Floor Statements

Mr. President, now on another matter, last Thursday, the Biden administration announced its plan to sacrifice yet another source of affordable, reliable American energy on the altar of climate activism.

After years of freezes and bans on onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing,

the administration's latest attempt to appease Democrats' radical base is a ban on new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana.

This region is responsible for producing nearly half of the Nation's coal. Last year alone, the basin created more than 250 million tons of coal and employs more than 4,000 people. Shutting off development will result in lost jobs and millions of dollars of lost revenue for Montana and Wyoming.

The sting of the administration's War on Coal is one Kentuckians know all too well. And working families across the country are already struggling with persistent inflation. Energy prices alone have risen more than 40 percent since President Biden took office.

But Washington Democrats' radicalism may have finally stretched their own party to a breaking point. In fact, the Biden administration's war on affordable, reliable American energy has proven so radically harmful to consumers, workers, and our global competitiveness that it is facing bipartisan opposition right here in the Senate.

Just yesterday, a bipartisan majority passed Senator Cruz's resolution disapproving of the Department of Energy's new rule to effectively ban affordable natural gas home furnaces.

This rule would significantly increase the existing efficiency standard and effectively ban the sale of more affordable home heating furnaces that don't meet it. By one estimate, this rule will heap as much as $4 billion in new costs onto consumers who already can't afford the high cost of the Biden economy.

The American people have suffered enough, from Bidenomics to the Green New Deal. I am glad a majority of the Senate agrees it is time to slam the brakes on the administration's assault on gas appliances. And I am thankful to my colleague Senator Cruz for bringing attention to this madness.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, yesterday, FDIC Chairman Mark Gruenberg announced he was prepared to step down from his position and expressed pride in maintaining public confidence in the Nation's banking system. Unfortunately, there is little such confidence in his ability to foster a safe working environment for the Agency's employees.

But despite alarming reports about rampant sexual harassment, abuse, and retaliation at the FDIC, Senate Democrats in positions to insist on change have actually pulled their punches. Instead of calls for Mr. Gruenberg's prompt resignation, we have heard everything from confidence in his ability to lead change at the Agency to delicate suggestions that the President nominate a new Chair.

The senior-most members of the Banking Committee apparently can't bring themselves to call a spade a spade. Surely, their reluctance has nothing to do with the FDIC's line of succession, which would fill a vacancy with the Agency's distinguished Vice Chair, who happens to be a Republican.

Surely, our colleagues won't play politics in the face of such glaring failures of leadership at a major regulatory authority. The Senate's oversight responsibility is serious business. I hope our colleagues in the majority are up to the task.

Mr. President, on another matter, yesterday, the Democratic leader once again tipped his cap to President Biden for what he describes as ``many actions'' in ``recent weeks'' to secure the southern border, which leads me with a couple of questions: First, what took the President so long? And, second, why isn't he taking the actions we know would actually begin to address the crisis that he actually invited?

The reason I ask is because time matters here. The cost of an average day of avoidable crisis at the border is measured in thousands of apprehensions of illegal arrivals and the interdiction of lethal drugs like fentanyl.

And if that is not alarming enough, consider the story reported earlier this month of the catch-and-release of a military-age male who spent 2 years free in the interior of the country before he was detained for alleged affiliations with ISIS-K.

Of course, everything I have mentioned so far we only know because the Border Patrol was able to stop it. But think about what border officials know they are not catching--the known ``got-aways.''

For 10 years before President Biden took office, under administrations of both parties, an average of about 125,000 people per year successfully crossed the southern border and escaped into the interior. On the Biden administration's watch, in fiscal years 2021 through 2023, the average tally of known ``got-aways'' is 550,000--from 125,000 to more than half a million.

President Biden's Press Secretary says this administration has ``done more . . . than anybody else'' to secure the border. But if you wanted to make that claim true, you would say this President has done more than anyone else to make the tough jobs of CBP and other law enforcement personnel even tougher.

In fact, one sobering new report suggests that contending for years with a historic humanitarian and security crisis without effective enforcement authorities is taking a heavy toll on the men and women of the Border Patrol. The rate of suicide among CBP personnel is three times higher than it was a decade ago. As one agent told reporters, ``when it turned out that the job became nothing more than processing and releasing these people, that was very hard to take.''

Going soft on border security may have started as just a shortsighted campaign strategy. A reckless debate-stage promise to ``surge'' asylum seekers to the border might have been just a cynical play to court leftwing voters, but after 3 years on the job, President Biden's failure to perform one of the most basic functions of his office isn't endearing. It is not some impressive sign of leftwing bona fides.

