Floor Statements

Mr. President, adults are suffering and children are starving to death in Gaza. That is a fact. It has been that way for weeks, if not months. Part of the problem, obviously, is it is a war zone. Because of that, many of the people, innocent civilians, have been caught up in the throes of conflict and have died as a result of it.

In an ordinary time, there are approximately 500 truckloads a day shipped into Gaza--500. In this time of war, an attack by Israel on Hamas in Gaza, the number has been reduced to 200--200--because the ports of entry have been closed by the Israelis for security purposes. Closing them means less food, medicine, and water is available for the people living in Gaza. They suffer and they die, particularly the children.

There has been an effort underway for months to persuade the Israelis to allow more of the basics of human life to enter Gaza, but the Israelis have resisted that suggestion for the most part. What have we done in response? Well, we have decided, through President Biden, to have an extraordinary effort--a landing area where trucks can be brought into Gaza from the sea, from an oceangoing vessel, and make things available to the people who live there. It is a life-and-death mission, and for us to walk away from it at this point would be not only foolhardy but cruel--cruel.

The notion, the argument that was just stated on the floor that Hamas is infiltrating these supplies and taking them for their own purpose has no evidence in fact--none. Over and over again, in phone calls which I have been part of to United Nations personnel on the ground, they assure us there is no evidence of that whatsoever.

So this humanitarian effort by the United States, by President Biden, is not only appropriate, but it is absolutely necessary. It is an emergency situation. I commend the administration for their actions in trying to feed these people in Gaza as they sit in a war zone and watch their children die, hospitals close, and the homes they had totally destroyed.

Let's do this and show them we as Americans really do care. We are not supplying terrorists; we are trying to supply children--children who are starving to death in Gaza. I thank President Biden for his leadership.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Georgia Alexakis to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Born in Chicago, IL, Ms. Alexakis earned her A.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard College and her J.D., magna cum laude, from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Milton I. Shadur of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Ms. Alexakis began her legal career in private practice handling breach of contract claims, tax disputes, and product liability matters. In 2013, she became an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois. In her first 4 years with the USAO, she served in the General Crimes and Narcotics and Money Laundering Sections, handling all aspects of criminal investigations and prosecution, discovery, and all trial stages. In 2019, she became the deputy chief of appeals, maintaining her investigative and trial work while supervising other prosecutors on appellate briefs and oral argument preparations. She also served as the civil rights and hate crimes program coordinator during this time. She returned to private practice in 2022 as partner with Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP. Later that year, she returned to the USAO as the chief of appeals in the Criminal Division.

Over the course of her legal career, Ms. Alexakis has tried 10 cases to verdict, 8 of which were in Federal court, and has argued approximately 30 appeals in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The American Bar Association unanimously rated Ms. Alexakis as ``well qualified,'' and she has the strong support of myself and Senator Duckworth.

Ms. Alexakis's courtroom experience, management credentials, and knowledge of the Northern District make her well-positioned to serve on the bench with distinction.

I was proud to recommend Ms. Alexakis to the White House, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting her nomination.

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, there are few things more American than serving our Nation. It is a special privilege of mine when I am able to honor some of our Nation's women and men in uniform. And it is even more special when I am able to recognize the dedicated service of those who have served in Illinois. After a decorated career, Maj. Gen. Richard R. Neely--the Adjutant General of Illinois, Commander of the Illinois National Guard, and Director of the Illinois Department of Military Affairs--is retiring after nearly 40 years of service to our State and Nation.

It is no coincidence that many extraordinary Americans have been from Illinois. General Neely is certainly one of them. While he began his tenure as the Adjutant General for Illinois in 2019, his military career in our State began several decades prior. General Neely hails from the South Side of Chicago. The summer before his senior year of high school, he joined the Army Reserves and later the Air National Guard as an airman. After graduating from Illinois State University, he joined the 183rd Wing in my hometown of Springfield, where General Neely spent more than two decades of his career serving in various positions.

