Floor Statements

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 69 and ask it be reported by number.

Madam President, this amendment simply says you can't raise

taxes on small business during the pandemic, and I hope everyone can support it. I can't imagine anyone being against that idea.

I yield the floor.

I call up my amendment 651 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, starting 7 days ago, if you arrived at the border of the United States with children, you were allowed to stay in the country on a notice to appear.

I have tremendous compassion for the extraordinary challenges and horrifying conditions in which people live in the Western Hemisphere and Central America and the like. There is nothing compassionate about this policy. What this is doing, what is happening right now--and I have seen it, and I have talked to people; you can talk to the government officials in these countries--is these evil traffickers who take money from these people, who push them through the jungles, who abuse them, who sometimes kill them and do horrifying things, are now out there marketing this. They are going around telling people throughout the Western Hemisphere: You can now get into the United States and come with children because, if you do, they are going to give you a little piece of paper, and they are going to let you go on a Greyhound bus anywhere you want in the country, and you never have to show up again.

This is going to create chaos on the border, and it is inhumane to lure people to this country with a policy that is encouraging these traffickers to go out and do this to them.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, our Nation was founded on an incredibly powerful and truly audacious idea. The idea was that every single human being was created equal, with rights that come from your Creator, from God--not from the government, not from the laws, not even from the Constitution or your leaders. You are born with those rights. Inherent in that is our powerful national commitment that I think remains to this day, the belief that everyone should have freedom and that everyone--because freedom comes with those rights--and that everyone be treated fairly.

For 244 years, our story has been that of a nation on a continuous and a steady march to live up to those ideals. Tomorrow, thousands will come to Washington once again for a different march but one that I believe is tied directly to this Nation's ongoing quest to fulfill the promise of its founding.

Almost half a century ago, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that within our Constitution, there was the implicit right to end the life of an unborn child. Since then, every single day in this country, unborn human beings have had their life ended before they even drew their first breath. They are, in essence, denied the freedom to live, not because they did anything wrong; they are denied this most basic of rights unfairly because of circumstances they have nothing to do with and do not control.

That this occurs here is shameful enough, and I believe that is how history will regard it; that we use taxpayer money to promote it and export it abroad is outrageous.

Before we even passed a bill to deal with the pandemic or to bring back good jobs to the United States or any of the other major issues confronting our country, in one of his first acts as President, President Biden decided to prioritize tearing up the so-called Mexico City policy--a policy that rightfully bans our taxpayer dollars from being sent to organizations that use them to perform or promote abortions overseas.

Abortion is a very difficult and uncomfortable topic. No one can pretend that if some 15-year-old girl is pregnant and afraid--afraid of her parents, afraid of what others might think, afraid for her future-- that she faces an easy choice. It is not.

It doesn't feel fair, it doesn't feel like freedom to have laws that tell people what they can or cannot do with their body, but in this case, the challenge we have is that it is a case that puts the fundamental rights of two people into direct conflict--the right, as most definitely exists, of a mother to choose what to do with her body versus the right of an unborn child to live. It

forces us to decide which one of these two rights wins out in those circumstances.

I personally, for one, and those who march tomorrow have chosen life--not because it is an easy choice but because, to me, it is a clear one because the right to live is the one right upon which all the other rights we claim depend. Without life, there is no speech to protect, and there is no religion to practice. Without life, frankly, nothing else matters.

I would point out that being pro-life is not just about the right to be born; it also means the right to live and to thrive. Once a child is born, that child depends on their parents or whoever their guardians are who are raising them, and they have a moral and legal duty to care for them--not just to feed them, not just to clothe them, not just to house them, but also to promote a safe and stable home and the chance at a good education and a better future.

That is why I deeply believe that pro-life must also mean being pro- parent. Being a parent is the most influential role anyone will ever have. It is the most important job any of us will ever have. That is why I worked to and we were successful in expanding the child tax credit 2 years ago. That is why I stand ready now to work with President Biden to expand it even further.

I am concerned about some of the details of the policies he has outlined. For example, his proposal appears to unfairly benefit parents who send their children to commercial childcare over stay-at-home parents or grandparents or other caregivers. But this is an area where we have a common goal and one where I believe we can find a way to work together.

It is also why I support creating the opportunity for every parent in America to have access to paid family leave, because no one should be thrown into welfare or debt or bankruptcy because they got pregnant, because they had a child.

It is also, by the way, why I support school choice. In America, rich parents can afford to send their kids to any school they want, and they do. Upper middle class parents can move to neighborhoods with good public schools. But it is unfair that the only parents in America who are forced to send their children to the school the government tells them--even if that school is failing their children--are the parents who don't make enough money to have another option.

For 21st-century America to move closer to fulfilling our founding principle of equality, of freedom, of fairness, every child deserves the right not just to be born but also the right to live and to thrive, the right not just to exist but the right to pursue and fulfill their potential.

