Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) and the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) and the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, 1 year ago, President Trump recklessly withdrew from the historic nuclear agreement reached between the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran to end Iran's nuclear weapons program.

President Trump decided to withdraw from that agreement. It is not clear to me why President Trump further undermined our country's international reputation by backing out of this agreement reached by key global powers.

To think that we had a consensus, including Russia and China and our traditional allies of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and the President decided to walk away from it is beyond me.

As with so many issues, he seems motivated to reverse anything ever done by President Barack Obama, regardless of the facts or by his naive belief that he can always strike a better deal.

Sadly, I have yet to see any evidence of that dealmaking acumen. In fact, I have only seen alienated allies, giveaways to dictators, and a loss of American standing and influence in the world.

It is important to step back and recall where we were when President Obama took office. Our intelligence community assessed that until 2003, Iran was working toward a nuclear bomb. Among the many calamities of the disastrous war in Iraq was that it further empowered Iran. The country's hard-liners moved forward at great speed, building suspicious nuclear infrastructure. These efforts produced large and unsettling quantities of highly enriched uranium that could have been used for a nuclear weapon.

Such a weapon in the hands of the Iranian regime would have been an unacceptable risk to the region, to Israel, and to the world.

This is the mess that President Obama inherited when he came to office. He pledged that Iran would not be able to obtain a nuclear bomb on his watch, and he kept his word. You see, just as President Kennedy negotiated with the Soviets when they were threatening possible nuclear war with missiles in Cuba, just as President Nixon began to establish ties with China while it was supplying weapons to the North Koreans, who were fighting Americans, and just as President Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union, even though it was occupying Eastern Europe and fomenting violent revolution, there are times when such agreements serve our national interest and make the world a safer place.

Similarly, President Obama negotiated a comprehensive deal that prevented Iran from being able to build a nuclear bomb and held it to stringent, invasive inspections to ensure that Iran kept its pledge.

Notably, this historic agreement was accomplished without drawing the United States into war in the Middle East. Let me be clear. The nuclear agreement was never about all the other genuinely troubling Iranian behavior in the world, but, instead, it was designed to ensure that Iran didn't pursue activities with a nuclear weapon. That is what it did.

The International Atomic Energy Agency continues to verify that on the ground in Iran the agreement still holds. For the last 4 years, this Agency has performed an average of four surprise inspections every month--8,000 inspection hours--and they have found no evidence of noncompliance on the Iranian side.

Now, today, President Trump is pursuing an incomprehensible policy of regime change, trying to flatter and meet with Iranian President Ruhani to negotiate a supposedly better deal and threatening Iran militarily and tightening sanctions. The end result of this dangerous incoherence is that our allies are united against us, sadly to say, and Iran may restart nuclear activities which had been frozen for the last 4 years because of the agreement that President Trump walked away from.

So the only thing our President's policies have done is to make a potential restart of Iran's nuclear program a reality. I fear that President Trump, with the goading of many around him, is trying to foment a pretext for another war in the Middle East--the last thing America or the world needs.

So let me be clear on something that I have said regardless of who is in the White House, a Republican President or a Democratic President. Article I, section 8 of our Constitution is clear that Congress has the authority--the only authority--to declare war. This President--any President--must first have the approval of the people's representatives in Congress before asking our sons and daughters to enter into battle.

It is not too late for an off-ramp.

I am concerned that this word isn't even close to the way I actually feel with the suggestion that Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan was called on to create a plan using 130,000 American military to be poised in some effort to intimidate Iran. One hundred thirty thousand--that is the number of troops we sent into Iraq.

I was happy to be one of the 23 members of the Senate who voted against that terrible decision, but we didn't prevail. We went into Iraq and thousands of Americans died. It can happen on any President's watch. This President is setting the stage for it to happen in Iran.

Sadly, the American people have not been dealt into the conversation. They have one thing to turn to, though, our Constitution, which says that, ultimately, the American people will make the decision when it comes to war through their elected representatives.

This administration should return to the only reasonable, smart, and effective option on the table for countering Iran: Rejoin the nuclear agreement immediately, repair our strained relationship with our own allies, and use that unity to push back on Iran's destabilizing actions across the region which exist outside the nuclear realm. Anything else is reckless.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

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

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

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) are necessarily absent.

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

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

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

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