Floor Statements

Mr. President, this week, the Senate continues its work confirming experienced, diverse nominees to the Federal judiciary.

Today, the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Nina Wang, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Judge Wang currently serves as a magistrate judge in the District of Colorado. Prior to joining the bench, she worked in private practice, primarily representing plaintiffs and defendants in a broad range of complex intellectual property matters. Judge Wang also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado, a role in which she litigated civil cases on employment, environmental, and civil rights matters.

A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard Law School, she clerked for Judge Peter J. Messitte on the District of Maryland a few years after earning her J.D. The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Judge Wang ``well qualified'', and she enjoys the strong support of her home State Senators, Mr. Bennet and Mr. Hickenlooper.

I will support Judge Wang, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate continues its work confirming experienced and fair-minded nominees to the Federal judiciary.

Today, we will vote to confirm Judge Julianna Michelle Childs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. With over 15 years of experience as a judge, Judge Childs is exceptionally qualified to serve on the D.C. Circuit. As a district court judge for the District of South Carolina since 2010, Judge Childs has presided over almost 5,000 civil and criminal matters,

including 50 jury trials and 11 bench trials. During this time, she has been reversed or vacated on appeal in fewer than 1 percent of her cases, an impressive record for any District Court Judge.

Before joining the Federal bench, Judge Childs served for 4 years as a circuit court judge for the South Carolina Judicial Department, where she presided over thousands of State court matters. Judge Childs also served as a commissioner on the South Carolina Workers' Compensation Commission, adjudicating administrative decisions and reviewing administrative appeals.

Prior to her judicial service, Judge Childs served South Carolina as the deputy director of the division of labor for the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. In this position, she administered State and Federal programs. Given that the D.C. Circuit hears more cases involving administrative law than any other circuit court, this practical experience with administrative law will be an asset to the court.

Before her time in public service, Judge Childs worked in private practice as a civil litigator, and she ultimately became the first Black woman in South Carolina to become a partner in a large law firm-- only 8 years after joining her firm.

Judge Childs is also the first member of her family to go to college, and she graduated with her B.S. cum laude from the University of South Florida Honors College. She then received her J.D. and M.A. at the University of South Carolina. While serving as a district court judge, Judge Childs also earned her LL.M. at Duke University School of Law.

The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Judge Childs as ``well qualified'' to serve on the D.C. Circuit. Her outstanding qualifications make it no surprise that she has received strong, bipartisan support from her home State's delegation, most notably from Congressman and Majority Whip Clyburn and my colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Graham.

With her extensive judicial service at the State and Federal level, her experience administering State and Federal programs, and her historic career in private practice, Judge Childs will be ready to serve the D.C. Circuit with distinction on day one.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, I wonder if Americans think the cost of prescription drugs are too high. I wonder if Americans realize that the cost of prescription drugs are so high in this country that they are driving the cost of health insurance premiums up.

Don't take my word for it. BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois told me that directly. Why are premiums going up? Prescription drug prices are going up.

I wonder if the American people realize there are only two nations on Earth that allow drug companies to advertise drugs on television. You know one of them: United States of America. The other: New Zealand. No other country allows them to take place.

I wonder if the American people realize that the same exact American drugs that are sold here at the highest prices are sold at a deep discount in other countries: Canada. In Canada, the reason American drugs cost less than they do in America is because the Canadian people won't tolerate the prices pharmaceutical companies charge people in this country. So they established standards and cut the prices for the exact same drugs made, manufactured, and sold in the United States. They are not alone. Europe does the same thing, bringing down these prices.

So we decided that at least in one area--one area--we were going to make an exception to this overpricing of prescription drugs: the Veterans' Administration. We said it costs a lot to keep our promise to veterans who have served this country and need medical care afterward. So we are going to allow the Veterans' Administration--we do under law--to negotiate with the drug companies to bring prices down. It works. They are brought down dramatically.

For the longest time, many of us have thought that isn't enough because most of the drugs are being sold outside the Veterans' Administration, and there is no negotiation; it is a take-it-or-leave- it. Medicare--tens of millions of Americans who are covered by Medicare face the cost of drugs which are sky-high.

