Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am very pleased to be here this afternoon with the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Maryland to talk about our commitments in Europe, our commitments to Ukraine. I want to thank them for their leadership on the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee here in the Senate. They are a team that I wouldn't want to tangle with. And I am glad they are out here on the floor today as allies in support of this incredibly important mission.

I am also very glad that after 4 months of an endless--almost seemed endless--and painful set of negotiations, we find ourselves in a place where we have actually had a sign of bipartisan cooperation to fulfill our obligations at this really, really critical moment just in the nick of time. And I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for that strong vote. And I hope as we go forward in the coming hours that that is a bill that we will actually build on because there are some people who are saying this will never pass the House of Representatives. It never will unless we can figure out how to pass it here. And we can do it in a bipartisan way. And we are off to that start.

When Russia invaded Ukraine just 2 years ago, the world expected Kyiv would fall in 72 hours; that Putin would depose Ukraine's government and that he would install a puppet government in that capital city. But the Ukrainian people astonished the world.

Practically barehanded, the Ukrainians fought off Putin's army, saving Kyiv and its democratic government. And since then, with our help, they have liberated over half of the territory that Putin stole from them. They have won battle after battle after battle that nobody ever thought they could win.

As the Senator from New Hampshire said, they basically pushed Putin out of the Black Sea, opening up the seaways to get wheat out to the rest of the world--to Africa and to other places in the world. They don't even have a navy, the Ukrainians. They are a nation that is--I am talking about this in Colorado. It is like this is an entire nation of MacGyvers. And every day they are figuring out some new way to defeat Vladimir Putin or to push him out of the Black Sea.

Just last week, Ukraine sank another one of Putin's warships. And since the war began, Putin has killed 70,000 Ukrainian troops and nearly 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.

Our military support and our intelligence support has been critical. But it is really important to remember that it has only represented less than 0.4 percent of our economy--of our GDP--and that we are spending less as a percentage of our economy than many of our European allies.

I know it is fashionable around here for some people to say that the folks in Europe aren't doing their part. But many of them are actually doing more as a group. They are doing more than we have done.

In fairness to us, we provided more military aid than they have. And that has been really important. But they put in more humanitarian aid. And combined, we have stood up for Ukraine and stood up for each other.

But because of the delay that we have had here on Capitol Hill, Europe has already committed an additional $55 billion to Ukraine just a week ago--or 10 days ago, I think--waiting for us to lead. They said: We are out of time. Ukraine is out of bullets. And so we are going to do what we need to do, is what our colleagues in Europe said.

But, listen, it is not just countries that are in Putin's backyard that are doing this. It is not just countries who think: Well, if they can do it to Ukraine, they might do it to us. Our coalition includes Australia, includes Japan, includes South Korea. In fact, Japan just pledged another $4.5 billion for Ukraine. That is a lot of money for a country that is as far from Kyiv as Japan is, from Ukraine.

But our partners know what the stakes are for democracy in this battle. They know that supporting Ukraine means standing with people who are willing to fight to do whatever it takes to live in a free country like ours.

As I said, Ukraine is running out of bullets. And Putin may be having a tough time on the Ukrainian battlefield, to put it mildly, compared to what anybody would have reasonably expected. But the battlefield he is counting on winning on is the battlefield here on Capitol Hill. He knows how divided we are. He knows that this Capitol is filled with self-defeating division. And the question he is asking and the question we need to ask ourselves is whether we are going to allow that division to stand in the way of our support for Ukraine. He can read our newspapers. He knows how to troll us on social media.

Just in the 4 months that we have been having this debate--by the way, I think we should have passed this in October. Just in the 4 months we have been debating this and that we have consumed debating this aid, Putin has taken back territory that the Ukrainians spilled blood to gain, and his soldiers have killed or injured over 1,500 Ukrainian civilians. Russia is killing or badly wounding 30,000 Ukrainian troops every month.

As we gather here today, Putin is right now, today, amassing 40,000 soldiers, 500 tanks, and 650 armored vehicles to conquer yet another Ukrainian city. And Ukrainian's troops are digging in as they have all winter long to fight back. But they are outgunned; they are outmanned. They have to ration their ammunition because they don't know whether the bullets are coming again. They don't know whether they are going to get the support they need.

And Putin thinks he can beat Ukraine, not because he thinks the Ukrainians are weak but because he thinks we are weak. He thinks we are weak.

It is not just Putin who thinks that American democracy can't meet the challenge; his autocratic allies across the world believe the same thing.

It is important, as the Senator from New Hampshire was saying, Senator Shaheen, to see how ``interconnected,'' to use her word, these things are. Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine connects directly to Iran's aggression across the Middle East, to China's saber-rattling against Taiwan and the Philippines, and North Korea's missile launches. Putin is killing Ukrainians today with Iranian and North Korean missiles in this very war. China supplies critical components to Moscow to regenerate Russia's defense production, and it helps keep the Kremlin able to avoid or escape our sanctions. For its part, Hamas used weapons from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia to murder 1,200 people in Israel on October 7.

As everybody in this Chamber knows from what is going on just this week, Iran is backing militants in Iraq and Syria who just killed U.S. soldiers in Jordan. Tehran is bankrolling the Houthis. Its attacks in the Red Sea have caused shipping prices to jump, inflicting higher costs on Americans. And, of course, China is funding billions of dollars to the dictator in North Korea who supplies weapons to fight this very war against the Ukrainian people.

The threats these powers pose are connected and overlapping. From Putin to Xi, these dictators have made it clear--and they have said it at the negotiating table over and over again in the last decade--that they believe that democracy is exhausting and that totalitarianism is the best that humanity can expect.

This Congress's failure to fund Ukraine, if it comes to that, will send a powerful signal to them that they are right and that democracy is in decline, at least in the U.S.A.

And despite all of this, despite all of these stakes, I heard people in both this Chamber and in the House of Representatives question whether this fight really matters to the American people. Failing to support Ukraine means showing the world that the United States, long the leader of the free world, is no longer capable of standing up for the post-World War II order, our values, and for our partners. We can't accept the implications of that for our future or for our children's future.

Fortunately, we have an amazing example in front of us right now in the Ukrainian people because their courage, their ingenuity, their stamina

have reminded us that humans will actually die for democracy. They will fight authoritarianism until it is destroyed, until it is dismantled. And they have fought and inspired people all over the world to support them in their fight, not to send soldiers or to sacrifice our lives but to send arms and to send intelligence.

Are we willing to say, after all of that over the past 2 years--are we willing to say that we have no stake in this outcome; that we are indifferent to Putin's aggression or the meaning to the free world if he is successful in his illegal and criminal invasion of a free country in Europe?

If we fail to fund Ukraine, it is not going to end this war. That is an invitation for Putin to continue this war. And he will impose his will on the Ukrainian people, and dictators everywhere will see that they have a green light; that they can inhabit a world where might makes right; where people don't have the benefits of freedom or the rule of law but get up every day just to fight off the kind of mayhem that the Ukrainian people are fighting today. That world would be a lot more dangerous than the one we are in today.

We do not want to embolden Putin or his allies to believe that they can do to other places what they did to Ukraine, as the Senator from New Hampshire said. Putin could march into NATO like his allies have said--Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania--and then article V would be invoked and then we are involved and our people are involved.

If he actually won this war, Putin could use his leverage over Ukrainian wheat and Ukrainian energy to dictate terms to people all over this world who rely on those important commodities.

And let me tell you something else--and this is not some totally hypothetical parade of horribles. We look at this every day on the Intelligence Committee. Xi Jinping is watching this, and he is considering what this means for what he intends to do with Taiwan, whether he wants to plunge the Indo-Pacific into war, shocking the global economy and drawing American soldiers into that theater.

Letting Putin win--giving Putin the green light--is going to take us down this road. It is as predictable as the Sun rising tomorrow.

And that is why--let me close because I know the Senator from Maryland is here. Let me close by saying this. I want to just say this especially to the people in this Chamber who have sort of taken a more isolationist tack than the one we are taking today, who may not believe that the United States has the same essential role to play that I believe the United States has played, partly because of my family's own experience and my mother having been born in Warsaw, a Polish Jew in 1938 and what that means to me about American leadership. But let me say, if you are somebody who believes that the United States should be less entangled abroad and more focused at home, you ought to ask them if you can vote for Ukraine twice--twice--because the world is going to be less safe for the American people if we fail to do this.

I know that many of my Senate Republican colleagues understand the historic nature of this moment--and Democrats as well--and believe that we should extend our support for Ukraine along with our partners, including Israel and Taiwan. They are right.

Let me say, no friend of Israel or Taiwan should turn away from Ukraine. Ukraine's battle is their battle. Ukraine's fight is their fight. And I hope our colleagues in the House will come to appreciate that as well and that we will have a big bipartisan vote here and a big bipartisan vote in the House, and we will recommit to each other maybe to overcoming the dysfunction that we have had, surprise ourselves on the upside for once around here, and send an important signal to the rest of the world.

I will finish with this. In his first meeting with us--and I know my colleagues remember this. There was still COVID when this was happening. President Zelenskyy was on the computer, just like any other Zoom call that any of us had during COVID. He said to us: We are fighting to live our lives the way you live your life.

The last time he spoke to us--it was in person this time. He came here. We met in the Old Senate Chamber. The last time he spoke to us, he said: We need your help. We need your bullets. We need your support. But if you fail to support us, we will never stop fighting because, as Senator Shaheen said, our entire enterprise is based on the idea that we are going to fight for freedom. We are never going to stop fighting.

He did say: We would lose. We can't beat Putin without your help, but we will never stop fighting for freedom.

I thought that was a very honest thing for him to say. I thought he could have said easily: We will give up. Instead what he said was: You may decide not to stand for freedom, but even if you fail us, we won't give up.

We can't fail Ukraine. This is no time for Congress to play politics with people's lives, no matter where they live, whether they live in Denver or in Kyiv or in the Middle East or New Hampshire or Maryland or Connecticut or Taipei. We won't get a second chance. This is a test of America's resolve and this is a call for American leadership and we cannot fail.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, for the information of the Senate, on behalf of the leader, I ask that yesterday's order with respect to the Crews nomination be executed at 11:30 a.m. today.

Mr. President, I am delighted the Presiding Officer is in the Chair for this conversation about Judge Kato Crews.

Today, I rise in strong support of President Biden's nominee for the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, Judge Kato Crews.

Judge Crews is a true son of Colorado. He was born in Pueblo, in the high desert, in the southern part of our State. His family didn't have a lot while he was growing up, but his parents worked hard and always put their kids first.

Since he was in middle school, Judge Crews knew he wanted to become a lawyer. His dad was a solo practitioner in Pueblo, and although Judge Crews didn't really know what his father did for work, he knew that he was helping people and that he had the respect of the community.

Judge Crews attended public high school in Rye, CO, which is a small town in the San Isabel foothills, where he was the only African- American male in his entire school. He earned a B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado and then a J.D. from the University of Arizona, where he served on the law review, where he made the dean's list, and offered pro bono services to survivors of domestic violence.

After law school, Judge Crews returned to Colorado to serve as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, where he investigated and prosecuted charges of unfair labor practices.

He spent the next 17 years after that in private practice--first at a large firm in Denver, where he made partner, and later at a smaller firm that he founded with colleagues. In private practice, Judge Crews focused on civil litigation and employment law, representing both workers and employers. He tried approximately 18 cases before Federal courts, State courts, and administrative agencies, serving as chief or sole counsel in jury trials, bench trials, and administrative proceedings.

For the last 5 years, he has served as a magistrate judge for the Federal District of Colorado. In this role, he has performed most tasks expected of a district court judge on the Federal bench, from handling evidentiary proceedings to all matters before, during, and after trial.

During his time on the bench, Judge Crews saw how pro se litigants often struggled to advocate for themselves. He also saw younger lawyers who were eager for courtroom experience. So he founded a program to connect the two, giving young lawyers in Colorado, for the first time, valuable time in court and pro se litigants free help to navigate certain proceedings that these young lawyers were capable of handling.

That is just one example of Judge Crews going the extra mile and of his commitment to making the legal system more accessible--a lifelong commitment to making the legal system more accessible to litigants, to future lawyers, and to the community it serves, most importantly.

As Colorado's first African-American magistrate, Judge Crews spends as much time as he can in the community by serving on nonprofit boards, mentoring students, and using the power of his example to help young Coloradans imagine a career in law for themselves. Former mentors and colleagues all describe Judge Crews as a true public servant who works hard, who never loses his poise, and who never forgets where he came from. He is one of the most accessible judges on the bench in our State, and he knows the law as well as anyone.

