Floor Statements

Mr. President, here on the floor yesterday, I warned that the administration's efforts to deter Iranian-backed Houthi threats to international shipping and American credibility were grossly insufficient. Just hours later, the Houthis proved my point with a significant escalation in the Red Sea.

Tehran's proxies fired more than 18 suicide drones, along with anti- ship cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, into one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. At great cost, American and British Navy vessels launched expensive interceptors to defend against these relatively inexpensive Houthi weapons.

On January 3, America and coalition partners warned that ``the Houthis will bear responsibility for the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, or the free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways.'' Well, the Houthis crossed that redline. The question is now whether President Biden will finally impose sufficient consequences on the Houthis and their patrons in Tehran. The world is watching.

But American credibility and security isn't just on the line in the Red Sea; our Nation is facing the most serious array of national security challenges since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Senate's responsibility to address them remains unfilled.

Take the first major land war in Europe since 1945. On one side of the war in Ukraine is a free world that recognizes sovereignty; on the other is an autocrat with imperial ambitions that extend beyond Ukraine's sovereign borders.

With assistance from a nuclear-armed, rogue state--the most active state sponsor of terrorism--and a friendship without limits with America's top strategic adversary, Russia has spent a decade trying to subjugate Ukraine militarily.

Putin is waging a war of torture and brutality. In some cases, his forces' crimes--like those of the Hamas terrorists responsible for October 7--are documented proudly by the perpetrators themselves. And Moscow has mobilized a war economy, ramping up military production while also tapping into the industrial capacity of its axis partners in Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

The war has clearly jolted our European allies out of a holiday from history. Producers in Norway are racing a

streamline production of critical air defense systems. Governments like Poland and Germany have announced major increases in defense spending. Denmark, for example, has resurrected an entire dormant industry to contribute ammunition. But even these historic, overdue investments have not yet turned the tide. This conflict has also exposed the glaring shortcomings of America's own arsenal and supply chains for critical capabilities.

As I have explained repeatedly and in great detail here on the floor, our supplemental appropriations to support Ukraine included heavy investments in expanding our defense industrial base and purchasing the cutting-edge weapons that our own forces need to deter our biggest adversaries.

The legislation we are considering this month would do even more to help meet urgent requirements of our own Armed Forces. It will increase procurement of critical munitions, long-range fires, and air defenses, and invest in our own defense industrial capacity.

This is essential for long-term competition with China and Russia. America and our allies still face serious shortcomings, and they extend well beyond the war in Ukraine. By one recent tally, Russia and China's arsenal of land-based air defense systems far exceeds the combined stockpile of the United States, Europe, and Japan combined. The West is outgunned in critical capabilities.

So let's not waste time indulging the misconception that standing by our European allies is an obstacle to competition with China. Let's give no credence to the idea that America should cut and run from our own allies and partners--precisely as our adversaries work closer and closer together.

With continued American leadership, European allies are shouldering more and more of the burden of collective security on the continent. There is just no question that our NATO allies are building military capacity and taking on more responsibility for restoring and maintaining the sovereignty of America's closest trading partners.

But America is a global superpower, and retreating from our leadership of NATO before seeing the job through won't make competition with China any easier. Handing Russia a victory in Ukraine on account of a waning attention span will only shred America's credibility, weaken critical alliances, and force us to contend even more directly with two major adversaries at once. I honestly can't think of a more shortsighted strategic gamble.

Only time will offer a full accounting of the missed opportunities of the past 3 years, but it is already clear that hesitation and self- deterrence on the part of our Commander in Chief cost Ukrainian lives and chances at swift victory over Russian aggression.

Of course, the brazen violence of Iran's terror network reminds us that this weakness and timidity is contagious. We cannot let them spread. We cannot let shortsightedness govern our approach to the strategic competition that will define the next century of American history. We cannot give China any more reasons than this administration already has to doubt America's resolve to stand with sovereign democracies and to vigorously defend our interests.

In the very near future, it will be time for the Senate to demonstrate that we understand what time it is.

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

Mr. President, 3 months after the massacre of October 7, Israel's Defense Minister observed that his country was fighting ``an axis, not a single enemy.'' He was talking about Iran's terrorist proxies, arrayed to attack Israel on multiple fronts.

