Floor Statements

Reserving the right to object, today President Trump announced that we have won the war against ISIS in Syria. Our troops are coming home. Thank you, Mr. President.

The Syrian civil war is largely over, but Syria is a mess and desperately needs reconstruction. These sanctions will delay--and possibly prevent--the reconstruction of Syria and the beginning of a healing time. Now is the time for diplomacy.

There are many actors--including Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States, and others--but this is the time for diplomacy, not for new sanctions. So I object.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Pursuant to the Arms Export Act of 1976, I move to discharge the Foreign Relations Committee from further consideration of S.J. Res. 65, relating to the disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to the Government of Bahrain.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that until 12:15 p.m., the time be equally divided by opponents and proponents, with the first 30 minutes for opponents of the bill and the last 30 minutes for proponents of the bill.

Mr. President, I rise today to call for an end to the U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen. There might be a good excuse for not knowing there is a war in Yemen because the media seems to be preoccupied with other things, but we have been involved with supporting the Saudi coalition, the Saudi alliance with nine other nations, including Bahrain, which has been bombing Yemen.

You might not know much about Yemen, either. Yemen is one of the poorest countries on the planet. There are about 17 million people who live on the edge of starvation there. This year they suffered an epidemic of cholera. Over 1 million people had cholera, and thousands of people died. This is a country so impoverished that even when there is no war in Yemen, they live on the very edge of being able to survive. The pictures are heartrending. If you see the pictures of the small children with their swollen bellies--swollen because they don't have enough protein so that the fluid literally drains from their blood system into their bellies. The pictures are heartrending, and your tax dollars are supporting this war.

So I think there ought to be a debate. That is what I stand up today to do: to force a debate over whether we should be involved with aiding and abetting the Saudi coalition in this war in Yemen.

Our Founding Fathers intended that Congress would debate war. It is very, very clear. If you read the Federalist papers, if you read the Constitution, if you read any of the Founding Fathers, if you read any of the first eight Presidents, they said explicitly again and again that the prerogative to declare war was Congress's--that it was specifically taken from the President. It is specifically forbidden for the President to go to war without the permission of Congress.

We have been having a little bit of this debate. About a month ago we had a debate, and, you know what, the administration argued that bombs are not war, that refueling planes that bomb people is not war, that we are not involved with hostilities in Yemen because we don't have troops marching on the ground with muskets. I think it is an absurd notion that you can be refueling bombing planes, supplying the bombs, and, as bombs are raining down on people and civilians are killed and the ones who survive pick up a scrap of the bomb that says ``Made in U.S.,'' tell them we are not involved with the war in Yemen.

Madison, among the Founding Fathers, was quite clear in saying that

the executive branch is the branch most prone to war; therefore, we have, with studied care, vested the power to declare war in Congress. We haven't obeyed that constitutional maxim for a long time. For a long time we have basically abdicated our role. Both parties, Republican and Democrats, have let Presidents, Republican and Democratic, do what they will.

This war started under the previous President, and this war continues under the current President. Yet Congress doesn't have the spine, doesn't have the will to stand up and say: It is our job to declare war. It is our job to represent the people, to listen to the people, and decide whether we should be at war.

The Constitution in article I, section 8 says ``Congress shall declare war.'' It is unequivocal. Yet here we are, involved in yet another war. We are involved in a war in Yemen. We have been involved in a war in Syria. We have also been involved in a war in Libya. We have also now been at war with people in Afghanistan, who had nothing to do with 9/11, 18 years later. These wars go on and on because Congress--and specifically the Senate--doesn't do their job.

We have heard people on television yelling ``do your job, do your job'' at their legislators. That is fine, but let's debate what our job is. The Constitution is very clear that one of our jobs is to declare war, and we have abdicated that responsibility and have not lived up to it.

I would like to have a direct vote on whether we should be involved in Yemen, a direct vote on whether we either declare war or we don't, but that is forbidden because I am in the minority--not in the minority party but in the minority ideologically. The vast majority of this body doesn't care about directing foreign policy; they say that the President has unitary authority, and the Commander in Chief can do whatever he or she wants. That is what the vast majority of these people believe. So they will vote against this because they do not believe Congress really should tell the President when we go to war.

I would like to vote directly that we should not be at war in Yemen; we should not be involved with supplying, refueling, supplying bombs to the Saudis, the Bahrainis and their coalition. I am forbidden from that vote, but because of a 1976 law called the Arms Export Control Act, I am able to object to arms sales.

We have done this twice in the last year. We objected in a bipartisan way to the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia because we thought their war was unjust, indiscriminate, killing civilians, and not in America's best interests. The first time we had the vote, we got a little over 20 votes to say that we should not be continuing to sell arms to the Saudis while they continue this abomination--20 something votes out of 100. We lost overwhelmingly. We had another vote about 2 or 3 months ago, and we got 47 votes. Now we have the killing and dismemberment of a journalist and dissident by the name of Jamal Khashoggi--something so brazen, so bizarre, so uncivilized that people are now coming together.

