Floor Statements

Madam President, before the Senate adjourned for Thanksgiving, we voted to extend Federal Government funding into the new

year. I am glad there was no appetite in the Capitol for saddling the Nation with a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown.

The short-term funding legislation produced by the Speaker of the House was an important step toward fulfilling Congress's responsibility to pass full-year appropriations, and work continues toward restoring the sort of regular order appropriations process that Senators on both sides of the aisle have set as our goal.

But the Senate convenes today with some extremely important outstanding business that we need to address this year. In a few short weeks, we need to deliver on several urgent national security priorities. For starters, a number of our colleagues are hard at work on the conference report of the National Defense Authorization Act. This is Congress's primary opportunity to shape America's national security priorities and set the course of strategic competition with major adversaries.

We need to empower our Armed Forces with a clear directive for the many challenges they face. We need to prepare them to deter and fight future wars, not drag them into political culture wars. We need to focus our military on geopolitics, not climate politics.

But at this especially dangerous moment, we also need to deliver supplemental resources to help both America and our partners defend against linked threats from our biggest adversaries: Russia, Iran, and China.

Make no mistake, the PRC is not deterred. Beijing didn't take a Thanksgiving break from its historic military buildup, its threats to the freedom of navigation in international waters, or its efforts to meddle in Taiwan's domestic politics.

Russia is not deterred. Putin hasn't eased off on his brutal conquest of Ukraine.

Iran is not deterred. The world's top state sponsor of terrorism has continued to underwrite an alarming surge in attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria since the barbaric attacks of October 7.

Hamas is not deterred. Even during a temporary pause in fighting, terrorists are clearly determined, with Iran's help, to wipe Israel off the map ``from the river to the sea.''

America needs to stand with our friends and stand up to our aggressors, and Senate Republicans have been working for weeks to ensure that supplemental legislation includes robust investments in the hard power and defense industrial capacity we need to confront them head-on.

But on this side of the aisle, we also recognize that national security begins here at home. Last month's total southern border encounters marked the busiest October in decades of CBP records, and the harsh reality of the Biden administration's border crisis continues to impact millions of Americans in cities across the country.

So I am thankful that Senator Lankford, Senator Graham, and Senator Cotton have been working diligently to produce legislation to address this crisis head-on. Senate Republicans have been laser-focused on actually fixing our broken asylum process, not just pouring more money into a system that is simply not working, and our Democratic colleagues would do well to take these efforts seriously.

The bottom line is simple: We don't have the luxury of addressing glaring threats to our national security one at a time. Crises don't solve themselves just because Washington can't muster the political will to address them.

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats have already suggested they want to condition urgent resources for one of our top security priorities on not addressing another one. Apparently, our colleagues are considering putting support for Israel on the chopping block unless we promise not to fix the border crisis they helped to create.

So, Madam President, this sort of cynical, shortsighted politics has denied the American people real border security too many times. The challenges facing America are connected, and the time to address them-- each of them--is now.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote on yet another bipartisan resolution to overturn a harmful Biden administration regulation.

In its latest iteration, the administration's bid for student loan socialism--its so-called income-driven repayment scheme--would likely go down in history as the most expensive Federal regulation in our history.

Leading estimates predict this policy would heap a $559 billion bill onto taxpayers over the next decade. In exchange, a majority of the high-earning borrowers who choose to take on student debt would avoid ever paying back the principals they borrowed.

The administration's plan would actually remove the guardrails that ensure Federal loan relief goes to low-income households. Apparently, loyal blue-State doctors and lawyers are the most important beneficiaries of student loan socialism.

Whichever way you slice it, the President's policy is a raw deal for working Americans who have made the sacrifices to pay off their student loans or avoided debt altogether. But with taxpayers footing the bill, it is also a powerful incentive for schools to raise the price of college even higher.

A bipartisan majority of our colleagues has already rejected the socialist fever dream, and President Biden's first attempt at massive loan cancellation was actually struck down by the Supreme Court. But today, thanks to the leadership of Chairman Cassidy, Senator Thune, and Senator Cornyn, the Senate has another chance to kick student loan socialism to the curb.

I would urge my colleagues to support the resolution later today.

