Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, this afternoon, the Senate will be called, for just the 19th time in our history, to rule on the impeachment of a senior official of our government. It is a responsibility to be taken seriously. As I said the last time the Senate convened as a Court of Impeachment, it is a power that Congress must not exercise frivolously.

Today, the Senate will hear House managers charge Secretary Mayorkas with serious dereliction of duty--with a systematic refusal to enforce our Nation's immigration laws and with lying to Congress about the extent of the border crisis that unfolded on the Biden administration's watch.

The facts of the crisis are well-known. Since January of 2021, CBP has recorded more than 7.5 illegal crossings at our southern border, while observers estimate over 1.5 million known ``got-aways.'' And last December saw the highest daily and monthly numbers ever recorded.

In the 2 months since the House impeached Secretary Mayorkas, the border crisis has only continued, with excruciating consequences for innocent Americans.

On February 22, an illegal alien was arrested in Virginia for sexually assaulting a minor. The very next day, another illegal alien from Venezuela was arrested for the murder of Laken Riley, a young college student in Georgia. And the same month, yet another was charged with first- and second-degree murder for the shooting of a 2-year-old in Maryland.

For the Americans living right near the border, things are not improving. In February, one man working in Arizona recounted watching cartel guides lead over 170 people from around the world through one such opening in a matter of hours.

The House managers will make the case for Secretary Mayorkas's role in neglecting and exacerbating that crisis. As befits such a solemn and rare responsibility as convening a Court of Impeachment, I intend to give these charges my full and undivided attention.

Of course, that would require that Senators actually get the opportunity to hold a trial. This is exactly what history and precedent dictate. Never before has the Senate agreed to a motion to table Articles of Impeachment--not for an officer of either party, not once.

Instead, every single time that we have been called upon to render judgment, we have done so. We have convened a trial in accordance with rule XI of the Impeachment Rules agreed to in 1935. We have appointed a trial committee to dig into the facts and make a recommendation.

It would be beneath the Senate's dignity to shrug off our clear responsibility and fail to give the charges we will hear today the thorough consideration they deserve. I will strenuously oppose any effort to table the Articles of Impeachment and avoid looking the Biden administration's border crisis squarely in the face.

Mr. President, now on an entirely different matter, 2 months ago, the Senate passed a national security supplemental that reflected the clear links between the challenges we face. That was by design. America's adversaries, from Beijing to Pyongyang and Moscow to Tehran, are actually all working together. They are reinforcing one another's efforts to sap our resolve, shatter our influence, and remake the rules of the road on their own terms. Anyone pretending that we can address these challenges individually, at our

leisure, is only kidding themselves. As I have said before, this isn't a matter of philosophical differences. The truth is plainly evident.

If you want to see the world the way our adversaries do, trace the trade of Chinese cash for sanctioned Iranian energy. Watch the trainloads of North Korean artillery arrive at the frontlines of Putin's onslaught in Ukraine. Follow the flows of Shahed drones to the Russian military. They are the same ones that Iran launched at Israel this past weekend. Or pay attention to the words and actions of America's friends. Listen to the way our Indo-Pacific allies describe the stakes of Ukraine's defense for the prospects of deterrence in their own region. Watch the way they invest their resources both in modernizing their capabilities and in helping Ukraine beat back aggression halfway around the world.

Now, America can choose, as it has nearly done before over the course of our history, to stick our head in the sand, to refuse to invest seriously in our own defense and in the alliances and partnerships that underpin it, to deny that a century of prosperity was purchased by American leadership and vigilance, but to do that now would be to ignore the basic fact that expanding America's defense industrial base and equipping our friends to resist and deter aggression are not competing policies but complementary ones.

Helping Ukraine has accelerated important programs to arm our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. It has called the attention of Pentagon officials, defense industry leaders, and Members of Congress to glaring gaps in our own capability and production capacity.

The Senate-passed supplemental would further expand the capacity of the arsenal of democracy. Of course, this isn't a one-off responsibility. The supplemental will not magically fix decades of underinvestment, and the administration and Congress will need to commit to taking our military requirements for missile defenses, long- range fires, and other critical military capabilities much more seriously.

