Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize a hero who tragically lost his life in the line of duty.

Bradley Michael Link, age 28, was a beloved figure of the Lake County area. At a young age, he was committed to serving his community.

Bradley started as an Explorer, which is a Boy Scout program, with the Lake County Sheriff's Office as a teenager. That motivated him to join the Polk County Sheriff's Office for 2 years and then, later, the Lake County Sheriff's Office for 4\1/2\ years.

On Friday, August 2, 2024, almost 1 year ago, Bradley and his fellow deputies responded to a disturbance at a home on Brookside Drive in Eustis, where he was shot. He later died the next morning.

Master Deputy Sheriff Bradley Link embodied what it means to give. We must always remind ourselves that our men and women in blue are someone's loved ones. They are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters--people who are willing to give up their time and peace to serve and protect.

Bradley was one of those people, and he left behind his wife, his mom and dad, and his brother.

I recognize the Link family and continue to remember Bradley. May God bless the Link family, and may God bless all of our officers in blue.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this America last amendment and reject the premise of the arguments that are being made.

There are 600,000 Americans who live in Israel, and one rocket has been fired against every 23 of them, 26,000 rockets since October 7. Forty-three Americans were killed on October 7, and 12 were taken hostage.

More importantly, the research that this funds is the premise behind the Golden Dome. When we support research and development for the Iron Dome, we are creating the capability for the United States to defend itself as well.

I have news. We have a nuclear weapon, too. That doesn't get you off the hook with those who are out to get you.

When we oppose this amendment, when we vote it down, we are not only standing with Israel. We are standing with the best interests of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, as I sat here and listened to that panoply of speeches or motions over the last few seconds, I was reminded of the fact that when we say there should be no cuts to Medicaid, we are saying there should be no

cuts to illegal immigrants who are getting Medicaid.

We live in a world where we spend more money than we bring in, and it is not fair to actual Americans to be forced to take on additional debt to give benefits to people who are not in this country legally.

Mr. Speaker, I note that the Democrats have not proposed a solution that would allow us to continue to give benefits to people who shouldn't be here anyway and pay for them without our children going into future debt. We must keep that in mind.

I am here to fight for Americans, and that is what this bill does.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank President Trump for saving the world. For those who don't recognize it, we have been at war with Iran for the last 46 years, or more likely and more accurately, Iran has been at war with us.

In 1979, they took American citizens hostage and paraded them out on the news day after day after day until President Reagan secured their release.

In 1983, a suicide bomb in Beirut, paid for by the Iranians, killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. In 1983, later that year, we all know they blew up our barracks with our marines, killing 241 people. Between 2003 and 2011, more than 600 American soldiers were killed by Iranian proxies.

Then obviously on October 7, 2023, 1,200 people were killed by Hamas, but Hamas is a proxy and largely paid for by Iran. Within that 1,200 people, 48 were Americans.

It leads me to ask this simple question: What if they had had a nuclear weapon?

For decades, American Presidents have said Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. It is a lot of talk but not a lot of action. Over and over and over again, Iran moved forward, building their bunkers deeper, building their sites more widespread, putting the world further at risk.

When Donald Trump talks, he doesn't just talk. When he says he is going to do something, he does it.

Over the weekend, we saw this President do what has been necessary for decades: To make sure the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world does not have the power to kill us all.

Make no mistake, just imagine if they had a nuclear weapon on 9/11. Imagine if they had a nuclear weapon on October 7.

When our enemies tell us they want to kill us, we should believe them. When they say, ``death to Israel,'' when they say, ``death to America,'' and when they say they want to wipe us off the map, they mean it. They mean it because we live in a world where we do not all share the same values. We live in a world where there is good and evil in our civilization.

In the Judeo-Christian civilization of the United States and the West, we believe in life. We believe in prosperity. We do not believe in martyrdom. We do not celebrate death. That is not what we believe. There are those that do, and we put ourselves in great peril when we fail to recognize that.

Donald Trump recognized it. Our brave American soldiers who flew 40 hours round trip to deliver a message that under this President and under the Congress that is here and under this leadership, we will never allow Iran to have those nuclear weapons.

The days ahead will be scary because Iran has said that they will respond. They should make no mistake: They mess with America at their own peril.

The last thing I will say is this, and I say this to those on my side. It is one thing when I call out the anti-Semitism of those who do not stand in my party, who do not agree with me, who do not call themselves conservatives, but I am an equal opportunist. It is easy to call it out on the other side. You must do it on your own.