General Neely's military career also took him well beyond the Prairie State. Over the course of his service, he was sent on two combat deployments in Iraq in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. His bravery helped safeguard American national security during a critical time in our history.

Because of his exceptional service, General Neely was appointed as Illinois's Adjutant General in 2019. He served in this role during a period of historic challenges for our State and Nation, and in every instance, he rose to the occasion.

Not even 4 months into the job, following major flooding in our State in the spring of 2019, General Neely activated 830 soldiers over 9 weeks to help support the State's recovery. The Illinois National Guard's task forces completed 62 requests for assistance along more than 362 miles of riverbank as part of an overall response effort led by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

In response to the health and safety challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, General Neely directed the largest and longest domestic operations activation in the history of the Illinois National Guard. During this time, Illinois National Guard soldiers and airmen provided 250,000 COVID-19 tests, delivered millions of masks, and administered nearly 2 million vaccines throughout the State. General Neely's leadership helped save millions of lives.

And following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, one of the darkest days in our Nation's history, General Neely directed five Illinois National Guard activations in response to the civil unrest.

In all of these examples, I hesitate to imagine where we would be if not for General Neely's innovative, dedicated, and selfless leadership. But perhaps most impactful was General Neely's care for our daughters, sons, and friends who made the brave decision to serve our country. As commander of the Illinois National Guard, General Neely oversaw approximately 13,000 military members, 2,200 full-time military employees, and 230 civilian State employees. And he managed the deployment of thousands of servicemembers to 21 countries around the world. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for ensuring the safety and well-being of the Illinoisans in uniform.

General Neely's work has gone above and beyond what one thinks of when they imagine ``military service.'' As technology continues to advance and the cyber realm becomes our newest battlefield, General Neely is a national leader in the area of cyber security. Prior to his appointment as the Adjutant General, General Neely served in the Pentagon as the Chief of Current Operations, then as the Deputy Director for Cyber, Communications, and Space Operations, and finally as the Principal Deputy Director for Air Operations, Intelligence, Cyber, and Space Operations. He was the nation's first Cyberspace Officer to serve as an Adjutant General, and he has become a trusted voice on all things cyber.

But he did not do this alone. Of special note, I want to recognize Maj. Gen. William D. Cobetto, who has known and served with General Neely since the late 1980s. Like General Neely, General Cobetto spent much of his military career based out of Springfield, and he went on to serve as Illinois's Assistant Adjutant General--Air. Although General Cobetto retired from the military in 2015, he returned to the Department of Military Affairs in 2019 in a civilian capacity, where he supported General Neely as a legislative liaison and now as the chief of staff. General Cobetto, thank you for your

dedicated service to our State and Nation.

I also want to congratulate General Neely's successor, Maj. Gen. Rodney Boyd. General Boyd will make history as the first Black officer to command our State's National Guard, and he is incredibly qualified to serve as the 41st Adjutant General for Illinois. I have no doubt that he will faithfully serve the State of Illinois and live by the legacy of leadership General Neely leaves behind. I look forward to working with him, and I wish him luck in this newest challenge.

General Neely, you are nothing short of exceptional. You exemplify leadership, embody dedication to our country, and epitomize the very best of America. Thank you for your service. I am honored to call you a fellow Illinoisan.

Loretta and I wish you, your wife Tammy and your children--Ashley, Denton, Janay, Jennifer, and Jessica--nothing but the best in this next, well-earned chapter of your life.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly), and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily absent.

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.

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.

Madam President, I feel fortunate, of course, to serve in the Senate and equally fortunate to represent the State of Illinois and the city of Chicago. What an amazing gathering place for America Chicago has been over the years--and still is to this day.