But to continue to neglect the task in front of Congress right now would only compound the problem. Hesitation and indecision have prevented Ukraine from taking the fight aggressively to Putin's invaders. And if our friends are digging new defensive fortifications today, it is because they are starving--starving--for the munitions that would have helped them hold the ones they had already built on their frontlines.

Addressing the linked threats to America's national security interests isn't about cooking up ``bogus justifications''; it is about dealing with the world as it actually is. Our House colleagues will soon record whether they are prepared to do exactly that.

Madam President, today, a joint session of Congress welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Kishida to the Capitol.

The importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance is front-and-center at a critical moment. As I said earlier this week, Japan is an essential partner in the security of the Indo-Pacific.

But its leaders also understand the global nature of the threats facing sovereign states, free societies, and free markets today. As the Prime Minister's office put it ahead of this week's visit, today's security environment is, ``as severe and complex as it has ever been'' and that ``from the Japanese viewpoint, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not a faraway European question.''

In other words, Japan understands that the challenges we face can't be dealt with one at a time. Last year, Japan approved the largest ever budget for its own self-defense forces. And it is in the process of acquiring nearly 150 fifth-generation F-35 fighters and investing in long-range counterstrike capabilities to enhance deterrence.

Meanwhile, Japan also provides significant economic assistance to countries across Asia who may otherwise be vulnerable to the PRC's coercion or aggression.

And at the same time, Japan was the third largest financial contributor to Ukraine last year.

Our ally is facing linked threats simultaneously. But Japan is not an anomaly. Across the region, America's closest regional allies like Australia and South Korea understand the PRC poses the greatest long- term strategic threat to a free and open Indo-Pacific. But they also understand that what happens in Europe or the Middle East in the near- term matters an awful lot to Asia.

To meet these growing security challenges, our Indo-Pacific allies are making substantial commitments to grow their defense budgets.

Similarly, as our European allies grow increasingly concerned about the PRC, their combined spending rose by 9.5 percent.

This is encouraging progress. But our allies still look to America to lead. And our own defense spending is not keeping pace.

Four times, President Biden has submitted defense budget requests that would have amounted to net cuts after inflation. And even if Congress prevails in passing an emergency national security supplemental, a 1 percent growth cap on next year's spending will still constrain our ability to meet growing threats.

We have to be honest about the urgent requirements of replenishing stockpiles, expanding defense industrial capacity, and modernizing our forces.

Deterring linked threats isn't a task America has to face alone. But as we encourage our allies to continue their own modernization efforts, we have to lead.

That means deepening technology cooperation and trade with our most advanced allies--similar to what we have promised to do with AUKUS, an agreement that we must implement with urgency and sincerity.

It also means reforming our sluggish, bureaucratic foreign military sales process to help more allies upgrade their capabilities by buying modern American equipment.

But most of all, maintaining our influence and advancing our global interests means taking our own national defense responsibilities seriously.

Our fundamental constitutional obligation is to provide for the common defense. And it will fall to Congress in the months ahead--as we consider the NDAA and FY25 defense appropriations--to make the investments that sustained American leadership requires.

Now, on another matter, yesterday's inflation report did little to help working Americans make sense of Bidenomics. The 3.5 percent year- on-year jump recorded last month puts cumulative inflation since President Biden took office at 19.4 percent. Grocery prices are up 21.2 percent, gasoline prices are up 47.8 percent, and rent prices are up 20.4 percent.

And it is getting particularly difficult to keep the lights on. The latest 5 percent jump in electricity prices is just the latest bad news for ratepayers facing overall energy inflation of 38.8 percent since January 2021. And it is no wonder why: Working families aren't just up against Democrats' reckless inflationary spending. They are also facing the effects of the mountain of devastating regulations rolled out under President Biden's activist climate agenda.

He has ticked his way down a green activist wishlist from canceling job-creating pipeline infrastructure to freezing LNG export permits to micromanaging home appliances to imposing debilitating emissions standards on automakers and effectively requiring that two of every three vehicles manufactured for America in 2032 be electric.

Honestly, it feels like the Biden administration itself cares less about a grand green future than about making the entire country follow the consumption habits of deep-blue California. And that is particularly bad news.

