Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have found humor in what my good friend Lamar Alexander used to say about the job of being leader of the Senate. He said:

It is a little bit like being a groundskeeper at a

cemetery. Everyone is under you, but no one is listening.

Truth is, in a place like the Senate, we can only be effective by rowing in the same direction with folks who share our principles. And for 7 years, the senior adviser helping me build and maintain conservative coalitions has been the youngest son of a big Irish- Catholic family from Detroit.

Jim Neill's roots taught him what is worth standing for and how to get a noisy room to listen to him. In meetings of my staff, all Jim has to do to get our attention is simply stand up.

But his engagements further afield draw on Jim's other strengths: authenticity, candor, a political weather vane with a dead read on gathering changes, and a principled compass that points true north.

I can't begin to tell you how many times important Senate accomplishments have nearly died on the launch pad but for Jim's deft and diplomatic touch.

Like many of our fellow travelers, Jim credits President Reagan with an outsized role in forming both his interest in politics and his conservative principles.

But I suspect that fewer conservatives of Jim's generation would use the next breath to credit legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards with forming his style and good taste.

Around the office, my team's resident rock and roll historian doles out wicked humor and curmudgeonly quips in equal measure. But Jim's colleagues know him most of all as a trusted friend, a big brother, whose advice and perspective ring true.

Of course, credit for Jim's ability to wrestle thorny issues on a daily basis goes to his wife Erin, who keeps him grounded, and to his kids Maggie and Patrick, who I know make him extraordinarily proud. So thank you, Jim, so much.

Tribute to Stephanie Parks

Mr. President, now, as one of so many lawyers in the Senate, I have always been quick to admit to colleagues I wouldn't go to me for a simple will. But I have been fortunate to have counsel on my team who can handle that and a whole lot more.

The first such person I need to thank might very well be a victim of fate. My senior advisor and counsel Steve Donaldson is a proud native Kentuckian, a sharp lawyer, and one of the few experts out there on the intricacies of campaign finance.

Frankly, it is nearly impossible to imagine a situation in which Steve didn't wind up working for me someday. I needed somebody who could keep up on this niche issue that I have been immersed in through my entire time in the Senate. In that regard, Steve was an obvious choice.

But over the years, I have come to rely on Steve as so much more than a trusted sounding board on our shared interest in the First Amendment. He is also our resident whiz on the nuances of employment law. It is an important issue to begin with, but it took on massive new importance with the onset of the pandemic a few years ago.

Steve became my team's trusted navigator through the serious public health concerns and rapidly evolving official guidance. At the most consequential time in the unemployment

policy since the Great Depression, Steve was instrumental in shaping the CARES Act, asking questions that others had not considered, and foreseeing challenges in time to tweak our legislative response.

On top of it all, he has carried the unenviable but essential responsibility of ensuring my entire office upholds the highest standards of professional ethics. The team looks forward with pained amusement to his annual impression of the Grinch who stole Christmas and with sincere appreciation for his patient counsel that keeps us all in the clear.

Steve is the consummate professional at everything--that is, except golf. Perhaps I can accept the blame for keeping him too busy at the office to play more often.

Steve's pride in Kentucky roots is, more than anything, a pride in his family. I know he makes his mother Kathy, his sister Annie, and his niece and nephew very, very proud. So, Steve, thank you so much.

Mr. President, next is my chief counsel Mike Fragoso. Like so many of the well-qualified jurists he has helped to put on the Federal courts over the years, Mike--or ``Frags'' is what we call him--came with an Ivy League pedigree and an impressive resume of legal brilliance.

But unlike his peers in black robes, he also carries a reputation as my office sartorial master.

Frags is another member of my staff with a challenging multifaceted mandate. From the judicial confirmation process to matters of criminal justice and border security, I call on Frags to wear many hats. And when the circumstances permit, he pairs them with three-piece suits.

Seriously, it is a job that draws on every bit of Frags's experience traveling the width of Republican politics from Jeff Flake to Chuck Grassley and plumbing the depth of conservative jurisprudence.

Frags is equally at home in the high-minded philosophical discourse of the legal community and the urgent pragmatism of Congressional dealmaking.