It is a glaring, avoidable failure, a profound moral embarrassment, and even Washington Democrats are beginning to recognize it as a tremendous political liability. The American people are telling poll after poll that they are alarmed by the border crisis and want to see real solutions.

Fortunately, the quickest way for the President to start undoing the damage he invented is to restore and use the authorities he already has at his disposal, like ``Remain in Mexico'' and border wall construction. Any of our Democratic colleagues who recognize that the President must act ought to start telling him so.

It is time for the Biden administration to start exercising its immense authority to restore sanity and start cleaning up the mess at our southern border. The time for distractions is long, long past.

Mr. President, on one final matter, speaking of the failure to discharge basic responsibilities--the Biden administration's Department of Education.

Around the country, high school seniors and their parents are still reeling from delays and processing errors in a botched rollout of the Free Application

for Federal Student Aid. Families have had to make tough decisions ahead of enrollment deadlines with incomplete information.

One such parent described the frustration she and her daughter were facing back in April:

She's supposed to decide by the end of this month and pay

her housing deposit, but we can't commit to anything until we

know what the financials look like.

It certainly makes one wonder: What are all those bureaucrats at the Education Department up to if they can't complete a fundamental part of their job? Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the answer seems to be spending time and taxpayer dollars on activities that run contrary to the Department's mandate.

The first of these activities, as I have discussed before, is student loan socialism. Of course, the Supreme Court made it clear that this scheme is illegal, and basic common sense tells us it is profoundly unfair both to folks who opted not to pursue a 4-year degree and to those who worked through college and paid their own bills. But President Biden has continued undeterred. Last month, his administration proposed a new rule to allow the Secretary of Education to cancel additional student debt for certain borrowers. It is estimated this will cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion.

But the Department's illegal nonsense doesn't stop there. Unelected bureaucrats are also trying to rewrite title IX of the Civil Rights Act. The Biden administration apparently wants to take a law that was designed to promote equal opportunities for women in education and make it do the exact opposite. This rule would require States and educational institutions to abandon biological sex as the determinant in program decisions and use so-called gender identity instead, and institutions that refuse to comply would lose access to Federal funding. More than 25 States have already sued to overturn this absurd rule, but the damage to the Department of Education's reputation is already done.

High school seniors and parents have already had to make college choices without crucial financial aid information. Working taxpayers are already footing the bill for the highest earning segments of the Washington Democrats' base. Laws that enacted protections for women are already being used to violate those same protections. It is shaping up to be a banner year for the Biden administration bureaucrats.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, last night, Iran confirmed that its President and Foreign Minister died in a helicopter crash. The condolences from sympathetic regimes were swift. The PRC declared that the Chinese people had ``lost a good friend.'' The Kremlin mourned ``a reliable partner.'' And Prime Minister Orban of Hungary, whose government has pursued deeper trade relations with Tehran, in spite of Western sanctions, offered his ``thoughts and prayers.''

Well, I, too, would like to extend my condolences to the people of Iran--for their long suffering under the brutal, theocratic rule of the Islamic Republic. I suspect a great many Iranians would rather Western admirers stop lionizing a man known as the ``Butcher of Tehran'' for executing political prisoners. They might prefer that foreign leaders not further legitimize the regime that actively represses all of them.

In the meantime, conjecture about key players in the chain of succession and the relative strength of reform and hardline elements has already begun in earnest. To focus on this sort of speculation is to miss something more fundamental about the regime in Tehran, something I warned the Biden administration about when President Raisi was installed through a customary sham

election 3 years ago: We should remember the President of Iran is just a figurehead. The real power rests with the aptly named Supreme Leader and the State institutions he controls.

Supposed ``reformers'' and ``moderates,'' along with hard-liners, have come and gone from Iran's Presidency without fundamentally changing how Tehran operates at home or abroad. Meanwhile, the regime's revolutionary orthodoxy has endured for decades, preserved by the clerical establishment and the IRGC.

Iran's leaders, its diplomats, and its enablers abroad can say anything they want about the regime's character and outlook, but actions speak far louder than words. And, for years, Tehran has moved steadily in just one direction: toward more terrorist violence abroad and more repression at home.

And no matter who Iran's President has been, the regime in Tehran has continued to engage in rampant proliferation of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs while making steady progress toward nuclear weapons capabilities.

So I would also like to extend my condolences to Iran's neighbors who still live under the constant threat of a regime that practices what it preaches: Death to Israel, death to America, war on international commerce, and chaos across the Middle East.

The untimely death of the President of Iran does not change the underlying threats this regime poses to its own citizens, to its region, and to the free world. These threats continue to demand our collective attention.