In the last few weeks we have quit refueling planes, yet the bombs continue to drop. We are still supplying the bombs.

Things are beginning to change. There is a movement among the public to hold their representatives accountable and say: Why are we at war in Yemen? Why don't you vote on whether we should be at war in Yemen? Why do you abdicate your responsibility to the President?

It is harder for someone like me because the President is of my party and I agree with him on many different issues. But where is the other side? The other side should be rising up and saying: This is a usurpation of power. The President is taking upon himself power that is not his. We should be rising up unanimously in saying: Enough is enough; we are taking back this power.

People talk about this all the time. People pretend to be believers in congressional checks and balances. There are always groups out there for checks and balances. This is a check and a balance. This is a time in which the Senate can tell the President what to do. But watch the votes. Many of the people you see on TV say: We should stand up, and the President this and the President that. On this issue, which is an honest issue of disagreement with the President, stand up and restrict his power. Stand up and tell the President that the Constitution says that war shall be declared by Congress.

But watch the votes here. We will not get a direct vote on the war, though; we will get an indirect vote. We will not even get to vote today on Saudi arms; they are afraid to bring up Saudi arms because they think we might win. But we will vote on one of the coalition partners. The Bahrainis are part of a nine-country coalition fighting this war. They have had casualties, they have dropped bombs, and they have been on the ground in Yemen. They are part of the fighting coalition.

So the resolution today will be specifically about not selling one set of arms sales to Bahrain. The other side will look for all kinds of excuses to say: No, oh, my goodness, Bahrain has been a great ally. I am not disputing that. What I am disputing is that they are getting the message that we are unhappy. We supply them with all of their arms, all right. We get to host our Navy there, great. I am not asking that we end our alliance. I am not asking that we sanction them. I am only saying to stop one sale of arms to send a message that we are done with the war in Yemen, that we are no longer going to sell weapons to countries that are fighting this war in Yemen, and that the war must come to a close.

Some will argue: Well, it is already kind of winding down; we are no longer refueling their planes. Yet, since Secretary Pompeo said about 3 weeks ago that the Saudi coalition should quit bombing civilian centers, the Saudis have dropped 200 bombs on Hodeida. Hodeida is a city where most of the humanitarian effort and food comes in. Yemen depends--80 percent of its food must be imported. It comes through this one port, for the most part.

The Saudis--since we admonished them, since Secretary Pompeo said that they need to cease and desist from bombing civilian centers--have dropped 200 more bombs on the city of Hodeida, where humanitarian aid comes in. It must stop. Someone must take a stand and say: Enough is enough; we are against the humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

They will argue: Well, then vote on that. I can't have a direct vote on that. They will not let me vote on whether we should be at war in Yemen. I am allowed to vote only on this one small thing. This is a proxy vote. This is a vote that represents whether we should be at war in Yemen. It is an incredibly important vote. It is an attempt to grab back power from the Presidency. It is an attempt to have a check and balance on all Presidents of all parties of all beliefs.

I don't think we should ever sell one arm--one musket, one shotgun-- to create a job. Our arms industry is for our national defense. It is a unique industry that is not an entirely private enterprise industry. The arms manufacturer, the military industrial complex is supported overwhelmingly by tax dollars. I am not for anybody being able to buy an F-16. I am not for selling F-16s to Russia or to China, but I am also not for selling any more to Saudi Arabia. I am not for fixing their planes. I am not for giving them replacement parts. Their air force would be shut down in a matter of months if we stopped funding them.

People say: That is too dramatic. You are doing things--they have been such a great ally. We had a Senator yesterday rise at our lunch, and he said: Well, we know he is not a democrat. We know he doesn't believe in representative government. We know he is a thug. Of course they execute and crucify people--crucify people--in Saudi Arabia. It is the best we can do, and we need him vis-a-vis Iran. What will happen? Iran will take over the world if we don't combat them in every little misbegotten civil war in the Middle East.

Here is the point, and this is the point which we should debate and which nobody debates: Who is more evil--the Revolutionary Guard and the Ayatollah of Iran or the Saudi Arabia Kingdom? If you look at it objectively, Saudi Arabia has spent over $100 billion teaching hatred of Christians, Hindus, and Jews around the world. They have opened tens of thousands of madrassas. The Haqqani network that has actually killed our soldiers in Afghanistan is supplied with money from the Saudis.

The Taliban has gotten money from the Saudis. There was a report that a Saudi royal dropped off a check for $267 million to the Taliban at one point. So we are fighting these people, and we are arming these people. We should not be arming the enemy.

It is not just one side; the other side has admitted this as well. It is not just Republicans saying this; in a cable that was leaked, Hillary Clinton said that Saudi Arabia was the ``most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.''

