaining time, I will have succeeded.

I thank my colleagues who have honored me and joined me on the floor or for tuning into my maiden speech. And I want to dedicate and thank my team who are here on the floor, in the Gallery, and offices back home, for standing by my side as we continue to serve the people of New Jersey.

In regard to my short time here, I channel the late great Robert F. Kennedy:

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but

each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It

is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that

human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an

ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out

against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and

crossing each other from a million different centers of

energy and daring those ripples build a current which can

sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

I pray that my work here will be remembered as a tiny ray of hope. I look forward to the next few months in which I will be a Member of this august body, and I intend to use every moment to its fullest, working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

I hope and pray that I can be helpful to making a difference to what they do, to continue to support their work with this brief moment here in the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Thank you.