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

Mr. President, twice in the last week, President Biden has suggested that inflation was 9 percent when he took office and claimed credit for bringing it down. The Washington Post gave him a rating of four Pinocchios for that very tall tale. In reality, inflation in January of 2021 was 1.4 percent. As of this month, prices have increased 20 percent since then. By one estimate--listen to this-- the average U.S. household has to spend an additional $1,074 every month to keep up the same standard of living they had when President Biden took office.

The numbers don't lie, and neither do the American people. They know nonsense when they hear it.

A 32-year-old engineer from Nevada who voted for the President in 2020 told reporters he is frustrated with the way the White House frames the economy. Here is what he had to say:

It is concerning to me when I keep seeing press come out of

the White House where they keep saying the economy is good.

That is really weird because I am paying more on taxes and

more on groceries and more on housing and more on fuel. So

that doesn't feel good.

Small business owners in particular have been hard hit by increased prices. They have smaller margins to absorb the increased cost for materials, labor, and other operating expenses, and they risk losing customers every time they raise their prices.

One small business owner in New York, a fourth-generation roofer, reported:

We've increased more in the last four years than we had in

10. . . . We don't have a choice.

The owner of a small printing company in Washington State described painful price hikes as ``death by a thousand paper cuts.'' He went on to say:

People are tired of price increases. . . . We are tired of

price increases.

That is that. The American people are tired of price increases, they are tired of lies about it, and it is safe to say they are tired of Bidenomics.

China

Mr. President, on another matter, this week, Putin is in Beijing attending what Russia and China have called a ``friendship without limits,'' but last week, it was President Xi who took to the road, and, notably, his warmest welcome was in Budapest, Hungary.

The visit from PRC's leader came as more of our European NATO allies are waking up not only to the harsh reality of Russian aggression but also to the linked threats facing Western security and prosperity, to the urgent requirements of defense production, and to the particular challenge the PRC poses as a systemic rival.

But Hungary? Not so much. Viktor Orban's government has cultivated the PRC as its top trading partner outside the EU.

It has given Beijing sweeping law enforcement authorities to hunt dissidents on Hungarian soil.

It was the first European country to join Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, which other European governments--for example, like Prime Minister Meloni's in Italy--have wisely decided to leave.

Hungary has doubled downed on Huawei. After the previous U.S. administration went to great lengths to encourage Europe to reject it, Hungary has let the PRC communications giant bake Chinese technology into the country's 5G expansion. Even as other European nations are paying vast sums to extract Huawei from their communications infrastructure, Hungary is now home to Huawei's European regional logistics hub--a veritable gateway to the West.

Last week, Prime Minister Orban's government signed 19 more agreements with the PRC, from transportation infrastructure to potential nuclear cooperation.

A joint statement described the two countries' relationship as ``an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership'' that is between Hungary and the PRC.

But the details of China's growing influence in Budapest should raise red flags for anyone seriously concerned about strategic competition with China.

From across the Atlantic, there is good reason to appreciate a European government that is willing to question EU orthodoxy on things like shortsighted climate change policy or swim upstream in defense of conservative values. But here in Washington, we are obliged to evaluate whether allies and partners share our interests, not just our values. And whatever their pluck in dealings with EU bureaucrats in Brussels, Hungary's leaders have cozied up to America's greatest strategic adversary.

Now, it is one thing that a latter-day Walter Duranty who shills for Putin on Twitter might also admire the only NATO member whose leader flies to Moscow to pay obeisance to the Russian dictator, but Hungary's willingness to serve as China's doormat to Europe--that part is tougher to square with the position of folks in Washington for whom singular focus on China has recently become an article of faith.

The Democratic Party's increasing willingness to abandon Israel cries out for frequent and heavy doses of reality and harsh criticism. Unfortunately, so does this increasingly muddled logic on the threats facing the West from Russia and China.

A NATO government that fawns over a Russian neo-Soviet imperialist, a European nation that rolls out the red carpet for greater predation, coercion, and espionage from a communist regime--this isn't where America should be taking our foreign policy cues.

How about sending a high-profile diplomat and trade missions to Tehran? Hungary's voluntary legitimization of the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism? I don't think conservatives had any time for those who suck up to Iran. Maybe aligning with autocrats is in Hungary's interest, but let's return from Budapest and discuss what is in America's interest.

America has an interest in strong allies who are willing to pull more of the weight of collective defense in the face of threats from Russia, Iran, and China. We could have welcomed two more such allies to our ranks much sooner if not for Orban's obstruction of Sweden and Finland's accession to NATO. Not only do these countries

have robust defense industries and capable militaries, they also each have companies that offer safer alternatives to Chinese 5G technology.

And while many of us in Washington were urging the EU to do more to support Ukraine, Hungary--Hungary--was blocking the greater EU burden- sharing. Frankly, Hungary stands at the crossroads of three powers bent on undermining our security and prosperity. And the Orban government is modeling what not to do in the face of these challenges.

