Floor Statements

Mr. President, yesterday, communities across my home State endured another spate of heavy rains. Flash flooding was especially severe in Western Kentucky, where residents are still rebuilding after tornadoes pummeled the region just 19 months ago.

First responders have been moving quickly to rescue and evacuate those impacted, and I understand that so far, there are no reported injuries or deaths. I am thankful for the heroic work to keep Kentuckians safe.

My team is in touch with State and local officials to help however we can, and later today, I will speak with the mayor of Mayfield to get an update on the situation in her community.

Elaine and I continue to pray for the safety of West Kentuckians as they recover and rebuild in this time of need.

Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, ``The administration's plan is working as intended.'' That is the Department of Homeland Security's assessment of the situation at our southern border since President Biden ended title 42 authorities back in May.

On the Biden administration's watch, Customs and Border Protection reported record-shattering numbers of illegal border crossings. Yet Washington Democrats would like us to believe that with the flip of a switch, they have brought the crisis they helped create under control. Believe me, I wish that were true. But the American communities dealing with the effects of President Biden's open borders, like the record flows of deadly drugs, know different.

And so do the thousands of migrants caught up in this administration's humanitarian catastrophe along the border. Here, unfortunately, are the facts. While the Biden administration crows about migrant encounters declining, the month of May 2023 saw nearly 35,000 inadmissible persons arriving at southern border points of entry. That is double the May total from just a year before. And last month, in June, the number jumped to over 45,000.

Meanwhile, the number of FBI Terror Watch List suspects arrested at the border thus far this fiscal year has already set a new annual record. President Biden's HHS Department still can't seem to account for over 85,000 children who arrived at the border unaccompanied and were released into the United States.

I know several of our colleagues on this side of the aisle will have more to say on the subject later today, but if this is what the Biden administration calls a plan that is working as intended, I hate to see what they think failure looks like.

Mr. President, on another matter, for more than 2 years now, the Biden administration has sent the Senate a steady stream of radical and unqualified nominees. That much is hardly news. But today, the President's pick to serve as Secretary of Labor made an especially ignominious bit of history. Julie Su has now waited longer for confirmation by the Senate of the same party as the President than any previous Cabinet nominee on record.

Her nomination has spent 4\1/2\ months in limbo while Senate Democrats decide whether they can even muster a party line confirmation vote.

``We're still taking input.'' That has become sort of our colleagues' go-to line as they decide whether to hold their noses and vote this scandal-plagued, leftwing activist into the job. Well, I would suggest to our colleagues that there is not much that Ms. Su's radical record has left to the imagination.

This is a nominee who managed to botch her previous job so royally that

the biggest newspaper in her home State, The Los Angeles Times, called one department's performance on her watch an ``epic failure.'' That was the L.A. Times describing the performance of this California department head.

As head of California's labor authority, Ms. Su was responsible for tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment insurance payments--tens of billions of dollars in fraud. Why on Earth would the Biden administration think that sort of performance deserves an encore?

Well, maybe because Ms. Su has a penchant for doing the bidding of favorite liberal activists and Big Labor allies. On the job in California, Ms. Su reportedly instructed employees on how to hide illegal immigrants from Customs authorities working to enforce the law. Here in Washington, she has worked overtime to give unions access to more of the workers' paychecks and veto power over vast-evolving industries where independent contractors and gig workers thrive.

So American taxpayers have seen enough--enough--of Julie Su. When will Senate Democrats finally decide they have as well?

Mr. President, yesterday, President Biden welcomed the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, to Washington.

Unfortunately, some of the loudest anti-Israel voices in the President's own party took President Herzog's visit as an opportunity to call the world's only Jewish state racist, and House Democrats' leftwing boycotted President Herzog's joint address to Congress this morning.

These activist theatrics are unbecoming of elected American officials, and they are a distraction from the real threats that America, Israel, and our Arab friends face in the Middle East. I hope these threats were the focus of the conversation between the two Presidents.

Of course, threats to our shared interests have grown, in large part due to the Biden administration's naive approach to the world's largest state sponsor of terror, Iran.

Over the last 2\1/2\ years, Iran has dramatically increased its nuclear activities and even rebuffed the administration's repeated begging for a return to President Obama's flawed deal.

It has consolidated influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. It funds and

equips terrorist groups dedicated to Israel's destruction, and the deadly arm of its IRGC extends right up to Israel's borders.

In the Arabian Gulf, Iranian military vessels have targeted or seized commercial vessels offshore nearly 20 times since 2021. On the Arabian Peninsula, Iranian weapons have rained down on America's Saudi and Emirati partners.

In Iraq, Tehran works directly with Shia paramilitaries that threaten Iraq's sovereignty as well as Iraq's neighbors and U.S. forces and Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups channel massive flows of Iranian support into increasing attacks on Israeli and American lives.