Border Security

Mr. President, on another matter, it is impossible to ignore the crisis at our southern border that has erupted on Washington Democrats' watch--back-to-back, record-setting years that saw millions upon millions of illegal arrivals at the border and historic quantities of fentanyl and other lethal drugs pouring across to decimate American communities.

Let's remember where this crisis came from. President Biden campaigned on open-borders policies. His message was so compelling that crowds literally showed up at the southern border with his campaign logo on their shirts. As one put it back then, the President had ``promised us that everything was going to change.''

Vice President Harris offered a refrain of her own. She said:

Say it loud, say it clear, everyone is welcome here.

She called the previous administration's commonsense border security measures ``criminalizing innocent people.''

Well, this is the administration that canceled commonsense policies like ``Remain in Mexico,'' shelved DHS resources meant for border wall construction, and abandoned overstretched border enforcement personnel to contend with the tidal wave of mass migration.

Today, cleaning up the administration's mess at the southern border is a matter of urgent national security. I am grateful to a group of Senate Republicans, including Lankford, Graham, and Cotton, who have been working in good faith on substantive policy reforms to bring this crisis under control.

The goal here is simple: Slow the flow, and stop the catch-and- release asylum system that is overrunning border communities and blue cities alike. The crisis isn't crying out for boatloads of new taxpayer dollars, just commonsense policy reform.

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats do not appear ready to admit this reality. They are apparently not ready to seriously address asylum abuse. That is a stance that has put them out of step with even left- leaning governments across the Western world.

For example, Germany, which is struggling with an asylum caseload costing roughly $53 billion, is exploring trusted third country policies to keep asylum seekers outside its borders while their cases are adjudicated. Finland is considering closing some crossing points along its borders as Russia weaponizes migrant flows against the West.

Responsible people everywhere recognize that enforcing sovereign borders isn't some hand-wringing moral outrage. In fact, what is outrageous is refusing to do so.

The American people deserve safe streets, stable prices, and secure borders. These are the fundamental responsibilities of any government, but on all accounts, the Biden administration is failing to deliver.

China

Mr. President, now on one final matter, 1 year ago, President Biden met for the first time with President Xi, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, and he pledged that the United States would compete vigorously with the PRC. One year later, the President and the chairman will meet again--today. So let's take stock of whether the Biden administration is living up to its pledge of vigorous competition.

The stakes of this competition simply cannot be overstated. The Chinese military is outpacing us in pivotal military capabilities like hypersonics, precise long-range fires, and even naval vessels. Beijing has secured a commanding share of the rare minerals necessary to create critical supply. Chinese agents are engaged in an aggressive effort to steal sensitive Western technologies and government secrets. And the PRC consistently signals its disdain for national sovereignty, human rights, and the free flow of commerce.

In other words, strategic competition with China is going to determine the course of the next century of American history. Yet the Biden administration has too often met this historic moment with weakness and naivete. Time and time again, it has sacrificed competition on the altar of green climate policy.

In the administration's quest to turn the American automobile industry electric, it has apparently made peace with sending American tax dollars to the Chinese industries that dominate battery-making inputs. In pursuit of grand climate diplomacy, the administration's envoys have been literally laughed out of Beijing by a state that keeps on increasing its carbon emissions and has no plan to start cutting them literally for years.

Meanwhile, the consequences of the Biden administration's neglect for American hard power are only getting more dangerous. The PRC is acquiring new weapons as much as six times faster than the United States, and for each of the past 2 years, it announced a 7-percent increase in military spending. But even as the President's national defense strategy identifies China as ``the pacing threat,'' his defense budget requests haven't even kept up with inflation.

Chairman Xi has gone out of his way to align closely with fellow adversaries of the West, stepping up joint military exercises with Putin's forces and helping both Moscow and Tehran endure Western sanctions.

China has made military competition with the West a top priority. We can't afford to ignore this challenge. Our allies certainly aren't. Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other Indo-Pacific partners are investing heavily--heavily--in their own defensive.

Taiwan is seeking to make itself a harder target for Chinese aggression, but America must continue to do its part. We have to keep investing in the

sort of defense industrial base that can sustain this armament and strengthen our own military for effective deterrence. The Senate has multiple opportunities before us--in both supplemental measures and full-year Defense appropriations--to do exactly that, and we can't afford not to seize these opportunities.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, yesterday, the Supreme Court announced its adoption of a code of ethics. The Court produced the code internally and adopted it unanimously. In

other words, as I expected, a coequal branch of government conducted its business independently, which sounds an awful lot like the separation of powers envisioned in the Constitution.