But the reality of facing interconnected threats isn't unique to Israel. Around the world, our adversaries are colluding in new and aggressive ways. Authoritarians who disdain the West are arming and underwriting one another's aggression. And, as the Senate continues our work on supplemental national security legislation, we would do well to keep this in mind.

Israel reports that it has succeeded in significantly degrading Hamas's military capacity in northern Gaza. But while the pace of operations may have slowed, Israel continues to face a dug-in Hamas threat in southern Gaza. And their terrorist enemies continue to exploit innocent civilians in their bid for survival. Hamas fighters brazenly steal international aid shipments, use Gazans as human shields, and hold more than 130 hostages, including Americans.

So Israel's operations will continue because the threats to Israel remain. As I have said before, Israel needs the time, space, and support to restore its security.

Unfortunately, that is not what the Biden administration has been providing. In fact, as the left wing of the Democratic Party grows more loudly and stridently anti-Israel, its leaders are second-guessing America's closest ally in the Middle East.

Administration officials have taken to anonymously and shamefully accusing Prime Minister Netanyahu of seeking conflict with Hezbollah for domestic political reasons. Of course, reality is quite the opposite. For decades, it has been Hezbollah that seeks conflict with Israel and the West. It is the terrorists with Israeli and American blood on their hands who have chosen violence regardless of the current governments in Israel or the United States.

And Hezbollah's attacks against Israel have only grown since October 7. It is not Prime Minister Netanyahu who forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their homes in northern Israel. It was Hezbollah threats.

By now, we all know about Hamas's terror tunnels. Well, Hezbollah has built them too. I led a delegation to Israel, and we saw them with our own eyes--efforts to infiltrate northern Israel for the same purpose that Hamas struck in Israel's south. And it is not a myth conjured by the Prime Minister. It is a real and growing threat that even his leading political opponent and fellow member of Israel's war cabinet Benny Gantz also warns about.

Rather than sniping at Israel's war cabinet for taking Hezbollah seriously, the administration should tell Congress and our ally how it proposes to change the murderous calculus of Iran and its proxy.

So the best way we can help our friends is to restore our own credibility in the region and take bolder steps to respond to our common aggressor Iran.

The Biden administration has work to do to repair the damage done by 3 years of retreat. The first thing they could do is admit they have a problem. Instead, they are busy patting themselves on the back. Last week, an administration spokesperson declared with pride that the President was taking a proactive approach to threats from Iran-backed terrorists. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of aggressively targeting the launch facilities and Houthi terrorists responsible for harassing global shipping and U.S. naval assets or sinking the Iranian spy vessel reportedly facilitating Houthi strikes, President Biden's passive policy means the Navy is expending million-dollar missiles to swat away thousand-dollar drones--million- dollar missiles to take out

thousand-dollar drones because, apparently, we don't have the nerve to target launch facilities. Rather than imposing costs on our enemy, we are allowing the enemy to impose costs on us.

In response to more than 100 attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria, the President has authorized isolated jabs at low-consequence, peripheral targets.

No wonder. No wonder Iran isn't deterred. Tehran's strategy is actually working.

If Hamas's capacity for violence is not destroyed, Palestinians and Israelis alike--including the hostages still in captivity--are going to continue to suffer.

If the Houthis' capacity for violence is left intact, they will continue to attack civilian ships and disrupt the global economy.

If Iran does not pay a price for its insidious support of terror from Israel and across the Middle East to Ukraine, it will continue to underwrite violence and claim innocent lives.

America owes our ally Israel our continued support, and we owe Iran's web of terror the firm deterrence and swift justice it has always deserved.

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

Madam President, I would like to begin by wishing our colleagues a very happy new year and welcoming everyone back to begin a new session.

There is a tremendous amount on the Senate's plate, beginning with the unfinished business of the year that just ended.

Yesterday, negotiators announced they had agreed on a path to completing full year appropriations for the fiscal year that began 3 months ago. Delivering on this basic governing responsibility in a timely manner has proven a tough row to hoe, and building broad recognition of the most urgent priorities facing our Nation remains difficult.

