Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it has been 3 years since a thuggish military coup derailed prospects for democracy, unity, and self- determination in Burma. The military--or Tatmadaw--has engaged in a ruthless, systematic war against the people of Burma. This war has displaced roughly 2\1/2\ million people. Last year alone, it claimed over 15,000 lives.

And, of course, the junta has placed tens of thousands of innocent people behind bars for opposing the military regime. Right now, nearly 2,000 members of the National League for Democracy, Burma's leading pro-democracy party, are being unjustly held as political prisoners, as are many others from all corners of Burma's society and its myriad ethnic groups.

Undoubtedly, the most well-known political prisoner is my friend Aung San Suu Kyi. For the longtime leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement and for the hopes she represents, I can only imagine the 3 years of pain, suffering, and frustration.

I would hope my colleagues would join me, on this third anniversary of the coup, in calling for the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Burma. In the face of sustained repression and brutal violence, the people of Burma continue to resist. Working together, increasingly across ethnic and religious lines, they continue to defy the heavy fist of the junta. In recent months, forces resisting the Tatmadaw have conducted promising counteroffensives and drawn significant defections from the ranks of the pro-junta military. They are determined to establish a new democratic Burma committed to coexistence, justice, and the rule of law.

As I have said repeatedly, the world must encourage and support their efforts. The United States must urge more of our allies and partners to join in applying maximum pressure to the ruling junta, to state-owned enterprises like the MOGE, and to their enablers abroad.

There is also more the Biden administration can do to help the people of Burma. For one, it is past time to implement the bipartisan BURMA Act and deploy its new authorities and resources to engage and provide nonlethal assistance to those struggling to resist the junta, including ethnic groups and organizations on the frontlines of this terrible conflict.

The conflict in Burma is not just about freedom or justice. It has also been a boon to China and Russia. Both of our adversaries have armed the Tatmadaw for a healthy profit and growing influence. Beijing also has its eyes on critical infrastructure projects it sees as expanding its strategic reach into the Indian Ocean. Foremost among these is a $7 billion deepwater port in Rakhine State.

I would encourage my colleagues to look at a map and consider just where this complicated country of more than 50 million people sits. Geography may not exactly be destiny, but it certainly matters. The outcome of the conflict will matter in the geostrategic competition unfolding all across Asia.

Throughout my career, I have been proud to be a voice for my friend Aung San Suu Kyi and for her fellow democracy advocates in Burma. I have been proud to celebrate their remarkable progress and to call attention to their setbacks and ongoing struggle. And the American people should be proud that so many are willing to risk so much to follow their example of self-government.

As the people of Burma begin to turn the tide of the conflict, I will continue to stand with them against the Tatmadaw thugs who seek to snuff out the bright light of their future. I hope my colleagues, the administration, and America's friends in the region and democratic countries around the world will do the same.

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

Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, after nearly 150 Iran- backed attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria, a reporter asked President Biden if he had a message for Iran. The President confidently replied:

I've already delivered the message to Iran. They know not

to do anything.

The Commander in Chief had the temerity to suggest that the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism was effectively deterred. Repeated attacks since then, including a deadly attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and injured dozens more, suggest otherwise.

SGT William Rivers, SPC Kennedy Sanders, and SPC Breonna Moffett now rest with generations of brave Americans before them who have given their lives in service to our country. I know my colleagues join me in grieving with the families and comrades they leave behind.

For 3 years, the threat of Iran-backed terror against American personnel and interests in the Middle East has been growing. Iran is emboldened and believes it can use its proxies to attack America with impunity.

The Biden administration has hastened this erosion of deterrence. Their public hand-wringing and fear of escalation send exactly the wrong message to Tehran and other enemies of America. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, when our primary objective becomes avoiding war or escalation, we are at the mercy of our most ruthless adversaries.

The United States' objective is not to avoid escalation at all costs. If it was, the quickest way to achieve it would be to retreat and cede the whole Middle East to Iran. Instead, our objective is to compel Iran and its proxies to stop attacking American forces and our interests in the region and to preserve American influence in a critical part of the world. But to achieve this objective, we have to convince our adversaries that we are prepared to escalate and to threaten the interests that they hold dear. If the Iranian regime thinks America is most afraid of escalation, it

will use that fear because it believes it will drive us from the Middle East, just as we were driven from Afghanistan.

It was reasonable to hope that the eruption of proxy violence against American forces in the wake of the October 7 massacre in Israel would convince the Biden administration to start seriously exercising American strength. It was reasonable to hope that a global superpower might finally begin to act like one. That hasn't happened yet, but perhaps the gut-wrenching tragedy of American casualties will finally wake this administration from its delusional approach to Iran.

Yesterday, the Secretary of Defense echoed President Biden's hollow assurance from earlier this month, insisting that the administration ``will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces, and we will take all necessary action to defend the U.S. and our troops.'' Unfortunately, this sentiment isn't yet backed by any action. The fact that Iran's proxies have targeted Americans 166 times in the past 3 months demonstrates that the Biden administration is willing to tolerate attacks on U.S. forces. The question for the Commander in Chief is whether his actions in the coming days will convince Iran and its proxies that America's tolerance has been exhausted.

