Floor Statements

Mr. President, there is a regrettable and un- Presidential thread that has been woven throughout the whole Biden Presidency. Whenever this President finds himself facing bad headlines, he tries to change the subject by fearmongering about civil rights and voting rights and pretending we are in the 1950s or sixties.

Remember early last year when the full impact of the Democrats' inflation was coming into focus? That is when President Biden flew to Georgia, screamed that Jim Crow was coming back and our democracy was on death's doorstep, and compared Republicans--listen to this--to Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. He compared us to Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis.

Well, here he goes again. Last weekend, down in Alabama, the President suggested that the right to vote in America is ``under assault'' today, on par with Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge nearly 60 years ago. Nobody believes this. Nobody seriously believes that race relations or voting laws or any of these issues are anywhere near--anywhere near--where they were back in the 1960s. This is utter nonsense.

President Biden again referenced the Republican State's voting laws that he last year called Jim Crow 2.0, as if all of that hysteria had not been completely disproven in the meantime.

Last November, the exact same Georgia voting law that the Democrats called evil and racist and the death knell for democracy created record-high turnout, lightning-fast voting lines, and a supermajority of African-American voters reporting that the voting experience was-- listen to this--excellent.

Do you know the share of Black voters in Georgia who described their voting experience under the new Republican law as poor? Let me say that again. Do you know the share of Black voters in Georgia who described their voting experience under the new Republican law as poor? It is zero. Zero. President Biden said this law was the second coming of segregation, and zero percent of Black voters said they had a poor voting experience.

Ah, but here he goes again with the same lies, the same hysteria. We are back in this bizarre, bizarre twilight zone where the President of the United States periodically says these utterly absurd, apocalyptic things with zero basis in reality, and everybody just carries on like it really didn't happen: Well, there goes the leader of the free world, shouting unhinged--unhinged--and false things about the end of democracy one more time. Oh, you know, just another day. What else is on TV?

It is utterly surreal and, frankly, embarrassing, the President walking on stage every couple of months, shouting angry things and appearing confused--confused--about whether it is 2023 or 1963--utterly confused. And nothing happens. The world keeps turning. The Republicans keep passing popular, commonsense laws that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. Voters of all races continue having good voting experiences. The President, his advisers, and a few radical activists are the only people stuck--stuck--in this fake parallel universe.

Our democracy is in fine shape no matter what a few extreme voices are shouting. It is this White House's grip on reality that is truly concerning.

Now, Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, a man stabbed to death in a public library, a woman kidnapped and mugged in broad daylight, a construction worker assaulted by suspects who fled in a stolen car--this is just a small sampling of life in Washington, DC, in recent months.

Carjackings and car thefts have become a daily routine. Homicides are racking up at a rate of four--four--per week. There have been so many attacks on people riding public transportation that civilian volunteers have had to create their own patrols on Metro trains and platforms.

We are the greatest superpower Nation in history, and this is our Capital City, but local politicians have let its streets become a danger and an embarrassment.

Earlier this year, local Democrats tried to respond by going even softer on crime and putting violent convicts back on the streets even more rapidly. Well, Republicans say: Enough is enough. Enough is enough. We have brought forward a resolution here in Congress that will overrule the left's effort to make this catastrophe even worse.

Democrats were not happy. The White House put out a formal statement opposing us. The vast majority of House Democrats voted against us. But then President Biden had an epiphany. He reversed himself. The public pressure was so great that the President now says he wants to sign the same Republican bill that he had previously announced he opposed.

The headlines tell the story: ``Biden's About-Face on DC Crime Bill Shows Democrats on [the] Defensive.''

The Democrats' flip-flop is good news for the residents of the District of Columbia and the 300-plus million Americans who deserve-- deserve--to be able to visit their capital in peace.

But our Democratic friends are not getting off the hook this easily. They are not going to be able to duck the heat for the violent crime surge to which their policies, their rhetoric, and their political movement have directly contributed. What about all of the Americans who live in cities and neighborhoods all across our country? In my hometown of Louisville, violent crime has become an unwelcome daily fixture. Since the start of the pandemic, over 500 lives have been lost to homicide--dozens of the victims have been children--and last fall, a car was stolen, on average, every 2.5 hours. Minneapolis has seen 19 percent more vandalism than at this point last year; San Francisco, 18 percent more robberies. In Chicago, this year's rate of car thefts is already 138 percent higher than last year's. In St. Louis, kidnappings are up 113 percent.

