Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, the eyes of the American people and the entire world are fixed on Eastern Europe. Vladimir Putin is continuing his unjustifiable invasion of a sovereign country and his unprovoked killing of innocent people.

Over the weekend, Senators were honored to speak electronically with Ukraine's brave leader, President Zelenskyy. His courageous leadership has helped rally freedom-loving people the world over to the Ukrainians' cause. One of his main pleas was that America and our partners continue providing Ukraine with additional military assistance and to do so very quickly. Long before the invasion began, I was on this floor warning the Biden administration that we could not let assistance be trickled out at the speed of bureaucracy. I certainly hope that lesson has finally been learned.

Iran

But even while one foreign policy nightmare plays out in Eastern Europe, inexplicably, the Biden administration is reportedly poised to announce a giant, gratuitous capitulation to our principal adversary in the Middle East as well.

The nature of the Biden administration's approach to Tehran thus far has concerned not just Republicans but Members of both parties.

Our Democratic colleague, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, recently exhorted the administration and our partners to ``exert more pressure on Iran to counter its nuclear program, its missile program, and its dangerous behavior around the Middle East, including attacks on American personnel and [American] assets.''

I would note that Senator Menendez also stressed the importance of building bipartisan support for any new deal which the President's team wants to cook up with the Iranians. This is the same message I conveyed to the President and his top advisers at the beginning of the Biden administration. If he wants his policy or his deal to endure beyond his Presidency, he must bring Republicans on board.

Regrettably, President Biden appears to have ignored this good advice. Reports indicate a sequel--a sequel--to the bad 2015 nuclear deal may be imminent. Yet the administration has laid zero bipartisan framework.

Rumors of this impending deal--because rumors are all that Congress has--suggest it would be an enormous step in the wrong direction. It appears not to be a longer and stronger deal than the JCPOA, as was promised, but a weaker and shorter deal. It appears

not to safeguard and increase our leverage over Tehran and its Revolutionary Guard but instead to breezily, sort of, sign our leverage away.

President Biden appears to want to give Tehran enduring sanctions relief now in exchange for limited and short-term curbs on their nuclear program. A reminder of how bad President Obama's Iran deal was is the fact that these restrictions will begin to expire as soon as next year. That will put more pressure on Western negotiators, not on Iran.

This is extortion playing out step by step, and this administration seems prepared to sign on to it. Iran gets serious sanctions relief and expanded trade with Russia and China, their price is even fewer restrictions than the original failed Iran deal, and those restrictions begin to expire in just 2 years. This is really wildly reckless. This is an administration chasing a deal--any deal--instead of pursuing our interests.

There is some suspicion the administration is desperate for any excuse to ease sanctions on Iranian oil exports to help blunt the impact of the European crisis on American's pocketbooks. This White House seems determined to go hat in hand and beg every bad actor around the world to ramp up their own fossil fuel production but still will not stop their holy war against our own American energy production here at home.

If press reports of the deal are accurate, the President and the Democrats on Capitol Hill surely understand that it will not be accepted widely or quietly.

If the President seeks to remove sanctions on Iran, there will be votes. Democrats who now regret their recent vote to protect the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline should think twice before voting to help President Biden ease sanctions on Iranian entities that engage in terrorism, missile proliferation, or human rights abuses.

Given Chairman Menendez's concerns, I hope and would expect the Foreign Relations Committee will hold major hearings. But I know this much for certain: The next time Republicans control the Senate, vigorous oversight will take place over the diplomatic mess that is unfolding in the Middle East: the failure to consolidate the historic gains of the Abraham Accords; gigantic unilateral concessions to the most active state sponsor of terrorism in the entire world; pointless capitulation to Iran-backed Houthi terrorists that has only yielded even more violence in Yemen and increased ballistic missile and drone attacks against Saudi and Emirati cities.

It is bad enough that Democrats in Congress have spent months actively fighting against sufficient funding for our national defense and our Armed Forces, but these dynamics are made even more dangerous by a White House that is actively choosing weakness in the Middle East.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, yesterday morning, I hosted Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the President's nominee to replace Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court, in my office. I was glad to meet with Judge Jackson. We enjoyed a cordial discussion.

Like I have been saying, Republicans fundamentally believe the nominee, the Court, and the country all deserve better than the disgraceful displays that Senate Democrats have routinely visited on nominees of Republican Presidents. The Senate's process should be dignified, but it also must be vigorous, exhaustive, and painstaking. We are talking about a lifetime appointment to our Nation's highest Court.

This is a moment when issues relating to the law and the judiciary are directly hitting American families, from skyrocketing murders and carjackings, to soft-on-crime prosecutors' effectively repealing laws, to open borders. This is also a moment when the far left has declared open season on the very concept of judicial independence itself.

President Biden even bowed to the radicals and set up a Court-packing Commission.

Now, Justice Breyer has distinguished himself by loudly and proudly putting those radicals in their place. He has consistently denounced the concept of partisan Court packing and defended the Court's legitimacy.

One would hope his successor would follow suit, but curiously the same radicals who want to turn Democrats into the party of Court packing also badly wanted Judge Jackson for this vacancy. It is a matter of record that this nominee was the anointed favorite of these fringe groups. At this time last year, they were already spending dark money to raise her profile.

So I intend to explore why groups that are waging political war against the Court as an institution decided Judge Jackson was their special favorite.

Like I said, I enjoyed meeting the judge. She is clearly a sharp lawyer with an impressive resume, but when it comes to the Supreme Court, a core qualification is judicial philosophy. Our citizens need Justices who treat all parties fairly, apply our laws and Constitution as written, and leave legislating to us here in Congress.