Here is the truth. Threats to U.S. national security are growing, and the Biden administration's habit of proposing real-dollar cuts to defense funding is a streak that must end at three. With its forthcoming budget request for fiscal year 2025, the administration needs to finally start taking the long-term needs of America's national security seriously.

But Congress's most immediate opportunity to address urgent national security priorities will be supplemental legislation in the coming weeks. I was encouraged to see that Senator Lankford and our Democratic colleagues made progress toward an agreement to put meaningful border security policy at the heart of this supplemental.

As negotiations continued over the holiday break, Customs and Border Protection reported that December set a new, alltime monthly tally for southern border apprehensions. The Biden administration's border crisis is not going to fix itself, and the status quo is unacceptable. The answer, as Republicans have been saying, literally for years, is to restore meaningful border enforcement and fix the broken policies that the cartels are exploiting to devastating effect. And I am grateful to Senator Lankford for continuing to insist on such commonsense steps at the negotiating table.

The stakes here are quite high. We have an opportunity to make the most comprehensive headway on border security in a generation.

But our national security challenges don't end at our own borders. The threats we face are intertwined, and the coming days will show the world whether America is willing to treat them accordingly. Allies and adversaries alike will be curious what we do with news that Russia is now attacking targets in Ukraine with ballistic missiles supplied by the rogue Kim regime in North Korea, following the suicide drones provided by Iran. Yet again, it is abundantly clear that authoritarians support authoritarians--as if our clear-eyed Pacific partners like Japan, South Korea, and Australia needed more evidence that what happens in Ukraine matters in their own neighborhood; as if we needed yet another reminder that facing down an expanded industrial base in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will require America and our allies and partners to invest more seriously in our own defense production capacity.

Meanwhile, terrorists in Yemen are spelling out in painful detail just how wide the ripples of Iran's war machine extend. The world's most active state sponsor of terror isn't just a destabilizing force in the Middle East. Tehran isn't just sowing chaos for American-minded partners in the region. Tehran's bloody influence isn't even limited to helping to train the Hamas and PIJ terrorists who conducted the horrific massacre of Israeli Jews on October 7, or to building Hezbollah into a top-tier international terrorist organization, or to the repeated attacks its proxies have carried out against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria.

The Houthis' campaign against civilian ships in the Red Sea is an assault on the global economy that the world has no choice but to address. Once more, an adversary's initiative has forced a reluctant administration to act.

With fawning conciliation and half measures, the Biden administration has squandered deterrence against Iran. Russia is openly mocking the fickleness of Western support for Ukraine. And China, our single greatest strategic adversary, is watching closely to see if America can still manage to lead or sustain credible resistance to authoritarian violence.

So these are the stakes after 3 years of the administration's foreign policy. The world is asking not when or how but whether the world's greatest superpower will start acting like one, which makes our work on the supplemental national security legislation even more urgent. Beginning at the southern border, we must demonstrate that America is up for the challenges we face. The Senate cannot afford to get this wrong.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, negotiations on border security continue to make headway. I am grateful to Senator Lankford for his uninterrupted focus on the task at hand, which is meaningful policy changes.

Our colleagues at the negotiating table are under no illusions about how difficult it is to fix our Nation's broken asylum and parole system. They are working on what would be the first serious repair in more than 30 years.

But there is no longer any disagreement that the situation at the southern border is unsustainable and requires the Senate to act. This is the core of America's national security. It will be an essential part of supplemental legislation to address pressing security challenges, and negotiations will continue in earnest until we get there.

The Senate cannot afford to get this wrong. From South Texas to Southeast Asia and from the Black Sea to the Red Sea, it is a historically challenging and consequential time to protect America's interests, our allies, and our own people.

Mr. President, the world is witnessing the first land war in Europe since 1945. Ukraine's citizen soldiers are in the trenches right now, resisting Russian aggression with Western assistance.

American leadership has strengthened the NATO alliance, prompted our closest allies and trading partners to share more of the burden of collective defense, and driven historic investments in the military strength and industrial capacity we need here at home to compete with our biggest adversaries. Finishing the job will require more of that leadership.