Over the weekend, in Atlanta, dozens of rioters attacked and laid siege to the site of the city's future public safety training center-- public safety training center. These people lit construction equipment on fire and aimed fireworks and Molotov cocktails at police officers. Twenty-three of these radical leftists have been charged with domestic terrorism.

This is what happens when the political left spends years--years-- spotlighting anti-law enforcement rhetoric.

This is what happens when Democrats at all levels decide we need fewer arrests, shorter sentences, and more generosity to criminals at the expense of less justice for victims and for families.

This is what happens when far-left dark money flows to radical candidates for district attorneys' offices and the liberal DAs simply refuse to prosecute whole sections of the Criminal Code.

This is what happens after every single Senate Democrat voted on party lines against additional police funding just last year. Every Democratic Senator voted in lockstep against Senator Rubio's amendment that would have redirected some of their massive, reckless tax-and- spending spree to actually fund law enforcement.

Look, nobody will confuse Washington Democrats' last-minute reversal on this one resolution for a ``road to Damascus'' moment on the crime issue. The American people are a lot smarter than that.

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

Mr. President, 1 month ago, the Biden administration published an official statement opposing Republicans' bill to block a disastrous new soft-on-crime law right here in our Nation's Capital. The administration was on the record against it.

Then the overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted against our commonsense resolution when it passed the House. The proposition behind our bill is simple. It goes like this: The answer to skyrocketing violent crime in the District of Columbia is not--not--to reduce criminal penalties even further. On what planet should this even need to be said in the first place?

The murder rate in Washington is 34 percent higher today than it was at this time last year. Auto thefts are up 110 percent right here in the Nation's Capital. Longtime DC residents are locking their car doors at every red light. Tourists visiting their own capital are worried about walking the streets.

Just yesterday, the chief of the Metropolitan Police lamented that the average homicide suspect that his department encounters has already been arrested--listen to this--11 times before, 11 times.

Here is what the police chief said:

What we've got to do--if we really want to see homicides go

down--is keep bad guys with guns in jail. Because when

they're in jail, they can't be in communities shooting

people.

That is the police chief here in the Nation's Capital.

But the radical politicians who run the city tried to do exactly the opposite. The liberal city council cooked up a soft-on-crime overhaul of the Criminal Code that would have made it even easier for repeat offenders to get back out on the streets. It would have brought the mandatory minimum sentences for crimes like robbery and carjacking down even lower than they already are. And it would have gummed up an already backlogged and dysfunctional criminal justice system by massively expanding jury trials--listen to this--for misdemeanors. It is like these local Democrats have never met a single criminal they actually want locked up behind bars. It is truly remarkable.

This is exactly why our laws give Congress the final say--the final say--over how our Nation's Capital is governed because we can't have the craziness and dysfunction of a few local politicians jeopardizing the basic public safety in the Federal district that houses our national government. So Republicans wrote a resolution to overturn this nonsense.

But bear in mind, this limited resolution would not even toughen criminal penalties. At this point, we are talking about keeping things where they are and stopping even further--even further--backsliding.

The first step is to use this legal tool to stop the unhinged local politicians from making the totally unacceptable status quo even worse. But even so, this is a bridge too far for the vast majority of Washington Democrats.

Just a month ago, the White House issued an official statement opposing House Republicans' commonsense resolution saying:

Congress should respect the District of Columbia's

[authority] to govern its own local affairs.

And listen to this: 82 percent of House Democrats fell in line behind the Biden administration and voted no. But then something amazing happened.

I think somebody at the White House may have shown the President his latest poll numbers on this issue--fewer than one in three Americans approve of the way he is handling crime--because Washington Democrats started panicking and reversed themselves on a dime. The President came here last week, pulled a 180, and told our Democratic colleagues he won't veto the resolution after all.

Now there appears to be a different kind of jailbreak brewing right here in the Senate, and a number of Democrats may jump ship at the eleventh hour, trying to act like they have been tough on crime all along. But our colleagues will not be getting off the hook that easily.

It is not an act of heroic political courage for Democrats to help Congress do our basic minimum job and stop the DC Council from making an unacceptable status quo even worse, and none of our colleagues get to erase their entire records with this one vote.