I raised all these matters yesterday. I look forward to gaining more clarity about Judge Jackson's positions during the vigorous and thorough Senate process to come.

(Ms. ROSEN assumed the Chair.)

Vaccines

Madam President, now on another matter, our Nation faces serious challenges to our citizens' health and wellness. COVID-19 has been one of them. Abuse of illegal drugs and prescription pills is another. Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are ever present. Many of these health crises hit Middle America especially hard and specifically rural America.

Data show that rural Americans are disproportionately likelier to die from a number of potentially preventable causes. That is why I have been focused on expanding local treatment centers and telehealth and fighting the drug epidemic tooth and nail.

Last week, I hosted Dr. Rahul Gupta, the administration's drug czar, in Kentucky. Opioid abuse is a staggering problem in our State and throughout the country. Last year, even during COVID, fentanyl abuse alone was the biggest cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 45. That is not even all drugs, just fentanyl alone.

In short, this may literally be the worst time in American history to deliberately cut healthcare access in rural America, but that is just what the Biden administration has done. President Biden told every thinly stretched doctor's office and hospital that accepts Medicare that they had to fire workers who didn't want the COVID vaccine.

Now, I have been a consistent advocate for getting vaccinated. They offer powerful personal protection against hospitalization and death, but they do not prevent people catching or transmitting the current variant. There is no moral justification for sweeping mandates. The benefits accrue to the person who gets the shot.

What is more, the CDC's own research says that prior infection provides protection that is at least as strong as the vaccines. But the President's overreaching mandate ignores that. His policy unscientifically discriminated against people who have immunity from prior infection. They had to comply anyway or lose their job.

The President tried to force such a mandate on all kinds of workers across America. The courts slapped that down easily. But his mandate targeting healthcare workers remains in effect.

It is unfair on a personal level, but even just looking at public health, it is terrible policy for rural America. We cannot have President Biden mass firing doctors and nurses when hospitals are already short-staffed.

One hospital leader in Marshall County, KY, told me that ``this is an absolute disaster. We are a small critical access hospital with 250 employees. . . . We have begun assessing areas that may have to be [literally] shut down.''

A head of a hospital in Calloway County told me that ``I can afford to lose not one more nurse.'' He said the Biden mandate ``makes no sense''--no sense--``for rural healthcare.''

The head of a critical access hospital in Hardinsburg says that ``the mandate is devastating for Kentucky hospitals.''

Clearly, many of my colleagues are hearing similar things. Yesterday, over the objections of every Senate Democrat who voted, Republicans stood up for Americans' right and Americans' healthcare access. We passed a resolution to overturn President Biden's mandate that would drain doctors and nurses out of middle America.

If Washington Democrats could safely hobnob in the Capitol all Tuesday evening with no masks, then they ought to stop pushing mass firings on essential health workers.

Unfortunately, if we know anything about this Democratic House, this commonsense measure may well die on Speaker Pelosi's desk.

I sincerely hope our colleagues across the Capitol will see reason and pass this bill.

Mr. President, in 1822, pioneer settlers founded Calloway County in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase. Two hundred years later, in November, the residents of this community are celebrating their bicentennial and paying tribute to the adventurous forefathers who made it possible. Today, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Calloway County for reaching this impressive milestone.

Like the rest of the Jackson Purchase, Calloway County was bought by the Federal Government from the Chickasaw Indians in 1818. This fertile land, bordered by the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, was prime territory for American farmers seeking to move westward from the young Nation's eastern core. Those early settlers poured into Calloway County, on the Purchase's eastern edge, and incorporated the county in 1822, with the early settlement of Wadesboro serving as their county seat.

Calloway County developed like much of the rest of the Purchase, with large farms bolstered by easy access to Kentucky's inland waterways and the urban markets that lay beyond. Calloway's early residents built a one-room, log courthouse in 1823--the first public building constructed in the Jackson Purchase--and founded several towns, including Murray, the current county seat. Calloway quickly grew into a prosperous community with thousands of residents.

By the end of the 19th century, Calloway County formed an integral part of Western Kentucky's commerce, culture, and governance. In recognition of the county's significance, Calloway native Rainey T. Wells started the Calloway Normal College in the 1890s to train teachers. Though that school closed in 1913, Wells secured State funds to construct Murray State Normal School in 1923, now known as Murray State University. Wells became Murray State's second president in 1926 and would go on to practice law in front of the Supreme Court in 1937, before returning to his Calloway County home until his death.

Another important moment in Calloway's history came when the Tennessee Valley Authority dammed the Tennessee River and created Kentucky Lake, a vast reservoir on the county's eastern edge. In addition to supplying hydroelectric power to Calloway County residents, the lake created new recreational attractions for the local community. Today, Kentucky Lake--and the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area that governs its neighboring forest areas--is one of the largest natural attractions in the Commonwealth, bringing millions of tourists to the region every year.

Today, Calloway County is a unique Kentucky community, navigating new pathways in education and recreation while still remaining firmly rooted in its agricultural and historical traditions. Murray is a burgeoning town with nearly 20,000 residents, serving as both a host to thousands of Murray State University students and a gateway to the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. The county's attractions include museums, parks, Civil War forts, and miles of beautiful rolling hills. It is no surprise that, every year, more and more families decide to call Calloway County home.