I believe that what is at stake is nothing less than our identity as a nation. If we become a place where your right to be born and your ability to succeed is determined by who your parents are or by the circumstances of your conception, then we may remain, indeed, a rich and a powerful and an important country, but we will no longer be a special one.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, at noon today, Joe Biden was sworn in as our new President. I never served with President Biden when he was a Senator, but I can tell you, from direct and firsthand experience, that he is a man of tremendous empathy. I have witnessed it. And so I pray that God will bless him with strength, with health, and with wisdom, because I don't need to tell anyone that we, in our Nation, are living in troubled times.

President Trump was elected and then, in this last cycle, received 75 million votes, in part because he spoke to and was brutally honest about some of the grievances and the fears that are now dividing our country. It is important to understand that he didn't create them, and that is why his exit alone is not going to make America normal again.

The troubles we face and the things that now divide us really aren't so much about politics or about ideology. If you look into them, they are really more about the things that are at the core of our identity as a nation and as a people.

Our people want a country where everybody has the opportunity to find a good job, to get married, to live in a safe neighborhood, to not go into debt because they have a baby, to send their kids to a good school, and one day to retire with dignity and security. But we have millions of Americans who increasingly feel that that kind of life and those kinds of things are out of reach for them, and they are really frustrated that neither those in government or either political party seem to be doing much about them.

The people need a sense of belonging and purpose, but the places that we used to get that from--our families, the community groups we joined, the synagogues, the churches--many of them are in collapse. So now you have millions of people who feel isolated or alienated and some who are turning to hyperpartisan politics and even online conspiracy cults to fill the void that those institutions once filled.

The overwhelming majority of Americans reject racism and bigotry and discrimination. But they also reject identity politics, which constantly seems to want to divide us against and apart from each other on the basis of race and ethnicity and gender.

We are a nation that is proud of our heritage as a nation of immigrants, but millions of Americans--I would say the majority--also believe we are a nation that has to have immigration laws. They need to be followed, and they need to be enforced.

Most Americans accept that our country, our society is changing, and they understand that there are people with different views and different ways of life. What they do resent is efforts to demonize and to persecute those who hold the traditional values that are inherited from our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Most Americans believe decency and morality require that everyone is entitled to dignity and to respect. But there are also many growing increasingly tired of walking on eggshells of political correctness and forced to undergo sensitivity training because everyone seems to be so easily offended these days by everything.

People understand that we have to do something. It is a problem. We have do something about people who use social media to spread dangerous lies, to instigate violence. But I think they also have a right to be very troubled that five CEOs of technology companies--five people in five companies, elected by no one, accountable to no one--have the power, if they so choose, to wipe out, to silence anyone--even a President.

And I would tell you that, almost without exception, they were horrified--horrified--about what happened here 2 weeks ago today. They want those people in jail. But they also wonder: Where was that outrage when this summer, in multiple cities, across a number of months, there were people setting fire to police cars and breaking into police stations and attacking courthouses and looting private property?

I will tell you that they see firsthand every day the extraordinary damage being done by this terrible pandemic and the damage being done by our bitter divisions, which, frankly, I think most Americans will never understand why the first thing we are going to do here, potentially, is an impeachment trial of a President who isn't even in office anymore.

What happened today was incredibly important. The pageantry, the rituals behind it--it matters. And for the 59th time in our history, we peacefully transferred power from one leader to the next. I think the fact that that happened on the very steps of this Capitol, where just 2 weeks ago on this day we saw an unimaginable attack on democracy, that should serve as a reminder to all of us in this country and a powerful message to the world that our Republic remains resilient.

But now the hard work of self-government begins, and these anxieties I have just described--the tens of millions of Americans--need to be acknowledged, and they need to be addressed. If they are ignored, if they are allowed to fester, what it will do is it will leave us not just a nation that is paralyzed and can't take action on important issues; we are going to be left a nation that remains vulnerable to those who are willing to exploit and stir the most destructive impulses.

Today, President Biden struck important tones of national unity, and I believe they were sincere. But pursuing a radical agenda in a country so divided does not serve the cause of unity. It will only serve cynicism that destroys trust.

By the same token, continuing to fan the flames of grievances or, in the alternative, pursuing vengeance disguised as accountability will not serve the cause of unity either. That is nothing but the politics of resentment and

retribution, which only leads to a fractured nation of people who literally come to hate each other.

Demanding that the other side in a debate on a topic, on a principle, agree with you on everything isn't unity. That is the arrogance of believing that any of us--that we are the sole holders of the truth: Anyone who agrees with us is good, and anyone who disagrees with us is wrong--not just wrong but, actually, evil.

The truth is that real unity isn't everyone having the same ideology or the same views or the same ideas. The unity we need actually comes from remembering--remembering who we actually are.

We Americans are not a racist or nativist people. We are a good and compassionate people who--in an overwhelming majority, they do not ask about race when they donate unwrapped toys so that no child has to wake up on Christmas morning with no present under the tree. They don't ask where a soldier's or sailor's or airman's or airwoman's parents came from when they put together and send care packages to them halfway around the world that they defend. We Americans are a bold people. In our veins literally runs the blood of pilgrims, of settlers, of exiles, of immigrants, of people who overcame slavery and segregation. We are the descendants of people who refused to surrender to fear and to abandon the hope of a better life.