Judge Crews knows what it means to try a case as a litigator and to preside over one as a judge. He has practiced law for the government and for firms both large and small. He has tried cases from the perspectives of employees and employers, for clients with a lot of money and resources and for clients with none at all.

If confirmed, Judge Crews will follow in the footsteps of Judge Moore, who has taken senior status, to become the only African-American judge on the district court. Judge Crews will become the only district court judge born and raised in Pueblo, CO, and that means something to me and to the Presiding Officer, bringing a really importantly perspective to the bench from a critical but sometimes overlooked part of our State.

With his experience, with his intellect, and with his character, Judge Crews will make a remarkable addition to Colorado's district court, and I urge my colleagues to confirm, this morning, Judge Crews with a strong bipartisan vote.

I would say, before I surrender the floor to my colleague from Colorado, what an extraordinary job he has done in providing leadership to the selection of these judges and to the nominations of these judges for President Biden to consider. It is extraordinary. We have had a number of vacancies on the district court, and we have worked very hard together to make sure those vacancies are filled in as expeditious a way as possible--in fact, I would argue, probably more expeditiously than any other Federal district court in the country. That would not have happened without the leadership of Senator Hickenlooper, who, with his team when he came into office, observed that the process that I had in place was a little bit creakier than maybe it should have been. Together, we have been able to improve it.

I want to say thank you also to the tireless advisory committee members of the bar in Colorado, who have given us their best recommendations all along the way, including the recommendation that has now led to the nomination of Judge Kato Crews and, hopefully, to his confirmation today.

With that, I yield the floor, and I look forward to the next speaker.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize GEN James Henry Dickinson of the U.S. Army for his extraordinary dedication to duty and service to our Nation. General Dickinson is retiring from Active service after serving for 3 years as the commander of United States Space Command--and after more than 37 years of service in the U.S. Army.

General Dickinson was born in Boulder, CO, and raised in Estes Park, CO. He is a graduate of Colorado State University, having earned a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering in 1985. General Dickinson also holds an M.S. in operations research and systems analysis from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.A. in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.

General Dickinson has commanded at every level in the U.S. Army, from platoon to combatant command, and is the senior space and missile defense officer at the Department of Defense. General Dickinson previously also served as commanding general of the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command at Fort Shafter, HI; the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command at Fort Bliss, TX; the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command; and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense at Redstone Arsenal, AL.

General Dickinson has dedicated his life to the service of our Nation and to furthering our country's ability to deter aggression in space. On behalf of a grateful Nation, it is my honor to recognize the selfless service and sacrifice of General Dickinson, his wife Angela and their children Deborah, Henry, Olivia, and Joseph. I wish them the very best as they continue their journey in civilian life.

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

Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking the Presiding Officer for being here at this late hour and for the staff who are here, the pages who are here, the others who are here late at night before the holidays. Thank you for being here and for your service. And I think we are coming to a point--maybe not tonight but in the next 24 hours--when we are going to conclude our business here for the moment or at least temporarily conclude our business.

I wanted to come to the floor because one of the things that I feel very strongly about that we have not yet done is to pass the Ukraine funding, which I think is essential for Ukraine, essential for our own national security, and essential for Western democracy.

I really believe that. I think it is of that importance, and I believe we should have gotten to a bipartisan agreement on this long ago. I think that we should have gotten it through the House of Representatives long ago. But I am not in charge of the Senate; I am not in charge of the House of Representatives. I am just one person in this body--like the Presiding Officer is--and sometimes democracy moves more slowly than one would like, certainly than I would like.

I feel more optimistic today than I did last week about the prospects of our getting to the point where we have that bipartisan vote and where we can send a piece of legislation over to the House to fund this. The House is not going to start it, we know that, because of the politics over there.

This body is the body that needs to lead and has, I think, a moral responsibility to lead. But for all those reasons, I wanted to come here tonight and say that I was going to lift my hold on the FAA, which is something that I have held up through the course of these negotiations as a way of keeping us here, to be really honest with you.

I don't think we would have come back probably from our departure last week if we didn't have the unfinished business of the FAA to do, and while the FAA is unrelated to the Ukraine funding, it was a must- pass bill, and it is a must-pass bill. We need to pass that bill.

And it was something that could force us to come back here to continue to have the debate, to continue to have the negotiations, to listen to each other on this important issue and the other issues that we have got to deal with this week, including the judges we are confirming--hopefully, a judge from Colorado.

I have been out here before on the floor to explain why I care so much about this. I was out here when we were passing what is called a continuing resolution here in, I think it was September, which is a temporary budget that is used to operate the Federal Government in the absence of what we should do, which is have a real budget.

Sometimes we pass these things called continuing resolutions to kind of keep the lights on in this place, which I sometimes call the land of flickering lights because the standard of success at the end of the year often is whether we have kept these lights flickering for another year. That is not the standard that I wish for our Congress. It is not a standard that I wish for our democracy or for our country.

That is sometimes the standard here, but every now and then, we surprise ourselves. Every now and then, the people who have been in this Chamber have taken on a responsibility for leadership. That has really made a difference in the world. That has made a difference not just to our country but to the entire world and especially to the free world, to democracy.

I have been out here and talked--I won't do it at length tonight-- about my mom's own circumstances. She is--well, I won't say how old she is today, but you can do the math. She was born in 1938 in Warsaw, Poland--born a Polish Jew at the worst possible moment in human history to be born a Jew on this planet and in the worst possible place a person could ask to be born, in a city that was going to shortly experience the horrific invasion of Nazi troops sent there by Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews of Europe and many other people who lived in Eastern Europe at that time.

Just in Ukraine and Poland at that time, there were 16 million people who were killed. They were killed by Hitler and killed by Stalin. The people in that region remember that experience like it was yesterday because it was. In human events, it was yesterday.

My mom, as I said, is still alive. She can't believe she has lived long enough to see another shooting war break out in Europe, as she put it, but here we are. There is a reason why she can't believe it. I mean, part of it is that the freedom she experienced and my grandparents experienced and aunt, who is the only other person who survived the war in this country, were unimaginable to them because of what they had gone through in Warsaw.

They were separated during the war. My mother was told that her parents had been killed, and she believed they had died. Then they were reunited after the war, and they went to Stockholm, Sweden, for a year after they spent about a year or two behind the Iron Curtain, because, of course, the Soviet Union had come in and taken over Poland after the war was over--had come in and taken over Warsaw after the war was over.

Warsaw had been completely destroyed. More than 99 percent of its buildings were destroyed. Millions of people who lived in and around Warsaw had been killed. There was literally nothing left. It was rubble. It was rubble.

Like many human beings who have experienced ethnic cleansing and ethnic battles like these, my mom and her parents probably never imagined that there could be a world where disputes could be resolved in some other way besides violence, besides political violence.

Yet, after they stayed there for a couple of years, they realized they wanted something better than what they had, so they went to Stockholm, Sweden, for a year. They lived there. They started their small business again, which was an art dealership that they had in Warsaw, a gallery. Then they moved to Mexico City, and then they were fortunate enough to be allowed to come to the United States of America, and they immigrated.

My mother was the only person in the family who could speak any English. I think she was about 11 years old. Even today, she speaks Swedish and Polish and Spanish and English, but then, she was the only person in the family who could speak any English. She was the only person in her

family who knew how to register herself in school, so she did. She registered herself in the New York City public schools. She graduated from Hunter College High School.

I have never met anybody in my State--I have met a lot of immigrants all throughout Colorado and all throughout this country, and I tell people sometimes that I still haven't met anybody who has a stronger accent than my grandparents had. They didn't think they had an accent, but they had an unbelievably strong Polish accent.

Their joy at being Americans was not because this country was perfect, not because this country was exceptional in some sense that confers the idea of perfection, but because it was a country that could correct its imperfections without resorting to violence and that they, as recent citizens to this country, as immigrants to this country, as people with strong accents and their Jewish heritage, could contribute to the United States of America when they arrived here, and they could help address the imperfections we had.

All they wanted to do was fit into the country. I think they made a real contribution to this country. The country is stronger because they were here, and they benefited a lot.

That was an era where there is no dispute about American leadership after considerable American failure, because there was a period of time when these Halls of Congress ignored the plight of the Jews in Europe and ignored that the Holocaust was going on. They knew it. They knew about the death camps, and there was nothing they did about it until the Japanese attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, and then we entered the war. We never looked back, and the world never looked back. We became the arsenal of democracy. We supplied England and Europe with the--or Europe, England, and the allies with the materiel they needed to fight the war.

Our economy was growing substantially after the Great Depression. As the arsenal dropped, we built those weapons here. We manufactured those weapons here. We sent them over to the UK in particular for them to deploy on the battlefields of Europe, and we won that war. The United States literally saved my grandparents' lives and my mother's life.

Then, after the war, the question was, What will be done with the rubble of Europe? What will be done with the communities and cities and towns and rural areas that literally were smashed into smithereens by Hitler's tanks?

We are now, in some ways, living in--not in some ways but actually living in the tyranny of the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain, without the freedoms that people had in Western Europe.

There is too much to talk about tonight, and I won't do it, but we engaged in a process of trying to win the peace after we had won the war. That was what the Marshall Plan was all about--the reconstruction of Europe, the reconstruction of Japan, decisions that were made on this floor by human beings in many ways just like us who had the vision to make some hard decisions, the consequences of which would last for generations. They had exactly the same concerns we have here today, I think, probably. They weren't able to predict the future, but they knew what it meant to be on the right side of history, and they were on the right side of history.

The Marshall Plan began what was an era of institution building. They created the multilateral organizations that we still have, the rule of law, international law, the law of nations, the notion that any country's sovereignty shouldn't be attacked by another country.

All of that came out of that era when my mom was a little girl, and it lasted for a long time in Europe. It lasted until 2 years ago when Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. You could argue that it lasted until he had a trial run when he invaded Crimea a decade before. Until that time, every country in Europe and around Europe had respected the international arrangements that were created in the wake of the rubble of World War II because people knew how horrible the outcomes were in World War II. They knew how many lives had been lost. They knew the destruction of humanity, the destruction of churches and synagogues and people's faiths, entire religions and languages.

People still had the memory of World War I, too, and that was the point of those institutions, that was the point of the commitment to the rule of law, and that was the point of establishing democracy in the international organizations I am talking about but also in all these countries as well that were on this side of the Iron Curtain.

Over time, over those decades, our economies grew stronger, the democracies grew stronger. Ultimately, the Berlin Wall fell. There were people in the 1990s who were writing that this was the end of history, that liberal democracy had triumphed over any other form of human organization, that capitalism had triumphed over any other form of economic organization.

We have learned a lot since then. We have learned a lot since we were attacked on 9/11 and a response that led us to two wars that lasted for 20 years in the Middle East and then Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, of a free country on the border of Russia.

The Presiding Officer is on the Intelligence Committee now. It is an excellent place to serve together.

Before you got on there, it was really interesting to be there--not because you weren't there. It has gotten better because you have been there. But it was fascinating to be there in the lead-up to this war because we had the opportunity to see Putin make one mistake after another because of who he is, obviously, but also because of the totalitarian nature of his society.

You know, when you live in a totalitarian society and you are the person at the top, nobody is going to tell you that what you are doing is crazy if they want to live very long. Nobody is going to tell you that what you are trying to do is wrong.

I think one of the huge mistakes he made was imagining that all the money he had spent on his army, trying to strengthen his army, had been spent well when much of it was lost to corruption. Much of it created actually a weak army instead of a strong army. How do we know that today? We know that today because the Ukrainian people have basically smashed Putin's army.

Let me tell you something. He didn't know that was going to happen. He did not know that was going to happen 2 years ago. Two years ago, he had no idea that the Ukrainian people would fight to the death. He didn't know that.

We did. Our intelligence agencies sometimes make mistakes in their analysis of intelligence or in the intelligence they collect but not on this subject because they know the history of Ukraine; they know the history of the Ukrainian people; they know what they went through in World War II.

They know what they went through in World War I. They know what they have been through in the last eon in that part of the world, and what they said was: They will never give up. They will never give up.

Putin didn't know that. It turns out the intelligence community was right about that.

They said: Well, we hope that free societies around the world will rally to the cause. And I don't think that is really an intelligence assessment, the assessment of our democracies. There has been a lot of worry--I have had a lot of worry; I have talked about it on this floor a lot--about the state of democracy both here and abroad. We are living in a time where there are all kinds of forces that are tearing at democracy at here and abroad. And there are politicians here and abroad who are claiming that democracy is not important or that democracy can't deliver for the American people or anybody else.