Calloway County residents will have much to celebrate in their upcoming bicentennial. They and their pioneer ancestors have built a thriving community, complete with everything prospective newcomers could desire in a new home. Their upcoming celebration will include local civic groups, nonprofits, churches, sports teams, and businesses--a colorful tapestry of every organization that makes Calloway County great.

I want to give special thanks to the Calloway County civic leaders who are working so hard to make this year's bicentennial celebration possible. Through their hard work, their community continues to prosper, even 200 years after its founding. On behalf of the Senate, I share our congratulations with every Calloway Countian and join them in honoring 200 years of proud Kentucky traditions.

Mr. President, last night, President Biden gave a State of the Union Address that might have worked OK for a popular administration that had been successfully tackling America's problems and naturally earning high marks, but that is not the reality in which we live.

Democrats spent the last 12 months making major and painful policy errors. The public overwhelmingly disapproves. President Biden didn't need to stay the course and rehash a scattered wish list; he needed to make a dramatic pivot. But he chose not to.

The President first discussed Ukraine. Everyone agrees with the sentiments President Biden expressed, but the sentiments are not enough. The President articulated no meaningful new steps, no specific plan. He made no explicit commitment to keep flowing weapons, intelligence, and advanced capabilities into Ukraine as long as the Ukrainians need them, nor did he explain why his administration was slow to provide lethal assistance in the first place. Instead, the President focused on trying to claim credit for the remarkable European and worldwide response that his administration did not foresee, let alone orchestrate.

Apart from Ukraine, the President's other remarks on our dangerous world were not just insufficient; they were basically nonexistent.

The President spoke for over an hour but only mentioned China twice. Neither time had anything to do with national security or military modernization. The President only mentioned Iran one time, and it was literally by accident. There were zero mentions of North Korea, zero mentions of the botched Afghanistan retreat the administration originally boasted was a ``success.'' Our 13 servicemembers who lost their lives were completely unmentioned until Governor Reynolds took the microphone. And there were zero mentions of rebuilding the defense budget that President Biden actually tried to cut last year.

Meanwhile, the President's speech tried to skate by the serious kitchen-table concerns that are actually keeping families up at night. The President talked about ``made in America'' but keeps fighting against energy independence. Democrats want us to ``Buy American'' but not American oil or gas. On President Biden's watch, we have set a new record for importing Russian oil, and we are begging OPEC to produce even more, and his energy vision is to dump huge subsidies into supply chains that are dominated by China--borrowing from our grandkids to build back Beijing.

The President tried yet again to revive the zombie spending plans which a bipartisan majority of Senators have already killed and buried because they would make inflation even worse. He tried to brag about fancy technology on our southern border, as if we hadn't just seen a new record for illegal crossings on his watch.

The President's address was not responsive to the country's concerns. He needed to pivot, but he didn't.

CNN conducted an instant poll. As you might expect, it oversampled Democrats. Even so, the percentage who gave the President's speech high marks was the lowest they have seen in 15 years.

Iowa's hugely successful Governor, Kim Reynolds, offered the clearest possible contrast. She spoke for the working families who are suffering under Democrat policies. She outlined a commonsense Republican vision of stability at home, strength abroad, law and order on our streets, and sanity in our public schools.

November is just months away. If President Biden does not correct course sharply and quickly, the American people may correct course for him.

Tribute to Angie Schulte

Mr. President, now on an entirely different matter, one of the occupational hazards of Senate service is having to say goodbye to truly remarkable staff professionals.

I have already been through this rodeo with Angie Schulte. All the way back in 1988, this dedicated caseworker left my office for the nonprofit sector, but back in 2010, I leapt at the chance to hire Angie back as my State office manager, and her second tour of duty has been a huge success.

I have known Angie for 40 years now. I have watched her master a wide variety of roles. She is an integral part of my State office. She keeps all of us on task and on time. But, unfortunately, tomorrow, her second tour of service will end with a second farewell. Angie is retiring after decades of hard work and phenomenal public service.

For 12 years, Angie has been the steady rudder steering my instate team. If there was a complicated problem, she would fix it; a scheduling conflict, she would resolve it; a new staffer needed help growing into her role, she would provide it. Angie combines meticulous efficiency with a totally charming and cheerful demeanor.

My relationship with Angie actually predates my time in the Senate. Her mother Jeannette was my personnel director for my county administration. I was a newly elected Republican in a heavily Democratic county government who needed all the smarts and all the help that I could get. Angie's mother Jeannette proved invaluable.

In 1982, her daughter Angie came on board as office receptionist. I quickly promoted her, not once but twice. She served as office manager in my Neighborhood Response Office. When I won statewide in 1984, Angie was one of my first hires.

With the same vigor that helped Louisville residents settle property disputes and parking tickets, Angie began helping Kentuckians across the State navigate the morass of Federal Government redtape. Expertise, an eye for detail--Angie grew into the consummate public servant. Our whole team was overjoyed to welcome Angie back after her tenure with Metro United Way, one of the Commonwealth's largest nonprofits.

Angie is famous for humming and whistling while she works and for throwing extravagant birthday parties for her colleagues. She is unfailingly upbeat. She has a permanent positive attitude and, boy, does she get results for Kentucky.

As you can see, it has been an honor to have Angie's talents on our team. I am just grateful that when her sterling 40-year career concludes tomorrow, a 40-year friendship will not.

So, Angie, I wish you every happiness as you spend more time with Steve, with Kathleen and Becca, and with those grandkids, Grant, Logan, and Elizabeth.