We Americans are not the inheritors of an American dream that is some prize that we have to fight against one another for in some winner- take-all competition. We are the inheritors of an American dream that anyone can achieve without it being denied to someone else.

This is who we were when this country inspired and changed the world, and I hope this is who we will be again: a people who disagree over principles, who argue over policies--that has to happen because our Republic depends on every view having a voice and every voice having a place to be heard--but also a people who now understand that the choice before us is, we will either find a way to share a nation and a future, or we will all share the condemnation of history and the rebuke of Americans yet to come.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the last weeks and days leading up to this vote here today, I have heard from a lot of people about this vote, and I guess I want to address it as much to them as anybody else. These are people I know. These are friends. These are neighbors. These are longtime supporters, generally people on my side of the political aisle.

And they are upset. They are upset. They look at the media, and the media, they censored stories that might have been negative toward Joe Biden or were negative toward Joe Biden, and social media companies helped them out. And they saw how some States tinkered with and even mutilated State election laws, and they have doubts that the election was legitimate.

It gives this country this extraordinary crisis of confidence, which is very dangerous because democracy is very fragile, and it is not held together by elections. Democracy is held together by people's confidence in the election and their willingness to abide by its results.

So the notion was we need to do something; we need to fight. Several of my colleagues have adopted the idea--and I respect it--that they are going to object.

Now, listen, it is important to understand something. Even the people objecting in the Senate recognize that it is not going to pass. It is not going to change the outcome, but it is going to send a message, and it is going to make a point.

The problem is I think it is a terrible idea at this moment. Just hours ago, a young lady died in this Capitol. That means somebody, somewhere in this country, got a phone call that their daughter was dead. Their daughter was going to a political rally; she is dead--died in this Capitol, somewhere not far from where we are standing.

We had police officers--the men and women we walk by every single day, who guard the doors and we say hello to--out there with riot gear getting spit on and attacked today--not 10 weeks ago; just a few hours ago. I think it is important to think about all those things on a night like tonight with everything that has happened.

I wouldn't even be here today--I doubt very much whether I would have even been interested in politics--had it not been for my grandfather. He died when I was 14, but I grew up at his knee. He would sit on the porch and would smoke three cigars a day, and he loved history.

He was born in 1899 in rural Cuba. It was still governed by the United States. It was a protectorate. Three years later, it gained its independence and became a republic.

During my grandfather's first 60 years of life, he saw his country have an armed insurrection after a contested election, multiple Presidents go into exile, two military coups, and the rise of a Marxist dictator--a tyranny that stands to this day.

My entire life--my entire life I have lived with and next to people who came to America because their country was chaotic and their country was unsafe. What I saw today--what we have seen--looks more like those countries than the extraordinary Nation that I am privileged to call home, and I think about the mockery that it makes of our country.

A lot of people say: Oh, well, China, China. Let me just say something. In all modesty, no one here has worked harder on the issue of China. They hate my guts. I am sanctioned--I don't know what they are sanctioning--double sanctioned, and I can't travel there. I wasn't planning to anyway.

China is laughing. They are loving this tonight. In Beijing they are high-fiving because they point to this and they say: This is proof the future belongs to China. America is in decline.

Vladimir Putin--there is nothing Vladimir Putin could have come up with better than what happened here. It makes us look like we are in total chaos and collapse--not to mention the Ayatollah, who is probably bragging, if he has buddies, to his buddies: Look what is happening to the Great Satan.

I think politics has made us crazy. Everybody in this country has lost their minds on politics, and we have forgotten that America is not a government, America is not a President, America is not a Congress.

Let me tell you what America is. America is your family. America is your faith. America is your community. That is America. That is what our adversaries don't understand, and that is what we need to remember. That is how we are going to rebuild this country and turn the page and have a future even brighter than our past.

So that is why I feel so strongly about this and why I hope those who disagree with me will understand.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, it is my honor to recognize a small business that exemplifies a rigorous work ethic, attention to detail, and dedication to tradition. This week, it is my privilege to name Capital Shoe Fixery of Tallahassee, FL, as the Senate Small Business of the Week.

Known for their expertise in shoe maintenance, Capital Shoe Fixery has become a local staple, servicing the members of their community since 1938. Having celebrated their 81st anniversary, the small business has become a landmark in the State's capitol and remains a true Main Street favorite. Originally owned by Elton and June Henley, Nick Camechis's father, John, bought the business in 1966. After school, Nick spent his days helping his father around the store and learning the trade. Following the precedent of hard work and tradition, Nick took over the business in 1995. To this day, Nick expands on his father's longstanding tradition of fairly priced, high-quality craftsmanship. Recently turning 65, this shoe cobbler has no current plans to retire, working 70 hour workweeks with no sick days.