What is it like to live in Saudi Arabia? We might ask Baqir al-Nimr. He was arrested at 17 at a protest. He is still in jail and is scheduled to be executed. They have a real ``gloriful'' way of executing you in Saudi Arabia: They chop your head off, and then they crucify you. So his head will be chopped off, and then his body will be displayed in a crucifixion post. That is what they will do to him. He was 17 when he was arrested. They have beheaded minors in Saudi Arabia. Oh, but we buy their oil, and we are such good friends with their sheikhs and their Kings.

In Saudi Arabia right now, there are 3,000 people in prison who have not gotten a trial. There are nearly 1,000 people who have been in prison for 3 years without a trial--3 years without a trial, 1,000 people, and yet we continue to say: Oh, yes, but they oppose Iran.

Who is worse--Iran or Saudi Arabia? Maybe neither one of them is good. Do you want to send your son or daughter to fight for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard? No. Do you want to send your son or daughter to fight for the Saudi Kings who crucify people? No. Maybe we don't always have to pick sides. Maybe there is a time that comes when the thousand- year-old war between Sunni and Shia--let them fight it. Is there a reason we always have to send our sons and daughters to the Middle East?

People used to say we have to do it for oil, which was offensive to me. We are doing it for oil and oil profits? We are now independent of their oil. We export oil. We do not need Saudi Arabia.

People say: We have to have them, or Iran will take over the world. Saudi Arabia and their coalition partners spend eight times more on military than Iran does. What happens every time we send a dollar to Saudi Arabia? Iran then asks Russia for stuff. So it is an arms race that is fueled by both of the larger outside powers with their proxies, and everything is a proxy war.

But if you fool yourself into thinking that Saudi Arabia is the good guy and Iran is the bad guy, you have to ask yourself about the $2 billion that Saudi Arabia is spending in India--$2 billion over a 2- year period--teaching hatred of Hindus, hatred of Jews, hatred of Christianity, teaching that violent jihad is OK.

Hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars are spent by the Saudis, and people say: We can make a buck, and we can create a job. I, for one, would not try to create one job by selling arms to people who are our enemy. I don't care about jobs if we are going to have to sell arms to our enemies. The arms belong to the American people, and the arms should be seen as a national security asset. We don't sell arms to Russia, we don't sell arms to China, and we shouldn't sell arms to the Saudis who teach hatred of Christianity.

There are Saudi cities you can't even go to. Christians can't go to Mecca or Medina. You can't carry a Bible in Saudi Arabia. If you try to visit Saudi Arabia and bring a Bible in, you will be rejected at the border. This is not what we are for.

Even those who have advocated for the war are now admitting there is no military solution. Recently, Secretary Pompeo said: No military solution in Yemen; let's cease the bombing. General Mattis has said the same thing--no military solution. But they are not getting the signal. We are telling them there is no military solution, we are telling them to quit bombing civilian areas, and they are still bombing the areas. Since Secretary Pompeo told them a few weeks ago to quit bombing civilian areas, they dropped 200 bombs on Hodeidah. The Saudis aren't getting the message.

The Bahrainis are part of the coalition. Send them a message. I am not saying we sanction Bahrain. I am not saying we kick them out as an ally. I am not saying we end our relationship with the Bahrainis. I am saying don't sell them arms one time. Do you think they will get the message? See, that is a message of strength. A lot of people around here talk about, we must have peace through strength, and we need to have a strong military. Well, do you know what? We need to have a strong foreign policy that says that we are not going to be pushed around by a bunch of two-bit dictators in the Middle East, that we are not going to be led astray and reject all of our values by sending arms into a war where civilians are being killed by the thousands. Seventeen million people in Yemen live on the edge of starvation. The city that a lot of the humanitarian aid comes in through, Hodeidah, is blockaded by the Saudis.

I think that when we make decisions on foreign policy, they first should be made here. The Constitution intended that we declare war and that, really, foreign policy come from the people through the Congress, both House and Senate. If we were to have that debate, we would ask the question: Is our involvement in the war in Yemen in our national security interests? Is our national security enhanced by being at war in Yemen? I think the answer is unequivocally no.

To those who say ``Well, we must combat Iran,'' Iran is being combatted by Saudi Arabia, but Iran is not a threat to come across the ocean to see us. Guess who has come across the ocean. Do you remember 9/11? Do you remember who the hijackers were? Fifteen of nineteen of them were from Saudi Arabia. Do you remember the 28 pages of the ``9/11 Report'' that they wouldn't let the American public read for years and years and years, for over a decade? You can now read those, and the implication is that Saudi Arabia was involved in 9/11, perhaps in the financing, perhaps in the planning. We actually voted overwhelmingly to allow American people's--descendants of those who died on 9/11 to actually sue Saudi Arabia over this because of the implication that, yes, the 28 pages show that they were involved.

So what we should be debating here is, is there a national security risk, or is there a national security enhancement? Is it better for our country? Is it good for America to be involved in the war in Yemen, or does it actually enhance the risks that we will be involved in further war and further drawn into the Middle East?