I am eternally grateful for your outstanding good work.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, last week, President Biden announced his choice to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Judge Jackson was confirmed less than a year ago to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Now, every Senator must carefully evaluate Judge Jackson's record, legal views, and judicial philosophy. The nominee, the Senate, the Court, and the American people all deserve a process that is free of embarrassing antics that have become the Democratic Party's routine whenever a Republican President nominates a new Justice--the baseless smears, the shameless distortions. The country deserves a process that is painstakingly rigorous and befitting the seriousness of a lifetime appointment to our highest Court.

I, for one, don't care what Judge Jackson's friends wrote in her high school yearbook. I care that American families are facing major crises that bear directly on Federal courts and our legal system, from surging violent crime and systematically weak prosecutors to open borders and campaigns to shrink religious freedom and the rights of conscience.

What is more, one of our two major political sides increasingly makes noise about attacking the very legitimacy and structure of the Supreme Court itself. The country needs a serious and sobering examination of all of it.

I look forward to discussing these issues and many others with Judge Jackson when I meet with her tomorrow morning.

It has been less than 1 year since Judge Jackson was confirmed to the DC Circuit. Since then, I understand she has authored only two opinions,

both in the last several weeks. I am troubled by the combination of this slim appellate record and the intensity of Judge Jackson's far- left, dark money fan club.

Throughout the jockeying that preceded President Biden's announcement and, indeed, dating back to her prior confirmation last year, Judge Jackson has attracted loyal and intense support from some of the very same dark money, far-left activists who have declared war on the institution of the Court itself. One has to wonder why these leftwing organizations worked so very hard to boost Judge Jackson for this potential promotion.

I am sincerely looking forward to meeting Judge Jackson, to a thorough conversation tomorrow morning, and to the vigorous Senate process that lies ahead.

State of the Union Address

Mr. President, on another matter, tonight, President Biden will deliver his first State of the Union Address.

One year into his term, the American people have a lot of questions they would like answered: why Democrats plunged ahead with reckless spending that caused the worst inflation in 40 years, why violent crime and illegal immigration are setting all-time records, why the administration haphazardly withdrew from Afghanistan and proposed to cut defense spending after inflation at a time when Russia is trying to redraw maps in human blood.

When President Biden took office 1 year ago, he inherited major tailwinds and a brimming optimism. Brilliant scientists and Operation Warp Speed had developed vaccines in record time, and we were already putting doses in more than a million arms every day. Scientific data had already proven that, after a devastating year for children and families, schools were safe to reopen in person.

Thanks to the historic CARES Act and another targeted, bipartisan stimulus that had just passed weeks earlier, our economic foundations had weathered the pandemic lockdowns and were primed for a roaring recovery back to normalcy and prosperity. Before the pandemic, Republican policies had America as a net exporter of oil for the first time since World War II.

The same voters who gave President Biden the Presidency gave him a razor-thin margin in both Chambers. His only mandate was to govern from the middle.

In his inaugural address, President Biden promised to do just that-- to unite and to heal--but for the past year, he and his administration have often behaved like they are trying to fail their own test.

Remember, the President made stifling American energy independence a day-1 priority, killing miles of pipeline and freezing new jobs and new exploration with the stroke of a pen.

Then came the spending bill his administration called the ``most progressive domestic legislation in a generation'' that top liberal economists warned would ``set off inflationary pressures . . . we have not seen in a generation.'' Inflation has surged so steeply, most Americans have seen their real wages actually cut.

Then came the decision to cut and run from the international coalition we led in Afghanistan. President Biden's top military advisers warned that retreat would embolden terrorists, endanger loyal partners, and leave our intelligence capabilities in the region badly handicapped; but the Biden administration failed to heed these warnings and presided over a disastrous withdrawal. Our biggest adversaries took notes, and now, one of them is testing the limits of the West's resolve to oppose his murderous conquest.

Then there are the alarming trends this administration has placed on the back burner but which communities across America are facing every day.

After spending the Presidential campaign talking about potential amnesties, the Biden administration wasted no time in making our southern border more porous. The CBP has reported its highest single- year total for southern border encounters on record--with no sign of a coherent administration response in sight.

Meanwhile, Democrats' response to a historic surge in violent crime has been to double down on the hostility toward police and the prosecution that has encouraged it. Across America, radical local prosecutors are simply declining to charge whole categories of crimes. But, instead of condemning this extremism, the Biden administration has endorsed it, staffing their Justice Department with some of the most outspoken critics of law and order.

Meanwhile, this Justice Department goes out of its way to keep tabs on parents who dare to question teachers unions' veto power over established medical science or who exhibit skepticism toward woke propaganda in public schools.

So that is a heck of a rap sheet, but I am afraid the most damaging legacy of President Biden's first year is bigger than just his unwise policies. Democrats have not just tried pushing bad ideas through our institutions; even under the Presidency of a self-styled institutionalist, the far left has tried to wreck--wreck--our institutions altogether.

Tonight, we will hear from a President who assigned a commission to study packing the Supreme Court because his party didn't like its current ideological makeup.

We will hear from a President who urged his former colleagues to tear up Senate rules in order to rewrite the rules of American elections, likened anyone who opposed these efforts to infamous racists, and continues to stoke racial animus with wild nonsense about a revival of segregation.

We will hear from an administration that has failed its own tests and which, candidly, has the public approval figures to match.

On foreign affairs in particular, I am sincerely rooting for President Biden's success. We need steady, serious, and smart leadership to help guide the West through this perilous time, but on most issues, what the American people deserve tonight is a commitment to drastically change course. If this administration does not majorly correct its course, the American people may correct course for them this coming November.