As the administration races to conjure up a market for expensive electric vehicles, growing evidence suggests that its grand plans to leave the most affordable and reliable forms of American energy behind are pushing electric grids to a breaking point. And grid security experts are warning that ``overly rigid'' environmental policies are creating significant blackout risks across the country.

Whether you call it Bidenomics or the Green New Deal, Washington Democrats are presenting working Americans with some tough choices. Here's how one California retiree described it: ``Food has been a worry, but now electricity is the worry. Unless you want to go to candles and firewood, we have no other choice but to bite the bullet and pay.''

Fortunately, the Senate will soon have another opportunity to pull an emergency brake on the administration's runaway regulations: legislation from Senator Crapo to overturn the President's disastrous de facto EV mandate.

The tailpipe emissions rule would effectively force American auto dealers to sell two EVs for every gas-powered vehicle, even at the inevitable expense of further reliance on Chinese supply chains. And with electric vehicles already piling up at dealer lots across the country due to low demand, it would force American consumers to buy vehicles they don't want.

What utter madness. I am grateful to the senior Senator for Idaho for bringing this legislation to the floor. And I will encourage our colleagues to join me in supporting this step to rein in some of this administration's worst ideas.

Now, on one final matter, yesterday, with my colleagues the junior Senator for Arkansas and the senior Senator for North Carolina, I was proud to introduce the SHOP Act, a comprehensive, nonpartisan solution to venue shopping in Federal courts.

As I have said before, the problem with venue shopping is not a judge in north Texas. It is a national problem driven by the ability of single judges everywhere to grant injunctions that are national in scope.

The SHOP Act would stop that, restricting the relief that judges in Texas and in California can provide to the parties in front of them or the geographic reach of their jurisdictions.

It also addresses the problem of venue selling in bankruptcy and patent cases. Venue abuse in those specialized areas of law comes less from litigants seeking advantage than from judges creating artificially attractive venues in order to enrich their friends in the local bar. The SHOP Act would impose uniform standards for where bankruptcy and patent cases should be heard to solve this problem.

Lastly, the SHOP Act addresses the practice of actual illicit judge shopping. Recently, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Lambda Legal engaged

in this practice in Alabama, going to great and unethical lengths both to get their case steered to a particular liberal judge and to strip it from a perceived conservative.

Importantly, when these leftwing groups were caught red-handed, it was none other than President Obama's White House Counsel himself who appeared in court to defend them in their disciplinary case. I can't think of a better example of the liberal attitude of ``judge shopping for me but not for thee.''

Well, the SHOP Act stops all of it. It applies everywhere regardless of ideology and addresses the root causes of the issue. And I invite my Democratic colleagues to join our bill and further strengthen public confidence in our Federal judiciary.

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

Mr. President, last week, the strongest and most successful military alliance in the history of the world marked an impressive milestone. Seventy-five years ago, at the dawn of the Cold War, with decades of superpower competition on the horizon, the founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization convened here in Washington to formalize a commitment to collective security.

In the years since, NATO has grown from 12 to 32 allies. The transatlantic alliance has always required management. Alliances always do. But, as Churchill observed, the only thing worse than fighting alongside allies is fighting without them.

While we have experienced periods of pronounced tension within the alliance, today is not one of them. Nations on both sides of the Atlantic have increasingly concluded that common threats are best met with shared resolve.

Most recently, of course, the alliance has been proud to welcome Sweden and Finland to our ranks. With highly capable militaries and advanced economies, our newest allies were already taking their own defense seriously. In the face of Putin's brutal escalation in Ukraine, they decided to share the burden of collective security.

But Russian aggression hasn't just expanded the NATO alliance; it has also prompted longtime allies to take their treaty obligations more seriously. Just last week, the Norwegian Government confirmed that it would meet the NATO 2-percent defense spending target this year and that it would nearly double its defense budget over the next 12. For a wealthy country like Norway, with one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world, this is a big deal. Across the alliance, members are making historic new commitments to strengthen their militaries and expand their defense industrial capacity. European allies have contracted to buy 600 cutting-edge American F-35 aircraft to add to their arsenals. On the whole, they are already meeting the 2-percent target, and NATO leaders expect more individual members to reach it by the July summit here in Washington.