He is so exceptionally competent that he often produces from his desk the work that would normally require, literally, teams of outside counsel.

Frags stands on deeply held principles but maintains a firm grasp on the realm of the possible. He is willing to exhaust creative effort and sacrifice holidays to make headway against even the most intractable problems. He knows which screws to twist to hold misbehavior and miscarriage of justice to account.

Fighting the good fight can be draining, especially when the good guys come up emptyhanded. But much to his colleague's delight, Frags never misses an opportunity to elicit much-needed laughs and self- effacing humor with gag gifts he seemingly produces from thin air.

I am certain he showers his wife Ashley and their daughters Maria, Aurelia, and Helena with similar joy and even greater pride than he has for his noble work.

Frags, Frags, thanks for everything.

Mr. President, there is a certain irony in the fact that many years ago my team found a kid who would end up as my fiercest adviser in the cause of restoring American hard power working in the world of American soft power.

In those earliest days, my fellow Kentuckian Robert Karem frequently found himself driving me around town doing important events.

These day, however, as my national security adviser, I frequently send Robert to the ends of the Earth and to the seats of foreign governments as a trusted representative of the entire Senate.

Of course, there was a period in between when I had to exercise some strategic patience, and I am not referring to the moments when classified meetings make Robert difficult to reach. I mean that his talents couldn't be contained.

And over the years, they have landed him in the service of a veritable who is who of Republican foreign policy luminaries. I am certain that each of them found, as I did, a deep intellect and appetite for knowledge, a relentless focus on worthy causes, and a passion for advancing them that simmered just beneath the surface.

Certainly, this last bit represents a compromise between Robert's experiences in the boiling cauldron of the House and his appreciation for the cooling saucer of the Senate.

When Robert returned to my office 6 years ago, I handed him a portfolio full of tough problems with no easy solution. It demands that he juggle the urgent and the important; the big picture and the smallest detail; the security of the Senate in moments of unprecedented crisis; and the enduring credibility of America's commitments in the world.

Robert knows how to advance the ball in international settings with cosmopolitan tact, meet naivete and incompetence around Washington with righteous ire, and defuse office monotony with strikes of high yield, precision-guided humor.

I am grateful for all of it and for the loyalty and dedication that should make his family, his Commonwealth, and his Nation very, very proud. Thank you, Robert.

Mr. President, now, folks all around the Senate appreciate this body's cooling saucer of a reputation, but no one embodies it like my senior adviser on commerce and tax policy, John Chapuis.

To be sure, ``Chappy'' cut his teeth with our former colleague Tom Coburn, who prided himself on playing an active and assertive role out here on the floor. And his work in the Whip's office under Senator Cornyn dropped him straight into the middle of vote-counting chaos.

But that pedigree did nothing if not make Chappy a master of Senate rules and procedure; and with that mastery comes a calm, collected assurance, the composure of a recovering collegiate athlete, the competence of a Senate expert at the top of his game.

Chappy's path through the Senate has earned him a well-deserved reputation as a Swiss Army knife. He can cite Senate rule, chapter and verse, with the most seasoned cloakroom staff. He can carry the day on consequential nominations with deep-dive background research. And, of course, most recently, he can keep me sharp, parsing tariff disputes and employment reports with equal ease.

In the proudest tradition of an institution where Senators once relied on much smaller staffs, Chappy is the utility player every team wishes it had.

Of course, the team that can claim Chappy's proudest allegiance is the one he has built with his wife Suzanne, herself a distinguished member of the Senate family in the Chaplain's office. As I understand it, the wonderful story that now includes two young sons, Sullivan and Fielding, began with a proposal at the top of the Capitol dome. I am just grateful the Republican leader's office gets to be a part of it.

Chappy, thank you so much.

Mr. President, I can't help but wonder how many of the industries and constituencies seeking the ear of my office on any given day know that my senior adviser responsible for business coalitions is also a watercolor painter whose work adorns the invitations my colleagues receive to our annual Kentucky Derby lunch or whether Erica Suares's former colleagues at Coastal Living magazine have followed along as her reputation as consummate adviser has reached every corner of the uppermost echelons of Republican politics--Jim DeMint, to Mitt Romney, to me.