So we decided, on the Democratic side, that we were going to listen to the people we represent, who have told us over and over again that when it comes to the cost of living and expenses families face, many of these families were facing a choice of their money or their lives to buy drugs that doctors told them were essential for their survival. So we proposed that, finally, the pharmaceutical companies have to negotiate with the government when it comes to Medicare drug pricing.

Now, you didn't hear that directly from the Senator from Kentucky who just spoke. He talked about socialism in pricing drugs. Socialism? For the government to suggest we want to bargain for prices? These companies, incidentally, are not getting by hand to mouth. They are doing quite well, and they are making a lot of money.

And they didn't do it on their own. I want to address that issue, this notion that if they were paid less for their drugs, it would stifle innovation. The pharmaceutical industry typically spends more money on advertising than they do on research.

Why would they do that? So that some people watching the ad of a person skipping through a field of flowers will finally get to the point where they can spell ``Xarelto'' and go into a doctor's office and say: I want to skip through flowers. I want Xarelto. And--you know what--some doctors say ``fine'' and write the script. That is why the cost of medicine and healthcare goes up.

The bottom line is this. These pharmaceutical companies, as good as they are, as many things as they find, they don't do it alone. You know what the No. 1 supplier of research information is to the private sector pharmaceutical companies in America? The Federal Government. The National Institutes

of Health. We spend tens of billions of dollars each year doing basic research, which is then used by the pharmaceutical company to develop their drugs.

Is it too much to ask them to bargain a fair price for drugs sold to Medicare so that the taxpayers get a break, and the pharmaceutical profits may go down just slightly? I don't think it is too much to ask.

We are going to have an interesting debate in the next few weeks because the Democrats think it is time that pharma be held responsible for dramatically overcharging Americans for pharmaceutical drugs that cost a fraction of its price in Canada and Europe.

The Senator from Kentucky obviously sees it another way. He thinks it is socialism. He calls it a free lunch--we want to give away a free lunch. It isn't a free lunch when you can't afford to fill your prescription the doctor gave you and you wonder if you are jeopardizing your health or your life.

Take the drug insulin. We are working on that too. Insulin wasn't discovered by Americans; it was discovered by Canadians back in the early part of the 20th century. And they decided--and what a gesture it was--that they were going to give away and surrender the patent on this discovery.

Before then, it was not atypical that people died from diabetes. After insulin, they could survive. It was a life and death drug. And the researchers who discovered it said: This shouldn't be a profitmaker; this should be something that is priced so that people can continue to live.

Well, what has happened to insulin? Over the years, the pharmaceutical companies started doing their magic, and the cost of insulin for many people is dramatically higher than they can afford. Some people actually cut the amount of insulin which they are told to take because they can't afford it.

We want to bring down the cost of this lifesaving drug to a $35 a month maximum premium for insulin, and I think that is a reasonable amount of money.

So I believe that when it comes to the drug industry in America, it is a great sector of our economy. They have found some wonderful things, with the help of Federal research. They are making profits, as I guess every private sector company is designed to do. But it is not unreasonable for us to ask, it is not socialistic for us to ask, as American citizens, that they negotiate fair prices for all Americans. They do it for veterans. They can do it for Medicare and others.

And if Senator McConnell is signaling we are in for a fight over this issue, all I have to say are three words: Bring it on. Bring it on. The American people are sick and tired of the overpricing of these drugs, and I think it is time that we have this debate. And if the Republicans want to stay on the side of pharma and say the Democrats are wrong, let's take that to the American people in November. I think it is a viable issue.

Madam President, in the weeks since the Alito-Thomas Supreme Court majority erased the constitutional right to abortion, the rightwing disinformation machine has kicked into high gear. Again and again, we hear the same empty words of reassurance from the Republican side. They claim that overturning Roe simply handed the question of abortion back to the people's representatives, back to the States--just that simple.

This is false, and they know it. The reality is overturning Roe has unleashed a healthcare crisis in this country. It has ripped a right to make essential healthcare decisions away from the people and their doctors and handed it to the politicians in individual States.

As soon as Roe was overturned by the Alito Supreme Court, nearly a dozen States outlawed abortion.

In Ohio, abortion access is so restricted that we have heard this horrible, bone-chilling story of a 10-year-old rape victim who was denied care in the State of Ohio. Ten years old, Madam President. At the age of 10, parents and grandparents are still worried about 10- year-old grandkids crossing the street. This 10-year-old victim had been raped. She was pregnant.