When we talk about issues here in Washington, many times I can relate them not just to neighborhoods but to people in Chicago who feel so intensely about the land of their birth or causes of other countries. I have gone through that same experience myself--my mother an immigrant from Lithuania. I was fortunate to witness the freedom struggle in Lithuania when they finally broke from the Soviet Union. If you go down Chicago Avenue west of Michigan Avenue, you go into an area known as Ukrainian Village. That nomenclature speaks for itself. There are churches and gathering places, schools, and families who are watching the war in Ukraine with personal intensity. To them, it is a land where their mothers and fathers were born and where many of them were born, and they have prayers and pleas to the politicians not to forget.

You can also step right outside of this Chamber, a few steps away, and find a group of Ukrainian Americans who have been demonstrating on behalf of the cause of Ukraine for as long as this war has gone on. I saw them this morning, and as we go by, the typical greeting in the Ukrainian Village is ``Slava Ukraini''--``Long Live Ukraine''--to which they reply that they agree with me. It is a great feeling to see these demonstrators peacefully demonstrating for a cause that means so much to them and to realize that, as a Senator, I am going to have a vote today or tomorrow that can make a real difference in whether Ukraine prevails against Vladimir Putin or whether it doesn't.

Last week, my Ukrainian Caucus cochair, Senator Roger Wicker--the Republican of Mississippi--and I hosted the Ukrainian Prime Minister. The Presiding Officer was there, and we were joined by several colleagues from both sides of the aisle. It was truly a bipartisan turnout.

The Prime Minister's point was simple: With continued U.S. and allied support, Ukraine can defeat Russia's brutal war and, in doing so, help defend greater security in Europe.

I agree. That is why the weekend vote in the House and the vote here this week in the Senate are so important.

We always have had an isolationist sentiment in the United States. If you are a student of history, you know that we had to overcome that sentiment in both World Wars; but in both cases and here today with Ukraine, in the larger national security supplemental bill which we are considering, it was not only in our interest to stop wars of aggression but also to help maintain the international world order that reflects our values and benefits here at home.

Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and its earlier seizure of land in Georgia and Moldova threaten decades of hard-won peace and stability in Europe. Make no mistake, China, Iran, and North Korea are watching to see if the United States and our allies allow Russia's aggression to stand. Doing so not only would embolden Putin to try for more European land, including from NATO allies like the Baltics and Poland, but it would also raise the risks faced by allies in the Indo- Pacific and the Middle East. That is why I am so pleased that this supplemental includes security assistance for our key allies in those regions of the world as well.

It also includes considerable humanitarian aid to help with the number of growing needs, including in Gaza, Sudan, and in drought- stricken areas of the world that are facing food insecurity.

Quite simply, what we do today has consequences--global historic consequences. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg recently issued his blanket warning to us all.

He said:

If Vladimir Putin wins in Ukraine, there is a real risk

that his aggression will not end there.

Putin will continue to wage his war beyond Ukraine, with grave consequences.

Stoltenberg went further to remind us:

Our support is not charity; it is an investment in our own

security.

I want to remind my Republican colleagues that President Ronald Reagan understood this 37 years ago when he said at the Brandenburg Gate dividing East and West Berlin: ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'' I was lucky enough to be in Berlin when the wall was coming down. The euphoria felt by the people of Berlin was palpable. I remember groups coming to the Brandenburg Gate, bringing little hammers with them to try to chip off a piece of the wall and save it for their children and grandchildren. It meant that much to them.

Only a few years after his historic speech, the Soviet Union collapsed, ushering in decades of freedom and prosperity in Eastern Europe and a welcomed end to the Cold War. Vladimir Putin called this historic wave of liberation from the shackles of Communism ``the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century''--a wave of freedom he clearly wants to reverse that continues to this day.

And my friend and former colleague John McCain, with whom I will never forget walking through the makeshift shrines to those killed fighting for democracy in Ukraine's Maidan Square, saw this battle of ideas and freedom so clearly.

Recently, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Mike McCaul happily noted:

The eyes of the world are watching, and our adversaries are

watching, and history is watching--and that's what I kept

telling my colleagues: Do you want to be a Chamberlain or a

Churchill?