Today, Capital Shoe Fixery remains family-oriented and affordable, providing only the highest quality of work to their customers. When customers arrive, they are greeted by Nick's dog Tuck, who also never misses a day of work. Capital Shoe's clientele ranges from politicians, college students, dancers, and customers from all walks of life. Capital Shoe Fixery will take in approximately 60 to 70 shoes a day during a typical legislative session. Furthermore, Nick is known for his honesty with customers and will decline new business if he feels that the damaged shoes are irreparable.

This outstanding quality of service and honesty by Capital Shoe Fixery has not gone unnoticed. In addition to their excellent reviews, in 2016, Capital Shoe Fixery was featured in Tallahassee Family Magazine, where the family-owned business was commended for their work ethic and attention to detail. The article truly cemented Capital Shoe Fixery as a Main Street staple, highlighting its unique traits that allow for remarkable customer experiences.

Capital Shoe Fixery has remained true to their original values by focusing on quality service with an expert investment of time, care, and honesty to prioritize the customer. In addition, it is a reminder of the extensive amount of time and care required to achieve success and longevity in business. Nick's dedication is a quintessential example of how hard work can lead to exceptional success. It is with great pleasure that I extend my congratulations to Nick and Capital Shoe Fixery. I wish you well as you continue serving the people of Tallahassee, and I look forward to watching your continued success.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader, the senior Senator from South Carolina, the junior Senator from Oklahoma, and the junior Senator from North Carolina be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions from June 27 through the July 8.

Mr. President, I am going to try to do this in about 12 minutes, since I am not sure how many people are left to speak tonight and I know the staff worked hard and we will be up early tomorrow voting on the pending Udall amendment. That is what I want to talk about.

I have watched all week the debate on some of these topics. I think it is a really good debate, actually. In some ways, I am very pleased the amendment has been offered because it has given us an opportunity to talk about a topic I don't think we have talked enough about; that is, foreign policy, the security threats before our country, and, in particular, what the role of Congress is in all of this.

There are a couple of things I want to say at the outset. Here is the first. A lot of people who cover this stuff in the news like very simplistic terms. It makes it easier to write the articles and makes it easier to describe the circumstances. The terms people like to use are ``hawk,'' or ``dove,'' or ``warlike.'' I am not in favor of war. I have actually never advocated for a military attack on Iran, in these circumstances especially. There are a lot of reasons for it, but it will take me more than 15 minutes to explain it all. Suffice it to say, it is certainly not the first or the second.

The policy of the United States in Iran today is the one I support; that is, crippling economic sanctions that deny them the money to do the bad things they do but also a forced posture that we are prepared with enough people there in the military, so if they do attack us, we can defend ourselves.

I want to say at the outset that I am not here today to speak in favor of war or to call for war but to speak about reality and the situation as we face it today.

The second thing I want to point to is there is this notion out there that there is some clear-cut constitutional limitation on the President when it comes to the use of force in virtually every circumstance and that somehow the current President is being enabled by the Members of his party here to do whatever he wants. That is just not true. I will explain why in a moment.

I want to begin with why we are even here. It is one of the topics that has been touched on this week, which I think deserves a direct response. I heard a number of Senators who came to the floor. I watched the debate last night, and there will be another one tonight within the Democratic Party. You almost get a sense that what they are arguing is that Iran was under control and wasn't doing anything wrong until Donald Trump came along and pulled us out of the Iran deal. That is just not true. That is patently false.

The only thing Iran wasn't doing is enriching uranium beyond a certain threshold. That is not necessarily a bad thing that they weren't doing it, but that is the only thing that deal covered.

Here is what Iran was still doing. Iran was still sponsors terrorism. You ask, why is it that they sponsor terrorism? Iran wants to be the dominant power in the Middle East, and one of the ways they seek to achieve it is to find all of these groups--Hezbollah, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthis in Yemen--and empower those groups.

They have an organization called the IRGC, which is the real military and the real power in Iran. Underneath the IRGC, there is an organization called the Quds Force, which is their covert operations unit led by a guy named General Soleimani. He goes around the entire region sponsoring these groups--training them and providing weapons.

Here is what they hope to do. If they ever get into a conflict, they will use these groups to attack people. Why do they use those groups? No. 1, because Iran doesn't have the ability to station troops all over the region. No. 2, it gives them deniability. They can say: We didn't attack you. It was the Houthis or Shia militia. It allows them some level of deniability while still inflicting pain.

If you want to know what else Iran has done using that strategy, it has maimed or killed hundreds of American service men and women in Iraq. They didn't buy all those IEDs that were blowing up on Amazon; they didn't order them on eBay. They were built and supplied by the Iranians. That is who did it. There is no dispute about that.

President Obama signed this Iran deal. Iran began to get more money into their treasury because they could now engage in certain economic activity. What did Iran do with that money? Let me tell you what they didn't do. They didn't build schools, roads, and bridges. They didn't reinvest it in their economy or their education system. Iran took the money they were making from the Iran deal. The Iran deal now allows them to engage in commerce that they weren't allowed to. They took that extra money, and they used it to sponsor terrorism--to sponsor Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Today Hezbollah not only has more missiles than they had 10 or 15 years ago, but their missiles are better than they were. They could now, theoretically, overwhelm Israel's defenses with barrages of attacks. They have guidance systems on those missiles now. In fact, they have gotten so much assistance from Iran, they don't even need to ship these missiles to them anymore. They can make them themselves.