To those on my side who hate Jews and hate Israel so much that they are willing to jeopardize the security of the United States, know this: You are in the minority, you will lose, and I and President Trump are going to fight you every step of the way.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from my colleagues on the other side that we should be focused on issues that matter, that we should be thinking about our kids.

As I lay awake at night here in Washington--I have only been here a couple months, but as bad as I thought it was going to be. It is far worse because Rome is burning and too many people in this building say that that is a great opportunity to roast marshmallows.

The fact of the matter is, if we can't make these cuts, which are as simple and as easy as you would think--$6 million to fund media in Gaza, funding PBS and NPR--even if it was a good idea, you can't do it when you are borrowing trillions of dollars a year.

If we can't make these cuts, which should be the easiest imaginable cuts, then there is no hope for us. I am grateful to my leadership for bringing this forward. I am grateful to President Trump for doing it, but make no mistake: This is only the first step if we want to put out the fire.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the women's rowing team at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on their first-ever national championship as a rowing team and to recognize the university for its first-ever national championship since it joined the NCAA II era.

They won this race, rowing more than a mile, 2000 meters, in Mercer Lake, New Jersey. If we think about it, that is a long way to row. I understand this. I have two sons who are rowers. It is a very, very challenging sport. I congratulate them for doing it.

Not only did they win the national championship but Head Coach Grant Maddock earned the Sunshine State Conference Coach of the Year honors.

Soleil Edwards, my son's former teammate, was named winner of the NCAA ELITE 90 award. This means she had the highest GPA of anyone rowing at that national championship.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate them, and I wish them the best of luck in the season ahead.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today not just as a Member of Congress but as the father of two Jewish boys. I speak for all the Jews across the country, millions of them, who today go to the grocery store, their jobs, and school and live their lives afraid of what might happen to them.

Eighty years ago in Germany, Jews were burned in ovens for being Jews, and on Sunday, as I sat at home with my children watching TV, we saw that here in the United States, in 2025, Jews are being burned again.

You see, Mr. Speaker, it feels like open hunting season on Jewish Americans. I wear a kippah not because I am a proud and observant Jew. I am not all that observant. I wear it out of respect for all the Jews around America who do not feel safe wearing theirs today. That is because, by wearing it, they feel they literally have a target on their heads.

We have heard for 18 months that the intifada should be globalized. We have heard ``resistance by any means necessary.'' On Sunday, and again 2 weeks ago, we saw what that looked like.

In this country, we have a hard decision to make. We have to make a decision about whether we are going to continue to be afraid or whether we are going to call evil by its name.

I have news for you, Mr. Speaker. When someone chants ``Free Palestine,'' what they are calling for is the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world.

When someone says, ``From the river to the sea,'' what they are calling for is the genocide of every Jew who lives in Israel and abroad.

We have to make a decision as a country: Are we going to call evil by its name, or are we going to continue to live in fear?

There are things that we can do, things that we must do, and things that I will be working here to make happen.

We must join Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain and declare the Muslim Brotherhood and all of its affiliates the terrorist organization that it is.

We must tackle the anti-Semitism that we have seen at our universities, and I have a bill that will deal with that. That is because when people hear lies that come from the universities that they believe are truthful and honest, and when they hear lies about what is going on in the world, it inflames them and leads to the actions that we have seen in the past couple of weeks.

The murderer--I don't know that he murdered anyone, so I apologize. The attempted murderer in Colorado was someone who is here illegally. That is the worst kind of crime because it is done by someone who shouldn't even be here. We need to do everything possible to back President Trump in getting these people out of this country.

There is no right to come to the United States if a person is not a citizen. It is not a right. It is a privilege. If a person does not share our values and if they do not believe in this country, then they should not be here.

I call on every one of these illegal immigrants to either get out or for us to get them out.

Lastly, as it relates to visas, I am a huge believer in immigration. America is a country of immigrants. Immigrants are what have made us great, but it is the immigrants who wish to come here and build us up, not those who wish to come here and tear us down.

For those who come to this country and go to our universities and work in other places, and their job is to undermine and defeat what has existed for 249 years, it is time for us to revoke those visas and to send them home.

The most important thing, Mr. Speaker, is that we must not be afraid to tell the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I am a new person in this Chamber, and one of the things I have observed over the last 6 weeks is the fundamental question of: Who is it that we should be most worried about? See, Rome is burning, and it doesn't seem as though people realize that.

It is not thoughtful, it is not generous, it is not compassionate to borrow money from our children and our grandchildren to give it to people who should not be in our country anyway. It is not compassionate to borrow money from them to give it to people for healthcare if they could work and they could provide it for themselves.