The State's law in Ohio only permits abortions before fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is usually at 6 weeks of gestation. At the time this 10-year-old child sought care, she was 6 weeks and 3 days pregnant. She missed the deadline. So the child was forced to flee her home State of Ohio and travel to Indiana, where she was given medical care.

And from the moment this story made headlines, what was the response from Republican politicians and the conservative media? They said it was fake news; that it is a hoax. They accused the doctor who treated the girl of just plain lying. They said that Democrats were making up these doomsday scenarios to scare the American people. The Wall Street Journal--the Wall Street Journal, Madam President--even ran an editorial calling the story ``Too Good to Confirm.''

But unthinkable and sickening as it may be, the story is true. So why did Republicans go to such great lengths to discredit it? Because they refused to admit the truth. When faced with a case that shows the extreme consequences of outlawing abortion, as the Supreme Court just did weeks ago, they dismissed the facts as a lie.

Well, here is the truth. Republican anti-choice policies will force children--children who are still not old enough to cross the street on their own--to give birth. Ten years old. And Republicans are not content with simply banning all abortion. They want to prosecute the healthcare professionals who have to make the life-and-death decisions in the practice of medicine--healthcare professionals like the one who treated this little girl from Ohio.

Just last week, Indiana's Republican attorney general declared he was going to investigate this doctor from Indiana who provided this abortion. Well, what were his grounds for investigating? He claimed that the doctor didn't properly report the abortion to State authorities. But even that isn't true. Records show the doctor followed the law exactly as it is written.

How did we reach this point? It has not even been a month since the Dobbs decision, and Republican officials are already finding ways to intimidate doctors who are providing essential care to Americans and America's children. The radical rightwing majority on the Supreme Court has given these lawmakers a green light to enact the most unreasonable, outrageous abortion bans imaginable.

And as cruel as these bans may be, they cannot change the reality that reproductive healthcare is healthcare. In some cases, an abortion can mean the difference between life and death.

The moment politicians start meddling in life-or-death health decisions, the moment we turn over these life-or-death decisions to a legislator rather than to a doctor and a patient, we are headed down a dark, dangerous, and deadly road.

Here is what is happening. Right now, there is a doctor in America, today, who is being forced to make an impossible decision: Do I risk jail time, do I risk criminal charges by providing the care that I believe my patient needs, or do I sit back and risk my patient's life and health from pregnancy complications?

What a choice. Do you want to make that as an elected official? I am not competent to make that choice. I am a lawyer--liberal arts. I didn't spend a day in medical school. When it comes to the people I care about--my family and others--I want medical professionals to make that decision, not run-of-the-mill politicians.

Last week, the Texas attorney general filed a lawsuit against President Biden's administration. What was the reason? Because the administration issued guidance making it clear that healthcare providers are legally protected when offering legally mandated life- or health-saving services in emergency situations.

Think about that. Texas would rather allow women to risk their health--even death--than allow them to seek emergency lifesaving care.

And, yesterday, the New York Times--and I commend this article to everyone--reported that miscarriage patients in Texas are being turned away by doctors. These women are being denied care because ``doctors . . . worried the patients might have actually taken abortion pills that hadn't expelled the pregnancy, two situations that appear medically identical.''

One San Antonio based ob-gyn put it best when she said:

[T]he art of medicine is lost and actually has been replaced by fear.

This is the world we have entered after the fall of Roe. And it is a wake-up call for every Member of this Senate. Don't turn your eyes away from it. This is the reality of the Supreme Court decision.

Our constitutional rights should not, and cannot, differ State by State. For 50 years, this was a fundamentally constitutional guaranteed freedom. And it needs to be protected again by Federal law.

I don't think this Court is going to stop with overturning Roe. I commended to all my colleagues, there was a speech made last Thursday by Senator Kaine of Virginia. Before he was in politics, he was a civil rights lawyer. And he is a good one. And he explained the 14th Amendment and what it means if we were to take the Alito Court analysis and basis and reject the notion that the 14th Amendment defines our citizenship in so many different ways.

Justice Clarence Thomas has indicated the far right majority is coming next for the right to family birth control and contraception.