Meanwhile, Israel is responding to the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Our ally needs the time, the space, and the support required to eliminate the terrorist savages responsible for the horrors of October 7, and the entire region needs American leadership to restore deterrence against Iran and its terrorist proxies who attack U.S. personnel with impunity.

From the other side of the world, our friends in the Indo-Pacific are watching closely what goes on in Europe and the Middle East and investing seriously in their own military strength because they know that China is doing the same.

Our single greatest strategic adversary is growing increasingly aggressive, increasingly advanced, and increasingly keen to seize an edge over a global superpower that has failed to act like one.

So the stakes are high this holiday season for our allies and partners on the frontlines of authoritarian aggression. The challenges are real for brave American servicemembers who are spending this time of the year far from home and loved ones to keep us safe.

It is a dangerous world, one that doesn't reward weakness. America needs to show that we haven't forgotten how to lead and that we are committed to restoring the hard power that leadership requires.

So I am encouraged by our colleagues' commitment to keep working toward an agreement on national security, beginning with security here at home. The Senate will not let the challenges we face go unanswered.

Mr. President, I ask consent that the Senate recess until 1:45 p.m.

Mr. President, as the Senate convened this week, our colleagues negotiating on border security were still at the table making slow and steady progress. They are chipping away at years of failure to enact basic commonsense border security policy. Reaching an agreement that can pass Congress and become law is easier said than done.

But I am very grateful to Senator Lankford for sticking with it. Our colleagues' effort to address the glaring national security challenge here at home is the foundation of our broader responsibility to meet the linked threats we are facing around the world, from the Indo- Pacific to Europe, to the Middle East.

Needless to say, it is a particularly dangerous time for nations that care about protecting their sovereignty from totalitarian thugs and savage terrorists. The headlines are filled with evidence that America's most dangerous adversaries are demonstrably not deterred, and it might have something to do with the Biden administration's penchant for deterring itself instead.

America is a global superpower, but far too often, our Commander in Chief has conducted our foreign affairs with hesitation and weakness. Remember his administration's overwrought fears of ``escalation'' that kept essential capabilities out of Ukrainian hands or the feeble half measures in response to an ongoing surge in attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria.

Reports that the Biden administration now wants to constrain Israel's efforts to destroy Hamas are disappointing but not surprising. Two months ago, the administration was encouraging Israel to slow down its response before entering Gaza. Now, it is telling Israel to hasten its operations and wind them down to a close.

America cannot afford to lose sight of reality. We must not blur the boldface line between a sovereign democracy that takes great pains to avoid civilian casualties and a terrorist organization that steals humanitarian aid from vulnerable Gazans to fuel its war of hate.

Israel did not choose this conflict. It ended the occupation of Gaza nearly two decades ago, but its policy of seeking to lower tensions was rewarded on October 7 when Hamas unilaterally shattered the cease-fire with rape, torture, terror, and murder: Hamas, the terrorists who diverted mountains of foreign assistance intended for civilian infrastructure to build miles of elaborate terror tunnels instead; Hamas, the cowards who intentionally hide their fighters and weapons in schools and hospitals.

Hamas has repeatedly faced the choice between improving the lives of Palestinians and killing Israelis. Every time, to date, it has chosen violence. And if Hamas survives with its military capabilities and leadership intact, it will make that choice again and again.

This is the reality Israel faces. Its war cabinet knows they must see this fight through. It is the same reality that recent American Presidents have confronted in the fight against al-Qaida and Isis. But for Israel, the determined terrorist threat is on its very borders and its own citizen soldiers are on the line.

So I will repeat what I have said so many times before. Our responsibility as an ally is to provide the time, space, and support Israel needs to finish the job, to condemn shameful attempts at moral equivalence to excuse the genocidal violence of Hamas terrorists and apply double standards to Israel and to offer counsel to our ally in private, not in front page genuflections to the President's leftwing base.

Administration officials and world leaders who care about the Palestinians would do well to focus less on constraining Israel in the short term and more on the challenge of ensuring Palestinian leaders and organizations in Gaza and the West Bank actually care about improving the lives of their fellow citizens in the long term.