Remember, just last summer, every single Senate Democrat went on record against a proposal to redirect a portion of their massive taxing-and-spending spree to fight surging crime.

Let the record reflect what actually gets Washington Democrats' attention and what does not. It did not get their attention when rates of violent crime in America's major cities were accelerating this time last year. It did not get their attention that compared to prepandemic levels, homicide nationwide are up 34 percent. It hadn't gotten Democrats' attention when the streets of our own Federal district are where repeated offenders are driving spikes in carjackings and murder.

But now that even the mainstream media are beginning to hold them to account for their negligence, now Washington Democrats are finally trying to change their tune. Innocent citizens getting shot in our streets didn't do it, but when Democrats take political shots in the press, that finally gets their attention.

So, look, we will welcome any of our Democratic colleagues who can recognize basic sanity and want to be on the winning side for our Republican resolution later this week, but local, State, and national Democratic Party officials will not be getting off the hot seat as quickly or as easily as they have got convicted felons getting back on the streets.

Washington, DC is only 0.2 percent of our Nation's population. What about New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Philadelphia, even Louisville? Don't these citizens deserve some sanity as well? Don't the families and children and elderly people and young women of these communities deserve to walk their streets with safety and security too?

We cannot only have public safety in this country in exceptional cases when a Republican House and a narrowly divided Senate can force Democrats to do the right thing against their will.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, this past weekend, the people of Kentucky endured significant severe weather. The storms that ripped through the Commonwealth on Friday caused mass power outages, localized flooding, and high winds that reached up to 75 miles an hour. At least one tornado was recorded in west Kentucky.

Sadly, the storms have taken the lives of five Kentuckians. Elaine and I send our deepest condolences to the families who are grieving their lost loved ones. My office has been in close contact with Governor Beshear's team and local officials across the State. Emergency response efforts are working overtime to ensure those impacted have the resources to make a rapid recovery.

At peak, there were more than half a million households without power. I am grateful to the linemen and chainsaw teams that have tirelessly worked around the clock to restore power throughout the State. A number of school districts remain closed today as power restoration efforts continue.

So thank you to all the first responders who have graciously deployed without hesitation. The generosity and resilience on display in the on- the-ground operations have been truly inspiring. Throughout the Commonwealth, Kentuckians are rolling up their sleeves to help where they can, whether it is assisting clean-up efforts with chainsaws in hand or opening their homes to those in need. Kentuckians have both big hearts and hard knuckles, and together, we will get through.

My prayers are with all the storm victims and their families, and I stand ready to assist with our swift recovery in the days ahead.

Mr. President, the American people are deeply concerned about the collapse of law and order in our country. Thirty- nine percent of New York residents say they feel less safe than they did 1 year ago. Last month, 63 percent of likely voters in Chicago said they felt personally unsafe from gun violence and crime. By the way, on Tuesday, those Chicago voters tossed out the incumbent mayor. Americans see this problem going from bad to worse. More than 70 percent of the country expects we will see crime rates rise even higher this coming year.

Unfortunately, my fellow Kentuckians know this as well as anyone else. In my hometown of Louisville, youth homicides tripled between 2018 and 2021. In fact, since the onset of the pandemic, Louisville has seen the second worst increase in youth homicides among more than a dozen similar U.S. cities. Total homicides have slightly subsided from their record high in 2021, but they are still sitting in the triple digits.

One Louisville couple whose 19-year-old son was murdered by a convicted felon in 2019 summed up the way everybody is feeling. Here is what they said:

[Homicides] may be down, but it's not down enough.

Of course, crime is not limited to the most callous acts of murder; there is also a literal rash of brazen theft. Just 2 days ago, the town of Somerset in my State was stunned when their local car dealership was robbed point-blank. A group of masked thieves stormed the showroom and drove no fewer than six high-end cars right off the lot.

The nationwide decline in law and order hasn't been happenstance. Today's Democratic Party has made a deliberate decision to make public safety and innocent citizens a lower priority than repeat criminal offenders. This has happened at the Federal level, where prominent Democrats have spent years amplifying anti-police rhetoric that tangibly and provably hurts law enforcement and certainly leads to more crime.

It has happened at the local level, where liberal mayors and city councils around the country have waged rhetorical wars against their own police departments and sometimes actually followed through on cutting funding.