Certainly, that hasn't deterred Senate Democrats from their obsessive effort to bend the Court to their will. In fact, their monthslong smear campaign--disguised as an effort to make the senior-most jurists in the country, duly confirmed by the Senate, more ``accountable'' to the American people--unfortunately, continues apace. We know what our colleagues really mean by ``accountability.'' It is code for ``intimidation.''

I am sure that this sort of accountability is exactly what the Justices and their families felt as the Biden administration declined to enforce Federal law and protect them in their homes from angry mobs or when Senate Democrats threatened to slash the Court security budget in the face of death threats or on any number of occasions when our colleagues have issued ominous, veiled warnings about ``restructuring'' or outright threats that Justices would ``pay the price.''

This week, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are at it again. Our colleagues planned last week to threaten legal action against private citizens who decline to indulge their sham trial of the Justices. The only problem? Republicans on the committee submitted too many commonsense amendments, and the majority worried that some of them might pass with bipartisan support.

But regardless of how Senate Democrats choose to spend their time, I will repeat what I have said before: I have the utmost confidence in each one of the Justices of our Nation's highest Court, and they should continue to pay this intimidation campaign no mind.

Madam President, now on another matter, this morning's October inflation report tells a story that has become familiar on President Biden's watch. Prices remain stubbornly high and well above the Federal Reserve's 2-percent target. Prices are up 3.2 per year over year, and cumulative inflation since the President took office now clocks in at 17.6 percent.

Even as the rate prices are growing ebbs, working Americans are growing more frustrated with an expensive new normal. The price of a gallon of milk has risen 15.8 percent since January of 2021. Meanwhile, a gallon of gas is going for 54.8 percent more. As one small business owner in Texas put it to reporters recently, he said:

I'm trying to think of one area where prices have eased,

and I can't think of anything.

Earlier this month, President Biden told a gathering in rural Minnesota that ``Bidenomics is just another way of saying `the American Dream.''' The American people are just simply not buying that.

According to one recent survey, only 14 percent of U.S. voters have said President Biden has made them better off, and 65 percent of voters said they had cut back on nonessential spending.

So, if the President thinks that Bidenomics is the American dream, he might want to pay closer attention to how many Americans are desperate to wake up.

Madam President, on one final matter, today, our Nation's Capital will welcome a rally of Jewish Americans and friends of Israel. The participants in today's events are gathering in mourning, in worry, in fear, and in shared resolve.

In the dark days since the terrorist massacre of October 7, their message has been crystal clear: There is no moral equivalence between terrorism and self-defense. Israel has a right to exist, and Jews everywhere have a right to live without fear.

These basic truths should be obvious and unimpeachable. But if anyone failed to see the creeping advance of anti-Semitism across the West in recent years, if any corner of our society let itself believe that this unique hatred of Jews has been confined to history, that naive fiction was shattered on October 7 and swept away by the hate that has poured across college campuses and city streets throughout America and the West over the past month.

In just the first week after Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad murdered 1,200 Israelis, harassment, vandalism, and assault against American Jews rose nearly 400 percent.

But the peaceful people gathering in Washington today aren't here to ask for pity for themselves. They are here on behalf of the more than 240 hostages, including a 3-year-old American boy and at least 8 other Americans who cannot speak for themselves. They are here with a clear message for our leaders: Stand with Israel.

Since October 7, I have spoken repeatedly about the challenges Israel faces as it works to protect its people, bring the hostages home, and destroy Hamas's capability to wage war. I have talked about the terrorists' reprehensible record of systematically violating the customary laws of war; their expropriation of humanitarian aid; the cold-blooded practice of putting command centers and weapons caches in hospitals, schools, and even mosques; their grotesque penchant for using innocent Gazans as human shields; and, of course, the threat of further violence from the Iran-backed terrorists on the second front.

This is why I have urged the Biden administration to give Israel the time, space, and support it needs to bring these savages to justice.

How quickly some in the West have become confused about the crystal- clear distinction between terrorism and self-defense. It is not the same thing.

Hamas sought the conflict. Hamas perpetuates it by holding hostages and continuing its terrorism. And those of us who live out of range of terrorist rockets should pause before second-guessing Israel's response.