Violent flareups along the border with Lebanon earlier this month have Israel's forces on particularly high alert, but as our friends face growing threats, they need more bipartisan solidarity from Washington, not performative BDS or lectures from politicians in glass houses.

Earlier this year, the President warned ominously that Israel ``cannot continue down this road'' in its efforts to pass domestic judicial reforms. According to reports, it is a message he intends to continue delivering to the Israeli Prime Minister in the weeks to come.

Well, Mr. President, nobody here in Congress seems to like it when foreign politicians weigh in on American domestic politics and tell us how to do our job, so I try to stay out of the domestic politics of fellow democracies.

I have confidence in the Israeli people and their democratically elected leaders, including President Herzog, whom we welcomed to the Capitol today, and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who will travel soon to Washington.

Ironically, the radical House Democrats who crowed about boycotting the President's historic address are the ones who could benefit the most from his perspective on guiding a coalition government and a diverse nation toward greater security, prosperity, and peace.

President Herzog's remarks were a reminder to anyone willing to listen that, even in the face of growing threats, Israel and its Arab neighbors continue to offer tremendous opportunities to actually promote peace.

I was in the region earlier this year, and I can assure any skeptics that the promise of the Abraham Accords is real. It is changing the geopolitical and economic climate of a region that remains extremely important to the United States.

I hope President Biden will seize on this progress and help Israel and Saudi Arabia improve their relationship--an achievable and transformational goal. Here in Congress, we have a tremendous opportunity before us to demonstrate our commitment to Israel by prioritizing American strength with the NDAA.

I hope our colleagues will continue to work swiftly to finish this essential business.

U.S. Supreme Court

Mr. President, now, on another matter, while Democrats like President Biden may not like the Israeli Government's attempts at judicial reform, they are obsessed with doing it themselves here in the United States.

For the past several months, when they are not rubberstamping radical nominees for the Federal bench, Senate Democrats have been laser- focused on pushing a coequal branch of government and bending it to their political will. To do so, our colleagues plan to steer the Judiciary Committee onto the thinnest constitutional ice.

This week, the committee will mark up what Democrats are calling the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act. But in the interests of actual transparency, let's discuss what our colleagues' intentions here actually are.

For months now, the Justices of the Court have been the subject of an uptick in pearl-clutching and hysterics from the political left and their media allies. We have been told we should be outraged that the Justices dare to buy and sell property and take vacations, that they speak at universities and write children's books, and that their spouses dare to pursue careers of their own.

As I have said before, I believe in the integrity and honesty of each member of the Court, and the Justices and their families should continue to ignore desperate attacks peddled by Democrats and organs of yellow journalism.

But no matter which headline is chosen as a pretext on any given day, it is the same old intimidation campaign by the left to undermine the Court.

By their own example, Senate Democrats have repeatedly told the American people that the entire Federal judiciary exists for no other reason than to fulfill their changing political whims. They have threatened Justices by name from the steps of the Court and threatened the institution itself in unfriendly amicus briefs. In each instance, Democrats have signaled their open disdain for a body that refuses to interpret the Constitution through the lens of their party's platform.

They have shown how afraid they are of a Court that upholds our laws as they were actually written, and they have expressed their profound misunderstanding of the Supreme Court's purpose in our Republic.

But this week, the same Senate Democrats who recently threatened to strip the Court's security budget would like us to believe that they are driven by nothing more than the pursuit of ethics and transparency. The same Democrats who warn solemnly about defending democracy would like to shatter the independence of a coequal pillar of our government.

The partisan bill before the Judiciary Committee this week deserves neither the Court's cooperation nor any Senator's support. I would urge each of our colleagues to reject it.

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

Mr. President, later today, the Senate will vote to begin consideration of this year's National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA is our most significant opportunity to set priorities for competition with adversaries like China and Russia.

It is our chance to keep the Biden administration focused on critical missions, like rebuilding America's defense industrial base, instead of the woke partisan agenda of political appointees. It is our time to lay the groundwork of robust investments in hard power.

For 62 straight years, from the thick of the Cold War through the Global War on Terror, the Senate has used the NDAA to match tailored solutions to evolving national security challenges.

This year is no different. Ranking Member Wicker, Chairman Reed, and our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee considered 445 amendments

and adopted 286 of them. Here on the floor, the full Senate should do the same. Senate Republicans are committed to exceeding the President's woefully inadequate defense budget request and delivering the resources our Armed Forces actually require. So I expect the Democratic leader to allow thorough consideration for a range of important amendments as we begin that work with the NDAA.

First and foremost, I would like to remind all of our colleagues that the No. 1 piece of business on the Senate's agenda is actually already overdue. So it is especially important that we begin this process without further delay.