Palestinians deserve better than Hamas's cult of death in Gaza. They deserve better than a corrupt and sclerotic Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, over the weekend, our colleagues continued to make progress toward an agreement on border security. I am especially grateful to Senator Lankford for stewarding Senate Republicans' efforts to produce meaningful policy changes, fix our broken asylum system, and secure the southern border.

Addressing the border crisis at home is a fundamental part of legislation that will help America meet each of the most glaring national security challenges we face around the world. And there are a number of significant issues our colleagues are still working to resolve.

The effects of years of failed border enforcement are compounded. Border security policy is complex. And our colleagues at the negotiating table are clear-eyed about the fact that getting this agreement right and producing legislative text is going to require some time.

Senate Republicans will not make up for others showing up late to the table by waving our responsibility to carefully negotiate and review any agreement before voting on it. I am encouraged by our colleagues' commitment to keep making steady progress in negotiations over the coming week and beyond.

America is facing a never-before-seen border crisis. An imperialist thug is trying to redraw the map of Europe. A repressive authoritarian state is preparing to put more of the Indo-Pacific under its control. And the world's largest state sponsor of terror is showing us it is as determined as ever to kill American servicemembers and disrupt global commerce. There is simply no room for falling short here. We cannot afford to get this wrong.

Mr. President, it has been nearly 8 weeks since President Biden submitted his supplemental funding request and identified four key national security priorities. For 8 weeks, Senate Republicans have been working hard to produce legislation that takes appropriate action on all four fronts: helping Ukraine defeat Putin in Europe, helping Israel fight Iranian terror in the Middle East, helping Asian partners deter Chinese aggression, and helping the men and women of Border Patrol get the crisis at our southern border under control.

At the same time, we have had to spend several weeks now trying to convince some of our Democratic colleagues not to tank the entire effort just because they wish a Democratic President had not put border security in his request.

A number of Senate Republicans have been working in good faith to make sure that supplemental legislation makes substantive policy changes at the border, instead of just throwing money at the problem.

Meanwhile, we have had to explain to Members of President Biden's own party why the border security issue he included in his proposal was not extraneous to America's national security.

So here we are. Some very important conversations are ongoing. And here is the bottom line: The Senate cannot claim to address major national security challenges without a solution to the one we are facing on the southern border. We can't pretend to be serious about threats facing America and our allies without fixing the broken system that lets 10,000 illegal aliens cross our border in a single day.

I am serious. Senate Republicans are serious, and I hope our colleagues are as well.

Mr. President, on another matter, the events of the past 2 months have underscored that something is rotten in the state of America's most elite universities, and there aren't many more glaring examples than Harvard.

Last week, of course, Harvard's president refused to say whether calls for Jewish genocide would constitute harassment on her campus. Two months ago, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attack, she declined to condemn the Harvard student groups who openly declared that the murder of innocent Jews that day was Israel's own fault.

Under her leadership, radical ``Students for Justice in Palestine'' have organized to spin terrorist propaganda and mostly succeeded in getting Harvard graduates blackballed by major corporations and Federal judges.

One Jewish student at Harvard Business School was even assaulted on his way to study.

And yet despite her abysmal record on combating anti-Semitism and mounting allegations of plagiarism in her own scholarship, the cadre of leftwing financiers and university administrators who make up the governing Harvard Corporation has affirmed their ``confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal.''

Well, when you look at Harvard's history, this embarrassing lack of moral clarity is hardly a surprise. A century

ago, Harvard President Abbott Lowell proposed a numerical quota on Jewish students. His reasoning?

The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing,

and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of

Jews.

So one Harvard president says that the presence of Jews causes anti- Semitism. A hundred years later, another says that calls for Jewish genocide really depend on the context in which they are made. Frankly, you would be forgiven for wondering whether anti-Semitism isn't just business as usual at Harvard.

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

Mr. President, today, Senate Republicans are still working in good faith on border policy changes that will allow the Senate to pass a national security supplemental. I am hopeful that Democrats, both here and at the White House, are beginning to recognize how committed we are to addressing the crisis at our southern border. I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement and address two national security priorities.

Meanwhile, the challenges we are facing at home and abroad are not stopping themselves. As of today, U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria have faced at least 92 attacks from Iran-backed terrorists since October, including just last week against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Iran's Houthi proxies are escalating their threats against shipping vessels in one of the busiest choke points of international maritime commerce. Iran and its terrorist network are not deterred. They believe they can try to kill Americans with impunity.