There is still work to be done. Not every ally is taking its treaty obligations seriously enough. One of the most concerning laggards isn't even a European country, but it is our neighbor to

the north. Like America, Canada is at once an Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic nation, and it is time for Ottawa to take its obligations to NATO, to NORAD, and to its own defense more seriously.

That said, for our European allies, the holiday from history really is over. Their greater investments in collective defense also include growing contributions to Ukraine's defense. In fact, 18 countries are making larger relative contributions to helping Ukraine resist Russian aggression than the United States. Of course, this doesn't absolve America from playing a leading role. America is the glue that keeps the alliance together. We are a critical catalyst of allied contributions. Nations all over the world look to Washington for guidance.

From before Russian forces even advanced in February of 2022, I have urged the Biden administration to quit its hand-wringing and hesitation over delivering Ukraine the lethal tools it needed to defend itself. The President's unfounded fear of escalation deprived our friends of the advanced, long-range capabilities they needed to make a more decisive stand against Putin sooner. Avoidable supply shortages continue to prevent Ukraine from taking the fight to Russia across the frontlines.

The conflict is at a critical moment, and it is exactly the wrong time for folks on our side of the aisle to imitate and compound the timidity and shortsightedness of our Commander in Chief, which he displayed from the outset of the conflict.

The vast majority of armed conflicts end in negotiated settlements, but whenever and however this particular conflict is resolved, it is in America's interests that Ukraine operate from a position of strength.

Our own security, the security of our closest allies and most important trading partners, the credibility of America's commitments-- none of these interests are served by withholding assistance to Ukraine or withholding urgent investments in the sort of industrial capacity and capabilities that both our friends and our Armed Forces need.

Starving Ukraine of needed capabilities wasn't the smart way for the Biden administration to avoid escalation, and neither is it a political masterstroke by some of the administration's Republican opponents. It is strategic and moral malpractice that risks dooming Ukraine and undermining our own national interests.

From Europe, to the Middle East, to the Indo-Pacific, the world is watching to see whether the United States still has a will to lead the West and preserve the international order responsible for our own prosperity for the better part of a century.

So I will continue to urge our House colleagues to take up and pass the national security supplemental without delay.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, while the Senate was away from Washington, we received some sobering reminders about the challenges facing America and our friends in a dangerous world and about how to meet them.

In Gaza, innocent people continue to suffer with the cowardice and hateful violence of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Just last week, as Israel continued the difficult, necessary, and existential work of eliminating the terrorist threat, the tragic consequences of this war were brought once again into focus. The misidentification that led to

the deaths of seven aid workers in an IDF strike was a gut-wrenching reminder that even when a sovereign nation exercises the utmost restraint in the face of enemies to use violence as a first resort, even as our ally Israel takes great pains to minimize casualties among the innocent civilians who its enemies exploit at every turn, war is still hell. And for people in Gaza over the past 17 years since Hamas seized control, life has been its own sort of hell as well.

For years, the supposed authorities in the enclave have spent their time burrowing under the homes and mosques of innocent families and the schools of innocent children. They have used concrete and building supplies intended for civilians to build military bunkers instead. They have brazenly stolen the humanitarian aid their civilian subjects depend on. They have thrown Palestinians loyal to the political rivals off of buildings, and they have continually traded innocent lives for one more day to wage a war on Israel.

Iran's terrorist proxies in Gaza are responsible for the horrors of this war. Their hatred for Jews--and refusal to acknowledge the existence of the Jewish State of Israel--is the reason for this pain and suffering of the last 6 months.

America cannot afford to lose moral clarity about the conflict. But I am afraid that too many of our leaders are. President Biden expressed outrage at last week's deadly accident--an event his own administration acknowledges was a tragic accident--which begs the question of whether he is also outraged at the way Israel's terrorist aggressors violate international law by turning hospitals and schools into fighting positions.

Instead of welcoming Israel's swift investigation and efforts to hold personnel accountable for their mistakes--accountability that has been sorely lacking during President Biden's own administration--the President caved further to domestic political pressure.