If you look at the history of our involvement in the Middle East--and President Trump gets this very well. One of the things he says over and over again is that the Iraq war was a mistake, that it was a geopolitical blunder of immeasurable proportions. Why? It is the same thing that has happened over and over in the Middle East: We go in and we topple a strongman. The strongman has a horrible human rights record, and we say we are bringing freedom and democracy. Do you know what we get? We topple the strongman, and we get chaos.

Even decades later, in Afghanistan decades later, we still have chaos. You have chaos in Iraq, you now have chaos in Syria, you have chaos in Yemen, you have chaos in Libya, but it is not made better by our intervention, it is actually made worse. Out of the chaos comes more terrorism. Terrorism loves chaos. It is sort of like, nature abhors a vacuum; well, terrorism loves a vacuum. Terrorism grows and thrives and becomes more organized when they have a vacuum.

My fear in Yemen is that, as the war goes on, as both sides destroy each other in a war that has no real end, then maybe al-Qaida of Yemen will come back and al-Qaida of Yemen will become a dominant player.

Where did ISIS come from? People said ISIS was from Iraq. ISIS grew in Syria, from Raqqa. They started there and moved into Iraq because even after 15 years, the Iraqis were feckless to stop them, but they grew in the chaos of Syria.

Who did we supply, in Syria, with weapons? There was another post from Hillary Clinton to Podesta saying: We have to do something about Saudi Arabia and Qatar because they are indiscriminately supplying arms to al-Qaida and ISIS in Syria.

So because we always think we have to be involved--there can never be a time when we are not fighting on one side or the other--we get involved in

the lesser of the two evils, and so often, the lesser of the two evils is--guess what--still evil. So what has happened is we are drug into everybody's war--war on end in the Middle East--without resolution. They have been killing each other for a thousand years, and we think somehow siding with the Sunnis against the Shia is going to bring this war to a conclusion.

The thing is, I think it has been a mistake, and I think it has been counterproductive. I think the war in Yemen is counterproductive. I think our involvement there is leading to more chaos. I think the Senate has abdicated their duty and their role. Under article I, section 8, the Senate is allowed to and should be deciding when we go to war.

People talk about checks and balances, and we should be involved. Somehow we should check the President, who is assuming too much authority. This is your chance today. This is the check-and-balance. This is your proxy vote on the war in Yemen. There will be no direct one because they won't allow it. This will be a proxy vote because it will be about weapons to Bahrain because we are not being allowed a direct vote on the war in Yemen. We should be. It should be one of the most important things we do in the Senate, and that is to direct foreign policy, to decide when we go to war. It is probably the most important thing we do under the Constitution, and we have abdicated it for decade after decade.

I think the American people's frustration with Saudi Arabia is growing. I think the American people want a loud message sent. If you send any other message--some are proposing sanctions on killers. Well, they are in jail, and in all likelihood, they are going to be executed. So we are going to sanction a bunch of people who are in jail and are going to be executed? The Saudis will laugh at that. That is weakness.

Even in the last 3 weeks since Secretary Pompeo said ``You need to quit; you need to cease and desist from bombing civilian areas,'' the Saudis have dropped 200 bombs on civilian areas in Hodeidah. They are not getting the message. If we want to send them a message and send them a message loud and clear, we need to tell them no more arms. The next time they post a weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, we will do the same thing. But this is about the entire coalition of nine countries that are involved in this. Today, it will be about Bahrain, but today is really about Yemen. It is about the question I began this with.

My call today is to end the U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen. We should have debated this in advance. We should have debated this before we got involved in the war in Yemen. Yet there is this creeping mission that happens all the time: The wars begin with the executive branch, they creep and grow larger and larger, and we abdicate our duty and role to vote on these things. Today is an opportunity to say: Enough is enough. The war in Yemen should end.

It won't be the direct message I would like to send to Saudi Arabia, but it will be an indirect message. If this resolution were to pass, yes, it would be a loud and clear message that we are serious. But what will happen--and watch closely--is that many Members will say: Oh, Bahrain is our ally. We can't do this to our ally.

I am not talking about ending our relationship with Bahrain. I am not talking about never selling arms to them. I am talking about one time, today, don't send them arms. What is the drama about? That, to me, is a very modest step--one time, do not sell our arms. They can be sold in 6 months. Quit bombing Yemen, pull out of the coalition, stop the fight, and we will talk about arms sales.

One time, we should stand up and should send a message from the Senate to the President that we are in charge. Under Article I, Section 8, a declaration of war comes from Congress. We have abdicated that role for too long.

My hope is that today there will be enough of us to send a message, and the message should be loud and clear: The United States should end its involvement in the war in Yemen.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Madam President, reserving the right to object. We had an agreement to have an hour's worth of debate, where the opponents of the bill were given 30 minutes and the proponents of the bill were given 30 minutes, and the unanimous consent allowed me the remaining 30 minutes. The time period has expired. I think we ought to go by some rules and structure around here. Those who are against the bill should come in the allotted time. The time was used by all kinds of other people talking about things not related to the debate. It does a disservice to the debate that we did that.