This is the time that demands moral clarity on campuses, in newsrooms, in Congress, and at the sharp end of American military strength. It is also time to restore credible deterrence against Iran, the chief underwriter and architect of violence against Israel and against American forces in the Middle East.

In less than 1 month, Iran-backed terrorists have targeted U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and Syria 52 times. From the abandonment of Afghanistan to the delisting of the Houthis, to our failure to respond to proxy attacks on our friends in the region, the Biden administration has made Iran's job actually easier.

And now, as America dithers over support for their friends in Ukraine, Tehran has thrown itself firmly behind Putin's Russia. It will take more than demolishing a couple of warehouses to show our adversaries we are credible. Iran and its terrorist networks must know that violence against America or our allies will be met swiftly and overwhelmingly 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, I need to begin today with some tragic news. This weekend, as Americans joined together to salute our heroes, five soldiers deployed out of Fort Campbell, KY, were killed while operating in dangerous conditions in the Mediterranean Sea: CW3 Stephen Dwyer, CW2 Shane Barnes, SSG Tanner Grone, SGT Andrew Southard, and SGT Cade Wolfe.

These fallen warriors were members of Fort Campbell's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known by their brothers- and sisters-in- arms as Night Stalkers.

The Night Stalkers are elite, highly trained fighters who take on the most sensitive missions. They are ready to respond at any time there are serious threats anywhere in the world, and they ground their service in two principles: never quit and never surrender.

Night Stalkers live, breathe, and--tragically--often die by a creed which reads:

I serve with the memory and the pride of those who have

gone before me, for they loved to fight, fought to win, and

would rather die than quit.

This weekend, five brave men honored their creed. Their memory will live on, carried by Night Stalkers who continue to profess it and by every American who mourns their loss. This tragedy is a stark reminder of the incredible dangers our men and women in uniform face and of the debt we owe them.

So, today, I join our Nation in grieving these fallen warriors, and I extend my prayers to their families, children, and comrades.

Madam President, now, on an entirely different matter, I have been encouraged this year by the progress our Appropriations Committee has made toward restoring regular order to the way we fund the Federal Government. As I have said before, shutting down the government does nothing--nothing--to advance that work.

Regular order requires that Congress provide itself the time for careful consideration and thorough amendment. I am glad to see that Speaker Johnson has produced a continuing resolution that would do exactly that.

There is a lot of work left to do, and aside from the remaining full- year appropriations bills, glaring national security priorities continue to demand our attention: from Israel to Ukraine to the Indo- Pacific, and, of course, our southern border.

House Republicans have produced a responsible measure that will keep the lights on, avoid a harmful lapse in government funding, and provide the time and space to finish that important work. I will support their continuing resolution and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

This weekend, with parades and gatherings, solemn ceremonies and phone calls to loved ones, America will mark Veterans Day by expressing our gratitude to the men and women who have served our Nation in the Armed Forces.

But Veterans Day is much more than a once-a-year observation. It is a reminder of our daily obligation to honor their service, uphold our promises to care for them when they come home, and do everything we can to equip those defending our Nation today and tomorrow for success.

So, today, I am reminded of some letters I have saved in my archives. They are letters my father sent home to my mother from his own service in Patton's army in 1945.

With Nazi Germany on the ropes, with peace within reach, my dad was already seeing firsthand the sorts of threats that would define the next half century of American history. In the parts of his letters that made it past Army censors, he told us how the Russians were going to be a big problem.

Well, today, America faces threats every bit as grave. Like those of the 1940s, our adversaries today aren't being shy about their efforts to win the next half century of competition with America and the West. As one recent analysis summed it up, Russia, China, and Iran are ``working to end the world order that has prevailed for three generations under American leadership''--``under American leadership.''

This didn't happen by accident. The Western order of peace and freedom was delivered by the sacrifices of American servicemembers like my father and preserved by generations of brave men and women in uniform ever since.

Right now, we have an obligation to those servicemembers, to our allies, and to the American people to behave like the world-leading power we actually are. We have a duty to invest seriously in American strength. It is time to offer a clear strategy for victory against Russia and then deliver the resources Ukraine needs to achieve it right now.

Putin is not deterred and his imperial ambitions do not end at Ukraine's border with the NATO alliance. If the United States abandons our support for Ukraine's resistance, we risk yet another generation of American forces being veterans of war in Europe.