Oh, that can't be true, Senator. They aren't going to go after birth control pills--watch them; they have already announced they are underway--and marriage equality and making our decisions about the future of our families.

This Senate must act to protect marriage equality and all the fundamental human rights that are under threat by this radical Supreme Court. The question, though, when November comes around, will the American people care, or will they take a nap? Will they decide it is somebody else's problem? Well, I hope they don't because these problems are really facing all of us as Americans, whether we like it or not. We would rather not talk about this issue, but the Supreme Court gives us no choice.

Now, let's be sensible. These are medical decisions that should be made by medical professionals.

I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Merkley), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator

from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, the Republican leader comes to the floor regularly with heartfelt concerns about the burdens facing America's families. I share those concerns. I think all Senators share those concerns. Inflation is a tough thing to deal with in the family budget. I go home to Illinois to see the price of gasoline at the gas stations. I shop in my local stores and see what it costs for the basics. I understand that, although it is an inconvenience for me, for many people, it is a hardship. So for the Republican leader to come to the floor and remind us of that problem which we are facing in our economy is certainly understandable.

Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index for the month of June. It came in higher than anticipated. Prices rose by 1.3 percent in June, and when compared to June 2021, prices are up 9.1 percent--the fastest year over year increase since 1981. When you dive into the data, you will see that prices jumped within categories that affect almost every household: food, energy, rent, gas. We know, for many American families, a break can't come soon enough.

So what are we going to do about it, give speeches? There are a lot of opportunities for us to do that, for the Republican leader and the Democratic leader--or are we going to do something?

The Democrats think it is time to do something, and we have picked one category of cost that is particularly important to American families. It is the category of cost that not only is a life-and-death issue but that determines the cost of health insurance for families. We know that because we are told by the largest health insurers in the United States that the cost of prescription drugs is driving the cost of premiums for health insurance, so Democrats have decided to tackle this directly.

Credit should go to our Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, who is in negotiation now on prescription drug pricing with Senator Manchin of West Virginia. I have been skeptical of the outcome of that negotiation, but I am beginning to be encouraged by what I

hear from Senator Schumer and from Senator Manchin; that, in fact, we can give relief to American families on the life or death inflationary cost of prescription drugs.

Wouldn't that be a breakthrough? Wouldn't it be something if this 50- 50 Senate could end up doing something on a bipartisan basis that American families actually feel and for which seniors in our country would be able to say, ``There is a limitation on how much I am going to be asked to spend for prescription drugs, and beyond that, I won't have to pay''? That is amazing--a breakthrough. Would it have made a difference when it comes to the cost of living for families? Of course it would.

So you would think that the Senator from Kentucky, who comes to the floor every day to give a speech on inflation, would be the leading cheerleader in our effort to contain the cost of prescription drugs. Wouldn't you think so? No. No. He has announced that he would oppose the increased effort to lower the cost of prescription drugs because it might raise taxes on the wealthiest people in this country. Hard to imagine, isn't it? His sympathy for millionaires and billionaires gets in the way of his caring for working families.

I think he should set it aside and should ask his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle to join us in a bipartisan effort to contain the cost of prescription drugs.

We recognize how these price increases are squeezing household budgets across America, and we take it seriously. We have plans to lower prescription drug prices, decrease the price of gas at the pump, help families with the cost of childcare, and increase the supply of housing, all of which will address inflation, but item No. 1, priority No. 1, is prescription drugs.

The Senator from Kentucky has said he will oppose that. I hope he changes his mind. I hope, as he tells the stories of working families who tell him of the burdens they face with inflation, that he will also ask them the questions: How about reduction? How about prescription drugs? Are those expensive for you? Does it create a hardship? You know they do.

It is time for us to do something, and we would certainly like to have the Republican leader on our team to deal with one of the serious problems of the cost of living in America today.

Madam President, on an unrelated topic, the majority leader comes to the floor and characterizes the Supreme Court as the best in history. He refers to decisions they have made and compares them to Brown v. Board of Education.

For those who have forgotten, in 1954, the Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, basically said that separate but equal does not work in America anymore; that we are going to provide real equality and real opportunity when it comes to education. It was a historic decision.