Yet, last week, leading Senate Democrats joined a failed effort to withdraw America's presence in Syria. Three Members of the Democratic caucus leadership cast votes to retreat--to retreat--in the face of an emboldened terrorist threat. So did the chair of the Foreign Relations subcommittee that deals with the Middle East.

It is time for our colleagues to get serious about the threats that we face. Fortunately, the Senate is on track to pass the long-awaited National Defense Authorization Act. I am grateful to Ranking Member Wicker and Chairman Reed for the extensive work required to bring this must-pass legislation across the goal line.

This year, the Armed Services Committee considered 445 amendments, and

another 121 were adopted here on the floor. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of many of our colleagues on this side of the aisle, the bill they produced asserts the Senate's priorities on a host of national security issues where the Biden administration's approach continues to fall short.

This year's NDAA recognizes the need to strengthen America's position in strategic competition with China through targeted improvements to critical capabilities--from long-range fires and anti-ship weapons to modernizing our nuclear triad.

It will authorize further investments in the defense industrial base and expand efficiency and accountability of the lethal assistance degrading Russia's military in Ukraine.

It will turbocharge cooperation with Israel on future missile defense technologies and ensure our closest ally in the Middle East can access the U.S. capabilities it needs when it needs them.

It will give America's men and women in uniform a pay raise.

It will focus the Pentagon more squarely on tackling national security challenges instead of creating new ones with partisan social policies.

In my home State of Kentucky, it will advance important initiatives to expand production at Bluegrass Army Depot and reduce U.S. reliance on competitors for materials critical to our defense.

Of course, Congress can't fix the Biden administration's weakness on the world stage by ourselves. We can equip a global superpower, but we still need a Commander in Chief who recognizes that he is leading one.

President Biden should be focused on restoring real deterrence against Iran-backed terrorists, not interfering with the internal politics of the democratic ally they are attacking. Israel is a modern, mature, and independent democracy. I imagine that neither Israel's leaders, nor its citizens appreciate President Biden's punditry to Democratic donors about their wartime coalition government. In fact, foreign influence in our own politics used to be something Washington Democrats loved to condemn.

So I would recommend that the President focus on the task at hand: imposing meaningful consequences in Iran and giving Israel the time, the space, and the support it needs to defeat Hamas.

This week, the Senate will move the National Defense Authorization Act one step closer to becoming law. I hope that will mark the first step toward giving the national security challenges America faces the urgent attention they require. But it will still fall to Congress to pass supplemental national security appropriations and full-year defense funding to ensure the investments we authorize this week deliver real progress in making America stronger and more secure.

Nominations

On another matter, this morning, the Judiciary Committee is examining another slate of President Biden's nominees to join the Federal bench.

Over the past 3 years, our colleagues on the committee have met and considered an alarming parade of nominees whose conduct or lack of legal qualifications make them so wildly unfit for confirmation that they had to be withdrawn, from the First Circuit nominee known best for helping defend an elite prep school against a victim of sexual assault to the Kansas District nominee whom the American Bar Association was expected to find ``not qualified'' for judicial service.

Unfortunately, today's nominees include yet another head-spinning example of the Biden administration's radical approach to filling the Federal bench.

Adeel Mangi is the President's nominee to serve as circuit judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Since graduating from Harvard Law, he has spent his career in private practice, but for years, he also served on the board of a Rutgers student organization that facilitates and amplifies grotesque, anti-Semitic activism. For example, on the 20th anniversary of September 11, the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers Law School hosted speaking engagements for a ringleader of recent calls for an intifada in the United States and a convicted supporter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

For those who need reminding, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas are holding hostages, including Americans, in Gaza as we speak.

American Jews are facing a historic wave of anti-Semitic hate, and this wave is emanating from campus organizations across the country like the one Mr. Mangi guided and supported at Rutgers. Is the Biden administration really asking the Senate to give life tenure on the court of appeals to a nominee with an extensive record of condoning terrorist propaganda?

I would urge our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to take a closer look at Mr. Mangi's nomination and reject it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.