What about the Houthis? The Houthis are a group that already existed, but they were only able to make the gains they made in Yemen with Iranian support. You read in the news every day about these missiles and drones used by the Houthis to attack Saudi Arabia. It doesn't get a lot of coverage, but where do you think they bought these things from? Do you think they made them? We didn't sell them to them. Those are Iranian missiles. All of it is provided by this additional money they got their hands on.

They also conduct cyber attacks.

Here is the most dangerous part of the Iran deal. Yes, it dealt with uranium enrichment and supervision, but it did nothing with the missile system. To have a nuclear threat, you have to do three things; No. 1, have a bomb designed, which is the easiest part, believe it or not; No. 2, have the industrial capacity to enrich uranium to weapons grade, and that is just a function of time and willingness. Once you can enrich at any level, you can keep going. That is what the deal dealt with; and the third thing you have to do is deliver it. You have to launch it on something to reach your target.

The deal with Iran did nothing on the missiles. It gave them more money, and they used some of that money to build missiles that now have longer ranges. Where Iran, 5 or 10 years ago, had a more limited range of places to strike, today Iran can strike virtually every capital in the Middle East and every base in the region. That is where they were putting this money.

The Trump administration came in and said: Let me get this straight. We did a deal with Iran. They get a lot more money. They use that money to build better missiles, to sponsor terrorism, to conduct cyber attacks, and the only thing is they can't enrich uranium for a period of time until the deal goes away? That is not a bad deal for Iran because what they were banking on is that in 10 years, we would be focused on something else. The world would forget, and all of a sudden they would be able to enrich.

The deal was a fraud. It did nothing to make Iran less dangerous. The only thing the deal did is slow down their enrichment capability, but at no time are they less than 1\1/2\ to 2 years away to breaking out to weapons grade. At some point, they would--at least they retain that very option.

This idea that somehow Iran wasn't doing anything wrong but pulling out of the deal caused all these tensions is just not true. Even with a deal in place, Iran was arming and training and equipping all these groups in the region and conducting cyber attacks and building these missiles unabated. That is what was going on. Now they are feeling it.

By the way, today Iran is generating a lot less revenue than they were when the deal was in place. We are at a point now where even Hezbollah is out there openly saying they have had to cut back. They have budget cuts. They are putting out leaflets and things they posted publicly inside of Lebanon asking people to donate to Hezbollah because Iran can't donate as much as they used to. They have real fiscal constraints. That is not a bad thing. Likewise, with some of these Shia militias and others, it has constrained Iran's ability to operate.

Iran has decided the only way to reverse this is to force us back to some negotiation at some point to either, A, intimidate us back into the deal or, B, force us to the negotiating table to get something like it. How can they do that?

How can Iran position itself with some strength in order to get into that kind of negotiation? They can't sanction us economically. The only thing they can do is these terrorist attacks--these sort of attacks that started to connect. That is what they are in the pattern of doing.

Do you realize, last week, over a period of 7 days, every single day there was a Shia militia attack against a U.S. installation? Luckily, nobody died, but that was happening. That is what they were trying and are trying to do.

They were trying to position themselves and accumulate some strength so they can get into future negotiations from a position of strength. The only way they think they can do that is by threatening to attack us and, most interestingly, to attack us with some level of deniability. You have this tanker out there in the middle of the Gulf, which is a huge ocean, and suddenly some mines blow up, and you have journalists and politicians saying, how do we know it was Iran? Who was it? It wasn't the Swedes. It wasn't the Germans. It wasn't the French. It wasn't Luxembourg. There is only one organization in that part of the world with the capability to do what happened--Iran. Everybody knows it.

The only reason some countries don't admit it is because then they would have to do something about it. If you are a European country and you want the Iran deal to come back in place and you want to save it, you can't say you know Iran put those mines on those ships. If you say that, you have to pull out of the deal. That is why they wouldn't acknowledge it.

We have them on video. I heard people ask how we know those were Iranians. This is ridiculous stuff. By the way, the mines look identical to the ones Iran makes. So they did that. That was their plan, OK? Their plan was to attack us using other forces but to have some level of deniability. ``It was not us.''

They also know that there are divisions in American politics and that the President is unpopular in many countries. A lot of people around the world and in the United States would love nothing more than to say ``Yes, how do we know it was Iran?'' for different reasons. That is what they were banking on, but then they shot down an unmanned U.S. vehicle, and they admitted it because that would have been very difficult to deny. That is what really kicked off a lot of this argument that we are now hearing.

I want everybody to remember, if you go back 3 or 4 weeks, that there were people in the building and people on television--I saw them-- commentators and others--who were basically implying that this was all not true, that there was no threat emanating from Iran, that it wasn't doing anything unusual. Now they are admitting that Iran is doing something unusual and dangerous, but 3 or 4 weeks ago, they were basically implying that this was all being made up by people who wanted a war.