It is time to get serious about deterring Iran, the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and the leading sponsor of violence against American servicemembers in Iraq and Syria.

I welcomed yesterday's strike on an Iranian facility in Syria, but it will probably take more than striking ammunition warehouses to restore the deterrence the Biden administration's policies have actually squandered.

It is time to redouble our efforts to equip allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific to raise the cost of further aggression from communist China.

And, as I have said repeatedly, it is long past time to make commonsense policy changes to address our southern border crisis that has required U.S. servicemembers to help Border Patrol maintain order.

These are the tasks before us, and they will not get any easier to address the longer we wait.

Mr. President, now, on another matter, for 3 years, the Biden administration's radical climate agenda has laid siege to affordable American energy and American consumer choice: slashed development of abundant domestic energy reserves, soaring prices for gas and heating oil, and a thicket of new regulations from unelected bureaucrats--from construction permitting to home appliances.

As the President's policies made life harder for working Americans, the Democrats took the administration's green obsession on the road. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry went to China hoping to treat climate goals as a ``free standing'' issue from our major strategic competition. Not surprisingly, the PRC saw things differently, and Chairman Xi stated publicly that China had no plans--none--to stop increasing its carbon emissions for at least another 7 years.

Meanwhile, the Governor of California took his own trip to Beijing and pledged to PRC officials that ``regardless of what happens nationally, sub-nationally, you have a partner in California.''

Well, they sure do. In fact, the supply chains for some of our coastal liberals' favorite green fashions, like electric vehicles, run directly through China. Close to 75 percent of lithium batteries, as well as 70 percent of our cathodes and anodes required to produce these batteries, come from China. The PRC holds more than 50 percent of the processing and refining capacity for critical minerals like cobalt.

By all relevant measures, the United States lags dangerously behind; but earlier this year, the Biden administration decided to make bringing these critical supply chains home even more difficult by waiving ``Buy American'' requirements for the materials used to make electric vehicle chargers.

Apparently, the administration is so desperate to force its radical climate agenda that it is willing to enrich America's single biggest strategic adversary to get there. Washington Democrats so badly want to force working Americans to drive blue States' millionaires' favorite electric cars that they are willing to cut communist China in on the profits.

Fortunately, the Senate had an opportunity yesterday to set things straight. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Rubio, a bipartisan majority voted to block the Biden administration's waiver policy using the Congressional Review Act. Apparently, the President's radical climate agenda is too radical for several Members of his own party. Hopefully, he will listen to them soon.

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

Mr. President, the challenges facing America and our allies today are not an a la carte menu of projects we can address at our leisure.

No. The most dangerous threats we face are all linked together--all linked together.

Take it from the author of the last administration's National Security Strategy. Russia, Iran, and China ``see the U.S. as weak and in decline'' and are willing ``to put aside their differences to collude against American interests.'' They are extraordinarily willing.

Finland is investigating a case of suspected sabotage by a Chinese ship against an undersea communications cable and gas line connecting the newest member of NATO to Estonia--one of the alliance's most stalwart backers of Ukraine.

Putin's Russia is reportedly helping Iran develop a space launch vehicle--a critical step toward building intercontinental ballistic missiles. In return, Iran isn't just sending Russia kamikaze drones to kill Ukrainians; it is helping build an entire drone factory--a drone factory--on Russian soil.

A Russia state energy company is reportedly providing China with highly enriched uranium. China is swarming social media platforms with pro-Hamas propaganda and protecting both Iran and Russia in the U.N. Security Council.

America doesn't have the luxury of facing these threats individually. Our ability to contend with complex, simultaneous threats is exactly what our adversaries are testing: a Russian war in Europe, Chinese aggression in Asia, Iran-backed terror in the Middle East, and a southern border that is dangerously lacking in credible enforcement. This is the reality we face right now. The Biden administration's supplemental request falls short of adequately addressing all of these linked threats.

Let me explain again what this moment actually requires.

In Europe, the administration needs to provide a clear strategy for a Ukrainian victory. That means prioritizing the lethal military capabilities Ukraine needs right now--no more half measures, no more hesitation.

As former Secretary of State Pompeo put it last week, Americans should be ``accelerating the flow of weapons and ammunition to Kyiv'' because abandoning Ukraine would bolster our adversaries.