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

Mr. President, across the country, surges in violent crime and deadly drugs have forced businesses to board up and working Americans to think twice about the cities where they have chosen to raise their families.

While repeat offenders are increasingly turned loose to run up longer rap sheets, victims of senseless violence are usually guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, just days ago, I was reminded of this when a 6-year-old girl in my hometown of Louisville was shot by a group of motorcycle thugs while riding in the back seat of her car. While she remains in critical but stable condition, I join the entire Louisville community in wishing her a full recovery.

Tragedies like this are unfortunately not unique to Kentucky. In our Nation's Capital, crime has surged to startling levels. Compared to last year, car thefts have shot up 117 percent, robberies are up 53 percent, and homicides are up 17 percent.

Just last week, a social studies teacher from Kentucky who was visiting Washington for a conference was fatally shot on a university campus. The assailant had a previous firearm charge and repeatedly violated the terms of his release. This young man from my home State was one of 10 people who were shot and killed in Washington during the first 5 days of this month, including a college student and an Afghan immigrant who had risked his life as an interpreter for the U.S. military.

Too many Americans are mourning loved ones, and in cities across their country, when they look for answers to this senseless violence, they find radical prosecutors refusing to do their jobs. Liberal district attorneys are watering down criminal codes and outright refusing to prosecute repeat offenders who ought to be behind bars.

Earlier this year, the liberal DC Council tried to pass a new criminal code that would make it easier for repeat offenders to get back on the street. Thankfully, Republicans used

Congress's jurisdiction over our Nation's Capital and blocked this nonsense. But at every level of government, Democrats continue to turn a blind eye.

Keeping our communities safe is a fundamental governing responsibility. The American people deserve to feel safe in their own streets.

Madam President, earlier this year, I had the opportunity to deliver an important message directed to our European allies in Munich. I told our friends that leading Republicans are as committed as ever to American leadership and a robust transatlantic alliance.

I emphasized our resolve for helping Ukraine to defeat Russian aggression, not because of some vague moral obligation but because of what it means for America's own core national interests.

Letting Putin's brutality succeed would mean putting some of America's closest trading partners one border closer to a violent and revanchist authoritarian regime. It would mean emboldening Putin's ``friend without limits'' President Xi in Beijing to assert even more aggressive influence over on the other side of the world.

I spoke yesterday about how our allies recognized what is at stake in Ukraine and about how Europe's biggest economies have woken up from holidays from history and made serious commitments to helping Ukraine actually win.

For some perspective on this important progress, more than half of the Javelin anti-tank weapons Ukraine has received have come from countries other than the United States. In fact, we now rank 13th in terms of assistance as a percentage of GDP.

Even as America continues to provide critical assistance to Ukraine, some nations are digging even deeper into their own arsenals and making a much greater relative investment of support. Russian aggression has spurred our European allies to heightened vigilance and greater resolve. Here at home, the American people overwhelmingly share that resolve.

According to a recent survey, three in four Americans--three in four Americans--including big majorities in each party, think it is important to us, to the United States, that Ukraine win the war. A clear majority also supports sending U.S. military aid to Ukraine. And more generally, 85 percent of Americans say a strong U.S. military is essential to maintain peace and prosperity.

So the American people's view of our national security is really quite clear, but here in Washington, providing for the common defense remains our biggest and most pressing piece of unfinished business. President Biden's defense budget request is woefully inadequate, especially as we look at the growing military requirements to deter or defend against Chinese aggression.

Folks in Washington are using the threat of China to justify all sorts of other policies and initiatives, but the reality is, the primary area of geopolitical competition is part power.

This growing threat makes our work on funding America's Armed Forces especially important, but the process of setting the Senate's national security priorities begins with a long-overdue annual Defense authorization.

I am hopeful that the Democratic leader is taking the necessary steps to bringing the NDAA to the Senate floor next week. I am hopeful this legislation will receive the thorough amendment process that it deserves.

The sooner we deliver on the NDAA, the sooner we can deliver the robust hard-power investments our Armed Forces need to replenish stocks, support our allies and partners, and deter growing threats to American security all around the world.

Madam President, on another matter, last month, the Supreme Court included in its most consequential rulings of the term a major blow to the Biden administration's sprawling conception of executive branch power.

For years, the administration grasped for a way to deliver a big dose of catnip to Washington Democrats' wealthy blue-State base in the form of student loan socialism. They had dreamed up a reverse Robin Hood system of taking from working families to pay off the student loans of highly educated professionals, moving hundreds of billions of dollars in outstanding debt from high-earning doctors and lawyers onto the taxpayers' tab.

