Floor Statements

Mr. President, yesterday, Iran-backed terrorists carried out another deadly attack on a base that houses U.S. personnel in Syria. The Iran-backed Houthis continue to threaten U.S. vessels and international shipping in the Red Sea.

Three days after President Biden directed strikes in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, Iran and its proxies are demonstrating that their particular calculus has not changed.

The President said on Friday that our adversaries should know that ``if you harm an American, we will respond.'' Well, by their actions, our adversaries are turning the President's words back around. They are essentially saying: We will attack America at times and places of our choosing.

Iran and the expendable terrorists it trades for American blood are demonstrably undeterred, and they are hardly the only ones. For 3 years, America's adversaries have luxuriated in a world that no longer takes us at our word. Embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan, fawning climate diplomacy with our top strategic competitor, failure to take Putin seriously until it was too late, and fears of escalation that delayed lethal aid to Ukraine at every turn--for 3 years, America's foreign policy has been defined by hesitation, half measures, and self- deterrence. President Biden has dug our credibility--the value of America's word--into a hole.

Meanwhile, our adversaries are aligning and coordinating to an unprecedented degree. As America gives our allies and partners reasons to doubt our resolve, Russia and China are engaged in a ``friendship without limits.'' The contrast couldn't be starker.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Take it from practitioners who know that better than anyone. For example, just yesterday, former National Security Advisor retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster had this to say:

The abandonment of Kyiv would be a gift to the Moscow-

Tehran-Beijing-Pyongyang axis of aggressors. Allies and

partners would lose trust in America as those aggressors are

emboldened. The result could be cascading

conflicts even more costly than the interconnected wars in

Ukraine and across the Middle East.

Of course, General McMaster was the National Security Advisor to President Trump.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the Trump administration, put it this way, after his recent visit to Ukraine:

It will be far more costly and dangerous if Putin wins.

Another former National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, also with the previous administration, expressed his support for supplemental security assistance to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, saying simply:

The free world has been attacked, and we're the arsenal of

democracy.

It is in America's direct interest to take growing threats seriously, to invest even more urgently in our capabilities to meet them, and to support our allies and partners on the frontlines.

The reality of hard power competition simply does not wait for the President or Congress to take it seriously. Either we confront challenges we face with clear strategic and firm resolve or we lose. Around the world, 21st-century autocrats and medieval theocrats will continue to challenge the U.S.-led order that has underpinned global peace and prosperity for generations, and their proxies will continue to target American personnel and American interests with lethal force.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, 4 years ago, as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, President Biden promised his base functionally open borders:

I would in fact make sure that . . . we immediately surge

to the border all those people who are seeking asylum.

That was President Biden when he took office 3 years ago. As people surged to the border, they insisted that the President had told them to come, and by his actions, we know they were exactly right.

The Biden administration invited a crisis at our southwest border. In the tradition of Washington Democrats dating back decades, they chose an issue over its solution, and then they made it worse. The President of the United States threw out essential border security tools like ``Remain in Mexico,'' froze new funds for commonsense measures like border wall construction, and abandoned the brave men and women of the CPB and ICE to clean up his mess.

President Biden's border crisis has upended life in communities across America. Flows of deadly fentanyl have snuffed out precious lives in States like Kentucky. Catch-and-release has confronted even the bluest so-called sanctuary cities with the harsh realities of unchecked illegal immigration.

For 3 years, the President and his administration have tried to convince the American people not to believe their own eyes. They tried in vain to pretend that we weren't facing a crisis, but the country knows better. This is a humanitarian and security crisis of historic proportions.

Senate Republicans have insisted--not just for months but for years-- that this urgent crisis demanded action. Three months ago, we asked our colleague Senator Lankford to lead that action. In just the time since Washington Democrats finally decided to join him at the negotiating table, the President's border crisis made history all over again. December saw the highest daily and monthly tallies of illegal border crossings ever on record. The crisis has literally never been worse. This is the reality as the Senate begins careful consideration of the border security agreement announced last night.

The gaping hole in our Nation's sovereign borders on President Biden's watch is not going to heal itself, and the crater of American credibility after 3 years of the President's foreign policy will not repair itself either.

Today, our adversaries are emboldened. As terrorists and authoritarian thugs challenge the strongest military in the world, our Commander in Chief is hesitant--hesitant--and self-deterred. It is long past time for the President to demonstrate more resolve and start imposing decisive costs on those who dare to attack America, and it is now time for Congress to take action on supplemental national security legislation that finally meets those challenges head-on.

I have spoken at length for months about the urgent need to invest in American hard power, stand with our allies, and start showing our adversaries that the world's foremost superpower intends to start acting like one again.

My colleagues know where I stand. They know as well as I do that America's adversaries in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran are working together to undermine us, and they know that the time has finally come for the Senate to respond with strength.

The national security legislation we are preparing to take up will invest heavily in the capabilities and capacity America and our allies need to regain the upper hand over this emerging axis of authoritarians. Make no mistake, the gauntlet has been thrown, and America needs to pick it up.

Mr. President, the People's Republic of China is the single greatest strategic challenge facing the United States. It poses a potentially existential threat to our friends in the region and a growing threat to our allies in Europe as well.

The PRC is working to undermine the prevailing order that has maintained a major power piece for eight decades. It is useful to think about this challenge from our adversary's position.