It is time for the administration to provide Senators with a briefing on the current situation in the Middle East.

As I have said before, the President has the necessary authorities to strike those responsible for killing and wounding Americans, targeting our interests, and threatening our allies in the region. He has the capacity to go after the Iranians who sponsor and direct this campaign. But his administration has an obligation to inform Congress of its objectives and strategy and to explain why their attempts to deter Iran and its proxies have as yet been unsuccessful.

Of course, the failures of their own approach to the region haven't stopped Washington Democrats from trying to police the internal politics of a close ally fighting for its security or from trying to tie Israel's hands as it works to eradicate Hamas terrorists.

Some of our colleagues have apparently mistaken themselves for members of the Knesset. They have started using the press to cast bizarre, unsolicited votes of no confidence in a sovereign democracy's duly elected Prime Minister. Talk about foreign political interference. And their Bibi derangement syndrome isn't just unseemly behavior for an ally; they want to compel Israel to pursue policies that even prominent leaders of the Israeli left have insisted they have no time for.

It is increasingly, glaringly clear that a headlong charge forward to a two-state solution puts the cart before the horse. Israel needs a partner in peace before it can be expected to make peace. Palestinians need leaders and a government worthy of the name before they can expect a state.

As I have said before, responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, for the weaponization of hospitals and schools, and for the corruption of aid agencies charged with helping the Palestinian people--all of that belongs to Hamas.

Each time Hamas has faced a choice between improving Palestinian lives and taking Israeli lives, it has chosen the latter. And last week we learned the horrific degree to which international humanitarian agencies have been corrupted--corrupted--by Hamas's hate. No fewer than a dozen credentialed staff members of the U.N.'s Relief and Works Agency are linked directly--directly--to the slaughter of Israelis on October 7. So let me say that again. At least 12 paid staff of the U.N. agency that purports to lead humanitarian efforts in Gaza moonlit-- moonlit--as Hamas terrorists on the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

According to news reports, Israeli intelligence indicates that a full 10 percent of UNRWA's staff have ties to the Iran-backed terrorist group that steals aid shipments to build terror tunnels. Yet, instead of reckoning with UNRWA's complicity, the head of the agency responded with a whining statement that emphasized just how few of the supposed relief workers under his authority had been caught killing Israelis on company time.

In fairness, UNRWA comes from the same anti-Israel family of organizations as the self-proclaimed ``global champion'' for the empowerment of women, a U.N. entity that took 57 days--57 days--to condemn Hamas's rape and brutalization of Israeli women and girls.

The United States and our allies need not search for moral authority in such a fallow field as the United Nations. Unfortunately, even the Biden administration's announced pause on additional funding to UNRWA may fail to carry sufficient weight. As one outside analysis points out, $51 million already allocated by the State Department for use this year will be delivered as scheduled to an organization that clearly lacks the means to fulfill its most basic purpose.

So as I have said before, there is no room for the tired cast of corruption and terrorism in the future of the Palestinian people. As such, Senate Republicans will not accept any legislation that allows taxpayer dollars to fund UNRWA.

And America's ally Israel deserves the time, space, and support it needs to remove Hamas from the equation--root, stem, and branch.

Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States, the consensus of our Nation's Founders, and the weight of exhaustive historical precedent give the President the clear authority to use military force when American lives and interests are under attack. The Commander in Chief does not lack authority; rather, he is failing to sufficiently exercise the authority that he has.

Right now, every day, enemies of the United States are engaged in a campaign of brazen aggression that threatens American servicemembers, our interests, and our allies in the Middle East. This campaign is hardly new. Year after year, the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism trains, equips, finances, and coordinates efforts to drive America--the ``Great Satan''--from the Middle East and to wipe Israel-- the ``Little Satan''--off the map.

When President Biden took office, Senate Republicans warned him not to go soft on Iran. We urged him not to abandon maximum pressure, not to obsess over restoring a failed nuclear deal, and not to ignore Iran's relentless--relentless--campaign of terror.

But the President failed to heed this advice. He ignored the 80-some attacks on U.S. troops over his first 2 years in office. He failed to recognize the killing of an American in an Iran-backed drone attack in Syria last March as a wake-up call. Instead, his administration slept through glaring indications that Iran-backed terror was actually reaching a tipping point.

So, today, America and our allies face an adversary profoundly undeterred. Iran's proxies are responsible for more than 150 lethal attacks--and counting--against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria since October 7 and for persistent strikes against U.S. warships and civilian vessels in the Red Sea, including just yesterday.

But we have yet to see signs that the administration understands how to compel Iran and its proxies to stop. Even with the world's strongest military at the ready, the Commander in Chief has failed to deter Iran and its proxies. Instead, a fear of escalation has only invited more aggression from Tehran to Moscow to Beijing.