The left's ``soft on crime'' campaign has even infiltrated the legal system itself. Far-left political donors have worked to get radical district attorneys elected in and around major cities. Many of them have promptly instituted what amount to blanket amnesties to whole classes of crimes.

For example, in Los Angeles, the district attorney's refusal to go after major misdemeanor offenses has brought his office prosecution rate down to half of what it was under his predecessor. The Commonwealth's attorney over in Fairfax County has repeatedly declined to pursue justice against perpetrators of child sexual assault. The former district attorney in Boston who made headlines for declaring that charges involving 15 different serious crimes would be ``outright dismissed'' was actually rewarded by President Biden with a promotion to be the U.S. attorney for her whole State.

To make matters worse, in the midst of the violent crime surge that Democrats' actions have helped cause, their administration's Department of Justice has focused on many of the wrong things. A year and a half ago, Attorney General Garland instructed the Department, including the FBI, to go sniffing around stories of concerned parents voicing opinions at local school board meetings. In the middle of a violent crime wave, the administration's priority was extra security for moms and dads exercising their First Amendment rights.

Just last fall, armed FBI agents were sent to rural Pennsylvania to arrest a father at home in front of his young children because the man had defended his son during an earlier minor altercation outside an abortion clinic. Apparently, under this administration, the crime of protesting while conservative can bring FBI agents to your house with guns drawn.

Then just a few weeks ago, a memo leaked from the Bureau's Richmond, VA, office that talked about needing to put informants in church pews so the FBI could spy on Catholic Americans whose religious views they deemed overly traditional.

Our major cities are beset with murders and carjackings, but these Democrats are focused on subjecting God-fearing Americans to this junior-varsity J. Edgar Hoover act. It is nonsensical. And don't think for a minute they have simply turned up the security evenly, across the board. In fact, it has been quite the opposite.

While the Biden-Garland DOJ seems fanatically overzealous about harassing conservative citizens, they are currently asleep at the switch when far-left activists are flouting actual Federal laws.

When fringe activists advocated for violence against sitting Justices of the Supreme Court, when crowds spent months picketing outside Justices' private family homes in direct contravention of Federal law, the Attorney General didn't lift a finger. The Biden administration simply refused to enforce black-letter Federal law that prohibits picketing and protesting at judges' private residences. That is the law. This willful failure to enforce the law effectively made the President and the Attorney General willing partners in the improper pressure campaign that the leak of the draft opinion was surely designed to spark in the first place.

Get this--as the senior Senator from Utah has pointed out, there have been more than 80 recorded attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers since the start of last year and 130 attacks on Catholic churches.

Do you know how many of the offenders Attorney General Garland's DOJ has managed to charge? A grand total of two, just two. Suffice it to say the Attorney General had a lot to answer for at his oversight hearing before the Judiciary yesterday, but, unfortunately, Senators saw no evidence that a course correction is coming.

For example, the Attorney General wouldn't give Ranking Member Graham a straight answer on designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He wouldn't give a straight answer about whether we should expand mandatory minimum sentencing laws to address the fentanyl crisis. He seemed to imply the status quo is OK, and the DOJ already has the tools it needs to address the problem, which I would add, if true, would make the administration's failures all the more galling.

He also couldn't satisfy questioning from Senator Cornyn about whether the Department is deliberately not charging drug traffickers with offenses that would already entail mandatory minimums under current law; in other words, basically cherry-picking their way around existing penalties to make current law even softer on lethal drugs.

Look, the American people want and deserve law and order. Getting murderers off our streets and foreign poison out of our neighborhoods are among the most basic governing responsibilities you could possibly think of. Evidently, the Biden administration either does not agree or just cannot deliver.

Mr. President, last week, Senate Republican colleagues and I visited our allies and partners in Europe. We both reassured them of America's commitment to strength and leadership but also urged them to invest and engage more in security and the transatlantic alliance.

Our allies are coming around to the realization that security assistance to Ukraine is not just helping one nation's citizens defend their sovereignty. It is also degrading Russia's ability to further threaten Europe or threaten America and sending a powerful deterrent signal to other potential aggressors.

From our own perspective, much of the money that is being described as American aid to Ukraine is actually being invested in our own defense industrial base here at home. We are procuring new versions of munitions and weapons for our own military to replace often decades-old versions that we have sent over to Ukraine.

And, after an ill-advised ``holiday from history,'' European allies are now following America's lead. NATO members are making historic investments in defense that will keep paying dividends long after Ukraine defeats Putin's aggression.