The median college graduate earns 55 percent more than the median worker who holds a high school diploma. And the wealthiest households in the country owe a disproportionate share of America's student debt.

But Democrats are hellbent on forgiving that debt at the expense of folks who carefully saved, paid off their debt, or avoided it altogether.

Of all the ways Washington Democrats have dreamed up to waste taxpayer dollars and betray the trust of working Americans, this one may well have taken the cake. But when the Biden administration picked an especially outlandish deal for enacting this particular scheme, the Supreme Court ended up being involved.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Court ruled that 20-year-old emergency authorities designed during the War on Terror did not permit the President to ignore Congress and unilaterally cancel debt from his party's most reliable supporters.

As Chief Justice Roberts put it in the opinion of the Court, the administration's plan `` `modified' the cited provisions'' of existing authorities ``only in the same sense that the French Revolution `modified' the status of the French nobility.''

Washington Democrats tried to serve working families a raw deal. And by all accounts, they will probably try it again. But Senate Republicans continue to stand against radical student loan socialism-- in whatever form it may take.

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

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

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

Mr. President, right now, President Biden and other NATO leaders are convening in Lithuania. The way I see it, there are four key objectives for this important summit: securing more Western support for Ukraine; improving NATO's own military capabilities; strengthening collective resolve against the primary threats posed by China, Russia, and terrorists; and welcoming Sweden to the alliance. I am encouraged by the progress NATO is making towards each of these objectives, but there is more work to be done.

As transatlantic leaders confer about how to help Ukraine defeat Russian aggression, it is significant they are doing so in a Baltic country--itself once a ``captive nation'' subjected to decades-long Soviet occupation. The Baltics' proud history of resistance drives their active contributions to NATO and extensive contributions from their own arsenals to Ukraine's fight.

Decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, brutal Russian occupation has now found a new target, and the fate of Ukraine's resistance continues to depend on Western support. Western allies should use this week's summit to commit even more critical capabilities to tip the balance of forces in Ukraine's favor.

Time is of the essence for allies to increase production of critical munitions and to send longer range, more sophisticated, and more lethal systems to the frontlines. In this regard, I welcome President Biden's decision to provide Ukraine cluster munitions to improve its defense against Russian invaders.

However overdue, these munitions will both improve Ukraine's capability to strike Russian forces and compensate for shortfalls in standard artillery rounds. Despite vocal opposition from his own party, the President ultimately made the right call.

The fact of the matter is, Russia has been using cluster munitions for months in Ukraine. American cluster munitions have a substantially lower failure rate than the Russian munitions. And while the risk of unexploded ordnance is not zero, it is fantasy to believe that wars can be fought without risk.

Here is the bottom line: It should be up to Ukraine whether to employ these effective weapons on its own soil.

Plenty of liberals have criticized President Biden for this decision. The New York Times editorial board suggested that helping Ukraine match capabilities its aggressors are already using amounts to ``a clear escalation of the conflict.'' The senior Senator from Vermont suggested yesterday that the President should be concerned about what ``the rest of the world feels'' about these weapons. Never mind that providing these capabilities to Ukraine will save lives by facilitating a counteroffensive designed to stop Russia's conscious efforts to kill civilians.

If liberals are truly concerned about civilian casualties in Ukraine, they should support giving our friends the capabilities they need to end Russia's brutal war.

The stakes are simply too high for leaders in Washington to let their own naivete and virtue signaling get in the way of reality. Ukraine's war will not be won with yard signs or hollow promises to hold Putin accountable; it will be won with weapons.

The same rules apply to future conflicts we hope to deter. Unity is important, but hard power will be decisive. On this front, NATO is making progress toward rebuilding the hard power many allies allowed to atrophy. Every member of the alliance now spends at least 20 percent of its defense budget on actual capabilities. Our allies are making progress toward spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and more than half of the alliance should hit that goal by the end of next year. But we should agree that 2 percent is a floor, not a ceiling, for our commitments to collective defense. Our allies should invest in critical capabilities and modern systems that add to NATO's combat power, and they should revive defense industrial bases that have languished since the Cold War.

Certainly, another clear way to strengthen NATO is to welcome Sweden to the alliance. Like Finland, Sweden is a high-tech economy with a strong industrial base. Its leaders are committed to contributing to the alliance and are investing even more significantly in an already capable military.

I am encouraged that President Erdogan and Prime Minister Orban have agreed to support Sweden's accession, and I look forward to rapid action by the Turkish and Hungarian Parliaments.

For America's part, it is past time for the Senate to consider the National Defense Authorization Act. We have an obligation to ensure the U.S. military remains the world's preeminent fighting force, capable of deterring and defeating enemy aggression.

The Senate will have an opportunity to lead our allies by example as soon as the Democratic leader brings the NDAA to the floor.

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