We should be empowering Agency inspectors general to continue the unprecedented oversight and accountability work we have built into U.S. assistance since the beginning of Putin's escalation last year. We should continue to invest in expanding America's defense industrial base both to replace capabilities Ukraine is using with newer for our own use and to ramp up production of the ones Israel, Taiwan, and our Indo-Pacific allies and partners need.

In Israel's case, it is especially important that we take stringent measures to ensure no humanitarian assistance bound for the people of Gaza can be intercepted by Hamas terrorists.

I have said before, for any of this supplemental security funding to pass the Senate, we will also need to implement serious policy changes at the southern border. Senate Republicans will not rubberstamp the Biden administration's bailout for a problem it created. We are focused on policies to slow the flow--slow the flow--of illegal migration and secure the border.

America's strategic goals are crystal clear: degrade Russian military strength and prevent major war in Europe; reestablish credible deterrence against Iran and its terrorist networks; grow our defense industrial base to equip our military and our allies in the Indo- Pacific to raise the costs of Chinese aggression; and restore real border security right here at home. That is exactly what the Senate should be focused on.

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

Mr. President, 44 years ago last week, shock troops chanting ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel'' led Iranian revolutionaries across Tehran, overran the U.S. Embassy, and took 66 Americans hostage for 444 days. Iran's war against America, the ``Great Satan,'' and Israel, the ``Little Satan,'' has continued ever since. The regime has supported Shia terrorists, Sunni terrorists, and secular terrorists. It has underwritten violence across the world, from the 1983 marine barracks bombing in Beirut, to the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, to hundreds of attacks, masterminded by Qasem Soleimani, on U.S. forces in Iraq.

Tehran has invested its time and resources into cultivating the terrorists of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic jihad. The Iranian regime bears responsibility for their savagery. It is also responsible for more than 100 attacks on U.S. personnel and interests in Iraq and Syria just since President Biden took office. These attacks have spiked since October 7.

Two weeks ago, an Iranian-made suicide drone hit a U.S. military barracks in Iraq. Thankfully, the drone's explosive payload failed to detonate. But the message it sent about the state of President Biden's deterrence of the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism was as clear as day.

In recent weeks, U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted at least another 38 times with lethal force, and more than 40 servicemembers have been injured. Let me say that again. Iran-backed terrorists have attacked U.S. forces at least 38 times since October 7.

U.S. personnel are, of course, not the only targets of the Iranian war on Western influence in the Middle East. America's Arab allies have endured repeated attacks as well. This ongoing siege is not the behavior of an adversary that is being effectively deterred.

How we got here is no mystery. When the Biden administration took office, it rushed to restore a failed nuclear agreement with an Iranian regime that had long since proven it wasn't to be trusted. When Iran- backed Houthi rebels killed three people at an airport in the UAE and aimed two ballistic missiles at its capital last year, the administration responded with silence.

In response to the latest wave of attacks on U.S. forces, the President authorized a strike on an ammunition facility. His Secretary of State felt compelled to reiterate that ``we are not looking for conflict with Iran.'' Clearly, Iran is looking for conflict with us. The Iranian regime is working hard to kill Americans, undermine our influence, and sow chaos among our allies, and so far, you would have to say they are succeeding.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad perpetrated the deadliest day of violence against Jews since the Holocaust. Hezbollah stands ready, at Iran's behest, to escalate this conflict into a two-front war. Years of careful progress toward normalized relations between Israel and more of its Arab neighbors has been stalled.

Demanding that Israel cease fire against Hamas would lock in these

gains for Iran. It would grant amnesty for both the terrorists and their sponsors. We have a responsibility to reject these demands not just on behalf of our ally Israel but because amnesty for terrorists would embolden the Iran-backed threats to U.S. interests in the region.

As I have said before, effective deterrence requires both capabilities and credibility. It requires that a global superpower actually act like one. In practical terms, deterring Iran and its web of terrorists means meeting attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria with swift, lethal, and overwhelming military force. It means working with allies to deploy crippling economic sanctions and inhibit Iran's support for terror. It means finally taking the advice I offered President Biden when he took office: Set aside the failed nuclear deal; work with Republicans; and build an Iran policy that can endure long after he leaves office.