That is not uncommon in human history. The reason I think it is happening here--there are a bunch of reasons, but a main reason is kind of the age-old reason, which is when people start to lose a sense of opportunity for themselves and their family. When they are working really hard and they can't get ahead; when they feel like they can't afford to work because childcare is so expensive, healthcare is so expensive. Higher education is going to mean a lifetime sentence in your parents' basement because of the amount of loans you are going to take out. Those kinds of things tear at people. When that kind of opportunity seems lost or obscure, that is when people show up all throughout human history, and they say: I alone can fix

it. You don't need a democracy; you don't need the rule of law. You should expect your public sector and your private sector to be hopelessly corrupt, hopelessly bankrupt. That is a dark vision. It is not an unusual vision in those circumstances.

But just at the moment when we worry--we fear for our democracy--what we saw as a result of the courage and the bravery of the Ukrainian people, the skill of the Ukrainian soldiers and military, a country that--I still don't understand it--a country that was able to basically disable Putin's navy without any navy of their own and open up the shipping lanes in the Black Sea so people all over the world could benefit from grain that was otherwise not going to be exported--people all over the world in free countries saw this courage and said: We need to show up for the Ukrainian people. We need to do more for the Ukrainian people because they are in a fight that is our fight, and they are carrying off this fight in a way that they should be proud of and we should be proud of, that inspires us.

And people all over the world, citizens living in democracies all over the world, called up their elected officials and said: Do more, do more, do more. And the United States found itself, once again, in a position that no other country in the world can occupy, which is the leader of the free world, the leader of every democracy around the world. And we put together a coalition of countries, largely led by NATO, that has supported the Ukrainian people through this fight for the last 2 years.

It has been amazing to see it. I think it has given us confidence in our own democracy. I think it has given the Europeans confidence in their democracy and the democracies in Southeast Asia as well and in Australia, New Zealand, and places all over the world that have supported this fight and have been reminded how much more excellent it is to live in a free society; to live in a place that is committed to the rule of law, that is committed to fair dealing and not to corruption.

That is not a place like where my poor mother and grandparents lived, where might made right; where there was no rule of law; where whether you survived or whether you didn't survive, whether you survived or whether you perished, was a matter of luck, not something you could ever predict.

That has been a noble fight. It is not a fight any of us would have wanted, but Putin is a lot weaker today than he was 2 years ago. The Russian Army is a lot weaker today than it was 2 years ago. They are not a pushover. They have dangerous nuclear and chemical weapons that we have to worry about. But they are in worse shape today than they were 2 years ago.

The Ukrainian people have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. I mentioned the intelligence agency reports. You know, one thing they got totally wrong was they thought Kyiv would be invaded in 72 hours, that the political leadership would be killed or overcome. And President Zelenskyy is still there fighting to this day.

I remember, Mr. President, when we had our first Zoom call with President Zelenskyy. It was sort of funny. It was back in--I think COVID was still going on, maybe. And I can remember there was a guy sitting in for him, just like on any regular Zoom call you would have, only he was sitting in for the President of Ukraine. And the President of Ukraine had some pretty serious business that he had to conduct; and, finally, when the meeting was ready to be started, all of a sudden, there he was. There he was. And he said to us on that day--the first day I ever heard him talk personally--again, it was on Zoom. He said: We are fighting to live our lives the way you live your lives. That is how he put it, and it was very simple. That is what we are fighting for. And he hasn't changed that tune for the last 2 years. That has been his focus.

He told us the other day that if we fail to continue to fund the Ukrainian people, that they will lose. He said that if we fund the Ukrainian people and their military, they can win. They can win.

I think they can win.

He said that if we don't fund them, they will lose. But he said: But we will never stop fighting. We will never stop fighting because the Ukrainian people love freedom. And that is the difference between us and Vladimir Putin. And that is the difference between us and the Russian army.

I would say, how dare anybody bet against the Ukrainian army or the Ukrainian people after what they have done? They have taken back half the territory that Putin stole from them. Nobody would have said they could do that. They have done that.

I mentioned what they had done to his navy in the Black Sea--without even a navy. They have won battle after battle after battle that nobody thought they would have won. And now they are in a difficult winter on the frontlines. And it is sort of a stasis, which is not surprising. I have heard people out here say that that is somehow a failure for the Ukrainian armed forces and the Ukrainian people. And it is hard for me to see how that is anything but a success--an extraordinary success.

We don't know what is going to happen after this winter when the next fighting season comes, but I would never bet against the Ukrainian people's ingenuity or their military's toughness or their society's resolve. I would never bet against freedom. I would never bet against democracy. That is the bet we have here. That is the choice that we have to make.

It is a choice where our folks are not involved in the fighting. Our folks are not giving their lives in this fight, in this battle for democracy. But we are giving our treasure. We are giving our intelligence in this fight because this fight is as important for us as it is for Ukraine. I don't mean that rhetorically; I mean that literally.

When I hear the isolationist people in this Chamber talking about their desire not to continue funding Ukraine, I want to say to them-- and, in fact, I do say to them--even if I accepted your premise, which I don't, but let's say I accept your isolationist premise that this is a moment in human history when we shouldn't support the Ukrainians because we have things that we have to do at home instead of things that we have to do in Ukraine, do you think that Putin will stop just because we decide to stop? Do you think Putin will just give up because we have given up? Do you think that the war will just come to an end, or do you think that Putin will roll back through the territory that the Ukrainians have seized from his army?

Do you think that Putin will block the grain shipments in the Black Sea that are so important to feeding people around the world and stopping famine around the world?

Do you think that he will threaten Eastern Europe? Do you think that he will never give up?

If you believe that--and the odds are not even 50-50 that that stuff is true; it is 100 percent what is going to happen. If you believe that and you are an isolationist, you should be for continuing this funding because we want to keep our people out of this fight and because it has given us the opportunity to rebuild our military and our defense. And that is not a small thing because 90 percent of the money that we have sent to Ukraine has been spent here rearming the United States, restarting factories and supply lines that we are going to need to project strength throughout the world. That is not a bad thing; that is a good thing. That is what Ronald Reagan meant when he said, ``Peace through strength.''

That is what he meant when he went up and said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'' because you can't bottle up the human spirit and because your economy is getting crushed because you can't outcompete the United States in terms of our expenditures. We are in exactly the same position today.

I really believe this: that the Ukrainian people can win on this battlefield. And that is not just from casually reading the newspaper; that is from being a member of the Intelligence Committee; that is seeing the intelligence that you are seeing. I don't know if they will win. I believe they can win. I think they have a chance to win. I think Putin thinks he could lose on that battlefield. On that battlefield, he thinks he could lose. And the battlefield he is counting on winning on is the battlefield of Capitol Hill, the battlefield of Western democracy.

You don't have to take my word for it. He says it almost every day. He says: They are going to lose patience. He says: Their attention span is too short.

It doesn't help that there are some American politicians, including a former President, who seem to be rooting for his success, who seem to be rooting against the Ukrainian people, who seem to be rooting against democracy. That certainly doesn't help, but even if you don't accept that, there is a reason that he believes that--because it is hard to sustain these efforts in a democracy. He doesn't have the inconvenience of a democracy. He has a totalitarian society that will do what he says it is going to do. We have a democracy where people stand for election, where sometimes people might say 2 years is enough or a stalemate on the frontlines isn't good enough or we have too much to do here to spend just a little bit more money to reequip our defense capabilities as well as to support Ukraine.

He is counting on that. He is counting on winning on this battlefield. He is counting on the fact that there have been some elections in Europe where there have been people who have been elected who have the same sort of isolationist temperament that some people have here. We can't let that happen. We cannot let that happen.

The Presiding Officer was there when I first addressed our caucus on this question. For me, this is personal. I didn't go through it. Obviously, I didn't go through what my mother went through. But nobody can escape history, and I think no one can escape history. It is really important for us to learn history, and it is really important for us to understand the stakes at this moment and what it looks like to be invisible to this Chamber; to be fighting on that freezing frontline and not knowing whether we are going to come through with the ammunition; to be suffering through another cold snap when your heat has been blown up by the Russians and not knowing whether the humanitarian aid is going to come; to be a politician in some Western European capital and wondering whether the United States is going to continue to provide the exquisite and capable leadership that has been provided by this Nation, in a bipartisan way, over the last 2 years. Those are the things that are at stake as we are meeting here tonight.

In the course of human events, it is really easy to lose patience; it is really easy to have a short attention span, certainly a shorter attention span than a dictator who is acting out the imperialist impulses of Peter the Great, which Putin is, or who is going to be there, whether we leave or whether we don't leave, on the border of Ukraine for the rest of his life, one way or another, and he thinks for the rest of Russia's existence because that is how he thinks.

So I am not here to say that we are going to end the Russian ambition for Ukraine, but I am here to say we have a chance to win this battle for democracy for us and for Ukraine, and we should. If somebody had set out 2 years ago or 5 years ago or 10 years ago to say, ``Let's have a plan to spend 5 percent of the DOD's budget, restart our defense capabilities in the United States of America, expose the weakness of Putin's Army, make Xi Jinping have to think once or twice or three times or four times about the advisability of invading Taiwan because of the chance that free countries around the world would all come together in support of a country that had been invaded'' or if we had said ``Please give us a strategy for the amount of money that we have spent and for the $90 billion that is in this request,'' there is no way we would have been as successful as the Ukrainians have been.

So this is an easy choice, I think, for us to make, and it is a very important choice for us to make. We cannot allow Putin to win on our dysfunctional battlefield.

I am going to finish just by observing that there are colleagues here who have said that they don't want to support this effort unless we deal with the situation at the border and unless we deal with immigration as part of this.

By the way, I would mention that one of those people is not the leader of the Republican caucus, Mitch McConnell. I don't think there is anyone in America who believes more fiercely in the duty that the American people have and this Congress, as the representative of the American people, to fund Ukraine than Senator McConnell. I want to say that. I want to thank him for his steadfastness because it has made a difference so far, and I think it will make a difference if we can get this over the finish line.

But there are some colleagues on the other side who have said they are unwilling to give their votes here unless we address the border. I would not have attached immigration to this debate. This debate is hard enough without introducing another issue that we have had so much difficulty grappling with. But I think what we have discovered in the course of this discussion is something that the Presiding Officer has made clear as a Senator from a border State; that the American people do not want our border policy dictated by transnational gangs. The American people do not want decisions made by smuggling enterprises that are violating people's human rights, that are dragging people all over the globe to come to the southern border of the United States. The American people want to make the decisions for our border and for our immigration policy.

The President has said that our border is broken. The Secretary of Homeland Security has said that our border is broken. I spent 2 days in the Tucson sector on the border, and it needs a lot of work, and it probably needs changes of policy and money. There is a reason President Biden put $14 billion in the supplemental for the border. That is more money than is in the supplemental for Israel.

So I would not have attached this to the Ukraine deal, but I understand the motivations of people who have attached it, and I believe that we can carry out a negotiation on this topic that helps to improve our border and improve our immigration system on behalf of the American people.

We have a lot more that we need to do on immigration than we are going to be able to do in this negotiation and as part of the Gang of 8, who passed the last comprehensive immigration bill that passed the U.S. Senate; that got 68 votes; that had a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people who were undocumented in this country; that had the most progressive DREAM Act that anybody had ever written, much less passed, in the Senate; that had all of the visa issues that are so important to our universities, to our businesses, to our farmers and ranchers, to our farmworkers, to our ski resorts--all of them. There was $40 billion of border security in that bill that would have allowed us to see every inch of the border.

We are a long way from getting to those policies issues, but I hope that this debate and discussion will lead to more bipartisan cooperation in the coming years--months and years--to remind us of something that I think we have forgotten for the moment, which is that immigration is an incredible strength of the United States of America.

We have many headwinds in this country--the lack of quality of our education system, especially for kids living in poverty; our healthcare system, which costs twice as much as any industrialized country's in the world. We have to fix those. We have our massive income inequality, and we have to fix that. All of those things would strengthen our democracy.

And we have to fix our immigration system. Immigration has been responsible for literally a third of our economic growth throughout our entire history. Immigration is how we get new talent and new ideas. Immigration is how my mom and her parents came to this country. Immigration is a dynamic force for good that countries like China don't have the benefit of. There is nobody crossing the Gobi Desert to get to Beijing, and there is a reason for that. There is a reason for that. It is because they want the same thing that President Zelenskyy wants. It is because they want the same thing that the Ukrainian people want: free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the opportunity to lend their talents to improving the society in which they live--no matter where they come from, no matter what language they speak, no matter what religion they have--for the benefit of their children and to know that their children are protected from political violence.