Erica's innate talents for diplomacy and coordination are undeniable. For more than a decade, I have trusted Erica to relay important guidance around the Republican conference and build consensus across business and advocacy groups. She is charismatic, perceptive, and highly intelligent. In the heat of battle, she has been known to forgo sleep for days.

But the depth of Erica's commitment and the breadth of her professional accomplishments are a testament to something else--a genuine, friendly warmth that is downright difficult to sustain in a town like Washington.

As much as she excels at tending relationships with stakeholders across the Senate and private sector, Erica tends relationships with her colleagues with the utmost care. She takes it upon herself to welcome new arrivals, to celebrate birthdays with requisite

cookie cakes, and to fulfill other duties that come along with being indisputably the heart and soul of the office.

I know my entire team is grateful to occupy a small part of Erica's heart. The rest rightly belongs to her family--her mother Suri and her late father Roger--whom she continues to make so very, very proud.

Erica, thank you.

Mr. President, Terry Van Doren has told me before about the awe he felt as a farm kid from downstate Illinois visiting the Harry Truman Presidential Library and seeing a replica of a bust that stands in the hall outside this Chamber here in the Capitol. The thought of seeing the real thing, let alone passing it by every day at work, was a thrill.

What says the most about Terry--or, as we call him, TVD--is that after 12 years on my team, I am certain he still feels the thrill of service here in the Capitol. That is not to say the Senate hasn't tried mightily to grind it out of him.

For more than a decade, Terry has juggled a uniquely challenging portfolio that encompasses agriculture, transportation, energy, and a laundry list of niche constituencies in between.

With massive implications for Federal spending and issues that matter deeply to Kentucky, Terry inevitably finds himself in the thick of every vote-arama, every government funding fight, and every last-dash legislative effort right before the holidays. With a steady hand, deep expertise, and unwavering loyalty to me and the folks I represent, Terry has been an extraordinarily effective workhorse--even if, in one instance, it meant becoming an expert on racehorses.

From spearheading the CRA process in defense against harmful overregulation to shepherding massive, bipartisan accomplishments on infrastructure and agriculture, he has exercised his talents with a mild manner, with self-effacing humility, and with undaunted optimism that this might be the year that the Senate's schedule doesn't spoil his hunting season travel plans.

So I am grateful to Terry's family--his wife Lisa and their kids Amelia and Bobby--for letting us lean on him literally at all hours.

Thanks again, Terry.

Madam President, I rise today to congratulate my friend Dr. Nancy Cox, dean of the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment, on her upcoming retirement. As she prepares to step down from the helm, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing this distinguished Kentuckian and her 20-plus years of service to the Commonwealth.

A graduate of Furman University, the University of Georgia, and North Carolina State University, Nancy made her bones researching animal physiology. She launched her career at Mississippi State before joining the ranks of faculty leadership at UK's College of Agriculture as associate dean for research. To the great fortune of our flagship university, Nancy never left.

Serving as dean of the college of agriculture since 2014, Nancy led the school

through some of its most transformative years. She spearheaded groundbreaking programs, like the Racetrack Safety Program and the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits, that help keep Kentucky's signature equine and bourbon industries at the forefront of the Nation. Early on, she understood the importance of research not only to the university and its students, but also to Kentucky's agricultural community, prioritizing investments for veterinary studies, equine health, and animal forage production research. As dean, she oversaw the renewal of UK's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and together, we worked to establish UK's first-ever animal forage production research lab in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nancy's work to champion research on issues ranging from equine safety to the problems facing small family farms continues to help our Nation's producers and growers succeed.

Even after two decades of service to Kentucky, Nancy hasn't shied away from new opportunities to effect change on campus. In 2020, she stepped up to join President Capilouto's leadership team as the first- ever vice president for land-grant engagement. In this role, she has helped deepen UK's commitment to its land-grant mission, finding new ways to serve and connect with communities across the Commonwealth through research, instruction, and extension programs.