For nearly 2 weeks, the President has hesitantly and intermittently directed strikes against low-value Houthi terrorist targets. He has played Whack-A-Mole against warehouses and launch sites but has left the terrorists' air defenses and command-and-control facilities intact. The same is true over in Iraq and Syria, where the U.S. response to Iran-backed terrorist attacks has been to impose limited damage on proxy storage and training facilities. Yet the administration has refused to impose meaningful costs on Tehran itself--on the architects of this entire regional conflict.

Tehran is happy to fight until the last Houthi, Hamas, or Hezbollah terrorist. That is literally why they use proxies--they are expendable. Until Iran feels that its own interests and its own IRGC officers across the region are threatened, attacks on U.S. forces will continue.

Now, while the President hesitates to use his constitutional authority, some of our colleagues seem to argue he shouldn't have this authority to begin with. They are profoundly mistaken. Exercising the right to defend against imminent threats to our Nation and servicemembers is a central responsibility of the Commander in Chief. His authority is enshrined in the Constitution, and its application dates back more than 200 years.

President Thomas Jefferson was hardly an enthusiastic proponent of a muscular executive, but his recognition of the threats to core national interests posed by the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean forged consensus around the appropriate roles of the article I and article II branches in the conduct of war.

Freedom of navigation has been a core national interest of the United States from the very, very beginning. If we aren't prepared to defend the vital sealanes on which our economy rests, there is really not much point in having a military.

If there is something our colleagues ought to be questioning, it is not our history or our Constitution; it is our President's judgment and understanding of deterrence as well as their own. If they oppose U.S. and coalition efforts to defend the freedom of navigation against Iran- backed terrorists, our colleagues simply should say so.

Just last month, the Senate voted on a resolution to compel the President to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. That resolution failed 84 to 13. I suspect that even fewer of our colleagues would support a resolution to withdraw the Navy from the coalition we have built in the Red Sea. This is no time for 535 commanders in chief to dictate battlefield tactics from halfway around the world.

Congress can and should exercise the oversight of military operations through our own robust authorities. We can and must keep a firm grip on the power of the purse. But the President does not need additional authorities to deal with this threat.

I will oppose any effort to tie the hands of our military commanders or to limit the scope of their ability to go after terrorists who threaten our servicemembers as well as our interests. As General Mattis counseled a decade ago in the debate over modifying the 2001 AUMF, we must not ``reassure our adversary in advance about what we will not do.'' Instead, it is time for President Biden to reassure America and our allies that he intends to lead with strength.

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

Mr. President, Vladimir Putin's reelection campaign is employing a slogan that the Russian people--and the rest of the world-- have actually heard before. Here is what it is: ``Russia's borders do not end anywhere.''

``Russia's borders do not end anywhere.'' That is Vladimir Putin.

The map of Europe illustrates what he means in the starkest possible terms. A brazen war of conquest is headed toward its 11th year. Two years of Russia's brutal escalation in Ukraine has subjected a sovereign nation to horrific losses and heinous war crimes.

Since well before Russian troops made their first run toward Kyiv in February of 2022, I have been pushing for the decisive capabilities Ukraine needed to defend itself. And I have held President Biden to account for not doing more sooner to give our friends a decisive edge against Putin's aggression and for not investing more seriously in rebuilding America's military strength.

But I have never been under any delusion about why America was backing Ukraine's fight. This has never been about charity. It is not about charity. It is not about virtue signaling or abstract principles of international relations.

This is about cold, hard American interests. It is in the United States' direct interest for authoritarians not to feel free to redraw maps by force. It is in our interest to help degrade the military of a major adversary without committing American lives to the effort. It is in our interest to help blunt aggressive behavior before it triggers wider conflict and directly threatens our closest allies and trading partners.

We cannot pretend that America is inoculated against the consequences of a war in Europe. We can't afford to

harbor the notion that leaving Russian aggression unchecked would somehow enhance America's posture and strategic competition with China. Accelerating Russian defeat in Europe is precisely what will help ensure we don't wind up dealing with simultaneous aggression from adversaries in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

Even as a global superpower, this is not a burden America should resign to bear alone, and, fortunately, we don't have to. Over the past 2 years, our European allies have taken a more serious and sober accounting of the requirements of a collective defense. They are now fast overtaking America's share of overall security assistance to Ukraine, and we already trail the contributions of 13 allies measured as a share of GDP.

This is certainly good news for collective defense and for the urgent demands that press upon American strength.

The United Kingdom, for example, just pledged to invest more than $3 billion in Ukraine's fight over the next 2 years. This is on top of the tremendous leadership Great Britain has displayed since the earliest days of Putin's escalation.

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

Mr. President, the goals of supplemental national security legislation are pretty straightforward. We need to restore security and order at our southern border. We need to help the fight against authoritarian aggression in Europe, we need to invest seriously in competition with our top strategic adversary. And we need to stand side by side with Israel and other allies to impose real costs and restore real deterrence against Iran and its terrorist proxies.

Keeping America safe, securing our interests, standing with our allies--it is a basic appeal to a fundamental governing responsibility. But, unfortunately, it is especially evident in the Middle East that the Biden administration and some of our colleagues here in the Congress have yet to muster the resolve and clarity to fulfill this responsibility. Three and a half months after Iran-backed terrorists slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, the resolve among some Washington Democrats to help our allies fight back seems to be flagging.