What is compassionate is to tell someone who is a waitress, working hard to support her family, that she doesn't have to pay taxes on her tips. It is compassionate to someone like my father who is blind to know that he might not have to pay taxes on his Social Security.

There is compassion in this bill. There is compassion for the American people, and I hope that everyone will support it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for the opportunity to speak today, and I think 4 minutes will turn out to be an appropriate amount of time.

My colleague on the other side talked about the nature of things being deadly. I would like to talk about that.

On April 17, less than 1 month ago, at 11:56 in the morning, a shooter carrying a gun walked onto the campus of Florida State University and began to shoot students and adults. It was a gun crime that we would all agree was horrific.

Mr. Speaker, I am new in this place. I only got elected here a month ago. What I will tell you of my observation of my first 4 weeks of being here is I hear a lot of canned speeches that don't actually address the bills and issues that the American people have sent us here to work on. I think it is why we may be held, to some degree, in such low regard.

During this shooting at 11:56 on April 17, seven people were shot. Fortunately, five were not killed. We only know one of them. She was a graduate student. The other names have not been released. In that shooting, two were killed.

Robert Morales was 57 years old and a dining coordinator at Florida State. Tiru Chabba was a vice president at the food service company at Florida State.

Why do I tell this story? Law enforcement at Florida State did everything right. They rushed to the scene. They subdued the shooter. Mr. Speaker, do you know how long it took them to do that? It took them 4 minutes, the amount of time that I will speak here today. In those 4 minutes, with law enforcement doing everything, seven people were shot, and two were killed.

H.R. 2243 would say that if any one of them were a retired or an off- duty law enforcement officer, they could have protected themselves.

When these horrific things happen, the fact of the matter is that it will take law enforcement time to get there. Mr. Speaker, the only way for you to defend yourself is for you to do it.

I am not saying that, had that bill passed, these seven people wouldn't have been shot. I don't know if there was retired law enforcement there. I don't know that any of these people were that.

I know that when shooters consider the places that they are going to go, one of the things they think about is what might be the response. When we tell people who have spent their entire careers and who are trained--not just anyone but someone who for their entire career gave themselves selflessly to protect us all, when we tell that person because they are off-duty, because they are retired, all of that service is no longer useful, we needlessly put people at risk.

I don't want another shooting like we had at Florida State. God forbid, if there ever is another one, I want people there to respond. I am grateful to the law enforcement officers who took longer to get there than my speech will take, but I worry about what will happen next time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Bacon for bringing this bill forward. I thank Representative Roy for giving me the opportunity to speak. We were told we should stand up for our citizens in this process. When we stand up to keep them safe, that is exactly what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker, I was not intending to speak. I had the privilege of just standing in the Speaker's rostrum a few minutes ago and witnessing this debate on an issue that has been important to me ever since I got into public service. I think it is no small coincidence as I was able to wear my kippah up there. I am not sure whether that has happened before as a debate like this happened.

I thank Representative Wasserman Schultz for bringing this forward and saying that we should stand together on anti-Semitism.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that I am new, but a resolution like this that says that people should care about these issues is not the time for people to go and make partisan potshots about anti-Semitism. It is not productive. It is divisive. It is not helpful, particularly in a world where folks on our side could go through a long list and a litany of problems on the other side of the aisle, including the people who actually serve in this room.

This is a problem that, while I appreciate that Democrats want to work on and while I appreciate that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to help on it, I can say from personal experience that the folks who are on my side, from President Trump on down, are committed.

Mr. Speaker, are there bad people? Something I often say in Florida-- as my colleagues work with me, they will find this--anti-Semitism doesn't have a monopoly on either party. Both have it. My side does, too. Yet, where we fight together to take it on and not take shots, we actually begin to solve the problem.

Commentary like that about President Trump is just not helpful because I can say that I have seen it in my State where we don't have many of the problems that we find in other parts of the country because we have tackled these issues, largely in a bipartisan way, including with people who serve here in Congress on the Democratic side.

Mr. Speaker, I say, moving forward, while I am grateful for the desire and the belief to tackle anti-Semitism, there is a time and a place for those kinds of arguments. This was not one.

I thank my colleagues for the resolution and letting us focus on the importance of celebrating achievements that I was not aware of. I will now share with my family where the slow cooker came from. I didn't know. It makes sense given the kind of food that we eat at home.