Anybody who has ever worked with Nancy can vouch for her dedication to serving her fellow Kentuckians. From forging new partnerships to deepening the university's ties with important stakeholders, like the Kentucky Farm Bureau, Nancy's leadership has tangibly made life better for families, businesses, and communities across our state. As she puts it, ``Every day, we try to do better than the day before.'' Nancy has certainly lived up to this ideal, and though we are all sorry to see her go, I am confident she will continue to make a difference in her community.

As she begins a well-deserved retirement, I have no doubt that she will be enjoying more time with her friends and family. Today, it's my privilege to join the chorus of faculty, students, and alumni praising Nancy's leadership and her work to lift up Kentucky's farmers and the next generation of agricultural leaders. I urge my Senate colleagues to join me in thanking Nancy for her remarkable service to the University of Kentucky and the Commonwealth.

Madam President, I rise today to congratulate Brigadier General (Retired) James ``Jim'' T. Iacocca as he prepares to retire from the Knox Regional Development Alliance in my home State of Kentucky. It is my privilege to pay special tribute to Jim for all his contributions to the Commonwealth and his 30-plus years of dedicated service to our Nation.

Jim entered the Army on a whim. Without speaking to his parents, he enlisted in the Army Reserve his freshman year at Lehigh University. His 29 years of Active-Duty service that followed included tours in airborne and special operations units at multiple Army installations, deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, and numerous military awards and decorations. He served as deputy commanding general of the Army Recruiting Command and Brigade Commander for the Army's 3rd Recruiting Brigade. In 2015, Jim became the 60th Adjutant General, one of the oldest leadership positions in the Army. In this role, he oversaw over 1 million Active-Duty, National Guard, and Reserve servicemembers, keeping soldiers combat-ready to serve and execute the Army's missions.

Jim retired from Active-Duty service in 2017, but his work on behalf of the Commonwealth and the Army was far from over. As one of two civilian aides to the Secretary of the Army for Kentucky, Jim helps bridge the gap between Army leadership and our State's military communities, providing crucial counsel to the Secretary on all matters Kentucky.

Many on my staff have had the privilege of interacting with Jim through his work as president and CEO of the Knox Regional Development Alliance. In this role, Jim serves as the critical link between my office and the military base. With an eye always toward the future, Jim is constantly working with partners inside and outside the gate to identify new missions and improve the experience and well-being of Kentucky's servicemembers. He has been instrumental in some of the biggest issues Fort Knox has tackled in recent years, driving billions of dollars into the regional economy and advocating for the priorities of Fort Knox and its more than 26,000 soldiers, civilians, and families.

In all his years serving Fort Knox, Jim has never lost sight of the people he represents; that includes not only the brave men and women who serve our country but also the greater Knox region. Jim will be the first to tell you that a strong community is an irreplaceable asset to any military installation and, indeed, Fort Knox. As the unifying voice for the base and the Knox community, Jim collaborates with a wide range of people, from servicemembers to the business community to local, State, and Federal leaders across the Commonwealth. In fact, Jim's contributions recently earned him the honor of Gold Neighbor for his dedication to Fort Knox, its soldiers, and their families. I count myself among the many grateful for Jim contributing his character, humble leadership, and deep knowledge to the Commonwealth.

Jim has worn many impressive hats while serving his country, but his proudest roles have been husband and father. As he prepares to step down from the Knox Regional Development Alliance this year, I know Jim will enjoy spending more time with his wife Sandy and their daughter-- and building out that impressive bourbon collection of his. Our men and women in uniform, in addition to the people of Kentucky, are losing a tireless advocate, and though we are saddened to say goodbye to Jim, his retirement is well-earned. I urge my Senate colleagues to join me in thanking this brave American, dedicated public servant, and proud Kentuckian for his decades of distinguished service to our country.

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

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

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

Mr. President, yesterday, the Pentagon announced the deployment of additional U.S. servicemembers to the Middle East. The proximate cause, of course, is the threat of war on Israel's northern border. But ongoing Iran-backed attacks against U.S. personnel from the Red Sea to Iraq and Syria offer plenty of reminders that America's enemies lack neither the resources nor motivation to target us.