He indulged his radical base and called for an immediate cease-fire. He embraced an alternate reality in which cease-fire wasn't exactly the state of play that Hamas exploited on October 7. A fantasy world in which leaving Hamas intact doesn't lead to further terrorism against Israelis and Palestinians alike. Unfortunately, the Democratic party has become unmoored from a long tradition of bipartisan support for Israel.

According to one headline this week:

Democrats fear Netanyahu may have undermined Biden's image

among voters.

Apparently, the leftwing activists who can't seem to distinguish between terrorism and self-defense aren't just calling the shots at the White House but also on the President's reelection campaign. They don't seem to care that it isn't just a sovereign ally's leader they disagree with, but the overwhelming majority of Israeli public who believe Hamas must be defeated.

Meanwhile, President Biden is reportedly taking a cue from the odious Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and considering labeling goods from Israel's settlement communities in order to ramp up the pressure on the Israeli Government.

Of course, this sounds like child's play alongside the claim of one of our own Senate colleagues made just yesterday, that on legal grounds, Israel's campaign against Hamas is genocide.

What on earth should other friends of America think when they see the way we treat allies under attack? How should they square the Biden administration's pledge to support Ukraine's defense ``as long as it takes'' with support for Israel that is, apparently, as soft as the will of the most radical elements of the Democratic Party?

This cannot be the message America sends to the world. Leadership means standing up for America's interests--from the Indo-Pacific to Europe to the Middle East--even when the most active members of one's political base aren't willing to.

Right now, Congress has an opportunity to model this obligation for a President who clearly doesn't understand it. The House has an opportunity to pass the national security supplemental, and America has an opportunity to show our allies and partners that they can count on our support and show our adversaries that they can count on our relentless intention.

Madam President, America's adversaries are working overtime to undermine our interests and erode the alliances that protect them.

And it is easy to concede that these challenges as playing out exclusively on the high seas of the Indo-Pacific or the borderlands of Europe or the Middle East. But in reality, the competition is not an ``away game.'' America's greatest strategic rival is threatening our security right here on U.S. soil in tens of millions of American homes.

I am speaking, of course, of TikTok. Today, 170 million Americans are active users of the social media platform that the People's Republic of China treats as a tool of surveillance and propaganda.

TikTok officials like to insist that U.S. users' personal information, browsing histories, keystrokes, and other sensitive data are kept out of the reach of the PRC's teams of censors and propagandists. They claim that what it shows young Americans is what they want to see, not what the PRC wants them to think. But the company's own words shatter this fantasy:

Everything is seen in China.

That is the truth TikTok officials were willing to admit in a leaked recording from behind closed doors. And it shouldn't be all that surprising anyway: Chinese law requires that TikTok's Beijing-based parent company coordinate closely with the PRC.

All sorts of social media platforms can be fountains of disinformation and propaganda. Just look at last week's news about the PRC's efforts to manipulate Taiwan's elections with Twitter accounts driven by AI.

But with TikTok, we are not talking about meddling or hijacking an American platform. In this case, PRC influence and control has been baked in from the very beginning.

With Beijing's blessing, TikTok's algorithm pours gasoline on alarming trends from the glorification of Hamas terrorists to a particularly outrageous fad that emerged last year where young people ``discovered'' the wisdom of Osama bin Laden.

I wish I was making this up. But let's be absolutely clear: This isn't a debate about restricting speech. After all, the PRC does enough of that itself. Chinese citizens are barred from accessing TikTok at all.

No matter how loudly TikTok's apologists claim that reining in PRC influence violates the First Amendment, the question we will face is about conduct, not content. I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting Americans' First Amendment rights. I have firmly defended American's right to even the most noxious forms of free speech like flag burning. But there is a serious difference between the views that Americans might express on TikTok and the actions taken by a platform that is beholden to our foremost strategic competitor.

Let me borrow an analogy from someone who has been relentless on this issue--FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Here is what he had to say:

You can use a pen to write salacious anti-American

propaganda, and the government can't censor that content. Nor

can it stop Americans from seeking such messages out. But if

you use the same pen to pick a lock to steal somebody else's

property, the government could prosecute you for illegal

conduct.