I think a fair response is that we will grant an additional 5 minutes to opponents of the bill, and if you allow me to conclude in 5 minutes, I am fine with that.

I will respond to the objection to include what I have stated. If that is acceptable, I remove my objection to the modified motion.

Let's be very clear. Bahrain does have something to do with the war in Yemen. They are part of a nine-country coalition. They have lost soldiers in Bahrain. They have flown bombing missions. Bahrain is an intimate part of the coalition fighting the war.

You might ask yourself, is it enough to do nothing? We are going to put sanctions on people who are in jail. Do you think they care? They are probably going to be beheaded. Sanctions is a way of pretending to do something and doing nothing. The arms sales--I am not saying we never sell arms to Bahrain. I am saying one time we don't. That might get them the message.

People say we don't like the human rights record of Bahrain, it is abominable, but do you think they will react to weakness: Please don't hurt your people, please don't commit atrocities on the majority Shia population?

No, we will sell them arms one time, and they will sit up and say let's have a talk. People respect strength. We don't show strength unless we do something that is more dramatic than putting sanctions on people who are already in prison. This is about Saudi Arabia, but it is also about the coalition of nine countries of which Bahrain is.

If you think meek words will stop the Saudis, listen to this. Three weeks ago, Pompeo said they should cease all bombing of civilian centers. How many bombs have dropped on Hudaydah since he asked them to cease? Two hundred bombs have dropped on Hudaydah--the port where humanitarian aid needs to come in for a starving population--since we told them not to. We said we are not going to refuel their planes anymore. We are not refueling their planes. They are refueling their planes with our planes. Everything they fly is our plane. Their pilots are trained by us. Their mechanics are trained by us. We need to be stronger. It is a sense of weakness. It is a display of weakness not to at least block one arms sales. This is a modest proposal, and it is the least we can do.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the members and leadership of First Baptist Church of Russellville in celebration of the 200th anniversary of their first meeting in Logan County, KY. At a time when the United States was comprised of only 20 States, a small group of people, including 10 members and three elders, formed a church which held its first meeting on November 24, 1818.

For 200 years, the church has worked to meet the needs of its community and to reach far beyond the boundaries of Logan County to minister to the needs of others. The dedicated congregation at First Baptist Church of Russellville has planted three other churches and commissioned several members into full-time overseas missions, including Rev. and Mrs. Sheldon Trimble to Nigeria in 1865; Mary Nell Lynne to China in 1918; Robert and Mavis Hardy to Japan in 1958; Cathy Sue Smith to the Philippines in 1982; and Robert and Julie Johnson to Taiwan in 1992.

Furthermore, First Baptist Church of Russellville has given over $3,000,000 to the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention, which supports missionaries and trains pastors worldwide. Today, the men, women, and students of First Baptist Church of Russellville continue to play a vital role in the life of their community.

I congratulate Pastor Joe Ball and all the members of First Baptist on this truly exceptional milestone. I thank them for all they have done and continue to do through their many generations of service.

Mr. President, I want the record to reflect my concerns about the nominations of Jackie Wolcott to be the U.S. Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, and the U.S. Representative to the Vienna office of the United Nations. For family health reasons, I was unable to cast a vote in relation to her nomination. However, while Ambassador Wolcott is well-regarded for her recent work at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.S. Representative to the IAEA must bring impartiality and a focus on the technical aspects of the job. In the past, Ambassador Wolcott has spoken publicly and forcefully on IAEA compliance issues, and I have concerns that reconciling those past statements with the current demands of the IAEA will be difficult. For that reason, had I been able to cast a vote, I would have voted against the nominations.

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

Mr. President, Planned Parenthood ends the lives of 320,000 babies each year. That is about 900 babies every day. Planned Parenthood receives over $400 million of taxpayer money. The government, with a wink and a nod, tells us that Planned Parenthood doesn't spend the money on abortions, but everybody knows that the taxpayer is really cross-subsidizing Planned Parenthood's abortion mills.

My amendment would end the funding to Planned Parenthood. My amendment is already included in the House's version. Yet my amendment is now being blocked by Republicans. Why would Republicans block a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood? It may surprise some because so many Republicans go home and say they are against Planned Parenthood, but this vote could happen right now--right now, today--if Republicans don't object.

Everybody knows that the Democrats love abortion and Planned Parenthood more than life itself. But Republicans? Many voters think Republicans actually care about the unborn. Many voters think Republicans are really opposed to government-funded abortions. But the dirty little secret is that Republican leadership is blocking my amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. That is right. The Republican leadership has filled the amendment tree to block my ``defund Planned Parenthood'' amendment. But how can that be? Surely, the Republican leadership doesn't favor abortion funding, so the answer is a curious one.

The truth is that the Republican leadership favors bloated government spending more than it cares about Planned Parenthood. This appropriations bill before us exceeds the spending caps by nearly $100 billion. Big-spending Republicans fear that blocking funding for Planned Parenthood would derail their plans to greatly expand the welfare-warfare state. So be it. The public has long known that the Democrats are the abortion party. Now the public will know that many Republicans just give lipservice to pro-life issues and are really more concerned with bloated government spending than with saving lives.