We have a democratic way of resolving our differences and resolving our disputes. We live in a moment when there is a sort of a monopoly on wisdom and cable television stations at night that are telling you there is only

one way to think about any issue like immigration or like Ukraine, when that is not actually the way this is supposed to work.

The Founders of this country did not create this country thinking we would agree with each other. It was the opposite. They knew what a society was in which everybody agreed with each other. That was a society where there was a tyrant in charge to tell you what to think and to tell you what to believe, like Putin's Russia, like Xi's China, like Iran, like North Korea. They knew exactly what those places were like. They knew that humans had lots of differences, experiences, and attitudes, but they knew that, in a society that was run by a tyrant, you weren't free to express those.

Here, they thought the genius of what they were setting up would be a result of the disagreements we have, not of the agreements we have. They thought, out of those disagreements, like on this Senate floor, we would create more imaginative and more durable results than any King or tyrant could come up with on their own. That was the idea.

I would say to the pages who are here: This may sound like some big philosophical thing, but I will bet the same thing is true for you. The worst decisions I make are the decisions I make at home, alone in my basement, not consulting with someone else's point of view, not consulting with someone else's experience or perspective. That is why there are 100 Members of the Senate--2 from every State. It is so that we can have that disagreement and we can have that discussion, and that is why people want to come to this country. It is because they know how rare that is in human societies, and that is why Ukraine is leading this fight on behalf of the rest of us and why they will never give up.

I will say again that President Zelenskyy was clear when he came here. He said: With your help, we can win. Without your help, we will lose. But even if you don't help us, we are not going to give up because the Ukrainian people love freedom and we are going to continue to fight for freedom.

Mr. President, I mentioned at the beginning of this speech that I was lifting my hold on the FAA because I felt like, even though I am deeply disappointed that we haven't passed this Ukraine funding and we haven't come yet to an agreement, I think we have made progress in the negotiations.

I had the chance to consult with both the majority leader and the Republican leader. I know they have put out a joint statement tonight saying that we had made progress and saying that they were committed to having the Senate move quickly and, I hope, decisively in January on this issue. I think that is the best we are going to get out of this tonight.

I hope it gives us a chance over the next few weeks for all of us to consider the example of people who have come before us and who have served in this Chamber, who themselves had no monopoly on wisdom-- people who were fallible but who took a risk on the future and understood that nobody else can play the role the United States of America can play. That was true on the way into World War II. That was true on the way out of World War II. And it is just as true today.

I have found it amazing when we have been in the company of President Zelenskyy because you feel like you are in the company of the Ukrainian people, and you feel like you are in the company of the Ukrainian soldiers, for the reasons that I said earlier about why he is in this fight. But it is an amazing thing about human events that, 3 years ago, he was a television star of some kind or other, and, today, he is the President of a country that has been attacked by a tyrant, invaded by a tyrant.

He is not a tall guy. He is not a strong guy. And the literal weight of the world is on his shoulders. And the literal weight of the world is on the Ukrainian people's shoulders, and it is on their military's shoulders.

We can help lift that burden from them. We can't take that burden away from them, nor should we. They are the ones who are fighting on the frontlines, and they will be. But we should help lift that burden from them because their burden is our burden and because nobody else on this planet is situated in the same way as the United States, has the same moral responsibility that we have, and has the capability to lend the kind of support we can lend. Because the Ukrainian people have showed up and done their job, it is time for us to show up and do our job.

In January, let's tell Vladimir Putin that he lost--he lost--the battle on this battlefield, and that he is going to lose the battle in Ukraine as well.

I just want to thank the floor staff tonight for enduring this and the pages for enduring this. I want to thank you for all of your work during this entire year.

I wish everybody a happy holiday.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is good to be here on the floor with my colleagues. I actually was going to talk about the FAA, but I came out here, and I got accused by the Senator from Texas of being irresponsible. And my friend Phil Washington, who is up for the FAA, was attacked for not knowing anything about airports.

So I just want to address those two things before I go into my remarks. One, to the gentleman from North Carolina, Phil Washington knows a considerable amount about transportation and aviation in this country. That was ignored by the Senator from Texas. It is being ignored this afternoon by the Senator from North Carolina.

He runs Denver International Airport. That is one of the largest airports in the United States of America. It is an airport that has been built more recently than any other airport in the United States of America. It has the third largest traffic in the world. It now has the United hub there. I was just talking to the President of United yesterday, CEO. They have more traffic coming through there than they do in Chicago.

So, for the record, let me just say, Phil Washington knows a lot about this, and I am sorry that his nomination didn't go forward. That is not why we are here today.

Let me also say, since he called me irresponsible, that it is nice to hear the Senator from Texas come out here and plead for some regular order, in terms of how our government should work, to worry about the fact that people could be furloughed or laid off; that they are uncertain of the future because the bill is not permanent.

These were all concerns he did not have the last time we were on the floor together when he had shut the government down while Colorado was literally underwater because of floods, when we were out here having that crocodile tears speech the last time, and I am glad that he has reconsidered all of that and that he wants the FAA to run in a proper fashion.

But I don't think it is irresponsible for me to be here today to object, and I will object to this request because I think it is critically important for us to use this moment to fulfill our obligations in the world, to the United States' national security, and to our commitment to democracy both here and throughout the Western world.

The Ukrainian people were invaded 2 years ago by Vladimir Putin. They didn't ask for that. By a tyrant. They did not ask for that.

The intelligence agencies told us that Kyiv would be taken in 72 hours. That is what they said it would take. My colleague from the Intelligence Committee is here on the floor, and he knows that. They were told that Putin would be able to install a puppet government in Ukraine and be able to dictate the future of the Ukrainian people, be able to keep Ukraine from being part of the West.

Well, as sometimes happens in human history, they were completely wrong. They were completely wrong. The Ukrainian people, much to the surprise of the entire world, because of their courage, because of their bravery, because of our support--both our intelligence support and the armaments that we have been able to ship them, which, by the way, have allowed us to restart our own national security efforts because we are building those weapons systems here in 38 States--the Ukrainian people have taken back half the territory that Putin took from them. Nobody would have ever believed that.

The Ukrainian people and their military have pushed Putin's navy out of the Black Sea without even having a navy. They have no navy, and those guys are so unbelievable that they have taken the tools that they have created and that we have given them to push Putin out of the Black Sea and to reopen those incredibly important grain shipments to the rest of the world to keep the rest of the world in this war. They have won battle after battle after battle.

I hear people around here--it is so tiresome--say that the stalemate on the frontlines between Zelenskyy and Putin, between Ukraine and the Russian troops, is somehow a failure for Ukraine on their part. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is a miracle--actually, it is not a miracle because they did it through their blood, sweat, and tears. It is a testament to the sacrifice that the Ukrainian people have gone through, to what their troops have gone through, to the number of Russian troops and Russian artillery that they have taken off the battlefield, that they have created a stalemate in this war. That is not an admission of failure; that is an admission of success.

What we are trying to figure out today, when we go into this long winter, when Putin is on television today saying that the Ukrainians are out of bullets, that the United States is going to stop funding the Ukrainian people, telling the Western world, the free world, which has been so inspired by what the Ukrainian people have done, so inspired by their courage and their bravery that they have come together, with the leadership of the United States, to strengthen NATO in ways nobody could have imaged, and to have free citizens all over the world say to people like the Senator from Texas and me: Do more. Do more. Do more.

That is what they are doing during this Christmas season. They are fighting for their lives. They are fighting for democracy. They don't get to say ``OK, it is time to go home'' 11 days before Christmas has happened. Their fight is our fight. Their fight is our fight.

(Ms. BUTLER assumes the Chair.)

Madam President, I held up the budget bill a few months--by the way, it is very nice to see the Senator from California in the Chair. I have never seen you up there. Good to see you.

I held the budget bill several months ago on this floor because it had no funding for Ukraine, even though we said that we would fund Ukraine, because there was no plan to get it funded. On the single most important thing we have in front of the world, not just the Senate of the United States, we had no plan to fund Ukraine, and I thought that was a lousy message to send, and it was a lousy message to

send. We left here without funding it. Actually, it turned out we left here without a Speaker of the House.

We left here with bright lights flashing on the institutional incompetence of our own democracy, which, by the way, that is not a great look for the United States of America. And what happened? We left, and a death cult called Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis while we were gone, and now we have a war going on in the Middle East. The world is an unpredictable place.

I am encouraged because a few days ago, it looked to me like this deal was dead. A few days ago, I was facing the prospect of calling up my mom, who was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938, who is still alive-- the worst moment probably in human history to be born Jewish and the worst place on the planet to be born when she was born--who can't believe she has lived long enough, and thank God she has lived long enough--but she would say: I can't believe I have lived long enough to see another land war break out in Europe. But she has, and it happened.

I thought I was going to have to be in a position of saying to my mother: We haven't learned anything from history. We haven't learned anything about the 16 million people who were killed in the years after she was born just in Poland and just in Ukraine, just in those two countries, by Hitler and by Stalin. We haven't learned anything. We are too tired. We are too busy. We are too distracted by the other stuff that is going on in the United States of America to actually do our work--which, by the way, no other country in the world can do. There is no other country in the world that can turn on the leadership that we can provide. There is no other country in the world that can provide the munitions we are providing.

I want to say again to the American people that virtually 90 percent of the armaments that we are sending to Ukraine are being made here in the United States of America, 38 States--Colorado is not one of them-- putting people to work all over the United States, driving incomes up but also, more important than that, making us ready in a world where Hamas has attacked Israel, where Putin has invaded Ukraine, where Xi is watching every single day to see whether we are going to turn our backs on our allies in the free world who have done everything that anybody here could have asked for. In fact, nobody would have ever asked for it because nobody here would have believed it was possible. No one would have believed it was possible. And for what, by the way? Zelenskyy told us in the first Zoom call we had with President Zelenskyy: Just so we can live our lives the way you live your lives.

He said the other day, in front of the Democrats and Republicans who came to see him when he was here, that he thought he could win if we continued to supply him but that he would lose if we didn't continue to supply him.

He said: Either way, we are going to fight to the death--either way, with your help or without your help. One way, we will be successful. The other way, we are going to lose.

He said: The reason why we are going to do that is because the Ukrainian people love freedom, because the Ukrainian people want to live their lives the way you live your lives.

I mentioned the Middle East. Every day--and I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say every single day Iran is now attacking our troops in Iraq. The Houthis are sending their missiles to attack shipping around Israel and around the Middle East.

There are flashing red lights going on all over the Middle East, and the Israelis have to worry about another front opening up there.

Finally, of course, China is watching what we are doing as well.

I would never have attached these border issues to the Ukraine bill. I would never have attached these immigration issues to the Ukraine bill. But some Republican colleagues have done it because they have said: This is an important bill. We are going to use this to leverage our concerns about immigration or the border.

I have a lot of concerns about a lot of things. I think our education system doesn't work well for poor kids in this country at all. I think our healthcare system doesn't work well for the American people. But I am not attaching those to this piece of business.

But I have heard Republicans who support Ukraine who have said they need to do this in order for us to have a bipartisan bill. I have heard the President of the United States say our immigration system is broken. I have heard the Homeland Security adviser, the Secretary of Homeland Security, say the same thing.

I will tell you, I think the American people do not want an immigration system that is run by transnational smuggling rings, transnational gangs that are sending people to the border of the United States at record numbers. I don't think the American people want that.

So if there is a way for us to have a negotiation here that can get us to a good result for the American people on immigration and on the border, and that is the price people have said they are going to insist on, I have been willing to have that discussion, and I will be willing to have that discussion. It is one of the other reasons why I think we shouldn't leave.

But as I said a few days ago, we were making no progress. Now, finally, we are making some progress, and the world is watching what we do here, and we can't fail. Given how screwed up American politics can be, it can make you wonder whether we ought to take an extra day or a day after that or an extra few days or whether we ought to just stay here and do the work or whether we ought to move on to other things, like the FAA bill, before we are done.

I know I have tested your patience, and I have tested the patience of the Senator from Texas, I am sure, this afternoon, and I am going to stop. But I want to finish by saying, at least speaking for myself, I don't think there is anything that anybody who is here will ever do in this Senate that is going to be more important than the vote we are going to take on additional funding for Ukraine.

I think we are going to either establish or reestablish America's very special place in this world and our leadership of free countries and democracies around the world or we are going to squander that in the face of what Putin is already telling us he is going to do, in the face of what the Iranians are already doing to our soldiers who are in the Middle East, and in the face of what Xi Jinping is thinking about with respect to Taiwan.

The authoritarian leaders in this world think they have a better way of running human affairs than democracy. I think they are wrong.