The Senator from Kentucky compares it to the Dobbs decision on a woman's right to choose, but there is a critical difference. Brown v. Board of Education expanded the constitutional protections of Americans. It expanded the constitutional rights of Americans. Those are historic, and those are consistent with the most celebrated decisions in our Supreme Court's history. Dobbs did just the opposite. For the first time ever in recorded history, the U.S. Supreme Court removed a constitutional protection for its citizens. And what was that protection? The right of women to make their choices for their own reproductive health.

So it is very painful to hear a comparison between Brown, which extended the constitutional protection and rights of individuals, and Dobbs, which, in overturning Roe v. Wade, went in exactly the opposite direction.

It is interesting to me to hear the Court being described by the Senator from Kentucky as a Court that is originalist; that it just looked to the Constitution; that it just looked to history. Well, they also looked to something else. Every single nominee on the Supreme Court who had been installed under the Trump administration, with the facilitation of the Senator from Kentucky, had to check one important box: approved by the Federalist Society.

What is the Federalist Society?

You can search the Constitution, and you will see no reference to it whatsoever, but it is very real.

President Trump made no bones about it. He wouldn't consider a Federal court judge, particularly for the Supreme Court, who had not been approved by the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society is an extreme rightwing conservative group that approved judges during the Trump administration and the three judges who were approved for the Supreme Court.

So the loyalty of these Justices may be to the Constitution, but it is also to the Federalist Society's agenda, and that agenda applauds, of course, the Dobbs decision in overturning Roe v. Wade.

Madam President, I want to make a point about attacks on Supreme Court Justices: unacceptable, unforgivable, and we should do something about it.

Now, here is what the Senator from Kentucky failed to mention: The Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, has enacted a law and has sent it to the floor, which would extend the protection of Federal judges in the Anderl Act so that there are more resources put into their protection. It passed overwhelmingly, on a bipartisan basis, in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

You would think, with all of the speeches that we are hearing on the floor about the safety of judges and how we should take care that they are not in danger, that we would have passed that law on the floor of the Senate immediately, right? Wrong. That bill, which gives more resources to protect Federal judges, has been stopped by one Senator, and he has announced publicly that he has done it.

Can you guess where that Senator is from? He is from the same State as the minority leader--Kentucky.

Senator Rand Paul has held up this bill for additional resources to protect Federal judges for weeks on end. Why? Why don't we want to protect them? He objects to the way we have done it, and he has held up the bill. He won't even let us vote on it.

So I would say to the minority leader from Kentucky: If you really care about the security of judges in the Federal system, pick up the phone and call your colleague from the State of Kentucky and ask him to withdraw his hold on this bill.

We should pass that bill this week. If something terrible happens to a Federal judge, God forbid, how in the world can we explain that one Senator from Kentucky has held up the bill that might have created the resources to protect that Federal judge? That is the reality.

So when you talk about judicial safety, start at home. Start with the State of Kentucky--one Senator for it; the other Senator blocking it. If both of them would be for it, we would do it this afternoon.

Madam President, I would also like to address one of the aspects of the Dobbs decision in overturning Roe v. Wade which will be addressed by our colleagues a little later this morning.

Our Nation is in the midst of a healthcare crisis because of this Dobbs decision. In the weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade--erasing a longstanding constitutional right to abortion--pregnant women across America have been thrust into chaos. From the moment this decision came down, abortion was declared illegal in nearly 12 States. Some of these States' abortion bans make no exception even in cases of rape and incest. Even when exceptions are made to save the life of a mother, they are confusing and leave medical professionals uncertain of their legal status.

The sad reality is that these laws will most certainly result in there being pregnant women in danger, especially women of color who are more likely to experience severe and even deadly complications as a result of pregnancy.

Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine the damage that has been created by overturning Roe.

During that hearing, we heard testimony from Dr. Colleen McNicholas. She is an OB-GYN doctor and abortion provider who practices in both my home State of Illinois and the neighboring State of Missouri.

Dr. McNicholas told the committee:

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, they

effectively created two nations: one where those reproductive

freedoms belong to themselves, and those whose reproductive

freedom belongs to a small group of

politicians who effectively appointed themselves as the

decision-makers over the bodies, lives, and futures [of

women].