The West is priming the pump of the industrial capacity that will ensure we are prepared to meet the larger military challenges posed by systemic rivals like China.

The recent press reports that Beijing is considering providing weapons to Russia should not come as a surprise. China has plenty of reasons to fear a Russian defeat and plenty of reasons to hope Russia gets away with forcibly seizing another country's territory.

Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony from Keith Kellogg, a former adviser to President Trump and cochair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute.

Like the vast majority of Republican Senators, he complained that the Biden administration had been actually too slow in providing military assistance to Ukraine. He noted that the best way to end the conflict was to ``enable Ukraine to defeat the Russian army in Ukraine.''

And what about the claim that the West supporting Ukraine is somehow distracting us from the threats posed by the PRC?

Here is what Kellogg said:

Make no mistake: weakness against Russian aggression is

weakness against the Communist-Chinese threat . . . Russian

victory in Ukraine today almost certainly means war for

Taiwan tomorrow.

Likewise, in Japan, senior officials are spelling out the clear link between the response to Putin and the prospects of deterring President Xi. They have taken historic steps to invest more in their own defense, and during our trip last week, Prime Minister Kishida announced that Japan plans to direct $5.5 billion in assistance toward Ukraine.

Other reports indicate that citizens of Taiwan are volunteering to fight alongside Ukrainians against Russia.

Let me say that again. There are reports that indicate citizens of Taiwan are volunteering to fight alongside Ukrainians against Russia.

The very people most threatened by the ambitions of the PRC tomorrow

understand the importance of Ukraine prevailing today.

Our friends and partners in the Middle East know the score as well. They have had to contend with Russia as an influential force in the region ever since President Obama failed to enforce his redline in Syria and Putin came rushing in to that conflict. Now our partners see the same Iranian missiles and UAVs that have struck their own cities being used by Russia to attack Ukraine. They know Moscow will repay Tehran soon somehow and that a victorious Russia will be less constrained in providing advanced capabilities to Iran.

So we have seen senior Israeli officials showing up in Kyiv. We have seen Saudi Arabia vote against Russia in the United Nations, pledge $400 million in assistance to Ukraine, and send its first official delegation to Kyiv in 30 years.

Clearly, America's friends all around the world know that the way we respond to today's threats will determine our readiness to face tomorrow's. They know it in Europe, they know it in the Indo-Pacific, and they know it in the Middle East.

And, here at home, Republicans know that the safest America is a strong--strong--and engaged America. That is why we will continue to push President Biden and his administration to move faster to exert our leadership, invest in our own defense, equip our friends, and keep America safe.

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

The PRESIDING OFFICE. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, Washington Democrats' reckless spending has embedded painful inflation deep in our economy. Runaway prices are making families' monthly budgets harder to balance. And as interest rates rise, the financial markets where millions of Americans invest their life savings are becoming literally more volatile.

Short-term bond yields are trading at their highest levels since the precipice of the Great Recession in 2007. Indications of expected stock market volatility appear to be actually on the upswing.

But with Americans' retirement accounts already in jeopardy, Democrats have gone looking for still more ways to put workers' savings at even greater risk. The Biden administration is trying to enact a radical new regulation that would help liberals use Americans' very own retirement savings as financial muscle for political causes they may not even support.

The Labor Department's proposed new rule would water down financial managers' fiduciary obligation to get the best return for their clients. This administration wants to let the fund managers prioritize extraneous factors--from companies' carbon footprints to various HR policies--when deciding where to invest hard-working Americans' savings.

The Biden administration wants to let Wall Street use its workers' hard-earned savings to pursue leftwing political initiatives instead of trying to maximize the returns for their clients' retirements. Democrats want to let money managers making these unrelated ideological goals a higher priority than getting their clients, ordinary American workers, the best returns for their own retirements.

Not surprisingly, studies suggest that investment funds where the managers put a political thumb on the scale in this particular fashion tend, not surprisingly, to underperform normal investments. When you put ideology ahead of seeking the highest returns, well, the returns, of course, suffer. And if the Democrats have their way, the losers will be ordinary American workers who have spent their whole careers putting money away for their retirement. In effect, we are talking about letting financial companies garnish the retirement savings of workers, without their permission, in order to pursue unrelated liberal political goals.