I am glad the American people will also hear from Governor Kim Reynolds this evening. She is a strong and successful leader who delivers real solutions for the great people of Iowa. She fought COVID without declaring war on freedom or common sense. She backed the blue, stayed tough on crime, and kept Iowa's economy open.

I look forward to hearing her reaction to the President's remarks and her thoughts on how Washington could better serve Middle America.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, last week, Putin again invaded the sovereign territory of a neighboring country. Sadly, it was long clear that attempts to invoke genteel international norms would not move this self-styled czar.

Putin only cares about norms insofar as he wants to rewrite them. He only cares about the peaceful international order insofar as he wants to disrupt it.

Like his Soviet predecessors, Putin has always rejected the postwar order that held up states' sovereignty and territorial integrity as sacrosanct. Putin and Xi of China both want to replace this peaceful order with spheres of influence.

They want to bend other countries to their will and redraw borders by force. Make no mistake, this crisis does not and will not end with Ukraine. And the reason isn't simply that appetites grow with eating. Confrontation with the West is Putin's main objective.

He wants to restore the Russian empire. He said explicitly, he wants NATO rolled back to its 1997 borders. We have a dictator trying to dismember a U.S. partner, trying to decapitate its democratically elected government.

Does anybody really think it stops here? Does anybody think that Europe, or for that matter, Taiwan, will be safe if the world lets this stand?

We will only deter further Russian and Chinese aggression if Putin is made to pay a significant price. Massive and sustained sanctions that undermine his ability to wage war, now and into the future, will be necessary.

But sanctions alone will not suffice. Russia has massive currency reserves. It has options to blunt economic pain and to impose countercosts on America and our partners, at least in the near term. The sanctions that would hurt Moscow the most would also have a significant impact on our friends in Europe. So there will continue to be resistance to maximalist sanctions.

To date, the Biden administration has sent mixed messages about its own sanctions policy. For months, we heard that prospective sanctions were being drafted to deter Putin's aggression. But last week, the President said he and his advisers never thought sanctions would deter Russia. Now, they are finally imposing sanctions but short of everything that is available.

So to what end exactly? What is the administration's coherent plan? I believe we should have used more of these tools prior to this brutal escalation to deter Putin and to weaken his capacity to wage war. Now, we must use these tools aggressively to impose massive costs for Putin's aggression, to demonstrate to other aggressors that we mean business, and to degrade Putin's longer-term ability to threaten NATO and compete with the West.

But ultimately, sanctions are no substitute for military power. They are no substitute for the steps we must take

to help Ukraine now and to defend ourselves in the future. Moscow and Beijing will only be deterred from aggression if they see concretely that military force cannot achieve their objectives and the cost of military aggression will be too high.

In the immediate term, we must ensure the Ukrainians can adequately defend themselves and impose costs on Russia that prove prohibitive. The administration brags about giving $650 million to Ukraine last year, but the manner in which it did so deserves scrutiny.

When Putin built up forces along Ukraine's border last spring, the Biden administration delayed an arms assistance package, literally, for months.

A headline from last June read: ``White House freezes Ukraine military package that includes lethal weapons.''

Even as Putin began directly threatening Ukraine last fall, an assistance package languished for weeks at the White House before it was approved. This weekend, the administration rushed to announce another $350 million in military assistance. For which weapons? On what timeline? And how will the weapons reach the brave Ukrainians who have lost ground?

So Congress must use its oversight tools to ensure we are providing Ukraine the weapons it needs as quickly as possible. The same goes for helping to shore up our NATO allies' defenses along the eastern flank. And we need to identify what shortfalls, redtape, and limiting factors have slowed our assistance, so we are better prepared to help the next partner in need.

As I have warned repeatedly, we cannot afford to move at the speed of bureaucracy.

Beyond the immediate crisis in Ukraine, American Presidents, beginning with President Biden, must recommit our Nation to the longer- term challenges that we face. Seventy-two years ago, Harry Truman led the West in rebuffing the Communist assault in South Korea, as well as contesting Soviet domination over Europe.

America made sure NATO would not be a toothless political alliance, but rather a capable military fighting force. This meant sustained investment in American and allied military strength. Defense funding was the precondition for impactful diplomacy that kept the Cold War from going hot.

Now, it is this President's job to seriously meet the growing threats posed by Russia and China. The United States and our allies and partners must understand that the core of our competition with Russia and China is the military dimension.

President Biden's first budget proposed to actually cut defense spending in real terms. Congress had to take bipartisan action to beef up the NDAA to correct his error. Clearly, more investment is needed. Congress must keep strengthening defense capabilities as we work on appropriations.

But President Biden must lead by example. The President's next budget request must include at least a 5-percent increase in defense spending above inflation.

Russia and China have prioritized military modernization literally for decades.

They have invested in specific tools like long-range aerial defenses and hypersonic weapons that are designed to push the U.S. and our allies further away from the fight.

We are actually behind in this competition. We are actually behind. Hypersonic weapons, nuclear force modernization, power projection, global presence--these things cost money. It is a small price to pay for keeping security threats off of our shores. I have criticized NATO allies who failed to contribute fully to our collective security, but I am a strong supporter of the transatlantic alliance. I am encouraged by how our partners have responded, however belatedly, to the growing threat posed to our collective security.

For example, special praise to the courageous decision by Chancellor Scholz this weekend to seek an emergency appropriation of 100 billion euros for the German military. This effectively doubles Germany's military budget this year--doubles Germany's military budget this year.