Democrats and Republicans alike should recognize that America's enduring security interests in the Middle East are not served by abandoning the region to Iran, Russia, and China. But what the Biden- Harris administration is grappling with right now is a problem of its own making. It is the combination of a weak and ineffectual response to Iran-backed aggression. It is the predictable and forewarned inadequacy of a force-planning construct that rules out serious preparation for meeting multiple threats at the same time.

I have spoken repeatedly about the naivete of abandoning a multiple- war, force-planning construct, underresourcing our military, and ignoring the growing and interconnected threats our adversaries pose to our interests.

It is worth remembering how former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan reportedly responded to a question that the greatest challenge for a statesman is ``events, dear boy, events.'' Well, events have proven particularly challenging for the Biden-Harris administration.

At the risk of repeating myself, losing resolve to meet and defeat adversaries when they threaten us only emboldens them. Retreating from difficult challenges only invites even bigger ones. And most importantly, there

is no serious accounting of the global threats to America's interests and our allies today that concludes they can be dealt with one at a time, at our leisure.

The enemy gets a vote.

The demand for a U.S. military that can meet simultaneous challenges is acute, and we ignore it at the peril of the entire American-led international order that underpins our security and our prosperity.

Today, when President Biden addresses the U.N. General Assembly, we will no doubt hear about the grave challenge these interconnected threats pose to America and the entire world. But the President's concern will carry little weight without explicit commitments to the sort of hard power necessary to address them. The President will insist that his leadership has ``produced results.'' That is true--just not good results. For years, by its neglect of the urgent requirements of the national defense, its anemic--anemic--defense budget requests, and its ongoing preference for micromanaging allies over confronting adversaries, the Biden-Harris administration has compounded the challenges that we face.

What the Commander in Chief is reckoning with this week is the product of nearly 4 years of failing to check Iran and to prepare adequately for great power competition--4 years of appeasement, hesitation, naive and desperate nuclear diplomacy, as well as outright retreat.

It is, indeed, too late to undo this administration's record of net cuts to defense investments. Likewise, it is too late to roll back the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Here in the Senate, after weeks of partisan show votes, it is now too late for the Senate to discharge a fundamental obligation of this body--to provide for the common defense--and debate the annual Defense authorization and appropriations bills before the election.

It is not, however, too late to stop treating Israel as an escalatory regional force in need of finger-wagging micromanagement and, instead, like a sovereign democracy encircled by the forces of the world's most active sponsor of terror. It is not too late to stop responding to proxy violence with the sort of unwavering force necessary to change Iran's calculus--and, for that matter, Russia's and China's as well.

It is not too late to show our adversaries that, in their race to undermine America's global influence and threaten its global interests, they will meet determined opposition.

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

Madam President, in May 2000, Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon, but while the occupation ended, Hezbollah's appetite for waging war on Israel only grew, and its further deadly attacks on Israel invited the 2006 conflict.

But the history of Israel's fight to defend its northern border and innocent civilians against Hezbollah terrorists bears eerie parallels to the stories of the brutal violence Hamas has perpetrated from Gaza. Israel withdrew there in August 2005, and by 2007, Iran-backed terrorists had bent the enclave to its all-consuming mission, which is war on Israel.

But the most glaring through-lines in Israel's north and south are not the relentless bloodlust of terrorists. They are the predictable delusion of Israel's ``friends'' and the shameful cowardice of international authorities that claim to stand for peace.

Take, for starters, how the Biden-Harris administration chose to welcome the U.N. General Assembly by signaling its openness--openness-- to resuming funding for UNRWA and how it apparently still clings to the fiction that an organization so thoroughly corrupted by Hamas that nearly a dozen of its staff directly--directly--participated in the October attacks is somehow reformable.

But while the civilized world gathers in one place, the General Assembly might productively spend its time contemplating other pressing questions, for example: Why hasn't the U.N. Security Council managed to enforce resolutions 1559 and 1701 in Lebanon? These resolutions were passed to end and prevent further conflict between Israel and Lebanon by removing the threat Hezbollah posed on Israel's border and to end the threat Hezbollah posed to the State of Lebanon itself.