Dr. McNicholas informed us that the demand for care at her facility in Illinois has tripled since the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned by the Supreme Court. She said:

The Supreme Court's decision has already pushed people--the

people each one of you represent--into extreme, and sometimes

dangerous, circumstances in order to access one of the safest

and most common healthcare procedures.

The radical, far-right majority on the Alito Supreme Court has put lives at risk by revoking a constitutional right, which was on the books for almost 50 years. Now, Members of this Senate must act to protect another constitutional right related to this debate: the right to travel across State lines to access healthcare, in this case, reproductive care.

That is why I am joining my colleagues Senators Cortez Masto, Patty Murray, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Kirsten Gillibrand in cosponsoring the Freedom To Travel Healthcare Act of 2022.

Women and their health providers are counting on us to pass this bill. They find it hard to imagine that State legislators, and even some Federal officials, would try to restrict the right to cross a State boundary for medical care because the anti-choice legislators who have already outlawed abortion in their State are not content with what they have done already. In fact, right now, they are proposing legislation that would turn many State borders into Checkpoint Charlie in America. These lawmakers are hell-bent on denying women fundamental freedoms, no matter how many constitutional rights they infringe upon.

The question is, How far are we willing to let them go? Will we allow them to penalize and prosecute healthcare professionals who provide essential care to their patients in States where abortion remains legal? Are we going to allow these lawmakers to hold American citizens hostage in their own States, forcing them to give birth? Does that sound like the America that we know? No, it doesn't. And we need to draw the line here and now by passing the Freedom To Travel for Healthcare Act of 2022.

2022 NATO Summit

Madam President, during the first part of the July recess, I traveled with several of my Senate colleagues to the historic NATO summit in Madrid, Spain.

On Tuesday, several members of our bipartisan group--Senators Shaheen, Tillis, Coons, Ernst, and Blunt--spoke on the floor about the trip. Senator Fischer was also with us at that summit meeting.

I think Senator Tillis of North Carolina said it best, that despite policy differences within our group of Senators, there was no daylight between us on two profoundly important matters: We agree, Finland and Sweden should be welcomed into NATO. And we also agree that the illegal, barbaric war on Ukraine by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin must not succeed.

At the summit, we met with leaders from a number of our allies, including, for the first time, leaders from the Indo-Pacific region who joined the NATO summit.

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida was clear when he told us:

The security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific are

inseparable.

And German Chancellor Scholz expressed an unwavering commitment to take as long as needed to make sure Ukraine retains its sovereignty against Russia's barbaric aggression.

But perhaps what was most notable was the overwhelming sense of unity and defense of common values found among our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression. For that, I want to give President Biden credit. He spent an hour or more with our bipartisan delegation at the summit meeting. He and his able team, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Defense Austin, and others, met with us and discussed in detail what was being debated at the summit.

I have been traveling to Eastern Europe and meeting with allies for many years. I can tell you, I have never felt such a shared sense of purpose and determination to stop the Russian threat.

As Senator Tillis noted on Tuesday, our safety at home is inextricably linked to the security of Europe. Our bipartisan delegation understood this. The world leaders at the NATO summit understood it, and President Biden certainly understands it. Vladimir Putin would serve his people well by understanding it as well.

In the Senate, we can help Putin understand the unbreakable unity and resolve of the world's democracies by being one of the first NATO members of nations to approve Finland and Sweden's membership. We should do that without delay.

Madam President, before arriving at the NATO summit in Spain, I joined my colleagues in visiting one of the prospective new NATO aspirants: Sweden.

Sweden has long been a security ally. For nearly 200 years, it has tried to maintain the semblance of nonalignment. That changed swiftly with Vladimir Putin's aggression. It triggered an overwhelming Swedish support to join NATO, and Sweden began shipping weapons to Ukraine to help in the war effort, something it hadn't done since helping Finland resist Nazi aggression in 1939.

Swedish leaders recognize Russia's aggression today as the same kind of behavior seen in Europe in World War II. They know that the collective NATO security arrangement is critical to stopping Russia. I agree completely and look forward to their NATO membership.

Putin thought he could fracture NATO by invading Ukraine. Look what he did. He stoked petty grievances against NATO, and in the end, we are picking up two valuable, important allies.

And, incidentally, Vladimir Putin, you are now going to have 800 miles of new NATO territory on your border.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) are necessarily absent.