He wants Germany to fulfill its pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. He wants to build liquefied natural gas terminals and make other energy investments to finally dial down Germany's dependence on Russia.

If our wary European friends are finally shaking off their slumber and getting serious, then certainly the United States of America can do the same.

President Biden must lead the charge and lead it now.

Madam President, now, on an entirely different matter, with a cascade of major crises testing our country, Senate Democrats are prioritizing a show vote on mandating 9 months of abortion on demand across America.

Senate Democrats want to go on record supporting the radical and massively unpopular proposition that we should have functionally no restrictions on abortion whatsoever. Democrats already have the United States, one of just seven nations in the entire world that allows elective abortions after 20 weeks. This radical fringe policy places us in company like China and North Korea.

But now, Senate Democrats want to go even further than Chairman Xi and Kim Jong-Un. Ninety-one percent of Americans support some restrictions on abortion during the third trimester. The public overwhelmingly disagrees with Democrats' extreme obsession on this issue.

But yet again, our colleagues wish to demonstrate that the radical left fringe runs today's Democratic Party.

As the world prays for Ukraine and debates consequences for Putin, as American families contend with violent crime, open borders, and runaway inflation, Washington Democrats want to spend their time arguing for unlimited abortion on demand.

So I want to thank the majority leader for making it so clear where his party's priorities lie.

Madam President, now, on yet another matter, last week, our distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Oklahoma, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, announced he will retire from the Senate at the end of this Congress. By this autumn, Senator Jim Inhofe will have been a stalwart champion for Oklahomans and a hugely impactful Senator for 28 years. He has led crucial committees, shaped major legislation, and helped keep the needs and concerns of middle America at the forefront of this institution and its work.

The fruits of Jim's labors are apparent across his beloved home State and our whole country. Most recently, atop the Armed Services Committee, he has been a remarkable advocate for fellow veterans, for today's servicemembers, and for the needs of our national security.

We will have much more to say about Senator Inhofe's storied service as we move through the remainder of this year and this Congress. But for now, I just want to congratulate our colleague, his wife Kay, and their 20 kids and grandkids on a well-earned retirement, to which they are now looking forward.

And I am very glad to have the Senator's wisdom and leadership to call upon for 10 more months, especially at a time such as this.

Now, on one final matter, I was saddened to hear this morning that Richard Blum, the husband of my friend and colleague Senator Feinstein, has passed away following his fight with cancer.

For 30 years, Elaine and I have been privileged to cross paths with Dianne and Dick in a number of ways, both professional and personal. It was always a great pleasure to break bread together, compare notes, and catch up.

Our colleague's very loving husband was, simply put, a fascinating person. He was highly successful, adventuresome, brave, and curious. For years, he moved seamlessly between such things as creating major value in the highest ranks of the private sector and studying Tibetan Buddhism. His passion for the Himalayas led him to befriend both the Dalai Lama and Sir Edmund Hillary. I understand he even made his own attempt on Mount Everest.

Dick's appetites for adventure, for philanthropy, for civic engagement,

and business success all seemed to be truly boundless. He was full of life and kept impossibly busy with a wide array of projects that were both interesting and impacted his community for the good.

I know all Senators are grieving with and praying for our colleague Senator Feinstein and their entire family at this very difficult time. Elaine and I join in those thoughts and prayers in a particular way.

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

Madam President, for the first time in 12 years, an outright majority of Americans say crime has gotten worse in their area over the past year.

Many Democrats have spent the last year and a half trying to defund police, smear law enforcement, and go soft on crime. As a result, innocent citizens have spent a year and a half watching murders, carjackings, and other violent crimes literally skyrocket.

On Monday, in my hometown of Louisville, KY, we were stunned by what appears to have been an assassination attempt against a Jewish mayoral candidate by a prominent far-left activist who previously called for defunding our police department.

This far-left Black Lives Matter activist and defund-the-police cheerleader walked into a Jewish Democrat's campaign headquarters and opened fire.

Obviously, every aspect of this is still under investigation, including the suspect's mental condition. But guess what. He has already been let out of jail--already let out of jail.

A leftwing bail fund partnered with BLM Louisville to bail him out. Less than 48 hours after this activist tried to literally murder a politician, the radical left bailed their comrade out of jail.

This is just jaw-dropping. The innocent people of Louisville deserve better.

Since 2020, a long list of prominent corporations have donated or pledged enormous amounts of money to the radical nationwide BLM parent organization. One wonders if any of their corporate money helped spring this would-be assassin from jail.

Now, I am confident that if an activist claiming to be conservative tried to assassinate a politician, whatever his mental state, the media would open a 24/7 national conversation about rhetoric on the right. Somehow, I doubt attempted murder by a BLM activist will get that same treatment. I doubt we will have a national conversation about the constant chorus of powerful voices calling our society evil.

I raise this double standard because it is not limited to media coverage. We have seen this extend into our legal system itself.

In May of 2020, when Minneapolis was engulfed in lawless riots, one rioter broke into a pawn shop and started a fire that burned it down. His act of arson actually killed somebody. But the Federal attorneys, who were supposed to represent the victim and the people, went out of their way to push for an unusually lenient sentence. They asked for the typical sentencing guideline to be cut in half. Why? Well, because, they wrote, the defendant was an angry political protester who simply lost his cool. They wrote, ``As anyone watching the news worldwide knows, many other people in Minnesota were similarly caught up''--as if that were an excuse. This is the sentencing memo from the prosecutors. It reads like it was ghostwritten by the defense. They even tried to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to explain why this guy burned down a pawn shop. What a backward attitude.