And why has the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to build up massive stockpiles on Israel's border, in clear--clear-- preparation for war?

Why has the U.N. looked the other way as Hezbollah has expanded its corrosive influence over the institutions of Lebanon's Government?

But setting aside the failures of the so-called international community, this past weekend once again cast a spotlight on America's known naivete toward the glaring facts of Iran-backed war on our friend Israel.

In an interview that might rightly attract scrutiny for its host's obfuscation of the facts on Israel's responses to Hezbollah terrorism, the White House National Security Communications Advisor said out loud what the Biden-Harris administration has been saying by its actual actions for nearly a year:

We've been working since the beginning of the conflict,

October 8 . . . to try to prevent an escalation.

So think about that. The only way to claim credit for working to ``prevent an escalation'' is by pretending like Hezbollah's October 8 attacks--or Hamas's October 7 massacre--weren't actually escalations themselves.

Unfortunately, the administration official also seemed to suggest a moral equivalence--a moral equivalence--between Israel and Hezbollah. He suggested that ``military action, by either side'' would not be ``in either side's best interest'' and implied that an Israeli response would itself be escalation--once again, second-guessing Israel's interests, micromanaging their defensive efforts. Blaming Israel for escalation when it is clear--absolutely clear--Hamas and Hezbollah have been the instigators of this conflict. It is a tired playbook.

The administration is telling the world that what America wants is a return to October 6, as if the status quo was either sustainable or peaceful. This, of course, is pure fantasy. Hamas broke a cease-fire on October 7.

Or consider Hezbollah's history as the centerpiece of Iran's ``ring of fire'' around Israel: Just since the 2006 conflict, Hezbollah terrorists have imported tens of thousands of rockets to target Israel, deployed forces directly to Israel's border, and constructed tunnels that would allow them to emulate Hamas's October 7 invasion.

Recent estimates suggest the terrorists possess up to 200,000 rockets, missiles, drones, and precision-guided munitions, along with 25,000 active-duty militants--all of it pointed south at Israel, and all of it, as Hezbollah's leader has boasted, is from Iran.

Or consider Lebanon itself. Hezbollah is a cancer on the Lebanese State. It wields its power as a sectarian terror squad and leads a long trail of blood through its highest ranks of civilian government and civil society. Sunnis, Christians, Druze, and fellow Shiites--none are immune from Hezbollah's wrath.

Then, again, National Public Radio refers to Hezbollah as a ``political'' group. Perhaps the administration's officials' confusion is a symbol of their media diet or more likely the foundations of their foreign policy are fundamentally flawed.

Remember the declaration by the President's National Security Advisor early last fall that the Middle East was ``quieter than it had been in decades.'' The absurdity of that boast in light of October 7 is striking enough, but even when it was written, it betrayed the administration's naivete toward glaring and abiding threats to Israel and America's national security interests in the region.

Iran's agents in Syria and Iraq had already fired hundreds of rockets at American forces on this administration's watch. Since last October, these attacks have only metastasized, including into the Red Sea. So was this an acceptable status quo? Was Hezbollah's steady preparation for war? Was Hamas's expropriation of humanitarian assistance in order to build terror tunnels?

The United States ought to stand with our friend Israel as it faces these terrorists down. The goal should not be simply to avoid escalating or to return to the status quo ante but to help Israel defend itself against terrorists bent--bent--on Israel's destruction.

We have a stake in ensuring Israel emerges from this conflict stronger and these terrorist organizations and their Iranian patron weaker. These same terrorists want to expel the United States from the region. We are the Great Satan, in their own parlance. Instead, by their misplaced obsession with escalation, the administration and Washington Democrats are actually making Israel's job harder.

If the President and Vice President want to see an end to the war in Gaza and prevent greater hostilities in Lebanon, then it is time to switch the focus of their diplomatic pressure.

Every time the administration officials try to tie Israel's hand in public comments and every time a U.S. Senator threatens to hold critical security assistance hostage, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their patrons in Tehran are emboldened.

If our colleagues want peace, it is time to show support for a nation founded on peace and resolve toward terrorists whose reason for existence is chaos and violence.