My message to America's European allies has been the same, no matter their politics or their culture: Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are working together to undermine us. And we need to move faster to rebuild the hard power we need to deter and defeat aggression and hold one another accountable to share the burden of collective defense. There is plenty of work left to do on this front.

Anti-Semitism

Mr. President, now, one final matter, earlier this week, I discussed the growing problem of BDS; that is ``Bibi derangement syndrome.'' Of course, there is an older and similarly noxious form of BDS: the ``Boycott, divest, and sanction'' movement. This other BDS has been incubating on college campuses for the last decade, and right now, it is making news at Harvard.

This is unfortunate, but at this point, it shouldn't surprise anyone. Remember, Cambridge, MA, was ground zero for the current wave of anti- Semitism sweeping so-called elite education.

Not to be outdone by the ``restorative justice'' being meted out by their rival to the south, Princeton, Harvard leaders have announced their own sort of amnesty for the Hamas-supporting radicals who have harassed and intimidated fellow students in recent months.

In exchange for dispersing from Harvard Yard, the interim president and the dean will be meeting with the Crimson Red Guards ``to hear their perspectives on academic matters relating to longstanding conflicts in the Middle East.''

The interim president also acknowledges ``the profound grief'' people feel over ``the effects of the ongoing war.'' And the campus' Hamas sympathizers will also receive a meeting with a top official from the Harvard Corporation to address questions about the university's endowment.

``Boycott, divest, sanction''--BDS. It seems that the lesson at our country's oldest university is this: Lawless radicalism works. Perhaps it is time for the American people to boycott, divest, and sanction the Ivy League.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this week, thousands of law enforcement personnel from across America will descend to our Nation's Capital to pay solemn tribute to comrades killed in the line of duty.

The entire Nation joins them once again in honoring the service and sacrifice as we mark National Peace Officers Memorial Day and add the names of fallen heroes to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial here in Washington.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to the officers and families who are in town this week. Our Nation owes the thin blue line a great debt for their dedication to keeping our communities safe.

I am especially grateful to Kentucky's law enforcement and honored to pay special tribute to one of the Commonwealth's finest who was killed in the line of duty just last year. Deputy Caleb Conley of Scott County Sheriff's Office was tragically shot and killed a year ago next week during a routine traffic stop in Georgetown, KY.

He leaves behind his wife and two children. And yesterday, I had the privilege of meeting with members of the Conley family and assured them that their sacrifice is not forgotten.

The loss of the heroes we honor this week leaves holes in tight-knit departments and devoted families. And their deaths are a reminder of the daily risk peace officers take to keep the rest of us safe.

Of course, in this building, we are never far from men and women who swear oaths to run toward danger. And this Police Week, I hope our colleagues join me in thanking the officers of the Capitol Police who guard this institution and honoring their comrades who have given their lives to defend it.

Mr. President, on another matter, in cities across America, soft-on- crime policies are making the tough job of law enforcement even tougher.

Earlier this month, President Biden declared that ``Americans are safer from violent crime today than a year ago.'' But even a quick look around our Nation's Capital shows that crime in many American cities is still unacceptably high.

As of this past week, Washington, DC, has already seen 63 homicides and much more than 1,700 car thefts in 2024. Among these crimes was the deadly shooting of a 3-year-old girl who was hit by a stray bullet in a passing car. The child who was described as ``cheerful and chatty'' was just one of the youngest in a long list of this crime wave's innocent victims.

Last year, Washington saw homicides rise 35 percent. The city's murder rate reached the highest level in a quarter century. And less than halfway through 2024, cities across the country are still grappling with familiar problems.

In Los Angeles, home break-ins are rising, and residents report that police are complaining that their hands are tied. In Chicago, police reports show that crime has increased 69 percent since 2021. In Philadelphia, the effort to fire a soft-on-crime district attorney has gone all the way to the State supreme court.

Surely President Biden isn't declaring victory over the lawlessness threatening American communities. Surely the fact that violent crime is hovering beneath breathtaking highs isn't a cause for celebration.

As the head of one Washington nonprofit focused on preventing gun crimes put it, ``I know some of the repercussions that can come from taking a victory lap too soon.''

Then again, it is not surprising that from a White House to city halls across the country, Democrat leaders are downplaying concerns about violent crime. If they looked this problem in the face, they would have to admit that their own policies are to blame.

It shouldn't have to be this way. The American people deserve safe streets, and law enforcement deserves elected leaders who back the blue.

Mr. President, on another matter, for three consecutive months, major national polls have ranked immigration as the most important problem facing our country. And this year, for the first time, a majority of Americans say they support erecting physical barriers--physical barriers--along our southern border.

