Floor Statements

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum call.

Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. President, I want to speak briefly about a historic day, April 4. It was the day the agreement in Washington was signed to create the NATO alliance after the Second World War.

I want to start by repeating what President Truman said on that day. He said:

We hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear

of aggression--all bulwark which will permit us to get on

with the real business of government and society, the

business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all of

our citizens.

That agreement was signed on April 4, 1949. Since the 70 years that have followed, the alliance has gotten stronger. The alliance has grown. In fact, there are a number of countries that hope someday to also be a member of the NATO alliance. It has been important and what I believe is the most important alliance in the history of mankind.

This week is NATO Week. Yesterday we had the Secretary General speak to us before a joint session of Congress. The Secretary General was actually very optimistic about the future of NATO, and I am as well.

I was with a group a couple of weeks ago who were wondering about NATO and some of the discussions or disagreements we have among our NATO allies. I liken it to the kind of disagreements I have with family. I grew up in a family of six kids. It is a big family. All of us have very different views, are of very different ages and life experiences. I really believe the disagreements we have among our allies are like the disagreements you have among your family members, but at the end of the day, make no mistake about it, an attack on any one of us is viewed as an attack on every one of us, and every country takes that seriously.

In fact, in the 70 years since NATO was created--there is an obligation within article 5 of the agreement that if there is an attack on any one of us, then we consider it an attack on every one of us. It happened on 9/11. The only time in the history of the alliance that the article 5 obligation under the treaty has been exercised is when NATO countries joined with the United States in the War on Terror.

Many people may not realize it, but there was a huge human toll for living up to their commitment. Many nations sent their men and women into harm's way, and over 1,000 of them have died since 9/11. Many others have been gravely wounded, but they lived up to their commitment. It was the first test of the treaty. That happened only less than 20 years ago.

Senator Shaheen and I are now cochairs of the Senate NATO Observer Group. I want to compliment Senator Shaheen for actually coming up with the idea to reconstitute the group because we need to make sure our partners, our allies, understand that Congress believes NATO is a very important alliance to ensure our mutual safety and security.

There was another interesting point that the Secretary General made in his speech yesterday before Congress. Some people have criticized President Trump for telling our partners that they need to pay their agreed-to fair share. The Secretary General said the President's call has actually been answered and that it was a positive step that he took to make these other nations recognize we must invest in our mutual defense and our mutual security. That can only come through innovating technologies that will defend the regions within the NATO alliance, making sure our troops are working together and working very well on a military-to-military basis, and we are doing that, but without that sustained commitment from our NATO allies, we could lose ground, and it is in their best interest to do it.

As I said earlier, NATO is growing. We have a long list of countries that hope they can meet the requirements to someday come into NATO. Many of them were within the sphere of influence for the Soviet Union before the end of the Cold War.

We all know Russia is the greatest threat to Europe. We all know Russia has done things that are illegal, according to international law. They have annexed the Crimean region of the Ukraine. Every week, Ukrainians are dying in a war that very few people know about. We have to make sure that we actually confront Russian aggression, and the best way to do that is to have a strong NATO alliance.

On this historic day, April 4, 70 years later, I believe the alliance is strong. I believe that is what the Secretary General talked about yesterday, and I believe every Member of Congress shares the view that the NATO treaty, the NATO alliance, is the most important bulwark against aggression and threats to freedom.

I look forward to continuing to serve with Co-Chair Shaheen to make sure our partners know this Congress is prepared to support them and to make sure the alliance grows and remains strong.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have up to 5 minutes to make comments on the resolution.

Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I was talking with my staff, in advance of the President issuing the emergency order, and I told them I wanted to put together an op-ed to really express two things; one, my concern with the manner in which funds were being appropriated but also that there is a real crisis we have to address. In fact, I am very sympathetic to what the President did, and the only question is how he went about doing it.

I received a lot of feedback over the past few weeks, but what it allowed me to do was to engage in a discussion with some of my colleagues here and with the White House over the past couple of weeks that have been very productive.