Think that through logically. That means there would be dozens and dozens of career service men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces and in the Pentagon who would be, basically, lying to us about this. That is absurd.

So we get to the point of how this really got us here. It wasn't the deal with Iran or the pulling out of the deal that caused this. This has always been. This is what Iran has always done, and it has been doing it for two decades

now and longer. To somehow act as if Iran is more belligerent today than it was 6 months ago or 6 years ago is just not true. It is just that the threats have become more imminent directly against us.

When you look at this amendment, the amendment is basically designed to say that the President cannot enter into a war unless Congress approves it, which is an interesting dynamic.

No. 1, when you hear people saying you need authority from Congress, what they are talking about is the War Powers Resolution. In the aftermath of Vietnam and that era, Congress said, from now on, we are not getting into any more of these undeclared wars. If a President is going to commit service men and women for an extended period of time, it has to come through Congress.

No President--no administration--has ever accepted that resolution as being in the Constitution. From that point forward, every single administration--Democrat and Republican--has taken the position that this is an unconstitutional infringement on the power of the Commander in Chief. That has been the official position of every administration, Republican and Democrat, since that passed.

Nonetheless, on various occasions, Presidents have come to Congress for authority, which I think is a smart thing to do, especially for an extended engagement, because we are stronger and our policies are more effective when Congress and the American people are behind you. That is why President George W. Bush sought the authorization for Afghanistan and why he sought it for Iraq. It was the right thing to do, and it made sense. Yet no President has ever admitted that it is constitutional, and I share that view.

For a moment, let's assume that it were. Well, that resolution lays out three things that must happen before a President, a Commander in Chief, can commit U.S. forces to a hostility, to a war, to a fight.

The first thing is that there has to be a declaration of war. That is in the Constitution too. Congress can declare war.

The second is that Congress can authorize the use of force. That is when you hear all of this talk about the authorization for use of military force, the AUMF. That is what we had in Afghanistan, and that is what we had in Iraq. That is what a lot of people around here think we need if we are going to do something with Iraq.

There is a third component they like to ignore, and the third component is that a President can institute U.S. military action if Congress declares war, if Congress authorizes the use of force, or, No. 3, if there is an emergency that causes us to respond to an attack against the United States, our territories, our holdings, or our Armed Forces.

I want to tell you that if a Shia militia attacks a U.S. base in Iraq, this is a pretty clear attack on the Armed Forces. If it shoots down one of our unmanned, unarmed platforms over international airspace, that is an attack on our Armed Forces. If they try to kidnap or murder an ambassador or a diplomat by attacking our Embassy, that is an attack on a U.S. territory since embassies are sovereign territories.

If you look at what the administration has done, the only thing the administration has done when it has come to the use of force is it has made sure that we have had enough ships and enough airplanes and enough personnel and enough assets in the Middle East so, if we are attacked, we can respond. That is the only thing it has done.

I don't know how you read the plain text of the language that they are wrapping themselves around--those who criticize what the administration has done--and not realize that it is fully authorized. If we are attacked, the President doesn't just have a right to respond--he has an obligation.

Think of the reverse. If the Iranians were to attack a facility in Iraq and murder 100 Americans who would be working at an embassy or diplomats or if they were to kill 200 soldiers, the first questions that every one of the President's critics would be asking on TV would be: Why didn't we have enough forces in the region to protect them? Why didn't we have a plan to save them? There would be congressional hearings, and there would be Members of Congress who would scream at the administration: Why didn't you have people there to save them?

In anticipating that this could happen, our military leaders, in their looking at the threats and understanding the environment, asked the administration to send additional forces so they may be prepared-- to be in a position of having enough people and assets to respond in case of an attack.

I will go further than that.

Imagine the President is given verifiable information that an attack is imminent by Iran or one of its proxies and that the only way to save American lives is to wipe out the place from which it is going to launch the attack. Even if you acted first, that is self-defense. You are getting ahead of preventing an attack, not to mention the fact that the best way to respond to an attack is to prevent it from happening in the first place, and having a force posture in the region is one of the best ways to do that. That is the only thing that has been done here.

This amendment is just not necessary because, in assuming they are arguing that the War Powers Resolution makes pretty clear what Congress's power and role are in all of this, in the very text of that resolution, it makes clear that a President has a right to introduce military forces and to use military force to defend Americans, to defend America, and to defend our Armed Forces.

So why do we need language that says that a second time? Some would say: Well, it is redundant, and it is already the law. Why not just vote for it again?

That is the final and, perhaps, the most important point in all of this--that the timing couldn't really be worse. It is not necessary, but the redundancy here is actually damaging, and here is why.

I think sometimes we make a terrible mistake in American politics. We ascribe our attributes to those of the leaders of other countries. When we hear that the President of Iran said something, we think Iran's President and his system is like ours. They are not. The President of Iran doesn't have one-tenth the power of our President, meaning there is a Supreme Leader, and everything goes to the Supreme Leader, a cleric. That is where the power really resides.