Of the 320,000 babies that Planned Parenthood will abort this year, about 6,400 of these babies would be geniuses. They would develop into geniuses if

they would be allowed to live. Perhaps one of these potential geniuses would discover a cure for cancer or Lou Gehrig's disease. Of the 320,000 babies aborted by Planned Parenthood every year, about 1,000 would become doctors, 1,500 would become engineers, 1,200 would become lawyers, 3,400 would become teachers, and 400 would become pastors. Yet all of that potential is lost each year as a consequence of Planned Parenthood.

What I would say to my Republican colleagues is to please explain to voters at home why they allow Planned Parenthood to continue receiving taxpayer funds; to explain to those at home why they purposely filled the amendment tree in order to block an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood; to please explain to voters at home why passing huge deficit spending bills is more important than trying to save lives; and to please explain to America why anyone would trust politicians who continue to break their promises.

Make no mistake about it--my amendment to block funding for Planned Parenthood is being blocked by Republicans.

In a moment, one of the Democratic leaders will stand up and ask for a vote on my amendment as well as on a Democratic amendment. We don't agree on the policy, but we agree that if you allow an amendment from each side, that we could have some comity, that we could have some debate, and that we could live to disagree on another day. This amendment is not being blocked by the Democrats; this amendment is being blocked by Republicans who refuse to vote on a Democratic amendment.

Republican leadership has the power to unblock the amendment tree and allow the vote. The question is, What is more important to these Republicans--saving lives or spending money?

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment in order to call up my amendment, No. 3967.

Mr. President, I am a strong supporter of Israel. They remain one of our staunchest allies, and we must support them. However, the Israelis have called for a curtailment of U.S. aid for more than 20 years in order to ensure their own military and economic independence.

In 2013, Naftali Bennet, who was then serving as Israel's Minister of Economics and as the leader of the Home Party said, ``Today, U.S. military aid is roughly 1 percent of Israel's economy. I think, generally, we need to free ourselves from it. We have to do it responsibly . . . but our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago.''

Additionally, on July 10, 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before a Joint Session of Congress, ``I believe we can now say that Israel has reached childhood's end, that it has matured enough to begin approaching a state of self-reliance . . . . We are going to achieve economic independence [from the United States].''

Mr. President, our national debt now exceeds $22 trillion. We are borrowing about $1 million a minute--actually, more than $1 million. Many authorities, including Admiral Mullen, have said the greatest threat to our national security is actually our debt.

The best way to do something about debt is to quit spending yourself further into a hole. We had spending caps. We adhered to them for a couple of years, and we actually were reducing the size of the deficit.

This year, though, the deficit will actually approach $1 trillion, and next year it may exceed $1 trillion. This amendment would put the spending caps back just on the spending we have before us in this bill.

I would advocate that if you are concerned about the debt, concerned about the deficit, and concerned about the strength of our country, that you vote to reinstitute the spending caps.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, Trump derangement syndrome has officially come to the Senate. The hatred for the President is so intense that partisans would rather risk war than give diplomacy a chance. Does anybody remember that Ronald Reagan sat down with Gorbachev and that we lessened the nuclear tensions? We need to still have those openings.

Nobody is excusing Russia's meddling in our elections. Absolutely we should protect the integrity of our elections. But simply bringing the hatred of the President to the Senate floor in order to say ``We are done with diplomacy. We are going to add more and more sanctions''--you know what. I would rather that we still have open channels of discussion with the Russians. At the height of the Cold War, Kennedy had a direct line to Khrushchev, and it may have prevented the end of the world.

Should we be so crazy about partisanship that we now say ``We don't want to talk to the Russians. We are not going to have relations with the Russians''? We should stand firm and say ``Stay the hell out of our elections,'' but we should not stick our head in the ground and say we are not going to talk to them.

I would like to see the Russians leave Ukraine. I think we could do it through diplomacy. We are not going to have it if we don't talk to them.

I would like to see the Russians help more with North Korea, with denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We are not going to have it if we just simply heap more sanctions on and say that we are not going to talk to the Russians and that anybody who talks to the Russians is committing treason.

For goodness' sake, we have the former head of the CIA, John Brennan, gallivanting across TV--now being paid for his opinion--to call the President treasonous. This has to stop. This is crazy hatred of the President. Crazy partisanship is driving this.

For goodness' sake, we don't excuse Russia's behavior in our election, but we don't have to have war. We can still have engagement. We have engaged Russia throughout 70 years, while also acknowledging the imperfections of their system, the parts of their system we vehemently disagree with--the lack of freedom, the lack of human rights. Yet we had open channels of negotiation, open channels of communication.

I could not object more strongly to this.

Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have no objection to voting on the amendments if we allow all of them. We have an amendment, and 68 Members of this body said that no American should be detained without a trial. If you put that amendment, which 68 Senators support, in the package, I will be happy to have consent. If we don't have it in, I will continue to object. I object.

Mr. President, the Senate adopted amendment No. 2276 to H.R. 5515 by voice vote, though I opposed this amendment and would have voted against it. This amendment would further study the feasibility of establishing a permanent U.S. troop presence in Poland. We should be looking at where we can reduce our footprint abroad, not where we can expand it. As our government continues to pile up debt, we should be asking our NATO allies to step up and prioritize their own defense. The more that we assume the security burden, as this amendment would do, the less incentive these countries will have to contribute their share toward our mutual defense.

(At the request of Mr. Durbin, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record,)

Mr. President, one of the most fundamental protections of our Constitution is that the government cannot imprison or punish people without due process or without being charged with a crime and a fair trial. Several years ago, Congress tried to undermine those most basic protections by saying the government could hold someone forever without so much as charging them with a crime under the powers granted to pursue Osama bin Laden in 2001.

The Lee amendment seeks to restore those fundamental protections for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who are captured inside the United States. That is an important step forward, and I will vote for it. However, the Lee amendment still stops short of the protections guaranteed in our Bill of Rights.

The Fifth Amendment to our Constitution says that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Sixth Amendment says the accused has a right to a speedy and fair trial. Neither of those is limited to just citizens and permanent residents. My amendment 2795 would restore these protections for all persons captured in the United States.

By restoring these protections, no terrorist suspect would be freed. The government would simply have to charge someone they believe to be a terrorist with a crime and put them on trial. I have no sympathy for terrorists and want to see them punished and locked away so they can cause no harm. I merely want the government to follow our most sacred charter, our Constitution, to do it just as we have for more than 225 years.

Reserving the right to object, the right to trial by jury is a most precious and ancient right. A few minutes ago on the Senate floor, 68 Senators voted to give a vote on the Senate floor on whether anyone captured and accused of a crime would get a trial by jury. It is in the Bill of Rights. Over two-thirds of the Senate voted for it-- enough to pass a constitutional amendment. We voted for it, and one person is denying a vote on this.

The senior Senator from South Carolina does not believe the Bill of Rights applies to people accused of a crime. Think about that. This is not about me. This is about one Senator from South Carolina who so much objects to the Bill of Rights that he doesn't want it to apply to people accused of a crime.

So, yes, I do most strenuously object.

Mr. President, one of the greatest things about our country is the Bill of Rights. When we passed the Constitution, many people were fearful that if specific rights were not enumerated, they might be taken away. I think other people said: We don't need a Bill of Rights. Who can imagine a time when we would take away the right to trial? Who can imagine a time when you wouldn't get a lawyer or that you could be held indefinitely without a trial?

Some people opposed the Bill of Rights and said: We don't need this because it is so obvious that no one in their right mind would ever argue that an American citizen or someone apprehended or accused of a crime in the United States would be held without limit, would be sent to a camp in another country and held forever without a trial. None of our Founding Fathers ever imagined that could happen.

Well, here we are at a time where just 4 or 5 years ago, this body passed a bill that says an American citizen can be detained forever; that an American citizen accused of a crime in the United States can be sent to a foreign camp and held forever without trial.

When you mention this, people are incredulous. They ask: Who is the person who would object to the Bill of Rights? Who is it who possibly objects to the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment?

You are going to hear from that person shortly because it is one person in the Senate who objects to the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment applying to those who are accused of a crime in our country-- captured in our country and accused of a crime in our country. This person would deny you a lawyer. This person believes the entire world is a battlefield, including the United States, so we need to have martial law in the United States. This person discounts the whole presumption that you are presumed to be innocent until found guilty.

Why is this a problem? Well, after 9/11, we captured 119 people, and we tortured them. Our government tortured them, but, in retrospect, we found out that 26 out of the 119 were the wrong person.

Does anybody remember a time in our history when Black people were lynched because they were presumed to be guilty? This is what this is about. This is about people accused of a crime--not declared guilty, not found guilty, but you are willing to lock them up without a trial. I cannot think of anything more un-American.

You will hear today from the representative of the un-American position that the Fifth and the Sixth Amendments don't apply to everybody.

Some will say: Oh, the Fifth Amendment just applies to citizens, and maybe we could talk about citizens but not noncitizens. The Fifth Amendment says that no person shall be held or deprived of their liberty or due process, which is the whole idea of going to court. Nobody captured in this country can be deprived of that. The Sixth Amendment says: ``In all prosecutions, the accused''--not just American citizens but the accused.

People will say: Oh, we are talking about terrorists here, and they are terrible people. Absolutely they are terrible people. Everybody would want to punish the guilty terrorists, but do you want to punish people who are only accused of terrorism?

You say: Well, it is a terrible crime. We might as well just throw out the Constitution and throw out the Bill of Rights. Why don't we just lock these people up or, better yet, kill them? That is the mentality of lynching. That is the mentality of locking up all the Japanese during World War II. Is that who we are as a people?