Yet, I ask us as we tackle this issue to be focused on solving the problem and not making it worse by trying to come up with things that will divide us all.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) for asking me here to talk about this important subject.

Mr. Speaker, I came to speak because the cause of Iran is not just a cause that we should care about for the Iranian people, though we should. As Americans, we are a people whose country was founded because a group of people were unhappy by the tyranny we faced. There is no question they face it over there, as well.

The cause of Iran is one that we should care about because it is in the best interest of the United States to care about it. We live in a world that, unfortunately, is on fire, whether it is in China, whether we see it in Russia, or certainly in Iran.

Iran has chosen to not only take their horrific, genocidal, lunatic policies to kill their own people, to hurt women, and to hurt people who won't abide by their radical Islamic faiths, but they have done it to other people around the world. They are the leading sponsor of terrorism around the world.

We saw this most dramatically just a little over 18 months ago when, on October 7, 2023, 1,200 people, most of which were Jews, but not all, people from dozens of countries, including Americans, were attacked and killed.

We focus on Hamas, but Hamas only exists because Iran funds and supports it. Just as we saw President Trump free the last American citizen who was being held hostage because of Iran, those problems and challenges continue to happen today.

I did a little research. Obviously, I have an affinity for Jewish problems around the world because I am Jewish. I have always been part of a small minority throughout my life. I am one here in Congress, as well, and it is a great honor to be here.

In 1979, 100,000 Jews lived in Iran. The same people who Iran likes to fund to talk about genocide, suffering, and rooting out people and all these problems around the world, Mr. Speaker, you can say: How many of those folks still live in Iran today?

Today, estimates are that 10,000 Jews live in Iran. I am not saying that 90,000 of them have been killed. Certainly, some of them have. Mr. Speaker, 90,000 have left. That is 90 percent of this population, of just one population. There are many populations of people who would be at risk in a place like Iran, but 90 percent have left and fled. Many, by the way, have come to the United States.

They do that because they are not free to live their lives the way they want to live them. Today, when we talk about this, we stand with Iran not only because we believe in freedom for all people around the world but freedom of self-determination and to decide what kind of government we want.

Frankly, we want to allow women to vote, to have equal rights with men, to live in a society where religion is important but is not a tool for oppression.

We care about these issues because they create peace and security in the Middle East. Ultimately, that leads to peace and security here in the United States.

It is my honor to speak here today to support the gentleman and his resolution. We must do everything we can to get these lunatics out of power and allow the great Persian people, where many say civilization began thousands and thousands of years ago, to reseize that initiative that they had at the founding of civilization and to rebuild the kind of society they once had and certainly could have again.

Mr. Speaker, 35 years ago, a 16-year-old boy walked through those doors, and he marveled in this room at this temple of democracy as he watched people who gave of their lives, who gave up time with their families, and who gave up their careers in order to serve their country.

When I spent 1 year working here as a House page, I learned from so many people--five of whom, by the way, are still serving today--what it meant to serve America and what it meant to put the needs of the country before yourself.

I want to recognize my family because when I did this opportunity, being a good Jewish boy, my family would not send me alone. My mother, my father, and my sister moved to Washington. My mom, who I will talk about in a little bit, used to sit where my wife, Wendy, and my father are. My sons are over there. I want to recognize all of them and thank them so much for being here. My mom used to sit up there, and she used to watch me every day. She used to tell me every day: Randy, God has a plan.

Now, I believe that when Donald Trump's life was saved in Butler, Pennsylvania, it was so that he could save the world. It is an honor of a lifetime that God's plan for me is to come and help all of you implement that plan.

However, today is also a sad day for me because the person I most wished to be here to watch this can't be here. I will tell you a story about my mom. She was my biggest champion. She was the one who taught me how to fight. If you don't know me, and if you haven't followed me, ``fighter'' will be the word that you will know soon enough.

One day when I was 16 years old, my mother came with me, and we went to the stationery store which is still in the same place that it is today. We went into that store, and my mom saw something that she thought that I should buy. She said: Randy you never know when you might actually need this.

Now, I bought that thing that day. I thought it was kind of crazy, and it has been sitting in my closet for 35 years. It is in that bag over there. It is a metal seal that says: ``Member of Congress.''

When I leave here and I go back to my office, it will be the first thing that I hang. That is because God has a plan for us all. He has a plan for all of you. He has a plan for me. He has a plan for every member of my family, and He has a plan for every person who is watching here today.

I believe that His plan in the days ahead is that we do everything in our power to deliver on the promise that the voters asked us to do in November, and that is to Make America Great Again.