I have said repeatedly that Israel deserves the time, space, and support it needs to restore its security. But, increasingly, the administration and some of our colleagues have expressed a different sentiment--that America deserves the final say in how Israel conducts its defense.

Just consider the renewed fixation with rushing--rushing--to a two- state solution. First, why would any of us think it is a good idea to reward Hamas and the Palestinians who rejoiced on October 7 with a state? Who, I might ask, do our colleagues expect is ready to govern such a state?

We know the answer is not Hamas. Every time those terrorists have faced a choice between improving the lives of Palestinians and taking the lives of Israelis, Hamas has chosen the latter. Billions upon billions of dollars in international aid and yet the only thing Gaza's rulers appear to have chosen to invest in is lethal weapons and terror tunnels.

Hamas certainly doesn't want a two-state solution. It wants to destroy Israel ``from the river to the sea.''

Palestinians have endured the raw oppression of their supposed leaders' corruption and terrorism for generations. Make no mistake, the most prominent alternative to Hamas is not substantially better than the darlings of Iran's terrorist network.

Leaders of the Palestinian Authority, from Arafat to Abu Mazen, have rejected every chance at an agreement to live in peace. The PA is also relentlessly and thoroughly corrupt. Their officials may skim off the top to line their own pockets rather than line terrorist tunnels with concrete like Hamas, but the result for average Palestinians is not dissimilar.

I cannot understand why some of my Democratic colleagues, including the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, who pushed so hard to pass legislation combating global corruption, now want to shovel billions of taxpayer dollars to one of the most corrupt entities on the entire planet.

If we are serious about countering corruption, there is no choice. There is no better place to start than with the Palestinian Authority. If there is a path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it is not through rewarding terror. It is through new Palestinian leaders and reformed institutions focused on improving lives, not radicalizing a generation of martyrs to destroy Israel.

And yet some Washington Democrats seem infected by a new form of BDS. I don't mean the vile ``Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions'' agenda that seeks to delegitimize the Jewish State, although the growing prominence of this movement on the left is also truly worrisome. I mean ``Bibi Derangement Syndrome''--``Bibi Derangement Syndrome.'' My colleagues seem to allow their personal feelings about Israel's democratically elected Prime Minister to cloud their views about Israel.

More recently, the American left is outraged that the Prime Minister would cast doubt on the Biden administration's desire to leap back into negotiations about a two-state solution. Perhaps they should listen to Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, a long-standing leader of the Israeli left.

Just last week, President Herzog put to rest any notion that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the obstacle to peace. ``No Israeli in his right mind,'' he said, is focused on peace negotiations. He went on to explain that ``Israelis lost trust in the peace process because they see that terror is glorified by our neighbors.''

But he also reiterated a more fundamental point, one that my colleagues might do well to consider. Here is what he said: ``The world has to face it point blank: there is an empire of evil emanating from Iran,'' and Iran's activities undermine any chance for peace and stability.

If we are serious about giving peace any hope of success, America must continue to stand with our ally Israel as it removes Hamas terrorists from any calculus of Palestinians' future. We must demand significant reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and we must lead the international effort to impose real--real--costs on Tehran until it changes its behavior.

Now, on a recent matter, I have spoken recently about the existential choice facing America's most elite universities. In the wake of October 7, an alarming surge of anti-Semitic hate swirled around the loftiest campuses in our country. And, as we are all painfully aware by now, the responses of university administrators were not exactly profiles in courage--from the equivocations and weak public statements to the absurd double standard invoked in testimony before Congress.

After months of alumni uproar and pressure from the public, Harvard and Penn appeared to recognize that it was time for new management. As I have said, universities shopping for presidents would do well to focus their search on rigorous scholarly integrity, moral clarity, and a rock-solid commitment to the even enforcement of free speech.

Unfortunately, we are still waiting to see any real signs that these universities have actually taken the lessons of the past few months to heart. Harvard, for its part, rolled out a new Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Semitism to much fanfare. It sounds promising--that is, until you learn that the choice for the cochair of the panel has a record of calling Israel a ``regime of apartheid.''

The university has also made no plans to terminate an exchange partnership with the university in the West Bank that proclaimed ``glory for Martyrs'' in the wake of October 7 and whose students have even been arrested for planning a terrorist attack with weapons supplied by Hamas.

So you would be forgiven for assuming that cutting overt ties with terrorist-affiliated organizations would be step one in any serious effort to reform a university. These responses would be laughable if they didn't have such clear, measurable, dangerous consequences.

Just last month, a poll showed one in five Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 doubts--doubts--that the Holocaust happened. Let me say that again. Just last month, a poll showed 1 in 5 Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 doubting that the Holocaust happened. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise us when we look at young people in post-modern critical theory that subjectivizes norms and endlessly deconstructs the wisdom of the ages and problematizes and assails the very notion of objective truth.

The Holocaust is not an alternative fact. It is not simply a narrative to be questioned by a student's lived experiences; yet 20 percent of the young people in this country doubt whether the most vile and systematic genocide of Jews in the history of the world ever happened.