When the Ukrainian people have fought as hard as they have for the last 2 years and eclipsed any expectation that anybody could have had for them, the least we can do is continue our support.

Finally, let me say, as I close, that it is going to be really important for us to get back to a place where we can have a bipartisan discussion about how to create a functional immigration system in America.

Now, I am not just talking about the border. Immigration has been a fundamentally important part of our country's history, and it will be a fundamentally important part of our country's future. It is a massive advantage that the United States has over other countries around the world when it is working well. And there are people all over the world who want to be here. No one is crossing the Gobi Desert to get into Beijing, and we should be happy about that. They want to come here.

One of the highlights of my life has been in 2013, when I was part of the Gang of 8 here that negotiated an immigration bill that had a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people that were undocumented. It had the most progressive Dream Act that had ever been written. It had all the visa stuff for farmers and ranchers and for business people. It had $40 billion in border security to strengthen our southern border and be able to say to the American people that we are taking that seriously. Unfortunately, it didn't pass.

And times have changed since then. You know, these transnational gangs have made it their business to make billions of dollars sending people to the southern border every single day, and we have to take notice of that. We are going to have to adjust. But I hope that doesn't mean there won't be a day that comes back where we have a chance to do it in a bipartisan way.

In the meantime, we have to get our work done in Ukraine. In the meantime, we shouldn't leave. In the meantime, I don't think we should move on to other pieces of legislation. For all those reasons, I object.

I thank the Senator from Texas. Actually, it is fun to remember all this, and I am sorry I don't have a phone on my desk. Nobody can send me my prior quotes or his prior quotes. I wish I had thought to do that. But I have a pretty good memory, and the facts are on the floor. The facts are the facts.

When we were out here in 2019--and, by the way, I would never confuse the Senator from Texas with Senator Schumer. So let's establish that at the outset. I know you are two different people. You are very different people.

When we were out here in 2019, though, what I was talking about was, I was reminding people of the shutdown you led in 2013 while Colorado was underwater, while there were cities and towns all over our State who had been crushed by the floodwaters that had started in these unexpected storms and come rushing through these mountain valleys and ended up destroying towns and villages. It looked like bombs had gone off. The people in Colorado were digging themselves out.

There were people--local elected officials, Democrats and Republicans--who were doing the work they needed to do. And the Federal Government was shut down because of Senator Cruz from Texas. That is what happened. Those people are owed an apology for what the Senator of Texas did.

And then he came out here in 2019 pretending that he cared about trying to resolve--by the way, it wasn't Chuck Schumer's shutdown. It was Donald Trump's shutdown. He was the President. It was the longest shutdown in American history. And I don't have my phone to tell me this, but if you look it up--please do--you will find it was the Trump shutdown, not the Schumer shutdown. And it went on forever--not forever, but it was the longest shutdown ever. And Senator Cruz was coming out here with these Potemkin pieces of legislation to sort of trick Democrats or to force Democrats into taking a bad vote on the funding of the Coast Guard while the whole rest of the Government was shut down.

He might have believed that the most important thing to do at that moment, I suppose, was to fund the Coast Guard and to leave everything else shut down. I suppose that is possible.

I suspect the likelier reason was that he was trying to create a vote that said the Democrats are for shutting the government down--or shutting the Coast Guard down, not shutting the government down. Donald Trump had shut the government down, President Trump. And that is what we were out here discussing.

So you give me the opportunity to remind everyone of the 2013 events. And I won't withdraw what I said in 2019.

I will say that I want to thank the Senator from Texas for remembering that I even had a Presidential campaign at all. It is not a well-remembered event in the history of our democracy. I am grateful that he could have played a role in trying to get me off the ground. We will have to see. But that was not the great--as I have said to people--well, I won't go on.

I will say to the Senator from Texas that when I got in, even my mom said: Do we need one more Democrat in this race, Michael? So that was how I started that race.

Then, I will say, finally, that the FAA doesn't end up expiring until the 31st of this month. We have time in front of us to do the work that needs to be done.

I want to congratulate the Senator from Texas for the work that he did on the Nord Stream Pipeline. I think that was meaningful work.

I remember you standing out here at a time when a lot of other people didn't even know what you were talking about and having you stand here and make that case. So I give you that, for sure.

I would say, also, that I am sure you feel passionately that the position that you took before Putin invaded Ukraine might have had some effect on what he did. We have a disagreement about that, but that is OK. Neither of us can change what has happened in the past. But what we can do is make sure that we recognize that this tyrant has invaded Ukraine; that this tyrant has done something that is in contravention of the civil order since World War II, since my mom was born in Poland in 1938; that the world has come together to support the free people of Ukraine in their battle; that Putin's only allies in this battle today are North Korea and Iran and sort of China, which are kind of watching how this all unfolds.

So the question before us now is not, I don't think, did we have some vote in the Senate that went one way or another--and I am sorry to the Senator from Wyoming, I will stop--went some way or another or that Democrats or that Joe Biden are somehow responsible for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.

First of all, that is certainly not true, even if we have disagreements about what was going on here. But what is certainly true is that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. He decided to invade Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have exposed the weakness of Putin's army. They have exposed the weakness of his leadership. They have exposed the weakness of his strategy. They have exposed the strength of NATO. They have exposed the importance of American leadership. They have given us the chance to rearm the American people. They have pushed back Xi Jinping. That is not bad for 2 years of work.

And we should not go home. We should stay here and do the work we need to do to support Ukraine.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to commend a great public servant, John Swartout, for his dedicated service to the citizens of Colorado. After more than three decades of tireless service in the public policy arena, I congratulate John on the occasion of his retirement.

John worked as an adviser to Colorado Governors Bill Owens and John Hickenlooper and U.S. Senator Wayne Allard on environmental, natural resource, energy, and public lands policy. John was instrumental in Federal land negotiations involving the Roan Plateau settlement, the closing of Rocky Flats, and the designation of Browns Canyon National Monument, James Peak Wilderness, Great Sand Dunes National Park, and the Spanish Peaks Wilderness Area. He also served as the head of policy for the State of Colorado on habitat protection efforts for the greater sage grouse and the Gunnison sage grouse. In these efforts, he showed an uncanny ability to balance habitat conservation goals with the private property rights of landowners.

John grounded his work in integrity, trust, humor, and an innate ability to form coalitions and partnerships among even the most diverse groups. John himself would probably tell you his greatest accomplishment was helping people find common ground that then allowed them to work toward collaborative policy solutions that benefited their community and region. The fact that he worked for governors from both parties demonstrates his ability to work in a strong bipartisan manner to deliver results for Colorado.

In addition to his roles working for elected officials, John also led multiple Agencies and nonprofits. He served as executive director of Great Outdoors Colorado--GOCO--helping to guide millions of dollars of investments in public recreational amenities like trails, playgrounds, parks, fishing ponds, and campgrounds. As the executive director of the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, he helped preserve and protect thousands of acres of open space, wildlife habitat, and working agricultural lands.

John most recently served as executive director of Colorado Counties, Inc.--CCI--a nonprofit organization that provides advocacy and education for county governments around the State. Under John's leadership, CCI negotiated an opioid settlement with Colorado's Attorney General and various pharmaceutical companies that provided millions of dollars for local addiction counseling and treatment. He also successfully steered CCI through the COVID-19 pandemic. CCI was integral in assisting county commissioners provide frontline health services and invest millions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act and CARES Act in community programs, business retention, and infrastructure improvements.

John served as the campaign manager for my opponent in my first race for the U.S. Senate. In Colorado, we believe in working together despite different political beliefs, and I came to know and respect John for his ability to work in a pragmatic fashion with everyone. John became a dependable ally and friend as we worked together to advance the interests of Colorado.

Throughout his career, John embodied the notion put forward by Wallace Stegner, that the American West is still ``the native home of hope.'' Our great State is better for his vision, his compassion, and his service, and I wish him well in his retirement.

Mr. President, reserving the right to be object, I am glad to be here today. I think it is important for us to have this debate. This is a debate. People on the other side of the aisle say it is not one.

I heard my colleague from Ohio talking earlier about slogans, slogans, slogans. This is all about slogans.

I cannot believe the degree to which the accomplishments by the Ukrainian people are being diminished on this floor or being diminished in this debate. It is absolutely disgraceful.

They are this close to winning this war. There is a freeze today on the battlefield, on the frontline, in part, because Putin knows exactly what is going on here. He knows about the debate that is going on here. He knows, my colleagues, that he is losing on the battlefield. He understands that. NATO understands that. Xi Jinping understands that. He knows that.

He is losing on the battlefield. He is counting on winning on Capitol Hill. He is counting on winning on this battlefield. Let me tell you something. This isn't about slogans.

Let's talk about what Ukraine has done over the last 2 years. I haven't heard anybody talk about that in this discussion or this debate. I hope my colleagues on the other side are listening because you will not hear, in your lifetime, a list of greater courage or sacrifice than what you will hear from Ukrainians, and it is not slogans.

They defeated and reversed the Russian attack on Kyiv--which, by the way, Kyiv was supposed to fall in 72 hours. They reversed that. They forced Russia to retreat from Chernihiv and Sumy. They won the battle of Kharkiv. They took back Kherson. They took back Snake Island.

Ukraine has taken back more than half--more than half--of the land that Russia took from them in this invasion, colleagues, more than half. Nobody 2 years ago would have predicted that. Everybody would have said Putin would never relinquish that land.

They almost singlehandedly restarted commercial grain trade with Asia and Africa. Why does that matter? That matters so that the whole rest of the world can be fed, so they will stay in the fight that we have led that no other country can lead but the United States of America, even though my colleagues on the other side have gotten tired.

Last month--read it. Look it up. I will put it in the Record. There was an amazing article over the weekend about this in the New York Times, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, they largely neutralized the Black Sea Fleet. They don't even have a real navy. They don't have a navy. Through their dedication and through their imagination and their willingness to sacrifice, they have managed to neutralize the Black Sea Fleet.

There is nobody who thought they could do this. This is all while Russians outnumber Ukrainians 3 to 1 on the battlefield.

I heard from my colleagues, how much more American lives, how much more American treasure? There is not an American losing their life. The Ukrainians are losing their lives in the name of democracy.

In total, Ukrainians have killed 300,000 Russian fighters. Thank you, Ukraine, for doing the work that NATO has not been asked to do, that the United States has not been asked to do.

Putin knows he is losing this war in Ukraine. The only question that he has is, is he going to win the war here in the U.S. Congress? Who is going to lose Ukraine?

And the people who are here today saying this is not a lesson from World War II; this is a lesson from World War I, these are the people who are going to lose Ukraine.

Do we have any right to be fatigued, colleagues, when we haven't lost 100,000 people, when all we are being asked to do is manufacture the weapons that Ukraine is using on this battlefield, putting American people to work to support Ukraine and democracy? That is what we are being asked to do. Can we possibly be fatigued at this moment?

I suppose we could be having a very different debate if Ukraine hadn't been as successful as they have been, but they have been successful. What we know is, if we roll over now for Vladimir Putin, if we stop providing Ukraine with their weapons--and they are out of bullets. They are out of bullets as we stand here today. They have $1 billion left. If we stop providing them with resources, if we stop providing them with the intelligence that we provided them, they are going to lose this war. President Zelenskyy came here and told you that we will win this war if you stick with us; we will lose this war if you abandon us.

We cannot abandon Ukraine at this moment.

I know I have other colleagues on the floor who need to speak today. I am glad this has been recorded for history. I am glad today's debate has been recorded for history because when they ask who lost this war to Vladimir Putin, it is not going to be a question of rhetoric or debate points; it is going to be a question of a war that we were actually on the verge of winning and a war that we walked away from and lost with repercussions to every single corner of this world, including where Xi Jinping is sitting right now in Beijing. And don't forget about it. Don't forget about it.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak without objection.

Madam President, I am sorry that you are having to stay here so late tonight, but I am glad you are in the chair.

I wanted to come down to the floor, now that the vote is done, just to explain the objection that I made earlier today. I am not going to do it at an elaborate length, but I think it is important to say that I was deeply disappointed--as were many people--that the deal to keep the government open did not actually have as part of it continuing funding for Ukraine, which I think is critically important. I think most people in the Senate believe it is critically important.

I objected to proceeding tonight because I thought it was important for us to find a way to send a bipartisan message from this Chamber that that is how we felt.

As I mentioned to the Presiding Officer earlier today, to my caucus earlier today, one of the reasons--or maybe the reason--why this is something that is so important to me is that my mom, who is still alive, was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938. She was a Polish Jew.

I couldn't imagine a worse place in the world to be born at that time than where my mom was born. She and her parents and an aunt survived. Everybody else was killed.