We cannot have Federal officials acting like leftwing political violence is more acceptable than any other violence. If anything, political violence is uniquely unacceptable in a democratic republic.

Now, I placed a hold on President Biden's nominee to take over as U.S. attorney in Minnesota until he pledged he would keep political favoritism out of his prosecutions. Fortunately, he quickly said so in writing. He also knows Republicans will be watching.

The American people need public servants to crack down on crime and defend their safety--crack down on crime and defend their safety--less pandering to woke mobs; more protecting innocent families.

Energy

Madam President, now on an entirely different matter, Washington Democrats' inflation is slamming consumers with the highest prices in 40 years. One of the toughest blows has been the soaring cost of a trip to the gas pump. A gallon of regular costs a full dollar more today than it did a year ago.

So after triggering a historic run of inflation and hammering American producers with anti-energy policies designed to restrict supply, our Democratic colleagues are suddenly talking about gas prices. Here is their bold, creative plan: temporarily suspending the gas tax, to the tune of 18 cents--oh, and excluding diesel--a slap in the face to truckers and a further burden on the supply chain. Oh, and just to make the political games transparent, they want this to expire right after the midterms, as soon as the next Congress is sworn in.

Democrats want to blow a $20 billion hole in highway funding so they can try to mask the effects of their own liberal policies on working Americans. They have spent the entire year waging a holy war on affordable American energy, and now--now--they want to use a pile of taxpayers' money to literally hide the consequences.

As the senior Senator from West Virginia has pointed out, ``People want their bridges and their roads, and we have an infrastructure bill we just passed this summer, and they want to take all that away. It just doesn't make sense.''

He added that this half-baked proposal doesn't make any more sense than the President's pointless decision to take oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last year.

President Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, called this stunt ``short-sighted, ineffective, goofy and gimmicky.'' That is the Secretary of the Treasury in the Bill Clinton administration.

Back in 2008, then-Candidate Obama himself said this:

We're arguing over a gimmick that would save you half a

tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that

everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say

they did something. Well, let me tell you, this isn't an idea

designed to get you through the summer--it's designed to get

them through an election.

That is Barack Obama in 2008, and he was right.

Look, if Democrats actually want to help the American people fill their tanks, they wouldn't have been attacking American energy every way possible for the entire year. President Biden made killing the Keystone XL Pipeline his day 1 priority. Democrats voted in lockstep to endorse President Biden's ban on new energy exploration on Federal lands. At every turn, in every way, Democrats have made it harder to produce affordable and reliable American energy. Take any form of energy, and if people in San Francisco don't find it fashionable, the Biden administration has gone after it.

Three years ago, under Republican policies, the United States became a net exporter of oil for the first time in more than 70 years. From a sheer mathematical perspective, for the very first time since World War II, we were producing all that we needed and then some. Alas, a very different philosophy now controls Washington. In President Biden's first year, our own oil imports from Russia--from Russia--hit a new alltime high.

But as we speak, events in Eastern Europe are reminding the entire world that energy abundance is not just about families' pocketbooks; there is a colossal strategic cost when our Nation and our allies become economically dependent on countries that don't like us very much.

Some of our European allies have spent many years voluntarily winding down reliable sources like nuclear and coal and refusing to tap into their own considerable natural gas reserves via fracking. Instead, they gambled on less reliable sources and outsourced their perceived dirty work to places like Russia. Western European elites decided they wanted their energy production out of sight and out of mind, and Putin was all too happy to oblige them.

Even after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, Germany willingly signed up for Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. It would negate Ukraine's own pipelines and deny the money and leverage that Ukraine needs to keep Russia at bay, but Germany backed it. Meanwhile, Berlin put off building liquid natural gas terminals, instead choosing to rely on Russian gas and refusing to diversify its import options. I am hopeful the latest indications that Germany is reconsidering this will prove to be accurate.

The Biden administration is scrambling to connect our at-risk allies with some energy resources from everywhere else--everywhere else. But it should not have taken this latest Kremlin misbehavior to remind the West that self-sufficiency actually matters. It matters. And Democrats have still not flinched in their broader war against our own--our own-- U.S. production.

Glitzy summits in Paris and finger-wagging climate rhetoric are one way to approach energy policy. Actually exploring and developing abundant, affordable, and reliable domestic energy is another approach, and that is the approach that will actually work.

Mr. President, yesterday, President Biden addressed the country about the ongoing crisis that Russia has created on its border with Ukraine.

There was much in the President's remarks that I appreciated. He was right to candidly remind the Russian people that neither the United States nor NATO nor Ukraine wants a war. He was right to emphasize that the world will not shrug or stand idly by if Vladimir Putin tries to invade his neighbor or redraw the map of Europe through deadly force.

We have spent much time discussing Russia's alleged security concerns and not enough time examining the legitimate concerns of Russia's neighbors, many of whom have a long history--a long history--of being invaded by Moscow. The concerns of these free, sovereign states matter as well, and the President would do well to amplify their voices and their historical experiences.

So it is fine for President Biden to engage in good-faith diplomacy, provided we are skeptical about Putin's intentions. Thus far, Putin's behavior is proving how little he can be trusted and how little he is interested in diplomacy as anything other than a gambit to divide the West or a pretext for war.

The United States must keep sending these strong messages, verbally and with concrete actions, both right now before any hostilities and then with

devastating force if Putin does, indeed, plow ahead.