The most elite universities vying to shape their minds have now spent months in an embarrassing public struggle to avoid reckoning with their role in a rise in anti-Semitic hate. If these institutions ever hope to reclaim any mantle of cultural authority they once held, they might want to start with taking the world's oldest form of hate a bit more seriously.

Mr. President, this week, Senator Lankford and several colleagues continue their work to finalize the most substantial border security policy in 30 years. This agreement would come not a moment too soon. Over the past 3 years, we have watched the flood of illegal immigration tick past 6.7 million encounters--6.7 million since President Biden took office and an especially alarming surge just last year. December reportedly saw the highest monthly total for border encounters on record.

The President's open borders have meant booming business for the cartels who specialize in trafficking humans and smuggling drugs and far harsher realities for American communities grappling with lethal fentanyl and the thousands of people who have died trying to cross.

This is a crisis, whether the Washington Democrats are willing to call it one or not. The American people recognize what CBP and ICE are up against, even if their Commander in Chief does not. And the entire world understands what is at stake here in the Senate in the coming weeks.

America's national security begins with securing and maintaining our borders. It is a matter of basic sovereignty.

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

Mr. President, yesterday, the Biden administration added the Houthis to the government's terrorist list in light of the group's sustained terrorist violence against U.S. military and commercial ships in the Red Sea. It might seem like the sensible response of a clear-eyed Commander in Chief, except that Iran-backed Houthi terror isn't new. For years, this group has made no secret of its aims. Here is their motto:

God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse on

the Jews. Victory for Islam.

Why on Earth did President Biden remove the Houthis from the Terror Watchlist in the first place? And why did it take so long to admit that denying a reality of Iran-backed Houthi terror was a mistake?

It is good that the President finally mustered the fortitude to authorize strikes against the terrorists who threaten America. But just like its response to Putin's war against Ukraine, the Biden administration's response to Iran-backed terrorism has been hesitant, half-measured, and openly conflicted over the risk of escalation.

It is Iran that should fear the cost of escalation, not the United States and our allies. Iran must fear that terror against America's interests will result in military responses against its interests; that its complicity in Houthi attacks on global shipping will produce devastating economic pressure from all across the free world; that continued terrorism, whether by proxies or by Iranian personnel themselves, will be met with swift and costly retribution.

It is all well and good for President Biden to authorize yet another round of strikes against Houthi missiles, but having to do so multiple times in the span of a week is a pretty good indication that his initial effort did not exactly send the desired message to Tehran or its proxies. The world's most active state sponsor of terrorism is actually stepping up its violence against U.S. personnel in the Middle East precisely because it doesn't believe we have the resolve to respond with strength and impose serious costs.

And the chronic, compulsive effort to tie our hands only validates this assumption. It only encourages our adversaries to lash out with impunity.

We know exactly what an undeterred Iran looks like. After 3 years of the Biden administration's desperate policy of conciliation, it is what we are experiencing right now.

Regardless of which corners of our politics are willing to acknowledge it, America cannot hope to deter aggression with weakness. We need to start investing seriously in the capabilities and capacity to meet the tasks at hand. We are facing an axis of connected threats that stretch from Moscow to Beijing and Tehran to Pyongyang. Our adversaries speak the language of strength. Americans can't afford not to be fluent.

Economic Recovery

Now on another matter, this year, like last year, President Biden is still taking to the road trying to sell the American people on the wonders of Bidenomics, but working families still see right through him. On average they are spending more than $11,000 more than they were when the President took office, just to maintain the same standard of living.

Less take-home pay means less spending, and small businesses are feeling the pinch. Out in Iowa, the owner of a one-of-a-kind manufacturing operation is closing its doors after 125 years in business, and the owner says lower discretionary spending is to blame.

A mother of three in Arizona recently lamented to reporters:

It has probably been one of the worst years. It's been very

difficult for us . . . It's been difficult just buying

groceries and paying bills.

And across the country, working families sympathize. One poll last month found that just 14 percent of Americans thought that Biden's economic policies were actually--actually--helping them.

So the President can moonlight as a traveling salesman all he wants, but pretty soon he will have to face facts: Bidenomics is a dud.

Nomination of Adeel A. Mangi

Mr. President, on one final matter: Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will decide whether to recommend a lifetime appointment for Adeel Mangi on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Mangi's nomination is just the latest example of the Biden administration's practice of rewarding bad behavior in the personnel business.

As I explained last month, this nominee served on the board of a law school organization with an international reputation for amplifying the voices of anti-Semites and terrorist sympathizers.

As a letter from the Coalition for Jewish Values recently noted, Mr. Mangi's affiliation ``raises genuine concerns about his judgment and his commitment to American principles.'' Unfortunately, the nominee's testimony before the Judiciary Committee last month did nothing to assuage these concerns. In fact, even after claiming ignorance of this disgusting and well-documented history of the organization with which he chose to affiliate, he declined repeatedly--repeatedly--to disavow it.