The Biden administration wants to put American workers in a position where portions of their potential returns on their retirement savings could be effectively donated away to leftwing political causes without their consent.

What a disastrous way to pile onto the pain they have already caused millions of American families.

I am grateful to my colleague from Indiana, Senator Braun, and to my friend and fellow Kentuckian Congressman Andy Barr for leading a bipartisan resolution in both Houses to make sure that Americans' retirement accounts are about one thing: maximizing returns on investments. I will be proud to support this commonsense measure later this week.

Mr. President, on another matter, crime in our Nation's Capital is literally out of control. Washington, DC, has already seen about three dozen homicides in just the first 2 months of the year. This is a 35-percent increase over last year's pace. There have been more than 1,300 thefts from autos--a 25-percent increase over last year's pace--and more than 1,100 thefts of motor vehicles, including carjackings, more than doubling last year's pace for a shattering 109-percent increase.

At best, the liberal city politicians who have presided over this ongoing collapse in law and order are doing basically nothing. The Mayor recently announced that the city will hand out free steering wheel locks to residents who own certain kinds of vehicles.

But some local officials are not content with doing nothing and have set their minds to making the situation actually worse. The city council just passed a new criminal code designed to go even softer still on crime, reducing penalties for a number of violent offenses and property crimes.

To a unique degree, unlike any other city in America, Washington, DC, issues are national issues. The District of Columbia doesn't belong to a handful of local politicians; it belongs to more than 330 million American citizens. The people need their government to function in safety. Families and school groups need to be able to come tour the Capital, which their own tax dollars help finance, in peace of body and peace of mind.

This is why the Constitution entrusts our seat of government to a Federal district. It is why Federal law gives Congress the ability to step in and help govern our Nation's Capital City if local politicians fail to take care of basic business.

Now, amazingly, the same Washington Democrats who have spent the last several years trying to steamroll localism and federalism in every way possible are now, all of a sudden, indignant at the notion that Congress might toughen up penalties for violent crime here in the District.

Just last year alone, Democrats, right here in this Chamber, tried to break the Senate rules so they could micromanage every county in America's election laws. They tried to ram through a bill that would have swept away State and local laws and forced every community in America to adopt radical abortion laws on par with China and North Korea. Over the last 2 years, Democrats have passed bill after bill that spent trillions of dollars to interfere in American families' lives and put more of our society under the thumb of Federal bureaucrats.

So when it comes to radical far-left priorities, Washington Democrats have no qualms whatsoever about this city steamrolling 50 States and local communities. They vote for that outcome 8 days a week. But now, when public safety is in free fall in our Federal city itself, now Washington Democrats pretend they have become small government federalists and they want Congress out of the picture. This is a desperate attempt to change the subject, and it could not be less persuasive.

Democrats want Washington, DC, to take over every State law, even small business decisions and every family's financial choices. But we are supposed to believe that cleaning up violent crime in Washington, DC, itself, would be a bridge too far. Really?

They are just trying to duck the real debate. Democrats want to debate anything and everything beside violent crime itself because the modern Democratic Party and its coalitions have decided it is more important to have compassion for serial violent felons than for innocent citizens who just want to live their lives.

That is the issue here--a binary choice. Should we be softer on crime like Democrats want at the State, local, and Federal levels, or should we be tougher on crime like Republicans and the American people want? That is the debate.

I want to thank Senator Hagerty for spearheading the commonsense resolution that would nullify the DC Council's insane pro-criminal legislation and bring at least an ounce of common sense back to the American people's Federal city.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, like a number of Senators on both sides of the aisle, I spent the first part of last week meeting with our NATO allies and our European partners in Munich.

In Munich, we met an array of world leaders, including a bipartisan meeting with German Chancellor Scholz. It is clear from our meetings in Munich that Europe is moving in the right direction, but more must be done across the alliance to rebuild our defense capacity and to give Ukraine the weapons they need to defeat Russia's aggression.

After the Munich Security Conference, Senators Tillis, Ernst, Budd, Britt, Ricketts, and I continued on to meet with more American partners in both Europe and the Middle East, where we met up with Senator Mullin as well. We met with both President Herzog and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel, with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, with the President of the UAE, as well as the President of Finland.