The PRC has spent years trying to pick the lock of America's communications infrastructure, and the Federal Government has a long history of frustrating Beijing's efforts.

Requiring the divestment of Beijing-influenced entities from TikTok would land squarely within established constitutional precedent, and it would begin to turn back the tide of an enormous threat to America's children and to our Nation's prospects in defining the competition of the 21st century.

This is a matter that deserves Congress's urgent attention, and I will support commonsense, bipartisan steps to take one of Beijing's favorite tools of coercion and espionage off the table.

Madam President, on a related matter, America's national security depends on sustained investment in both cutting-edge capabilities and expanded defense industrial capacity. That is why I continue to insist on overdue steps like the full-year Defense appropriations and national security supplemental the Senate passed earlier this year. As I have said repeatedly, outcompeting our top strategic adversary, the PRC, means projecting American strength far, far beyond the Indo-Pacific.

Beijing continues to menace Taiwan, the Philippines, and other Asian partners, but it is also conducting influence campaigns across the developing world and deepening its partnership with Moscow and Tehran.

Our closest and strongest allies in China's backyard understand this reality. Even as Japan deals with Chinese

maritime incursions and predatory trade practices at home, its leaders continue to remind us that the threats to Western prosperity and security are all connected.

Prime Minister Kishida, who will visit Washington this week and address a joint session of Congress, said just last week that ``Russia's aggression against Ukraine . . . shakes the foundation of the international order'' and that ``Japan will continue its cooperation [with] Ukraine.''

Critically, our ally's words are backed up by actions. Over the past 2 years since Putin's escalation, Japan has pledged $12 billion to Ukraine's resistance. Prime Minister Kishida's trip to Kyiv last year made him the first Japanese leader to visit a conflict zone since World War II.

Just as importantly, Japan's growing investments in its Self-Defense Force, including in cutting-edge capabilities like long-range strike-- have made Japan an essential partner in deterring aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

Today, there is still room to work even more closely with committed allies like Japan to protect our technology from Chinese theft, leverage our advanced industries to improve collective security, and build more resilient supply chains.

More and more, America's allies and partners--like the one we will welcome this week--understand both the gravity of the threats we face and the links between them. But, if America intends to remain the primary guarantor of our own security, we have to lead by example, and Congress has an opportunity to do that this week.

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

Mr. President, the task before Congress this week, completing annual appropriations, is important work every year. In fact, it is among our most basic, fundamental responsibilities.

But not in decades have the stakes of providing for the common defense been as high as they are right now. For the first time since the Cold War, America faces an era defined by great power competition. Of course, this is not news.

Two straight Presidential administrations have correctly recognized this fact, at least on paper, in their national security strategies. These documents have recognized that challenges from revisionist authoritarians in Russia and China pose the greatest threat to the endurance of American leadership that has defined world politics and economics for decades.

Today, we face major adversaries who wish nothing more than to bleed

American influence, sap our resolve, torch our credibility, and fill every void we leave behind with a new order built on fear and subjugation. And we face terrorists and rogue states committed to help them sow chaos. North Korea is sending thousands of train cars full of ammunition to fuel Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine; and Iran's Houthi proxies are signaling to Russian and Chinese ships that they will be permitted to traverse the Red Sea unharmed. But it is not enough to recognize these challenges or name-check them in policy papers. Both the administration and Congress have to act and invest and be willing to meet them.

President Biden's actions undercut any of his administration's apparent recognition of the grave moment we are facing. For 4 straight years, the Commander in Chief has requested defense budgets that don't even keep pace with inflation. De facto cuts to U.S. military funding do not signal seriousness about outcompeting our biggest strategic adversaries--China's defense, for example, is growing by more than 7 percent year-over-year--and neither did the President's hand-wringing and delay over equipping Ukraine with the capabilities needed to better defend itself against Russian aggression.

Frankly, President Biden seems to have a deep-seated discomfort in cultivating and exercising hard power--a necessary, foundational part of the statecraft that protects America and preserves our interests.

Of course, Congress has a say and a responsibility. Our work on fiscal year 2024 defense appropriations represents a critical down payment. But important requirements will remain unmet even after the needed investments this Defense bill will make.