President Xi aims to expand China's influence at our expense, to rewrite the rules of the road, and to dominate his neighbors. Each of these tasks becomes easier the more the West is distracted, divided, and deterred. And depending on the choices America and our allies make, our adversaries may succeed without even trying.

Are we distracted? Ask Beijing what it thinks about the Western diplomatic energy expended on unenforceable climate mandates while Chinese industry accelerates its carbon emissions. Our adversaries must scratch their heads at some of the things about which Western leaders obsess.

Are we divided? The PRC clearly hopes that the West's shared values are not as strong as our adversaries' shared disdain for them. Beijing no doubt enjoys watching the United States abandon allies in Afghanistan, second-guess allies in Israel, and initiate trade fights with its closest allies rather than China.

Are we deterred? We are self-deterred. Hesitation and hand-wringing over fears of escalation have become hallmarks of the Biden administration's foreign policy. Right now, you would be forgiven for wondering whether President Biden might take longer to respond to the Iran-backed strike that killed U.S. soldiers in Jordan than he did to finally approve long-range fires for Ukraine.

The administration's public obsession with avoiding escalation at all cost only signals to our adversaries that, indeed, authoritarians can take what they want by force.

Fortunately, Putin's aggression has clarified our allies' thinking. The West is waking up, turbocharging investments in new capabilities, and accelerating the expansion of our own defense industrial base.

Beijing and Moscow are not happy to see war in Ukraine prompt two more highly advanced European nations make historic new commitments to collective defense of the West by joining NATO. They are not happy to see America's allies direct a gusher of historic military investments into cutting-edge American weapons made by American workers. In the past 2 years, Pacific allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia have been buying American to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. NATO allies have invested $120 billion of their own in U.S. capabilities. Importantly, they are also investing in expanding their own defense industrial capacities.

Our allies recognize that Russia, China, and Iran are, as Secretary General Stoltenberg put it just yesterday here in Washington, ``shaping [an] alternative world where U.S. power is diminished [and] NATO is divided.'' In response, they are rejecting division and committing to interoperability and collective defense. In many ways, NATO is now more united than during the Cold War. But this progress is not a given. It depends on American leadership, and it is quite capable of unraveling. President Xi would like nothing more.

There is really no quicker way to make sure we will be distracted from necessary competition with China than by letting Russian aggression in Europe fester. There is no surer path to dividing America from our closest allies than by shredding our credibility and abandoning Ukraine. The PRC hopes that America and our allies will lose our will to stand up to Russian aggression. President Xi hopes for Russian victory but will benefit, too, from a frozen conflict. As they watch Russia fight in Ukraine, what Beijing and Tehran fear is a Western victory.

We must understand that the threats our adversaries pose are connected. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are making alarming new commitments to support and underwrite one another's aggressive behavior. Our Asian allies know it. They know that leaving Russia undefeated means leaving the PRC undeterred. And their security assistance to Ukraine demonstrates how seriously they take these linked threats.

There is also growing transatlantic agreement that China is a systemic rival and a revisionist power.

When the most successful military alliance in history stands together, it represents fully half of the world's military power and half of its economic power. NATO is a formidable force that inspires confidence and collaboration among an even wider circle of allies and partners, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. But when America and our allies let aggression linger undefeated, this force is spread thin. Beijing wants nothing more than to face a West still consumed by self- deterrence in a conflict halfway around the world.

Europe has woken up. It is outpacing America in direct assistance to

Mr. President, on another matter, last week, the Biden administration followed through on a devastating threat to some of the most abundant and reliable energy made here in America and to those who rely on it around the world.

The administration's de facto ban on new liquefied natural gas export permits is the sort of policy so profoundly damaging that it could only have been dreamt up by the leftwing activists who are increasingly calling the shots on President Biden's energy policies.

As I have mentioned before, this de facto ban is harmful to American interests both at home and abroad. Canceled export permits mean canceled projects and canceled jobs. Bans on exploring and exporting American energy mean working families pay higher prices for gasoline, home heating, and countless other everyday expenses.

Since President Biden took office, the cost of gasoline has increased a cumulative 35 percent, fuel oil prices have increased 61 percent, natural gas has increased 27 percent, and electricity prices have increased 25 percent. But the costs of the administration's green bent aren't confined to our own borders. For the past 2 years, allies who once relied on Russian energy have started consuming more clean American LNG. As a recent editorial put it, ``If new U.S. LNG projects are blocked, Europe and Asia will have to import gas from elsewhere to meet their growing demand. Most won't come from America's friends.''

Iran and Russia are both increasing their LNG production capabilities, ready to meet desperate demand when American export capacity no longer can. Meanwhile, the same radical activists who drove a stake through the Keystone XL Pipeline are gleefully declaring victory in their campaign to make America and our allies more reliant on dirty energy from our adversaries.

President Biden, in keeping with his administration's practice of rewarding bad behavior with more responsibility, put one of the masterminds of his climate policy up for a promotion at the EPA. Yesterday, Senate Democrats overran bipartisan opposition to confirm Joseph Goffman's nomination as Assistant Administrator.

As I have said before, Mr. Goffman has encouraged the EPA's worst-- worst--regulatory excesses and put activist whims over American workers and job creators. By some estimates, he has presided over the elimination of half the Nation's coal jobs. Unfortunately, the radical climate agenda he is helping to steer shows no signs of slowing down.

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.