They will have won after 9/11 if we give up on the Bill of Rights. If we give up on who we are, they will have won. We presume people to be innocent. We don't lock up people because they are Japanese--not any longer--and we don't lynch people because they are Black--not any longer--because the Bill of Rights applies to everyone.

If you say, well, he is accused of terrorism, and he shouldn't get a trial, or she shouldn't get a trial, we have had 386 people accused of terrorism in our country, and every one of them has been convicted.

The man who killed 13 people in New York City the other day, if I am on the jury, I vote to convict, but I want to hear the evidence first. I want to know that they got the right person. I want to know that someone saw him do it, that there is evidence--not just because he has brown skin we are going to lock him up and lock him up forever without a trial.

We have convicted everybody tried in the United States. We didn't give up on who we are. Yet the law currently says--thanks to several individuals--that you can be detained forever without a trial.

President Obama signed this law, but even President Obama knew it was a terrible law. He said: This law, this power is so terrible that I will never use it.

But that is not what the law is about. The law is about being so good that even when you get a rotten person in office someday, they don't have the power to do this. What happens if someday we elect someone who is a bigot or someone who says that gay people should be guilty or someone who says that Brown people or non-Christians or Christians or homeschoolers--you name it--you can be a minority of the color of your skin or a minority of your ideology, but we should never let the government lock you up without a trial, without a lawyer.

The amendment I have been trying to get for 6 years simply restates the Constitution, restates the Bill of Rights. It says that no declaration of war will allow people apprehended in the United States to be held without a trial. We not only can't get this passed, we can't get a vote on it because certain individuals have such disregard for American tradition, disregard for the presumption of innocence, and disregard for the Bill of Rights that they object to even having a vote. So we have been trying for 6 years to have a vote on this.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up my amendment, which would forbid indefinite detention of American citizens and others who are accused of a crime, amendment No. 2795 to amendment No. 2282.

Mr. President, regular order.

Mr. President, I think it is important to listen to what you heard and analyze what you heard because apparently, if you are defined as an enemy combatant, it would be OK not to have a trial and not to have a lawyer. You wouldn't be presumed innocent; you would be presumed guilty. But the question you have to ask is, Who gets to define the enemy combatant? If the government gets to define you as an enemy combatant, is it not conceivable that you could be an enemy combatant because you are a minority either of skin color or of ideology? Has it happened in the past? The Japanese citizens were a minority, but there was no evidence--no one presented any evidence that they were a threat or had done anything wrong.

The Non-Detention Act attempted to fix this. There were people like this back in the time of World War II. There are people like this in every war, people who are frightened of those who would attack us, so they want to give up the Constitution to make it simpler to get to guilt. You don't have to have a trial; you just proclaim people guilty. If you proclaim someone an enemy combatant, there will be no trial, but it begs the question: Who gets to decide? Are we going to let one person decide, or are we going to have a jury? Imagine how important this is to our country. We should be alarmed that there are people trying to prevent a trial by jury in our country. It hasn't been used so far, thankfully. We have actually 386 times taken terrible, awful, rotten people who have tried to attack us, and we tried them in courts with juries. We presumed they were innocent. We found them guilty, and we punished them.

See, the problem isn't about how terrible terrorists are or terrorism is. Murderers are equally as bad. We had somebody go in a nightclub in Orlando and kill 125 people. He is as evil as any terrorist out there. Yet he will get a trial, not because anybody condones what he did, not because anybody doesn't want to punish him, but we will give him a trial because it is part of who we are. It is part of America to have trials.

You will short-circuit America, you will short-circuit American history if you get rid of a trial by jury, if you get rid of presumption of innocence. It doesn't mean we have any sympathy for the guilty, but we have to make sure we get the guilty. We can't just prosecute people because they have brown skin, because they have black skin, because we don't like the way they act or we don't like their religion. That is what becomes of a country that doesn't have trials. Look around the world. There are countries that don't have trials. That is not who we are. We cannot be so frightened of terrorism that we are going to presume guilt and have no trials. It will end up in tyranny.

So I ask again and again--and I won't ask it now because the Senator from South Carolina has left, but I ask again and again, will this body not allow a vote? This isn't even about his voting no; it is about his objecting to even the democratic process of the Senate allowing a vote.

So America needs to know there is one opponent in the Senate who does not believe in the Bill of Rights. When he declares you an enemy combatant, you don't get the Fifth or Sixth Amendments. That is what this is about. I am happy if he wants to go home and defend that, but this is a very important debate and should not end here.

Thank you.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, two bedrock principles of American jurisprudence are the presumption of innocence and the right to have a trial by jury. I have one amendment that I would ask unanimous consent be included in this bill. This amendment would ensure that no American would ever be held indefinitely in prison without having a trial by jury. I can't imagine why we can't have this. One Republican Senator has been blocking this for 6 years.

I object to this unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we allow my amendment to be heard and voted on in the upcoming bill.

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