It would be hard to sum up Mr. Mangi's record more succinctly than the joint statement of several other American Jewish organizations:

[He] ``repeatedly donated to [an] extreme anti-Semitic,

anti-Israel, anti-American terrorist-affiliated organization;

evaded vital questions; made improbable claims of ignorance;

[and] has no judicial record.''

At some point, the Senate has to decide that this is unbecoming of a nominee to a lifetime tenure on the Federal Bench. I would urge my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to reject this nomination.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, over the weekend, President Biden once again refused to describe the situation at the southern border as a crisis. Apparently, according to the Commander in Chief, 10,000 illegal border crossings in a day--and the busiest month and year on record at the border--is, somehow, not a crisis.

Needless to say, I am glad that Senator Lankford and our colleagues working on meaningful border security policy don't share that view. I am glad that we may soon be able to address an urgent crisis with urgent action.

Negotiators are making headway toward the most significant border enhancements in almost 30 years. They are getting closer to delivering serious, lasting solutions to the unprecedented humanitarian and national security catastrophe that has unfolded on President Biden's watch. That is certainly good news.

Of course, our colleagues' work is also the linchpin of our broader efforts to address the national security challenges we face around the world, from Russian aggression in Europe to Iran-backed terror in Israel and the Middle East, to competition with China.

China

Mr. President, an increasingly aggressive China represents the greatest strategic challenge of the century, and recent events in the Indo-Pacific remind us exactly what is at stake. The PRC is an expansionist, revisionist, and repressive power all at the same time. It wants to impose its will on its neighbors, regardless of their views or values, just like it does at home.

Just consider the free, fair, and hotly contested elections that took place in Taiwan this past Saturday. The people of Taiwan have resisted Beijing's blatant efforts to interfere in their politics, and the PRC is clearly unhappy with the outcome of the election, which saw the DPP maintain its hold on the Presidency.

But it wasn't just the results of Taiwan's elections that the PRC views as a threat. It is also the basic process

itself. The idea of self-determination--of citizens actually getting a choice--terrifies the leaders in Beijing.

Of course, it is impossible to watch Taiwan's defiant self-expression without thinking how fragile this autonomy can be. Just remember how swiftly the PRC has acted to snuff out forces of democracy in Hong Kong.

Right now, my old friend Jimmy Lai, prolific publisher and a proud Hongkonger, is on trial. He is facing the possibility of life in prison simply for committing the crime of journalism, of seeking to publish the truth at variance with the party's definition of it.

See, the Chinese Communist Party doesn't just fear its own people. It fears the pursuit of truth. And, on both counts, Beijing finds common cause with fellow authoritarians in Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang. These regimes, and the would-be imperialists who lead them, understand that their most precious currency isn't truth or legitimacy, but control and fear.

The PRC subjects its citizens to extensive surveillance, censorship, and repression. And in the case of ethnic minorities like the Uighurs, Beijing has employed detention, sterilization, and outright genocide.

Beijing fears difference. It fears dissent, and not just at home. The PRC's interference in Taiwan's democracy is emblematic of the shadow of intimidation Beijing hopes to cast further across that region.

The PRC is building a military with the capacity to bend Beijing's neighbors to its will. It is putting U.S. allies like the Philippines directly in its crosshairs. It is aiming to impose direct, prohibitive cost on the United States, and it isn't pinching pennies to achieve those aims.

For more than two decades, its investments in new military equipment and capabilities have grown by an average of 10 percent per year. So it has become quite fashionable in Washington to talk about how we are not taking competition with China seriously enough.

But the resource this competition demands most urgently is not a stern lecture from a climate diplomat. What America and our allies need most in the race to outcompete our top strategic adversary and systemic rival is hard power.

At its essence, winning the competition means credibly deterring Beijing's worst impulses, which, for us, means investing in American strength. Outcompeting the PRC will require greater investment in our military capabilities and in our industrial capacity to produce them.

The West cannot be caught unprepared for this challenge. We cannot afford to neglect the lessons of history.

The Senate has opportunities ahead to demonstrate that we understand what is at stake. We will have chances to take hard power investments seriously. We need to be ready to take them.

Electric Vehicles

Mr. President, now on a related matter, the Biden administration is continuing to wage war on the affordable and reliable American energy that makes America competitive. The administration's climate policy isn't just weakening American workers and businesses; it is actually making China's economy stronger.

President Biden's EPA recently issued new emissions standards that, as several of my Republican colleagues pointed out last year, ``are so stringent they effectively mandate automakers to produce electric vehicles, even if Americans do not want them.''

The move is shockingly out of step with the needs of American consumers, the capacity of American industry, and our Nation's strategic interest. The whimsical desire for universal electric vehicles caters to the preferences of wealthy coastal liberals, but working families simply aren't buying it. The average EV on the market costs over $16,000 more than the average gas-powered car. As one automaker recently put it, the Biden administration has been ``far too focused on . . . the well-heeled one-to-two percenters . . . forgetting about the people where a car is not a luxury--it's a necessity.''

Sure enough, a $16,000 premium is more than most sensible Americans are willing to pay. Electric vehicles account for less than 8 percent of new vehicle sales in the United States. Less than 8 percent of Americans shopping for a new car are buying an EV. That, however, hasn't stopped the Biden administration from powering ahead for an absurd goal for electric vehicles to make up two-thirds of the car sales by 2032.