So perhaps it is not a coincidence that the Democratic leader has indicated his intention to once again turn the Senate's focus to the border crisis and to portions of the bipartisan legislation Senator Lankford helped produce earlier this year.

But in his own remarks on the subject yesterday, my colleague from New York seemed to acknowledge what we all know: The keys to securing our southern border are already in the hands that created this crisis.

As the Democratic leader proudly declared, ``President Biden . . . is taking action to secure our border. Last week,'' he said, ``the President began announcing a series of administrative actions.''

Last week? After 3 years on the job, apparently, it is time to give the Commander in Chief kudos on his handling of a crisis that still lets nearly 5,000 people cross our border illegally in a day.

Of course, President Biden does have the authorities he needs to start rapidly undoing the damage of the historic crisis that unfolded on his watch. How do we know? Because he voluntarily took them off the table on day one. ``Remain in Mexico''? Off the table. The border wall construction a majority of Americans support? Not a chance. Any sign at all that this administration would like to actually secure the border? Don't hold your breath.

The path out of the deepening border crisis is actually not a mystery; it just requires a President who is willing to stop digging.

Mr. President, I would like to begin my remarks today with a quote: The idea that we would cut off military aid to an ally-- our only true, true ally in the entire region--is absolutely preposterous. It's just beyond my comprehension why anyone would do that.

Five years ago, then-Candidate Biden was saying the right thing about America's commitment to the Jewish State of Israel. Unfortunately, today he is doing the complete opposite. The President and his administration are withholding critical military assistance from Israel as it fights to restore its security against savage terrorists, and they are refusing to answer basic questions about it.

Last week, the Speaker of the House and I sent a letter to the Biden administration, pressing for specific details on which weapons were being withheld and why they were being withheld. And while we waited for an answer, the Secretary of State spent the weekend dodging requests for any serious rationale driving the President's decision.

Now, it is no secret that the administration is under immense pressure from the anti-Israel left. It is evident in the words of some of our own colleagues. Members of this body have urged the President to ``be more aggressive with the Israelis.'' They have demanded that ``not one penny go to support America's ally unless Israel yields to their view of what's acceptable in self-defense.'' And, of course, they have even engaged in grotesque political interference, calling for regime change in a sovereign democracy.

The Intelligence Committee is holding a hearing tomorrow about foreign interference in our politics and elections, and yet too many of our Democratic colleagues can't seem to resist the temptation to put their fingers on the electoral scales of other democracies.

Far too many Washington Democrats have indulged in what I call the ``Bibi derangement syndrome,'' an absurd trope that is setting a dangerous precedent.

Some of our colleagues talk about an Israeli Government dominated by shadowy, far-right forces. That government literally does not exist. Israel is led by a coalition, a national unity government. And its war cabinet, which includes members of multiple political parties, is distinguished by the absence--the absence--of the most conservative members of the coalition.

By all accounts, support for military operations in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon transcends Israeli politics. But here in Washington, Democrats want to pretend that what they are objecting to is merely the will of a Prime Minister they don't like.

Some of our most senior Senate colleagues, including the chairman of the State Foreign Operations Subcommittee, just this weekend have even demonstrated an eagerness to assign political blame within Israel for the failure to prevent the October 7 attacks. Well, that will be the job of the people of Israel, and it will come after they finish restoring their security against the terrorists wearing Israeli and American blood.

But let's make one thing absolutely clear: If the Biden administration continues to hector and impede our ally's progress toward this goal, a share of the blame for Hamas's success may well come to rest right here in Washington. Of course, there is already plenty of blame to go around among the Western institutions that have fallen into predictable patterns of dangerous, anti-Israel bias in the months after October 7, from the media that rushed to fit the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust into tidy, artificial narratives of moral equivalence and ``cycles of violence'' to the prominent international organizations that continue to elevate and legitimize outright terror propaganda.

Just a few days ago, the United Nations finally admitted that the figures on Palestinian casualties it had held up for months as objective truth had been grossly overstated. As a spokesman put it, ``In the fog of war, it's difficult to come up with numbers.'' No kidding. It is especially difficult to get accurate data when you rely exclusively on the word of Hamas.

Unsurprisingly, just days after announcing its revised numbers, the U.N. backtracked yesterday and resumed taking the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza at its word. But remember, the U.N.'s affiliation to terrorists isn't limited to data gathering, is it? Employees of the U.N.'s relief and work agency, UNRWA, quite literally participated in the October 7 attack.

So why don't we talk about the facts. In the last 9 days, the terrorists controlling southern Gaza have attacked a major entry port for humanitarian aid from Israel six times--six times. This is not an accident. And if terrorists strike the absurdly inefficient and costly floating pier, that won't be an accident either.