Republicans recognized the constraints of the budget caps, and we worked hard to ensure that the national security supplemental we passed in the Senate will make further critical investments in our own military and defense industrial capability.

Earlier this week, the Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Aquilino, made the case for passing the supplemental to our House colleagues, saying ``any win for Russia . . . is a win for China,'' and so what we do ``supporting the Ukraine problem set also provides a deterrent value'' in the Indo-Pacific.

Together with full-year appropriations, the supplemental is a serious, urgent, and necessary investment in American hard power. And I will continue to urge the House to take it up and pass it without further delay.

But as the Senate prepares to finish our work on annual government funding, I want to once again thank our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for the diligent work required to get to this point. Senator Murray and Senator Collins made a commitment nearly a year ago to restore as much regular order to the process as possible and to work constructively across the aisle.

I am especially grateful to my friend Susan Collins, whose leadership and skill have continued to improve this legislation on behalf of Senate Republicans at every step of the process.

I am particularly proud of how the legislation before us will deliver on the priorities of my fellow Kentuckians. In significant ways, the work of rebuilding American hard power begins right here at home. It means good-paying manufacturing jobs for hard-working Americans across the country, including in Kentucky, in communities like Sterns and Somerset, where Kentuckians develop cutting-edge tools and technologies that give our servicemembers the upper hand on the battlefield or Brandenburg, where they produce new armor systems to enhance the next generation of combat equipment; or Louisville and Lexington, where they are spurring innovation in areas critical to our warfighting capabilities through partnerships with the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky.

Of course, funding the government this week also puts more weight behind missions even closer to home, like our fight against the substance abuse epidemic which has had a staggering--staggering--impact in my home State. We are devoting more resources to the Kentucky National Guard to reinforce State and local law enforcement as they combat the flow of illegal drugs literally pouring over our border. And we are directing billions toward States like Kentucky so we can promote long-term recovery, find new ways to treat addiction, and spare more lives from this deadly crisis. Through prevention, treatment, and enforcement, we are taking direct aim at a health crisis that has hollowed out our communities and hit middle America especially hard.

Our work is far from finished, but I am proud of what my Senate colleagues have accomplished to close out the annual appropriations process. It is now time to finish the job.

Mr. President, on another matter, I have spoken repeatedly about the nomination of Adeel Mangi to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in New Jersey. As I explained, his radical associations are truly staggering. And this fact seems to have rubbed some of our Democratic colleagues the wrong way.

Yesterday, one of my esteemed Democratic colleagues objected that we were unfairly ignoring Mr. Mangi's record as a lawyer. Well, I have looked at that record and encourage Democrats to do the same.

Our colleagues may not mind Mr. Mangi's cavorting with apologists for terrorism and cop killing. That much wouldn't be surprising, considering that their party is in the process of succumbing to noxious strains of anti-Semitism and soft-on-crime radicalism.

But it is a bit odd that more of our colleagues don't seem to care that Mr. Mangi has spent his entire career in ``white shoe'' corporate law, working as a hired gun for causes Democrats love to hate.

For example, did you know that Mr. Mangi defended monopolists accused of fixing the prices of chocolate? Just in time for Easter.

While Democrats promote the Green New Deal, Mr. Mangi defended a foreign conglomerate as it pursued a fossil fuel contract.

It is hard to count the number of cases Mr. Mangi has litigated in defense of companies accused of fixing the price of prescription drugs. This is a practice that the senior Senator from Vermont says ``rip[s] off the American people.'' Mr. Mangi says it demands compelled arbitration. In at least three of these pharmaceutical suits, Mr. Mangi fought against union pension funds. Curiously, none of these cases are on Mr. Mangi's committee questionnaire.

I don't begrudge a lawyer based on their clients--and I am sure Mr. Mangi was handsomely paid. And besides, we are talking about perfectly defensible and often successful legal arguments. But do my Democratic friends feel the same way?

Fortunately, a growing number of our colleagues are saying they are unwilling to walk the plank for Mr. Mangi's radical affiliations. But his remaining supporters? They might land among the sharks themselves if they insist he be judged on his legal record.