The United States and our partners should waste no time in helping Ukraine prepare for war--weapons, materiel, advice, logistics, and intelligence. We should be building the infrastructure to help Ukraine sustain their resistance to Russian aggression if and when it comes.

I welcome the President's deployment of additional forces to the territory of NATO allies situated along our alliance's eastern flank. I recommended he take such action months ago. And I am particularly grateful to the Kentuckians of the 101st Airborne Division who are leaving Fort Campbell this week to join NATO reinforcements in Eastern Europe.

As our diplomats work to halt the train of Russian aggression, it is the brave men and women of the U.S. military who give their words added weight.

I am hopeful that President Biden will rise to the occasion. As a bipartisan group of colleagues and I made clear in a joint statement yesterday, the President would have overwhelming, bipartisan support to use his existing Executive authorities for tough sanctions against Russia in the event of conflict.

We should acknowledge Putin's use of energy as a weapon. If the President is serious about providing relief for Americans at the pump or blunting Putin's manipulation of energy markets, he will stop his administration's anti-energy policies that make it harder for our own producers to explore, to produce, and to export energy to vulnerable allies.

While our eastern flank allies have consistently taken a clear-eyed approach to their own defense, it is time for America to invest more meaningfully in our own military capabilities and demand that our allies in Western Europe actually follow suit.

Whether the administration is serious about competition with Russia and China will be clear when it submits its fiscal 2023 budget request. Our allies and adversaries will all be watching.

Mr. President, now on a different matter, while the world's eyes are fixed on the present foreign policy crisis, troubling facts are continuing to surface surrounding the administration's previous self- inflicted crisis--the botched retreat from Afghanistan.

Last week, journalists published the findings of a 2,000-page autopsy that Army officials compiled following the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul. The report hammers home a damning fact we have actually already known for months: The Biden administration received clear advance warnings from commanders on the ground that should have been heeded but went ignored. As I warned at the time, we have confirmation this disaster was foreseeable--foreseen, actually--and avoidable.

The Army's conclusions build upon the report from the Special Inspector General which was declassified last month.

While President Biden and his political advisers still cling to the notion that they got mistaken advice and were caught off-guard, both these reports suggest that nonpartisan experts knew and predicted the Afghan military would likely collapse and spent months trying in vain to get the administration to pay attention.

Top commanders reported that trying to get State Department officials to engage in advance evacuation plans was like ``pulling teeth''; that the National Security Council was ``not seriously planning for an evacuation''; that among peers in uniform, ``everyone clearly saw some of the advantage of holding Bagram.''

As the top U.S. commander on the ground during the evacuation put it, policymakers had not ``paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.''

This staggering report from our own U.S. Army should have chastened the Biden administration. It should be an occasion for apology, reflection, and accountability. But last week, President Biden instead tried to simply wave away our own Army's conclusions without evidence.

He was asked, ``Are you rejecting the conclusions or the accounts in this [Army] report?''

The President replied, ``Yes, I am.''

``So, they're not true?''

``I'm rejecting them,'' the President said.

No evidence; just hand-waving denial. Frankly, it was a bizarre performance.

Our retreat from Afghanistan seriously damaged America's credibility. It made confronting terrorist threats that much harder from over the horizon, and it invited more testing like what we are now enduring in Eastern Europe.

President Biden and his team were warned of all these dangers well in advance by our own military, but our Commander in Chief seems to have flat-out ignored our commanders. This has been an unbelievably costly lesson that the Biden administration should never have had to learn even once. Let us all hope they don't need to learn it twice.

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

Mr. President, at this time last year, Washington Democrats were beginning their quest to dump trillions of dollars in leftwing spending on a recovering economy that already had the preconditions for some inflation. Everybody warned Democrats to pump the brakes. Just weeks earlier, Republicans had already supported a smaller, targeted, bipartisan stimulus that had barely started to take effect. Even top liberal economists warned the Democrats' agenda could spark massive inflation.

The consequences for working families have been particularly harsh. Essential goods have played an outsized role in driving up prices overall. It is harder to put dinner on the table when eggs, meat, and fish are 12 percent more expensive. It is harder to fill up cars with gas that is 40 percent more expensive and to heat a home with natural gas that has gone up 24 percent or fuel oil that has gone up 47 percent. This is reality for millions of Americans. They are living it every single day.

Yet the Biden administration seems less interested in trying to solve this problem than in trying to persuade families that the pain is actually just in their heads. One recent story reported that members of President Biden's team were ``seemingly mystified'' about why the American people weren't celebrating this economy.

Well, if Washington Democrats spent 5 minutes talking to a middle- class family, I am confident they would cease to be mystified. The middle 40 percent of American earners have seen their disposable incomes fall more than an entire percentage point over the last year-- entirely due to inflation. Any American who hasn't managed to secure an 8-percent pay raise in the last year has actually received a real pay cut, thanks to Democrats' inflation.

The American people are reporting their lowest consumer sentiment in over a decade. Seventy-five percent say our economy is doing badly. Almost 80 percent expect inflation to get worse. Six in ten say their family's income isn't keeping pace with their costs of living.

These are not statistics the White House can wave away. We are actually talking about human pain. A working mother in Michigan said:

I cannot buy the food that I would normally buy for my

family.

In Washington State, a single mom of four who also cares for her elderly parents says she has had to take favorite family foods like frozen pizza and wings and make them ``more of a treat than just a regular meal.''

This is where Democrats' policies have left working families.