As everybody in this Chamber knows--certainly, the Presiding Officer knows--16 million people were killed in Ukraine and in Poland by the Nazis and by Stalin.

My mom cannot believe that she has lived long enough to see another land war break out in Europe. That is what she says to me: I can't believe I lived long enough to see this. I almost can't believe it either because we had gotten used to reliance on our international organizations, the rule of law, the idea that democracy had spread, the idea that capitalism had spread.

There were some people, when the Berlin Wall fell down in the late 1980s, who were writing books about how this was kind of the end of history because the liberal--small ``L'' liberal, not big ``L'' liberal--the small liberal order had prevailed. Of course, we know now that wasn't true.

And we know now that there is a contest in the world of at least two very different visions of how a human should organize themselves. We believe in democracy. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Vladimir Putin believes in none of those things. And Xi Jinping believes in none of those things either.

It was an amazing experience for me to sit as a member of the Intelligence Committee and watch Putin make one mistake after another as he contemplated invading Ukraine--something a lot of people believed he wouldn't actually do. I think a lot of Ukrainians thought that he might. I think a lot of Pols thought he might. I think a lot of others living in Eastern Europe were worried that he might actually do it.

I said that he made some fundamental mistakes, and he did make some fundamental mistakes. One was he believed that his army was a lot stronger than it has been. That doesn't mean they don't have serious military capabilities. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't unleash a battlefield of nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat or chemical weapons at the drop of a hat if he felt like he was losing in a way that threatened his regime or threatened him. I certainly am clear-eyed about that. I know the Presiding Officer is and everybody else is.

But his army is a lot more hollowed out than he thought it was. That is what happens when you are a totalitarian living on top of a totalitarian society. No one actually tells you the truth. No one says: Vladimir Putin, your army has been hollowed out. We have wasted all that money that you asked us to spend on the army through corruption and other kinds of things.

So that was one fundamental mistake. A second fundamental mistake was his failure to understand what the Ukrainian people's reaction would be. We didn't get it all right. Some of our intelligence wasn't right. There were people who were saying that Putin was going to be in Kyiv in 72 hours. There was the feeling that Zelenskyy's government would collapse and that the Russians would have a puppet government in Kyiv.

Instead, what has happened is the Ukrainian people have exhibited more bravery than anybody could have ever asked for. It is astonishing what they have done. And, to me, it is astonishing what they have accomplished.

You hear people in the press these days talking about the stalemate on the frontier or on the battle, on the frontline, as if that is somehow a failure on the part of the Ukrainian people. I see that as exactly the opposite. I see that as an unbelievable achievement by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, by the Ukrainian people, by President Zelenskyy, and by the American taxpayers who have supported this work.

That is the third thing Vladimir Putin didn't count on, was that people all over the free world and democracies all over planet Earth would be so inspired by the courage of the Ukrainian people, would be so inspired by the bravery of the Ukrainian people that they would demand of their elected officials that we do more, do more, do more. That is what people have said in countries all over the world. That, he didn't count on either.

That has been an amazing thing over the last 2 years, after we had a President here who cast a lot of doubt on whether NATO was even something important or whether the rule of law was something important or whether the United States following through on our commitments was even something important. And we have shown that none of that is true, and NATO is stronger today than it has ever been. The transatlantic alliance is stronger today than it has ever been.

We have allies from Europe to Asia who understand what the importance of this fight is. They know that this is not just a fight for Ukraine. They know the Ukrainians aren't just fighting for Ukraine--although, that is an important fight; that is an important battle. They know this is a fight for democracy. This is a fight for the free world.

There is no way that this fight would have been as successful as it has been without U.S. assistance, without U.S. intelligence.

This is one where the good guys have come together in a way that is really

meaningful and in a way that the tyrants in this world, I think, were not expecting.

Our intelligence community certainly thinks that Xi Jinping is now having to think twice and three times and four times about whether or not he is going to invade Taiwan as a result of the success of the Ukrainian people.

President Zelenskyy was here 2 weeks ago, and he told us that, without our support, they would lose. I told my colleagues today that I was standing there with--it was probably--I wasn't as close as you were, Madam President, but I was close. I was just several desks away from where he was standing. And I was thinking to myself--it was in the old Senate Chamber where you didn't need a microphone in the old days and humans were talking to humans. People showed up to have these debates, to have these conversations. And here we were, 100 humans who were in the Senate, who happen to be in the Senate today, and here is this guy, President Zelenskyy, who, until 3 years ago or so--or 4 years ago, maybe--was an actor in his home country in Ukraine and who ran for office almost as a lark because there was so much corruption that he felt like he had an obligation as a citizen to run, to run for President, to try to overcome that corruption.

Then something happened that he probably didn't think was going to happen, which is Putin invaded Ukraine, and the entire weight of the world dropped on President Zelenskyy's head--just a human being, one human being. Not the tallest guy I have ever seen, not the strongest guy I have ever seen--a pretty regular person standing there in his fatigues and the entire weight of the world is on his shoulders.

Our support of the Ukrainian people, because of what they have been willing to do not just for Ukraine but for democracy, has made a huge difference to them and to what President Zelenskyy is trying to accomplish.

Tonight, I did object earlier because I was worried that--I thought it was important for us to make sure we send a clear message that we are not leaving Washington without figuring out how to fund Ukraine; that we are going to spend the next 45 days or so making sure that the United States continues to lead in this effort. No one else in this world can lead here. That is a lesson I have learned from my mom. That is a lesson I have learned from her experience in Warsaw and around Warsaw. Nobody but the United States can lead. We are the only folks who can lead.

President Zelenskyy said we are the only folks who can lead. And we cannot allow our political differences here, our political disputes here, to keep us from delivering the aid that Ukraine needs. We can't do it. And I think there are probably some people who thought, when we left today, that is what we were doing.

I thought it was important for the leadership of the Senate to put out a statement tonight--Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell and several others on each side of the aisle--underscoring that we are going to spend the next 45 days working together to pass a robust Ukraine aid package. And I think that is vitally important. And I hope, in a small way, hopefully, we all had the chance today to think again about how important this is, how important our leadership is, how important our presence here as human beings is.

We are not going to get another chance at this, I suspect. I suspect that we are going to have one chance, and that chance is going to be 45 days from now. And this Chamber, just like President Zelenskyy has done, just like the Ukrainian people have done--he said, in fact: We are giving our lives. All we are asking for is your money.

He is right about that. They are giving their lives. And I think that if we had entered this war or watched this war happen, starting 2 years ago, and we had not supported the Ukrainian people in the way that we have, the world wouldn't have supported them, and they wouldn't have made the extraordinary progress that they have made. And who knows how this could end. We don't know.

It is important for us to stay in this fight and continue to lead. It is important for us to learn the lessons of 16 million people who lost their lives in Eastern Europe, in Poland, in Ukraine, believing that they were dying invisible to the rest of the world. And we can't let that happen again.

Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent that the statement that Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell signed tonight be printed in the Record.

I thank the Presiding Officer for all of your relentless support for the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskyy, and thank you for being there tonight.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I am glad to be here tonight with the Presiding Officer, a Member of this body who probably, more than most, understands the consequences of this government shutdown. Of the, maybe, 100 people in this body and of the 435 people in the House of Representatives, I would be surprised if there were somebody among us who would be less likely to close the government down over politics than the Presiding Officer from the Commonwealth of Virginia, because he knows how important it is, among other people, to the dedicated public servants who live in his State and work for the Federal Government.

Tonight, I wanted to come to the floor to talk about a group of men and women who most people serving in this Chamber know very little about--or they may know nothing about. They are men and women whose livelihoods are at stake and are being held hostage by a small band of extremists dead set on shutting down the government for their own political purposes. And these are America's Federal wildland firefighters.

This is a photo of Federal wildland firefighters who are responding to the Pine Gulch Fire in Colorado. The picture, in many ways, sort of says it all. One of the things it says is neither you nor I nor anybody on this floor really could fully imagine or describe what it must be like to do this work.

I can't imagine parachuting through yellow skies that can't allow you to see where the ground is and dropping down in the total wilderness. I would be very surprised if anybody in this Chamber could comprehend what it must be like to hear nothing but the roar of chain saws and crackling brush all around you while tankers and helicopters overhead on top of you dump blood-red retardant and water to suppress the flames or what it is like to carry enough food to sustain you for days at a time.

There is nobody who is going to come feed you, and you have axes and water and a sleeping bag all on your back, in a pack that is just made heavier by unrelenting smoke and unrelenting fire. You are doing the heartbreaking work of slashing away at brush and small trees. I am sorry--the backbreaking work. It is probably heartbreaking sometimes. You are doing the backbreaking work of slashing away at brush and small trees; using gasoline for a roaring wildfire; and making a fire line until you get to mineral soil. I don't know about any of that.

I can't imagine the flood of relief, after 16 hours of grueling work, getting back to the ``black.'' That is the area that has already been burned, and that is a sign that, finally, after those 16 hours--or however many hours those are--you are in a safe spot. And for all of that effort, you are making $15 an hour--less than somebody could make at Subway or at another fast-food restaurant.

I never have lived in my car as a price of doing the job that I was asked to do, sleeping cramped in the back seat after a 16-hour day because you can't afford a place to live--or the

loneliness of being without your wife and kids for months and months at a time while working on a fire. I don't know how it must feel to work 1,000 hours of overtime every year for your country and know that your family is still on food stamps because, no matter how hard you work, you can't make enough money to put food on the table for your family. I don't know what that feels like, but that is the reality for America's wildland firefighters.

Helicopter rappellers and engine operators and handcrews and hotshots and smokejumpers make up wildland firefighting crews. These men and women parachute into fire. They walk into fire. They drive into fire.

There is a picture of a smokejumper parachuting through smoke. You can probably barely see it, but it gives you the sense of the danger of it. These are highly trained experts in their field. Believe it. Take it from me that they are in peak physical condition.

In the last few decades, the wildfire season has extended and extended and extended by over 70 days. It is common for politicians to say we don't have a wildfire season anymore; it is all year round. But the reality for these workers is that they are having to work those fires all year round. And the fires have become increasingly intense. If you talk to people who have had to fight them on the ground, there are people who have been doing this--believe it or not--for 25 years, for 30 years. They have seen what it used to look like and what it looks like now. They can tell you the intensity has changed because of climate change and because of the historic drought that we face.

By the way, it is important for this body to understand that this is not just in the West. We have, obviously, been beset by fires and by drought in the West; but right now, while we are here, there are wildfires in Louisiana. We have seen the total destruction--the tragedy--of Maui. Even New Jersey this year has seen wildfires. They have been ravaged by them in that State.

I heard a firefighter say to me the other day that the wildland firefighters are like the Swiss Army knives of first responders because in the off season, they support hurricane relief efforts in the South. They administered vaccines at the peak of the COVID epidemic. They even helped with the space shuttle recovery.

Two years ago during the infrastructure bill, as part of a recognition that the drought was creating a huge problem for us in the West, we made things a little better for our wildland firefighters. The bipartisan infrastructure law provided over 20,000 wildland firefighters a temporary pay raise, and that has been a godsend for them. By the way, it is only bringing them up to--I mean, it is barely what they should make, but, at least, you can make it on what we are paying them now. But that money is fast expiring, and this lifeline is almost gone. You know, for them, it meant that skilled firefighters were able to remain in the profession who might have otherwise quit.

By the way, when you ask them about that, the reason they have stayed is because they have such a sense of mission. That is part of it. They also know that they don't know who would replace them. Who would take their job? Who would walk in their shoes who is, you know, making the kind of money that they are making? But they finally had a sense that maybe the Nation was recognizing their work and that they could, at least, provide for their families.

On Friday, I met with a group of wildland firefighters in Grand Junction, CO, who shared their stories with me. I would encourage every Member of this body to do the same. They described being so disconnected from their families and friends during fire season that they feared they would lose them. They feared slipping into deep depression because of the grueling nature of the work and the months spent away from home. We talked about riding a bike back and forth to work because they couldn't afford to maintain a car; the feelings of having your passion for your job--remember, these are people who are, in theory, you know, inspired by the sunset--having your passion for your job exploited by the Federal Government which knows you will show up because you love the job even without getting the pay you deserve year after year, fire after fire after fire; grappling with the trauma of seeing other people's homes burn to the ground and losing crew members in the line of duty.

One crew leader in Colorado told me she had lost three firefighters to suicide. Another just lost a friend to cancer likely due to smoke inhalation. Wildland firefighters are 10 to 20 times more likely to commit suicide than the average American, and they face a 43-percent increased risk for developing cancer.

A firefighter told me: None of us wants to be millionaires. We just want to do good work, the work that we love.