American businesses are not buying this nonsense either. In fact, auto dealers in Kentucky and across the Nation recently sounded alarm bells in a letter to the President. Here is what they said:

This attempted electric vehicle mandate is unrealistic

based on current and forecasted customer demand. Already,

electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots.

And just earlier this month, Hertz announced plans to sell off a third of its electric vehicle rental fleet due to sparse demand and heavy repair costs.

Meanwhile, State utilities are becoming concerned that a massive uptick of EV use could overload power grids that are already on the edge of blackouts.

Talk about a lose-lose proposition. But there is one party that stands to benefit from Washington Democrats' climate scheme, and that is the Chinese Communist Party. As I mentioned before, China controls nearly 70 percent of the supply chain for the batteries required to manufacture EVs. A Chinese automaker just became the world's top seller of electric cars.

And thanks to Washington Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act, leased cars from China qualify for a major tax credit. This means hard-working Americans like the Kentuckians I represent are directly subsidizing California millionaires and the CCP all at the same time.

So it is one thing for the Biden administration's outgoing climate czar to spend his time begging China to voluntarily engage in unenforceable green diplomacy, but it is quite another for Washington Democrats to forcibly create a pipeline that pumps working Americans' tax dollars into the pockets of our biggest strategic adversary.

It is time for President Biden to choose between the American people and a leftwing dream that communist China can't wait for us to realize.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, yesterday, our Nation honored one of the most consequential lives in American history. The America in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., labored for change was the same America in which I grew up.

I was fortunate to be raised by parents who believed deeply in equal rights, but the scourge of segregation was not unfamiliar in the places I spent my formative years.

As I have shared with some of our colleagues before, I was especially lucky to witness one of the most climatic moments of the civil rights movement as I was a congressional intern here in Washington. I remember stepping outside my office on August 28, 1963, and taking in the enormous crowds that had flocked to participate in the March on Washington. I remember looking down toward the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial beyond.

I was too far away to hear Dr. King's immortal words with my own ears, but I was proud to be a witness to that remarkable history he wrote that day and throughout his extraordinary life.

Government Funding

Mr. President, now an entirely different matter, House and Senate negotiators worked hard and reached an agreement on top-line government funding levels for the current fiscal year, and work continues to deliver full-year appropriations through regular order. Shutting down the government, even part of it, would interrupt this important progress. That is why, today, the Senate will begin the process of passing a short-term extension of government funding to allow this work to continue.

I am grateful that the Speaker of the House was able to secure serious rollbacks on reckless spending, but it remains to be seen whether the Biden administration can get serious on its responsibility to provide for the common defense. For 3 straight years, the President has turned in budget requests with real dollar cuts to funding America's Armed Forces. Even a quick glance around the world shows how little we can afford to shortchange the men and women defending the United States and our interests. We need to take this responsibility seriously.

Iran

Mr. President, now, on another matter, 3 years ago, I warned the Biden administration that it needed to take a tougher approach to growing threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies. I warned against removing the Houthis from the Terrorist Watchlist, and I called attention to how, even then, Iran was increasing its shipments of ever deadlier and longer range weapons to the terrorists in Yemen.

But from the beginning, the administration chose to meet Iranian aggression with accommodation. The President's team operated on a profoundly naive assessment of the threat that we face. They abandoned pressure and squandered leverage in an attempt to revive a failed nuclear deal.

They hectored regional partners under attack, as if their defensive actions against Houthi terrorists had provoked these Iranian proxies in the first place. And then they trumpeted the utterly fictional successes of their approach.

Remember how the President's National Security Advisor described the state of the world last September--just last September--in an incredibly timed essay in Foreign Affairs. Just weeks before Iran- backed terrorists would slaughter 1,200 Israelis on October 7, he claimed the United States had an ``enhanced deterrence'' to deter ``further [Iranian] aggression'' and that the Middle East was ``quieter than it has been for decades.''

And 3 years in, the price of these delusions has become inescapably obvious. To the extent that President Biden sought detente with the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism, he was woefully ill- advised about the nature of the Iranian regime. To the extent that this administration ever seriously sought to deter Iran and its proxies, their efforts have demonstrably failed.

So let's be absolutely clear. The United States is capable of destroying those who threaten our allies, our interests, and American lives. A global superpower is equipped to bring enormous force to bear against its enemies. But deterrence isn't just about capabilities. It is not enough for Iran to know that America has the means to demolish its military and its network of terrorists. No. Deterrence requires that our adversaries actually believe we are willing to use these capabilities. It requires credibility. And when credibility is eroded, it is not easily restored.

It will be difficult for the Biden administration to convince Tehran and its agents that after 3 years spent scolding our partners for wanting to defend themselves from Houthi terrorist attacks, America now intends to do the same thing.

It will be difficult for the administration to convince our adversaries that, after years of bending over backwards to accommodate Iran and wringing our hands over the use of military force against its proxies, we are now prepared to respond directly against Iranian targets.