The true obstacle to peace and stability for the people of Gaza is loudly identifying itself. Hamas is showing us precisely why it can play no part in the future of Israelis or Palestinians, and a true ally would give Israel the time, space, and support it needs to eliminate the terrorist threat.

But that is not what we have seen from the Commander in Chief. By limiting Israel's options, the President is giving the terrorists a lifeline. Does the Biden administration really expect Hamas to capitulate at a negotiating table when our conditions on Israel help terrorists survive on the battleground? And does the President think exhausting an arsenal of expensive, low-inventory interceptors is changing Iran's broader calculus?

The lesson from repelling Iran's direct drone and missile attacks on Israel or commercial shipping vessels isn't that we can't intercept them; the lesson is that we still haven't managed to compel Iran to stop doing it and that we ought to be doing much more to rebuild our stocks and capacity to produce air and missile defenses as well as the long-range weapons that can credibly threaten what Iran and other adversaries hold dear.

This isn't new criticism, and it isn't a new problem. An emboldened Iran, an unchecked network of proxies, and brazen violence against Israel, America, and the global economy--the President's choices have magnified these threats. He has invited them with retreat, with hesitation, and with appeasement.

Today, the United States has effectively allowed itself to be deterred by a second-rate terrorist power, and the world is taking note. Our credibility is not divisible. Our failure to meet one challenge compounds the others we face.

But the path forward is not a mystery. As I have said repeatedly: rebuild our military power, stand with our allies, deter our adversaries, and do it today.

Mr. President, now on another matter, last month, I suggested the administrators at schools like Columbia--where nests of anti-Semitism were festering and growing--ought to follow the lead of Princeton, where trespassers were quickly arrested and removed by law enforcement. Unfortunately, Princeton may not be setting such a shining example after all. The school has apparently decided that perpetrators on campus shouldn't bear actual consequences.

Yesterday, at the urging of ``several'' academic and department chairs, Princeton announced they would forgo traditional discipline and instead let the student radicals who tried to occupy campus buildings participate in a ``restorative justice process.''

You might be forgiven for having absolutely no idea what that means-- none. But the bottom line is, these students will be allowed to graduate in the coming weeks. After all, what is a little call for intifada between friends?

When Henry David Thoreau famously chose jail as a consequence for his civil disobedience, he explained it this way:

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true

place for a just man is also a prison.

Apparently, the post-modern prisoner of conscience see things a bit differently. So that is my suggestion for the folks pushing restorative justice at Princeton: Make these student radicals read Thoreau. Let them and their faculty enablers indict themselves with a comparative cheapness of their violent play-acting.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, war is hell. It tears apart societies. It alters the course of entire civilizations, and innocent noncombatants suffer. Try as we might, humanity has not eradicated war or stripped it of its horrors.

But in the modern world, civilized nations hold themselves to the highest standards and take deliberate care to minimize harm to civilians. The United States is first among these nations, but even we make mistakes. On this administration's watch, precision military strikes have inadvertently killed civilians in multiple theaters of operations.

Our ally Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. Over decades of grinding conflict to preserve its security, a circumstance most Americans can hardly imagine, Israel routinely accepts great risk to its own soldiers to avoid endangering innocent civilians.

But the forces sworn to erase Israel from the Earth follow a different code. To Hamas, civilian casualties are not tragedies; they are tools of the trade. To these savages, kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder aren't crimes; they are tactics. For terrorists around the world, human suffering is the weapon of choice, and Hamas seeks to magnify it.

These are the facts, and any serious conversation about the war in Gaza needs to start here.

If war could be avoided entirely, so could its terrible costs. Israel tried to avoid this war. It negotiated a cease-fire with the savage terrorists bent on destroying the Jewish State, all to try to avoid the war.

The terrorists used this cease-fire to plan and prepare for war, and, on October 7, Hamas launched it. It also chose how Israel would be forced to fight it, putting fighting positions in hospitals, schools, and United Nations facilities; directly attacking humanitarian aid crossings. This doesn't just contravene the laws of war. It exploits human suffering.

Why does Hamas behave this way? Because it works. Because they know the media will cover it--``if it bleeds, it leads.'' Because they know it creates an international rush--rush--to blame Israel. Because leftist columnists and useful idiots of university campuses will play at revolution and express solidarity with the terrorists. Because the President of the United States will be forced to choose between his supposedly ``ironclad'' commitment to an ally under attack and the will of his leftist political base. And because they bet that the President would choose the latter.

Well, it would seem that Hamas bet correctly. President Biden is withholding urgent military assistance to Israel.