We had the pleasure of meeting some of our own American diplomats and civilian personnel who were on the ground advancing our Nation's interests in each of these places. I was especially happy to meet some of the men and women serving in our Armed Forces who are onsite at installations in these countries or stationed protecting our Embassies. It was a great honor to run into some fellow Kentuckians serving in the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing at Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE.

Here in Washington, you hear American leadership in the world discussed and debated like it is some fuzzy concept or abstract principle, but let me tell you, when you travel to Europe, when you travel to the Middle East, when you meet with the civilian and military leadership in those nations that are America's friends and wish us well--well, there is nothing unclear about the importance of America's leading role in the world. Our friends in Europe know beyond any doubt that peace and prosperity depend on a strong and involved America. Our partners in the Middle East know without a doubt that security and stability rely on a strong and involved America.

We are the indispensable Nation. Our superpower status is paramount-- not just for these other countries but even more importantly, for our own interests here at home. Putting up our drawbridge and pretending we can go it alone as ``Fortress America'' will not cut it--will not cut it--in the 21st century. It would put the future of our economic security, energy security, and national security at enormous risk.

The need for American leadership is palpable. My colleagues and I will have much more to say on this subject in the coming days.

Madam President, on another matter, the attention and prayers of the entire Nation have been fixed for the past several weeks on the town of East Palestine and the surrounding area in Northeast Ohio. The derailment of the Norfolk Southern train led to a disastrous chemical release, forcing many from their homes and leaving a community vulnerable. The people of East Palestine are understandably anxious and upset, and of course they deserve answers.

Our colleague the junior Senator from Ohio has been all over this issue. We will continue to work with him to ensure the people of Ohio are appropriately informed and supported in the months to come. We also thank Ohio Governor Mike DeWine for his leadership on the ground.

Unfortunately, this leadership has cut a sharp contrast with the Biden administration's Secretary of Transportation. Even amidst a catalog of crises on his watch, from this and other recent train derailments to the meltdown in air travel back during the holiday season, Secretary Buttigieg has seemed more interested in pursuing press coverage for woke initiatives and climate nonsense than in attending to the basic elements of his day job.

Understandably, there were some initial concerns in my home State of Kentucky about possible impacts since we are downriver, but the good news is that even after careful monitoring by local experts, there is no reason to believe that Kentuckians have anything to worry about. Local water authorities are monitoring the Ohio River's downstream water quality very closely, and thus far they have seen no cause for alarm whatsoever. Every indication is that the situation for Kentuckians is 100 percent normal. Even so, my staff and I remain in close communication with all the relevant utilities and local authorities.

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

Mr. President, a growing share of American citizens across the political spectrum say tackling rampant crime must be a top priority. And it is certainly no mystery why they feel that way. Just take my own hometown. One neighborhood in East Louisville just endured more than 30 burglaries in 30 days.

Last year, Washington, DC, saw 203 homicides. Those victims included 18 children, a huge increase over the prior year.

And 2023 is already off to an even worse start. Homicides and carjackings are already ahead of last year's pace. Last week, the city's crime wave touched Congress directly. A Congresswoman from Minnesota, Representative Angie Craig, was attacked in the elevator of her own apartment building right here in the District.

It turns out the Congresswoman's attacker had been arrested and convicted no fewer than 12 times before, most recently for assaulting a Metropolitan police officer. But there he was, this career criminal, just out roaming the streets.

As the Congresswoman herself put it afterwards:

We have to get these repeat offenders off the street.

You are darn right we do. Unfortunately, the radical local government here is doing precisely the opposite.

The DC Council has responded to the crime wave--listen to this--with a new bill to make the city even softer on crime. It lowers maximum penalties for violent crimes and creates new ways to shorten the sentences of incarcerated felons.

Well, the good news is the Constitution actually gives the U.S. Congress final say over issues in our Nation's Capital. And when the soft-on-crime local government has become completely incompetent; when Members of Congress can't go about their daily lives without being attacked; when families cannot come to visit our capital in safety, then it is about time the Federal Government provides some adult supervision.

Senate Republicans, led by our colleague from Tennessee Bill Hagerty, are leading an effort to use the rightful authority of Congress to address this emergency.

Last week, the Republican House passed their companion bill as well. And things have gotten so undeniably bad that more than 30 House Democrats crossed the aisle to support it.

So I hope the Senate Democratic leader will put partisanship aside and turn to Senator Hagerty's measure quickly when we reconvene. The safety and security of our citizens simply cannot wait.