No. 2, we make a terrible mistake of believing that they truly understand us, our systems, and our debates when they don't, especially the Ayatollah. He is not a world traveler nor a constitutional expert nor a consumer of a varied amount of news and information from around the world nor a nuanced person who understands that this amendment, for example, is never going to become law.

Here is what they do believe, and I encourage all Members here to go out and inform themselves as to this. As a Senator, one has the opportunity to do it. They do believe that this President cannot respond. They believe that this President cannot and would not respond. They believe that there is a threshold--that there are x numbers of Americans they can kill and that there are certain types of attacks they can get away with without getting a response back. That is what they believe.

Why do they believe it?

No. 1, it is that our President has talked on various occasions about withdrawing all Americans from the region. So they begin by believing, by and large, that we don't even want to be there.

No. 2, they believe it because they look at our domestic politics, and they say: I have heard the debates, and I watched 5 minutes of CNN or some other network the other night, and I heard people on there who were from Congress or wherever who told the President he can't do this and can't do that. There is no support in America for responding, so the President is constrained in what he is able to do.

Why is that a problem?

It is because that is where you miscalculate. That is where what they think would trigger a response and what will actually trigger a response are two very different things.

If this thing were to pass--and I know there are still a couple of people who are thinking about voting for it--this would not be reported as an amendment that had passed on a bill but that was never going to become law because it was never going to get signed with that in there. That is not

how it would be reported. In fact, if there were a close vote on it, as I anticipate there will be, the way it would be reported would be as ``even a handful of Republicans and virtually every Democrat voted to send the President a message of `we don't want you using Armed Forces in wars against Iran.' '' That is how it would be reported. That is how they would read it. It would only reinforce this belief among some in that regime that they can go further than they actually can.

I don't mean to say this to argue that there are Members of this body here who are deliberately putting the men and women of our Armed Forces in danger. I am telling them I don't know if they have thought through that part of it. What we do here and how it is perceived in other parts of the world, especially in a reclusive organization such as the regime in Iran, are often two very different things.

The danger with this amendment is that it is going to confirm to several hard-liners in that regime that the President is constrained, that America's President will not be able to respond, and that they will be able to get away with more than they actually will get away with.

In some ways, ironically, I believe that even a big vote on this-- but, certainly, the passage of it--increases the chance of war. I say that because, if they miscalculate and they read into this an opportunity to attack at a higher level without taking a retaliatory response, they are going to do it. Then they are going to be wrong, and then the retaliation will come. Then it is on. Then we can't predict what will happen next.

What happens next is terrifying to even contemplate because what happens next could be a Hezbollah strike against Israel and Israel's responding 10 times stronger. It could be Hezbollah's moving to abduct, kill, murder American diplomats or personnel inside of Lebanon; it could be Shia militias throughout Iraq and Syria attacking U.S. personnel; it could be increased Houthi attacks not just into Saudi Arabia but potentially even hitting civilian populations and Saudi Arabia's responding back. What could come next is a spiraling series of events that could lead to a dangerous regional war. That is not an exaggeration. Neither is it an exaggeration to believe that a miscalculation on the part of Iran and what it can get away with would trigger that.

This is an unnecessary amendment because, if you accept the War Powers Resolution as valid under our Constitution--I do not--it already reads that the President has a right to respond in self-defense. The administration has made it very clear that this is the only way it intends to use it. It has made it abundantly clear. In fact, its force posture proves it. If you look at what we have in the region--the number of ships and the number of people--we are not postured for an invasion or an all-out war. We are postured for defensive operations and retaliatory strikes to an attack, and that is what the administration says it intends to do.

What it intends to do is to continue forward, strangling the sources of financing that the Iranian regime is using to sponsor terrorism and its ballistic missile program and having enough force in the region to protect our men and women who serve us if they were to come under attack. The President is allowed to do that in the Constitution and in the War Powers Resolution.

All this amendment does is create a dangerous opportunity to be misread and to cause Iran to do something, and that will trigger a response. Then we will have a war. For those who are considering still voting for this because they want to reassert Congress's role, this is the wrong time and place in which to do it.

I will close with this. I don't agree with all of the President's foreign policy views. I can tell you, for example, that I do believe that openly talking about getting out of the Middle East as soon as possible has emboldened some of this thinking that America is constrained and that we really don't have the dedication or the commitment to see this through if we are attacked. Yet, in fairness, this President is far less likely to get into a war or to start one than was his predecessor--or his two predecessors, actually. He showed great restraint the other day.

It strikes me that not only is this unnecessary from a policy perspective, it is also unnecessary from a personality perspective. This is not a President who is looking to start wars. This is a President who is looking to get out of the ones we are already in. Again, I just don't know why we would run the risk of putting something out there that could be misconstrued and lead to an attack when we have a President who has no intention of starting a war, when we have a military posture in the region that would not support an offensive military operation or anything close to what Afghanistan or Iraq was like, and when we have this danger of miscalculation.