But he cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim his support for Israel is ironclad while denying Israel precisely the weapons they need to defend themselves.

The President is old enough to remember 1968, but he seems to have learned the wrong lesson from that pivotal year. Caving to the college radicals will only whet their appetite to spend the summer demanding further anti-Israel concessions at his party's convention.

I fought for months to secure passage of the national security supplemental to support Israel, Ukraine, and vulnerable Asian partners, and to make important investments in our own military. I stood up to the opposition in my own party to do the right thing.

If the Commander in Chief can't muster the political courage to stand up to the radicals on his left flank and stand up for an ally at war, the consequences will be grave. Other allies who rely on ``ironclad'' guarantees from America will question our commitment. Nations on the fence in the middle of a major power competition for influence will look elsewhere for their own security, and our enemies will be emboldened.

Nomination of Adeel Abdullah Mangi

Mr. President, on a different matter, I have spoken many times about Adeel Mangi, President Biden's nominee to the Third Circuit. I have covered his shocking and deep association with virulent anti-Semites and how he misled the Senate about them.

I have also covered his association with anti-police radicals. Just last week, it was revealed that Mr. Mangi introduced one of his anti- cop friends to the head of the Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights so they could ``collaborate'' on a project.

Democrats can't rebut these disqualifying associations because they are facts. So, instead, they have mounted an all-out campaign to gin up leftwing support for Mr. Mangi and force our Democratic colleagues to walk the plank on this nomination. And in so doing, they have given the Senate reason to move from Mr. Mangi's judgment to questioning his ethics.

After the biggest police unions came out in opposition to his nomination, Mr. Mangi complained, in an extraordinary letter to one of my colleagues, that the groups opposing him ``never spoke to'' him about his ``position'' or ``views.''

Really? What would these outside parties have learned about his views had they asked?

Well, we don't actually have to guess. For the past few months, Democrats have paraded Mr. Mangi in front of liberal interest groups in order to secure their endorsements. For example, a group of leftwing law enforcement organizations met with Mr. Mangi and then praised his commitment to ``help ensure equity'' in law enforcement.

Equity in law enforcement, what on Earth does that even mean? Are those his views? These are questions our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee might have liked to ask Mangi; but, unfortunately, these meetings took place after--after--his hearing.

More recently, 125 congressional organizations sent a letter supporting Mangi. How many of these leftwing organizations had Mangi met with? Did he meet with the AFL-CIO? What views did he discuss with them? We will never know.

You see, nominees have to disclose in their questionnaires whether or not they have made any promises during their confirmation process. Committee Republicans also ask written questions about meetings and coordination with leftwing dark money. But what Mangi has found is that if he makes the sales pitch after--after--the committee process is over, as he did with certain law enforcement groups and maybe to others, nothing needs to be disclosed.

This is particularly troubling given that these small law enforcement groups seem to almost be almost always based in very Democratic New Jersey counties like Middlesex and Hudson. Hudson County, of course, is the home to one of the last old-style Democratic political machines. Are the ward bosses taking care of Mr. Mangi? What do they expect in return?

Compare this to the behavior of Judge Quraishi, the Nation's first Muslim district judge, whom I supported and have mentioned before. Judge Quraishi recently made headlines by striking down--down--New Jersey's unique--and uniquely corrupt--primary balloting system.

In other words, he drained the lifeblood of the same Hudson County Democratic machine while it was calling in favors for Mr. Mangi. As I have said, there is a better way in New Jersey, if only the Biden administration would care to look.

It is the role of the Senate to provide advice and consent. We ask nominees questions and evaluate their answers. We judge nominees on that political record.

Mr. Mangi's closed-door meetings with interest groups short circuits that process and calls into question what fairness we might expect from him.

It is yet another reason the Senate should not, cannot confirm Mangi.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the attacks of October 7 brought the world face-to-face with the savage terrorists who have tried to destroy the Jewish State for decades. They forced us all to take a sober look at what our ally Israel has to defend against every single day.

In the months since, I have insisted repeatedly that America should provide Israel the time, the space, and the support it needs to defeat Iran-backed terrorists and restore its security, and I have made it clear that the consensus of Israel's national unity war cabinet--that lasting security can only come after Hamas is defeated--ought to be our position here in America as well.

Early on, there was reason to believe that President Biden shared this view. I was encouraged by his initial willingness to move quickly to transfer needed munitions to Israel, by his request for an emergency national security supplemental, including urgent security assistance to Israel, and by what he called his administration's ``ironclad'' commitment to Israel's security.