So I urge a strong bipartisan vote this week to send a clear message to Putin that he cannot prevail in Ukraine; to ensure that other key allies and humanitarian crises will receive much needed aid; and to uphold basic international norms.

The Washington Post called the House's approval of the supplemental ``the vote heard around the world.'' Let's make sure our actions in the Senate this week are also heard around the world.

This package contains many elements beyond aid to Ukraine. The Indo- Pacific section provides $2 billion in weapons for Taiwan and $3.3 billion for a submarine base, and provisions relating to humanitarian aid to Gaza, Sudan, and other vulnerable populations around the world will make a difference between life and death.

We want to crack down on the fentanyl trafficking. I recently had Anne Milgram, who is the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, back to my office to give me a briefing on the fentanyl crisis in this country. It bears repeating what she said over and over again:

One pill can kill.

That message has to be communicated to our children and families all across the United States. We lost over 100,000 Americans last year to fentanyl. Some of them had no idea what they were ingesting. What they did, of course, was to take a fatal dose of fentanyl, which can be very small.

Yesterday, I was at O'Hare Airport in Chicago and was taken on a tour to show the efforts to intercept precursor drugs and pill pressers, tablet pressers, that are coming into this country and killing so many people. So many innocent people have no idea of the danger. A young person, a teenager in Chicago, felt that he was ordering a Percocet pill--a harmless Percocet pill--over the internet. It was laced with fentanyl, and he died on the spot. One pill can kill.

We take significant steps forward in the enforcement of laws against fentanyl and drug trafficking, as we should.

We also have new sanctions on Iran, Russia, and China. And, of course, there was a controversial issue, the sale of TikTok, which is included in this.

My greatest fear is that Netanyahu and his rightwing coalition, once they receive these American funds, will act irresponsibly. I am afraid that they will revert to their devastating tactics in Gaza. In the name of stopping Hamas, they will, unfortunately, revert to their devastating tactics, which kill many innocent people, mainly women and children--Palestinian women and children--who have no place to turn, no place to escape. These innocent people living in Gaza should not be victims of this war.

There are requirements for all civilized nations in wartime when it comes to protecting individuals and civilians, and they certainly should apply in this situation. There is no question--and it bears repeating every time we talk about this topic--that Israel has the right to exist; it has the right to defend itself; and it had the right to strike back at Hamas after the atrocities of October 7, but the humanitarian crisis which was unleashed in Gaza is unspeakable, indefensible, and we cannot be a party to it.

There are provisions in the law for those who receive aid from the United States, and that would include all of the countries that I have mentioned here--provisions in the law which require them to adhere to international standards when it comes to protecting the innocent and when it comes to facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid. We must hold Israel and all recipients of U.S. aid to those standards to make certain that they are doing everything in their power to protect the innocent.

This is an important vote, and as usual, in the Senate, we find that it is not a single issue that we will be voting on but, in fact, perhaps, a dozen key issues, any one of which could be a major bill debated at length on the floor of the Senate. But time is wasting. We passed this defense supplemental for the first time in February of this year, and here we are in April. It is time to get this done for the relief and the support of the people in Ukraine and for the good of American values all around the world.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) is necessarily absent.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I call up my amendment No. 1841, as modified, and ask that it be reported by number.

Throughout our history and certainly since 9/11, we have been focused on a challenge: Can we keep America safe and still honor our Constitution?

I have been engaged in this debate for quite a few years, and I continue with it this evening. Over the course of our history, we have seen section 702 misused by our government: 3.4 million American conversations were monitored in 1 year; another, 200,000.

This modification I am suggesting, suggested by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, would mean that the Agency would have to report for warrants 80 cases a month. That is not too much when we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of targets and millions of conversations.

Yes, we can protect the constitutional Bill of Rights and keep our country safe. We have got to be mindful that this requires vigilance.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.