The amendment has been filed, and there will be a vote on it tomorrow. I just hope that the handful of people still thinking about it will consider all of these points.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, today I honor Summer Holtzhower, the Sumter County Teacher of the Year from Wildwood Elementary School in Wildwood, FL.

Summer, a 4th grade math and science teacher, just completed her second year and designs her classroom activities to challenge her students. She has a teaching activity called the Density Lab, where students experiment with placing certain liquids in measuring cups and hypothesize where they think the liquids will settle. Students then test to see if their hypothesis are correct and answer Summer's

``higher order thinking'' questions about their lab results.

Summer, who believes that one of her goals as an educator is to make her students feel valued, does this by encouraging her students to participate in days such as National Compliment Day. She believes that events like this will allow her students to feel empowered and know that they are capable of success in the future.

I offer my best wishes to Summer and look forward to hearing of her continued success in the years ahead.

Madam President, today I honor Linda Howell, the Taylor County Teacher of the Year from Taylor County High School in Perry, FL.

Linda has a strong belief that every student can learn and succeed, but it takes an entire community to support that success. Her peers take note of her dedication to being a part of a team at her school.

A 1987 graduate from Florida State University, Linda previously worked for Proctor and Gamble, helping to develop its employee assistance program and was a member of its Foley Impact Team. She was also previously a home educator and substitute teacher.

Linda has great experience as an educator, spending many years cultivating an esteemed and diverse resume. Linda currently teaches 9th and 10th grade English, and has spent 8 years with the Taylor County Public School District. She also intermittently teaches at her local Boys and Girls Club in its afterschool and summer programs.

I offer my best wishes to Linda and look forward to hearing of her continued good work in the years to come.

Mr. President, I recognize the Chipola College Lady Indians softball team, winners of the National Junior College Athletic Association Division I National Championship.

The Lady Indians are comprised of talented young women in Marianna, FL and finished their season scoring a total of 69 runs and a 52-5-1 record, leading them to the team's third overall NJCAA championship title.

In the national championship game, they played against Angelina College from Lufkin, TX, and trailed by two runs after the first inning. Beginning in the second inning, the Lady Indians scored five runs, with Mikayla Lewin and Haley Sandridge both hitting homeruns. In the third inning, the team scored five more runs on six hits from Thais Uyeme, Sydney Mclain, Candela Figueroa, and Haley Sandridge, who all had RBIs in the inning.

The Lady Indians led Angelina College 10-2 entering the fourth inning. The scored remained the same until the sixth inning, when Eila Infante and Mikayla Lewin scored two more runs for the team. In the seventh and final inning, the Lady Indians scored seven more runs from Yoshi Omori, Tammie Lijbers, Sandridge, Infante, Jadia Jones, and Ally Clegg. At the bottom of the seventh, Amy Woodham recorded the first two outs against Angelina College before Brianna Bailey entered the game and recorded the final strikeout of the championship game. Chipola won with a final score of 19-2.

I extend my best wishes to head softball coach Belinda Hendrix, associate head softball coach Jimmy Hendrix, assistant softball coach Kelly Brookins, Brianna Bailey, Tyra Brown, Payton Clark, Ally Clegg, Candela Figeroa, Lauren Finch, Eila Infante, Jadia Jones, Madison Kent, Mikayla Lewin, Tammie Lijbers Christine Marsland, Sydney Mclain, Yoshie Omori, Naomi Parker, Haley Sandridge, Morgan Scala, Taylor Scala, Amy Woodham, Thais Uyema, and the Lady Indians softball team on this impressive accomplishment. I look forward to hearing of their continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to recognize Philip Jones, the Jackson County Teacher of the Year from Marianna High School in Marianna, FL.

To Philip, his job is to improve a student's reading and writing skills. He believes this is best achieved through an openness to dynamic academic and social changes. Philip designed his English class curriculum with structured plans, which builds trust in his students after the first 9 weeks of the school year and allows them to communicate with him during class and through written assignments clearly and without negative distractions.

Philip has taught 10th grade English at Marianna High School for 6 years and serves as the chairperson for the English Department. He has also received the Florida Department of Education's High Impact recognition 3 years in a row. Philip earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Florida in 2000 and his master's degree in environmental law from Vermont Law School in 2004.

I extend my best wishes to Philip for his dedication to his English students and look forward to hearing of his continued success in the coming years.

Mr. President, today I honor Tracy Kerby, the Lafayette County Teacher of the Year from Lafayette High School in Mayo, FL.

An eighth grade language arts teacher since 2006, Tracy's colleagues note that she is always looking for opportunities to grow as an educator. Tracy is a great leader for her students to follow because of her high moral character and her desire to set her students up for success later in life.

Tracy loves being a teacher in the Lafayette District Schools because she has the ability to watch her students learn and grow. She enjoys watching her students succeed in class, athletics, at local fairs, or with volunteer events at their church.

I express my best wishes and gratitude to Tracy and look forward to hearing of her continued success in the coming years.