Unfortunately, we have since seen that iron bend under the heat of domestic political pressure from his party's anti-Israel base and the campus communists who decided to wrap themselves in the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah. We have seen his administration cave in to growing demands to

condition and limit assistance to our democratic ally. We have seen public attempts to micromanage Israel's self-defense, to constrain Israel's freedom of action. A few days ago, we saw reports that the President was delaying weapons shipments to Israel, creating daylight between America and a close ally.

As it turns out, these reports were true, and the decision to pause these shipments was withheld from Congress. We still don't know the key facts.

I speak with some experience in the difficulties of standing up to extreme elements in one's own political party, but the President's apparent inability to keep the most radical voices on his left flank out of the Situation Room isn't just a shameful abdication of leadership; it is actually dangerous.

Failing to pass the emergency national security supplemental would have been devastating to Ukraine's defense and America's credibility. For the administration to withhold assistance from Israel is devastating in its own right. At home, it will only whet the appetite of the anti-Israel left, and abroad, it will embolden Iran and its terrorist proxies.

There is no secret shortcut to restoring peace and security. A return to the status quo ante doesn't solve the challenge at hand. The status quo before October 7 was what allowed Iran the latitude to export terror across the Middle East and allowed Hamas to exploit a cease-fire to launch the attacks.

For those who care about the humanitarian situation in Gaza--and I would count myself among those who do--the most enduring way to help the Palestinian people is to help Israel defeat Hamas. A return to the status quo ante will only perpetuate the conditions that have long plagued the people of Gaza and threatened the people of Israel. In the last week, their terrorist oppressors have struck the main humanitarian entrance to Gaza twice with mortars.

It is time for the President to stop letting domestic political demands of the far left determine his foreign policy, and it is time to stop doubting the will of Israel's unity government and the overwhelming view of the Israeli people. A future of peace for Israelis and Palestinians is one in which Iran-backed terrorists play no part.

National Security

Now, Mr. President, on a related matter, Israel knows it cannot blink in the face of savages who seek to destroy it. The same cannot be said of the Biden administration--the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan; the delusion that over-the-horizon counterterrorism could fill in for on-the-ground operations; and, of course, an abiding fixation on releasing hardened killers from the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay so they can symbolically end the War on Terror.

Negotiations between Federal prosecutors and representatives of the masterminds of the September 11 massacre have been ongoing for years. The terrorists' defense has tried every trick in the book to dodge justice--from bids for transfer to U.S. soil for medical treatment to plea deals that would take a capital sentence off the table. Many of our colleagues have followed these proceedings with great interest. Many of us feel strongly that a terrorist mass murderer ought to get his just desserts.

The way this story is sometimes covered in the press, you might think there is something wrong about a U.S. Senator insisting on it. So let's clear up a couple of things.

First, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed deserves nothing less than the death penalty, and the fact that he hasn't yet received it is a disgrace.

Second, on President Biden's watch, the terrorist threat has grown significantly while our ability to combat it has actually shrunk. Law enforcement and intelligence officials confirm the urgency of the threat to our homeland. We have been kicked out of the Sahel, and we are blind in Afghanistan. The President's precipitous withdrawal from Bagram Air Base led to the emptying of the terrorist detention facility there and fueled ISIS-K terrorist plots against America.

Finally, if the President and his Attorney General let the perpetrators of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil plead out or cut a secret deal for better healthcare and living conditions, the Biden administration will pay a steep political price.

Prescription Drug Costs

Mr. President, on one final matter, last week, the Biden administration rolled out the second wave of guidance in the price- fixing scheme he calls the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, but, as I said the first time around, the word ``negotiation'' is doing a lot of work in that name. Calling administration bureaucrats' strong- arm tactic a negotiation is like calling jury duty a paid vacation.

What we are really talking about here is prescription drug socialism. The administration is dictating to America's world-leading medical innovators the maximum fair price for their products. In response, producers have three choices: Eat the fixed price, pay an exorbitant excise tax, or stop participating in Medicare and Medicaid drug programs altogether.

Of course, we know it is not that neat and tidy. The underlying problem with price-fixing is that it simply doesn't work. When the Federal Government predetermines outcomes, it kills the incentives that prompt innovators to bet big on cutting-edge research and development.

Artificially fixing the price for a lifesaving cure doesn't make it cheaper; it makes it less likely to exist in the first place. By one estimate, over the next 10 years, the sort of prescription drug socialism the Biden administration is driving at could snuff out development on nearly 140--140--new treatments before they begin. Needless to say, the people who stand to lose the most from state meddling in the market for medical treatments are the people who rely on them--American patients, especially seniors.

There is a reason the United States leads the world in pharmaceutical development. It is precisely because we encourage innovation and welcome risk-taking, and it is because, until now, we have kept Washington from pouring cold water on the most prolific engine of lifesaving cures in our history.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.