These are the men and women saving lives. These are the men and women saving homes and defending the 640 million acres--thank God--of America's public lands.

The failure of Congress to act has forced talented firefighters to leave the profession, which is the last thing they want to do. It is going to cost us the next generation of wildland firefighters who are needed more than ever because of climate change and what it is doing to the West and fire seasons all across this country.

Really importantly, the continuing resolution that you support and that I support--that we have passed miraculously with almost 80 votes in the Senate, showing the broad bipartisan support there is all across this country for keeping our government open--will extend their pay by a couple of paychecks. That is really important. But I am here to say that our wildland firefighters need a permanent raise.

Something we could do today is to pass the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act to permanently extend the pay increase in the bipartisan infrastructure law. Believe me, that is the least we could do for these men and women. We owe our wildland firefighters so much more than just fair pay. They deserve paid leave, housing benefits, and mental health care. That is why I have introduced Tim's Act with Congressman Neguse, who is also my colleague from Colorado, which would provide all of that and ensure that every wildland firefighter makes at least $20 an hour. That doesn't seem unreasonable. Our bill is named for Tim Hart, a smokejumper who lost his life after parachuting into a wildland fire in New Mexico.

This is a photo of Tim Hart.

I have been fortunate--more fortunate than you can imagine--to meet Michelle, Tim's wife, who is upholding his legacy through her relentless support of what she calls ``Tim's fire family.'' And that is what I meant the other day, was a family. That is what anybody here--if you had been here or had been in Grand Junction--would have thought. And Michelle has been kind enough to share a bit about Tim with me.

Tim was a practical joker. He loved a glass of rye whiskey neat, and he loved Halloween. But mostly, he loved his calling. He loved his passion, being a wildland firefighter.

Every year he would consider it all worth it: the bad pay, sleeping out of his truck, leaving Michelle to put his life at risk. And every year, the answer was yes. Every year, the answer was, yes, it is worth it.

He answered yes for his country, his brothers and sisters in fire, and for his love of our Nation's landscape.

These firefighters are much more than the blazes that they battle, and the least we could do is pay them a living wage.

As I mentioned, there is a saying among wildland firefighters, which is, ``They pay us in sunsets.'' I am here today to tell you that is not enough. It is not enough.

It is this country's duty to support these men and women, our Nation's duty to support these firefighters who are defending us. There is nobody else who is going to step into the breach if we lose them. Someday, there will be somebody who is coming to this floor, standing here from the State of Colorado or maybe the Commonwealth of Virginia who is going to say: If only we had done it differently back then.

We need to keep this government open. The Nation depends on it. We need to permanently raise wildland firefighter pay. And after we do that, I hope we will come together to pass Tim's Act to give our wildland firefighters just a little bit of what they finally deserve.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the Cruz-Manchin amendment No. 926 be at a time to be determined by the majority leader, following consultation with the Republican leader, on Thursday, July 20, with all provisions in the previous order remaining in effect.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 46 through No. 52, No. 82 through 107, No. 110 through No. 113, No. 130 through 139, No. 180 through No. 205, No. 224 through No. 226, No. 228 through No. 234, No. 236 through No. 246, No. 248 through No. 249; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Madam President, I am sorry that the Senator from Alabama has objected tonight again. I think this is the seventh time that we have been out here having this conversation, when I have been trying to move ahead the promotions of our Defense Department and he has, in an unprecedented manner, opposed it.

For 230 years, nobody in this Chamber has done what the Senator from Alabama is doing--putting a hold on the military promotions of people in uniform, of the flag officers of our Department of Defense, who ordinarily come through here in a customary way to get approved by the Senate, for obvious reasons--because we need them. They are for our national security. They have sacrificed their entire adult lives. They have sacrificed time with their families. They have sacrificed everything for this country. Now they have been put on a list to be promoted, and the Senator from Alabama has put a hold on them, which has never happened before in the history of the United States

For somebody who has put this Senate to a grinding halt month after month after month, he has picked an odd argument with which to defend his position. He has said, time and time again, that what he is doing actually doesn't matter, that what he is doing

in the face of Democratic and Republican--not that it matters, because the Secretary of Defense, you know, shouldn't think of himself as a Democrat or a Republican. But the people who have served in Democratic and Republican administrations have said over and over again that he is compromising our national security, which is, of course, exactly the conclusion that anyone who is looking at this with common sense would believe, which is that our generals and our admirals actually make a difference and that the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff actually makes a difference.

If that is not the case, we are in worse trouble than I thought. If it is the case, if what he is saying is right and that it doesn't matter, that it doesn't make any difference, then how can he claim to be acting on this incredibly important principle since it doesn't matter?

As he says, these military positions are being fulfilled by acting officials--by acting officials. He says the generals, as I say, aren't important, that the admirals aren't important, and that they can be filled by acting officials because we don't need a Marine Corps Commandant. In his mind, it doesn't matter. We don't need an Army Chief of Staff. We don't need a Chief of Naval Operations. We don't need a nominee for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All of those positions are up for promotion right now, and every single one is being blocked by the Senator from Alabama and by the people in this Chamber who are supporting him on this unprecedented hold.

By the way, I haven't talked about this in the seven times I have been out here, but I have heard from people about this since, so let me just mention the incredible unfairness of this hold to the families who are supporting and serving with them, who are living with these members of the Armed Forces, many of whom have spent their entire careers working to get to the point that they are in right now--to be promoted to positions with the most significant responsibilities they have ever held.

As for the decisions that have been made on the way here--to miss the soccer games of their kids; to make a decision to accept a promotion that takes you to a foreign land that is distant from your family, that is distant from your community--there is a disruption in people's lives who now don't know where to put their kids in school because the Senator from Alabama has put on his blanket hold, which he says doesn't matter. These are people who wear the uniform of the United States. They are not politicians, not that that matters either, but they are people who wear the uniform of this country, who have given their lives and their careers to this country, and he says that holding up these promotions doesn't matter.

By the way, I am not going to get distracted by this, and I am not going to criticize his coaching career tonight or his football record, as he said. The Senator from Kansas, I know, won't let me get away with that, so I am not going to do it. I would even say the Senator from Kansas would have to admit, I hope, that this is an odd position for a coach to take--that the coaches don't matter in our military and that our admirals and our generals and the people who rally the troops don't matter.

You know, this is a little bit like saying the Denver Broncos didn't need Mike Shanahan to win two consecutive Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998 or that the Denver Nuggets, this year, didn't need Michael Malone to win their first NBA championship or--not to criticize his record--that the University of Alabama didn't need Nick Saban to win eight SEC championships.

Of course, it matters. Leadership matters. Leadership matters probably more in the Armed Forces than it matters anywhere else, and that is the reason that we are here. He knows exactly what he is doing, and he understands the damage that he has inflicted, and there is a reason he is the only Senator in 230 years who has done this.

What is it? What is it that he wants to bring the country's attention to? What is he asking the country to pay attention to? He is saying that he is standing up for the sanctity of life. He said that tonight. He is claiming that it is easy to describe these policies as the woke Biden administration distorting the Defense Department to serve their woke policy goals.

What he wants the American people to believe is that he is stopping the government from paying for abortions, and that is simply not what he is doing because that is not what is happening. That is not what is at issue here.

He says that the Dobbs decision doesn't have anything to do with what he is doing or with this case, and that is totally wrong.

Last year, as everybody in America knows, the Supreme Court of the United States, for the first time since Reconstruction, stripped the American people of a fundamental freedom, a fundamental constitutional right. That has not happened in this country since Reconstruction, but it happened this year.

It happened this year in the Dobbs case. It happened when Justice Alito, writing for the majority, said that if it wasn't a freedom in 1868, it is not a freedom today. And that was the most glorious--I would say inglorious, but he would say glorious--expression of his judicial ideology of originalism that we have ever seen on the Court. It came after 50 years--it is worth going through this history because he blew it off so quickly--after 50 years of a concerted political effort to overturn a woman's right to choose in this country; to run elections based on taking that freedom away, that right away; to pack the courts with judges who would take that freedom away; to create a judicial ideology that barely existed.

The ink was barely dry on the law review articles that Justice Scalia--then-Attorney Scalia--was writing when I was in law school that were claiming that these originalists had a fundamental understanding of what the Founders' perspective was and understanding was when they founded this country, when they wrote the Constitution. Now we have seen it manifested in this opinion by Justice Alito, where he says that if it wasn't a freedom in 1868, it is not a freedom today.

I don't want the pages or anybody else who is here tonight to be fooled just because they used the word ``originalism.'' That is the most brilliant political name, the most brilliant political label that has ever been attached to any ideology probably in the history of humankind--certainly in the history of our country--because it claims that they know what the Founders' actually wanted when they founded this country, which, of course, is ridiculous on its face for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the Founders had fundamental disagreements with each other about all kinds of things. Anybody who has studied our constitutional history to any degree knows that and knows the Constitution was a product of compromise and consensus and agreement and disagreement.

Some of the Founders, I am sad to say, owned slaves and fought very hard for the protection of human slavery in the United States of America, and their legacy will be with us to the end of our days because of what they did at the founding. There are other Founders who fought, who were abolitionists, who said: This is wrong. We should get rid of slavery.

The Constitution, just like our pieces of legislation around here, is littered with--is littered with--those kinds of compromises. Some of them are ones that are glorious, and some of them are ones that are inglorious.

(Mr. OSSOFF assumed the Chair.)

I dwell on this, Mr. President, because it is important for people to understand that this didn't come from nowhere. It is important to understand that we are at a moment when they have achieved their 50- year ambition, which is to create an originalist majority on the Supreme Court of the United States to reverse Roe v. Wade, among other things, but that is clearly the most important thing to them.

In a moment of maybe political distress, realizing that they had actually succeeded in their wildest dreams to achieve something that, I can tell you, speaking for myself in my advanced age, when I was in law school, would have been unimaginable, which is that in the United States, we would reverse Roe v. Wade in the year 2023--that I would travel the streets of Colorado with my daughters, and we would look up at the billboards advertising certain stuff in Colorado and realize that we live in a country that was legalizing marijuana on the one hand and making

abortion illegal at the same time. That is something we couldn't have imagined. That is something we would not have foreseen.

But nobody, when I was in law school, would have believed that you could have gotten five Justices of the Supreme Court to agree with the logic that if it was not a freedom in 1868, when women didn't even have the right to vote in this country, it is not a freedom today, and it is as simple as that. It is as straightforward as that.

When that opinion was reached in Dobbs, then you started to hear people say: Well, don't worry about it. That is just a State's rights issue. You don't need to worry about that. Laboratory of democracy--we are just going to see what the States decide to do.

The first problem with that, of course, is that we are talking about a fundamental freedom. We are talking about a fundamental right. We are talking about, in my judgment, a civil right. That is the first issue. That is something that shouldn't be decided State by State by State. But it turned out that they actually meant what they said. This wasn't just an experiment in democracy; this was an attempt to ban abortion in the United States of America.

Since Dobbs was decided, 21 States have banned abortion or restricted access.

Last week, Iowa passed a 6-week abortion ban. Most women don't even know they are pregnant at 6 weeks.

The leading candidate for President on their side of the aisle, who is not named Donald Trump, signed an abortion ban in his State, the State of Florida, that 65 percent of Floridians oppose, that bans abortion at 6 weeks, and he did it at 11 o'clock at night. Why do you think he did that at 11 o'clock at night? Maybe because he knew that what seemed like the thing to do on rightwing radio was going to be a lot less popular with the voters in Florida and, I would say, the voters across the United States of America who are deeply concerned about protecting this civil right, who are deeply concerned about protecting freedom and a woman's right to choose and all the implications for equality that come to the fore when you are facing questions like this.

Those are the questions we are facing right now in the wake of the Defense Department in good faith trying to grapple with the change in the law brought about by the majority of the Supreme Court stripping away this fundamental freedom and stripping away this fundamental right.

There was a time when women serving in our military would have some assurance that they were going to have minimal access to reproductive healthcare no matter where they served. That was the law of the land before Dobbs. That is what Roe v. Wade said. But now they don't have that minimal access.

The Department of Defense, in the wake of the decision in Dobbs--not a decision, I assume, they would have wanted--is trying to grapple with that in ways that make sense for the men and women who serve in our military. They are basically trying to say: Let us treat women the same as everybody else who is serving in the military.

In response to Dobbs, the Pentagon released three policies.

Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. We are going to have a debate in this country about what Dobbs means when it comes to access to a woman's right to choose, and the consensus that has existed around here for a long time has been upset by that. We are going to have a debate about that. I am sure about that. But I just want to say that it is absolutely false that the Defense Department has created a situation where--they are suggesting that they are funding--taxpayers-- abortions. That is what the Senator from Alabama says. I hope that people who are supporting him on this floor know that is false. They know that is not true. That is not what the Defense Department is doing. The Defense Department has not violated the Hyde amendment.

The Defense Department, faced with this decision in Dobbs, did three things. They said: If you need reproductive healthcare or if you need an abortion, we will pay for your travel to go from a State like Alabama, where you can get jailed, I guess, for up to 99 years if you are a doctor who performs abortion, to a State like Colorado that has enshrined Roe v. Wade, that we will pay your way.

That is not special treatment; that is the treatment everybody gets for a medical service that is not provided near their base.

The second thing they said was that they were going to allow paid leave while you are getting your reproductive healthcare, just like everybody else who is going to get a medical procedure gets. And we are going to give you a little bit of additional time on this--what can be a very difficult subject for the reasons everybody here knows--to talk to your commanding officer and inform them that you are pregnant.

That is it. That is it. That is it. It is not more than that.

So what I would ask everybody in this Chamber, whether you are pro- life or whether you are pro-choice or something else, where everybody across America who is suffering now because we are not able to promote the flag officers in the U.S. military--what I would ask you to consider, please, is what Senator Tuberville will win if he wins. What will Senator Tuberville win if he wins? He will ensure that women are going to be treated worse than men in the Department of Defense.

He will ensure that women will be treated differently, unequally, and unfairly because, unlike anyone else who needs a medical procedure, they will have to pay for their own travel out of, let's just say, Alabama or other States that have banned abortion, to be able to access an abortion. Unlike everybody else--unlike everybody else--they will have to take unpaid leave while they are trying to undergo that medical procedure or a medical procedure that could lead to an abortion.

I don't think most people in this country who are pro-life would think that women should be treated differently in that respect, discriminated against. I think they would take the view that, if you are serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and you are serving in a State that has banned abortion and you are pregnant, and you have decided-- you have made a judgment on your own or with your family or with your doctor--that the right answer for you and for your family is to go to another State and have an abortion--I think most people would say that you ought to have the right to do that, that you shouldn't be discriminated against if that is your judgment. That doesn't mean you are pro-choice or pro-life. It means that people can make that determination and that people shouldn't be discriminated against.

I have to say, Mr. President, it is almost as if he is punishing them for the rule that the Department of Defense has promulgated and that he wants to try to make this a case of the Biden administration overreaching, distorting the Department of Defense, bending DOD to its will, infusing the Department of Defense with some sort of woke strategy.

I think it is really important for the American people to understand what is at stake here. This is not a game. This is not a game when you are holding up every promotion of every single flag officer at DOD. This is not a game when all you are talking about is whether we are going to have a country that discriminates against people or whether people are going to be treated equally. This isn't a game when the question is, Are you going to have the ability to have your leave paid for, your travel paid for, to have a little extra time to talk to your commanding officer about the decision that you are going to have to face?

Why in the world would we want to make life more difficult for people who are in that condition or circumstance? Why are we blaming them for a rule that they had nothing to do with writing and that the DOD had the ability to promulgate? The Department of Justice has made that clear. It defies common sense. It defies common sense.

And tonight we heard him say that he is here because he is trying to defend the sanctity of life. That is what he said. And I have said out here and I will say again that I believe that people in this country have strong differences of opinion when it comes to a woman's right to choose and when it comes to abortion and that I think it is really important that people respect that. The Presiding Officer and I actually have had this conversation over

the years about that, and I believe it. I think that people can have very different moral points of view here. I think that people can have very different religious points of view about this.

I have concluded, for myself, that I think this is a decision that is much better left--partly because it is such a difficult decision, it is a much better decision to be left to a woman herself, consulting with whomever she wants to consult with--her doctor, her family--than it is for Michael Bennet to impose myself on that decision or for Senator Tuberville to impose himself on that decision.

Tonight, we heard him say that he thinks that DOD--that somehow this money could be used to pay for late abortions in this country and who wouldn't be for stopping late abortions in America; everybody would want to stop late abortions.

I would think, if you studied the matter, if you asked the question, ``What is a late abortion in America? What does happen?'' that what you discover is, not surprisingly, that 1 percent of abortions in America, or less than 1 percent, are late abortions in America, and they are situations where women--moms, mostly moms--have made the decision I say it--because it is going to be moms and dads--but, often, mostly moms-- who have made the decision to have a child, to pick a name, to pick out the furniture for a bedroom, and then something has gone terribly wrong, something nobody in this Chamber would ever wish on anybody they knew. And sometimes those are circumstances where--against all expectations, against all promise, against all hope, against all joy-- somebody has to make a decision to have a late-term abortion.

Is that really the moment that we want Senator Tuberville helping to make that decision? Is that really when we want the Federal Government helping to make that decision? I don't think so. But I think we shouldn't be surprised that we are here with this extreme measure that he has taken in the Senate, a reflection of what is an extreme ideology.

He has called abortion ``infanticide.'' He has called abortion ``this generation's Holocaust.'' He won't be satisfied until he subjects women in his State to the draconian measures that Alabama has legislated. There are no exceptions for rape or incest in Alabama. If you are a doctor and you perform an abortion, you can go to jail for up to 99 years in Alabama.

Just today, Mr. President, we found out that the Alabama attorney general--like the attorney general from Mississippi, I think it was-- wants to record information and is demanding that information be supplied to the government on women who have traveled out of State to seek abortion services. That is a pretty dystopian view of where we are as a country. I don't understand how you could say you are on the side of freedom and be trying to hunt the information down for American citizens who are making a decision that is in their interest or the interest of their family, to collect information on a lawful medical procedure, to try to prevent women from traveling across State lines in this country--in this country--in this democracy, this Republic.

How do you say that you are on the side of freedom when you refuse to allow women to have the same opportunity to travel for medical procedures as men, unless you think that somehow women aren't entitled to the same freedoms as men? How do you make the case--I don't know-- that you stand for freedom? You might stand for something else than to stand for freedom when you say that you are in a better position, as an elected politician from a State, to make judgments about a woman's pregnancy than she is.

This is a freedom to discriminate. This is a freedom to oppress people. We are in a tough place tonight because of what the Senator from Alabama has done.

I acknowledge that his State is really different from mine. Colorado really values freedom, and Colorado really values privacy. By the way, I am sure the people of Alabama do too. I can't prove it here tonight, but I will bet you there are a lot of people in Alabama who think it is wrong to be holding up these flag officers and who, if they knew that this really was about paying, for example, for paid leave--not taxpayer-funded abortions, which is what we heard again tonight, which isn't true--that they would say: Man, this doesn't sound like the right battle that we are taking.

It is like the 65 percent of people in Florida who are saying: What? Our Governor signed a bill at 11 p.m. at night to create a 6-week abortion ban in our State when there are women in Florida all the time who don't even know that they are pregnant at that time?

Colorado has taken a different view. We are a libertarian State in some respects--a libertarian State, a Western State. We believe a decision about a woman's health belongs between a woman and her doctor and her family, if she chooses to involve them. We were the first State in America to decriminalize abortion before Roe v. Wade was even decided. We were the first State--Colorado--to codify the right to choose after Dobbs. And that is a totally different view of the world than Alabama has, and I accept that.

But the reason why we are here is we have got to figure out what to do in a post-Dobbs world, where that minimum threshold, that constitutional freedom on which so many generations of Americans-- especially American women, but Americans--have relied has been stripped away. And in my opinion, in the meantime, we ought to be willing to say that this is a decision that should be left to women, to make this decision in their interest and for themselves.

It is not my job or the Senator from Alabama's job to substitute his position, his decision, to effectively say that we are going to reward your service, your willingness to serve in the Department of Defense, when you have been sent, through no fault of your own or decision of your own, to a place like Alabama that has banned abortion in this country--we are not only going to allow you to make that decision, but we are going to say that you have got to pay your own way out of here; that, unlike any other person, you can't take paid leave.

I think that is an extreme position, Mr. President, and I think it is an absurd position to believe that we are not hurting our national defense by not confirming these generals and these admirals and these other people who are up for promotion and that it doesn't somehow degrade our military readiness, when it obviously does. And every single person in this Chamber knows that it does.

At a time when Putin is in Ukraine and China is saber-rattling in the Pacific, this is the last thing we need to do. There is a reason why our friends in Ukraine are working so hard to try to take out the leadership in Putin's army, for God's sake--because it matters who is in command, as a matter of your national defense, as a matter of your national security, as a matter of your willingness or your ability to be able to effectively fight.

So I am at the end tonight, Mr. President. I apologize to the floor staff, once again, for keeping us here as late as I have. I apologize to the young pages who are here, in particular, not just for that fact but because they are coming of age at a moment in American history when we are coughing up fundamental rights, instead of extending those rights to people.

But that is what this battle has to be about. That is what this battle is about. That is why it is so important that when something like this happens, that we call it out and that even people who are natural allies or otherwise would be natural allies of a particular political position might in this instance say ``Man, that tactic is really self-defeating'' or might in this instance say ``Please at least tell the American people candidly what it is you are doing.'' I think the American people, if they understood that, would say we should do our job and approve these nominations.

I think the American people, in the years ahead and the decades ahead, are going to fix the decision that the Dobbs Court just did. There is no doubt in my mind that the American people are not going to stand for Justice Alito's America where if it wasn't a freedom in 1868, it is not a freedom today. We have come too far for that to be our point of view. We owe too much to this next generation of Americans and even the generation that is coming after them,

believe it or not, for that to be our point of view.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to honor LTC James Harvey III, a Tuskegee Airman and decorated fighter jet pilot in celebration of his 100th birthday on July 13, 2023. Lieutenant Colonel Harvey flew as part of the 99th Fighter Squadron in World War II before becoming the first African-American U.S. Air Force pilot to fly in Korean airspace during the Korean war. The U.S. Army was segregated when Lieutenant Colonel Harvey joined in 1943, but his perseverance and heroism, both at home and in the skies, continue to inspire us all.

Lieutenant Colonel Harvey excelled in high school as senior class president and valedictorian. Drafted in April 1943, he was initially assigned to the U.S. Army Air Corps as an engineer. It was there, on a train bound for Fort Meade, he first encountered prejudice and discrimination. While in the Army, he worked to carve airstrips out of jungle terrain before applying for cadet training. He later received his wings and commission in 1944 at Tuskegee Army Air Field. From there, Lieutenant Colonel Harvey was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron, where he served as one of the original members of the ``Tuskegee Airmen.'' The 332nd Fighter Group was noted as one of the Army Air Forces' most successful and most-decorated escort groups and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Lieutenant Colonel Harvey's skill stood out even among those decorated pilots. In 1949, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force arranged an aerial weapons competition among the best pilots in each group. In May of that year, Lieutenant Colonel Harvey joined his group's three- member team to compete at the inaugural ``Top Gun'' team competition, which was hosted at the Las Vegas Air Force Base, now known as Nellis Air Force Base. Lieutenant Colonel Harvey's team led the competition from the beginning to the end, ultimately winning against teams flying far more advanced equipment.

Lieutenant Colonel Harvey's service to the Air Force did not end there. He was the first African American fighter jet pilot to see combat in the Korean war. On October 16, 1950, he led an element of four F-80s in close support to a bomber mission under adverse weather to attack enemy troops three miles north of Yongsan, Korea. Flying at a low ceiling of 800 feet, Lieutenant Colonel Harvey's flight found the enemy encampment and immediately inflicted heavy damage. For this engagement, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, along with multiple Air Medals. His heroism on that day and on the 140 total missions he flew during the Korean war will never be forgotten.

After the Korean war, he served as a flight commander, test pilot, assistant group operations officer, flight safety officer, and battle staff training officer for the Commanding General of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD. Lieutenant Colonel Harvey retired from the Air Force on May 31, 1965, joined Oscar Mayer as a corporate salesman, and settled down with his family of four daughters in Denver, where he still resides.

Lieutenant Colonel Harvey won numerous awards during his decorated 22-year career in the U.S. Army Air Corps/U.S. Air Force. These awards include the WWII Victory Medal, Air Medal with 10 oakleaf clusters, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and the United Nations Service Medal. Lieutenant Colonel Harvey, along with every member of the Tuskegee Airmen, received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2006.

As Americans, we owe a debt of gratitude to Lieutenant Colonel Harvey for his heroism. His service to our Armed Forces, recognized by 11 medals during his Air Force career through segregation and discrimination, is an inspiration for generations to come. It is in this spirit of gratitude that I rise today to honor Denver's own Lieutenant Colonel James Harvey III on his 100th birthday.