Restoring credible deterrence means identifying what our adversaries hold dear and proving we are willing to hold it at risk.

Now, I am certain, Mr. President, that there are things Tehran considers more precious than empty terrorist warehouses in Syria or Houthi radar systems in Yemen. Iran uses proxies precisely because they consider them expendable. Taking pains to avoid killing these proxies or targeting Iranian forces and interests themselves tells Tehran that its strategy is actually working.

President Biden owes it to the American people to explain how, exactly, he intends to compel Iran and its proxies to actually change their behavior.

He owes it to the Nation to start explaining how the stakes of conflict in the Middle East ripple across the world; how the challenges we face in the Red Sea, Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific are all connected; and how the cost of failing to meet them compounds.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is not alone in its failure to take its responsibility seriously. This afternoon, the Senate must take it upon ourselves to reject an attempt to degrade our Nation's credibility even further.

The resolution brought forward by Senator Sanders is little more than performative leftwing politics. It is not, as our colleague would suggest, about authorizing a report on aid to Israel. It is not even about human rights. It is about tying the hands of a close ally locked in a necessary battle against savage terrorists.

It is a gift to the leftwing anti-Israel activists.

So colleagues who share a concern about the plight of innocent people in Gaza should set their attention on the Hamas terrorists who orchestrate their suffering--the terrorists who take hostages, steal humanitarian aid, and use their own citizens as human shields; the terrorists who go to loathsome extremes to imperil innocent human life.

America's ally Israel takes extraordinary risks to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iran's other proxies across the region go to extraordinary lengths to maximize senseless death. We must not confuse one for the other. The distinction here is clear and boldfaced.

Any colleague considering a vote for the Sanders resolution ought to consider what message they would like to send to America's allies and partners facing shared threats around the world and what message they would like to send our adversaries who doubt our resolve.

Israel deserves America's firm support as it roots out terrorist killers and restores its security.

Soon, the Senate will have an opportunity to make necessary investments in our capacity to support Israel and other threatened partners from Ukraine to Taiwan or the Philippines. As the threats to our interests grow, so do the costs of defending them.

In just the time the Senate has been working on the national security supplemental, operational costs for U.S. forces in the Middle East have risen. As I have warned for weeks, using million-dollar missiles to defend against thousand-dollar drones strains an already insufficient inventory of long-range capabilities.

The supplemental is our chance to expand our capacity to meet the national security challenges we face. The American people deserve leaders who are willing to take these challenges seriously.

I suggest the absence of a quorum

Mr. President, as I noted earlier this week, the Senate's first major business of the year is addressing a historic array of national security challenges. For the first time since 1945, there is a land war in Europe. A Russian imperialist is deploying North Korean and Iranian weapons in his assault on Ukraine, with additional support from the People's Republic of China.

After the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, there is a land war in the Middle East. Iran, the world's most active state sponsor of terror, is living up to its title, underwriting multiprong aggression against Israel, brazen attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria, and a growing war on the global commerce in the Red Sea.

And just today--just today--Iran itself has reportedly hijacked an international oil shipment on the high seas, a further reminder that the Biden administration's failure to impose serious costs and restore credible deterrence is emboldening Tehran.

Our single greatest strategic adversary is supporting this worldwide challenge to the West, interfering more aggressively with peaceful neighbors and investing relentlessly in the capabilities to outcompete us.

Meanwhile, record-setting illegal arrivals have rendered America's own southwest border functionally nonexistent.

This is the most serious crisis of America's credibility in decades, and I don't use the word ``crisis'' lightly. It implies that a situation requires urgent action.

Of course, that is exactly why the Biden administration spent years twisting itself in knots to avoid acknowledging the record-shattering humanitarian and security crisis that unfolded on their watch and because of their policies at the southern border. Remember how the White House engaged in damage control back in 2021 when the President himself slipped up and called the situation facing CBP and ICE a crisis. It was a big deal because a crisis is something that requires action.

Well, right now, the Senate is very close to an opportunity to finally do something meaningful to address the Biden administration's border crisis. Thanks to our colleague Senator Lankford, we are inching closer to a chance to restore sanity, commonsense enforcement mechanisms, and the rule of law. Our colleague's efforts are the foundation of supplemental legislation to address each of the glaring national security challenges that we face: securing America's sovereign borders, investing heavily in American leadership and strength, and equipping America's military with critical capabilities and expanding our defense industrial capacity to deter threats from major adversaries like China. These requirements go hand in hand, and the world is watching to see whether we are willing to meet them.

With an arsenal stocked by North Korea and Iran, Russia, literally, mocks Western hesitation. With brazen terrorist aggression, Iran defies American strength. With intense focus, China bets against America's resolve.

So none of the challenges we face from our southern border to the Red Sea get any easier the longer we wait to address them. Unfortunately, our own allies and adversaries alike have every reason to doubt us. Three years of this administration's hesitation, self-deterrence, and half measures have exacted a steep price. So our work this month is the clearest possible test of America's credibility as a global superpower, as the leader of allies, and as the nation capable of upholding our own sovereignty. The Senate simply must not fail this test.