My main concern with this Executive action is future potential abuses. I have a concern with the Executive action the President took, the emergency order, and that is why I voiced it, but I am sympathetic to what he was trying to do.

I think we can view this as an opportunity--I thought we could view this as an opportunity where maybe we could have a discussion about the National Emergencies Act and potentially make a real difference.

So today, I come to the floor to say that I do not intend to vote for the resolution of disapproval, and here is why. A lot has changed over the last 3 weeks--a discussion with the Vice President and a number of senior administration officials, a lot of collaboration with my colleague from Utah. There is serious discussion about changing the National Emergencies Act in a way that will have Congress speak on emergency actions in the future.

The White House has been very gracious and I should say very patient, given my initial position, in working with us and as late as today having the President make a statement that he is willing to work with us. I suspect that we will hear more from the President.

We also heard today from Leader McConnell. I was trying to remember-- I don't know whether it has been done before--Leader McConnell took to the floor this morning and said that he encourages this discussion through the regular order and working on a bipartisan basis to move a measure forward through the Homeland Security Committee and to this floor for a vote. I, for one, am going to work on that and hopefully get consensus on a bipartisan basis after the temperatures have cooled and we can move on.

In the meantime, I think we have to recognize that we have a crisis at the border, with 76,000 people crossing illegally in February alone. We have narcotics flooding our country, poisoning our children and adults of all ages. A lot of it has to do with the porous border and the seemingly unending and spiraling-out-of-control crossings.

One of the challenges that I have to communicate to my constituents, and I am sure everyone does, is how do I reconcile--first, I should say that my colleagues on this side of the aisle who will vote for the resolution of disapproval I think to a person also recognize that there is a crisis. I respect them for their decision; it is just not a decision that I can take.

Over the course of the next few months, I look forward to working with the administration to talk about boundaries that we are very close to getting agreement on and making changes to the National Emergencies Act that will make sense.

The fact that this President is prepared to transfer power back to the article I branch--by his statements, either publicly or through his administration--is extraordinary. That we have a leader, with a Republican down the street, willing to move this through the regular order is extraordinary.

For those reasons, I will be voting against the resolution of disapproval, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Thank you.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about what I believe is a real crisis at the southern border. I think there is even a case to be made that we have challenges at the northern border, but I want to focus on what the narrative here in the country has been over the past couple of months, weeks, or really years since I have been here--sworn in in 2015.

I think it is very important. We all know that we have the Executive order from the President or the emergency declaration. He clearly believes there is a crisis at the border--so much so that he was willing to invoke an authority Congress granted beginning in 1976--the National Emergencies Act--and then amended throughout the 1980s. He believes he is within his authority to declare an emergency so that he can get resources down to the southern border as quickly as possible.

It is no secret that I disagree with the method the President is using to provide funding down at the southern border, but make no mistake about it--I do believe there is a crisis at the border, and I take exception to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say the President is manufacturing a crisis.

I serve on the Judiciary Committee. I have since 2015. Yesterday, we got a briefing from Homeland Security that was truly startling in terms of the statistics on the number of crossings--a record number of crossings; severalfold; in one case, 10 times--over the past few months. I believe one of the reasons we are seeing the increase in illegal crossings is that those who are coming from countries other than Mexico--who are the majority of illegal crossings today--believe that if they get across the border, there is a very low chance they will be returned to their country of origin.

Speaker Pelosi said it is a manufactured crisis. It is not a manufactured crisis. Take a look at the data. It is a real crisis. The majority leader said the same thing. I think it is a crisis on several levels. One has to do with the number of people coming across the border today.

There is something that is very important that I think was missed by many people in the committee hearing yesterday. There were a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle whom I work with--in fact, I worked with Senator Durbin on a solution for the DACA population. I am not necessarily considered a hawk on all things immigration. But I will tell you that when I hear the senior Senator from Illinois say that everyone who is coming across the border is fleeing a dangerous situation in their country of origin, that doesn't necessarily reconcile with the fact that almost 80 percent--8 out of 10 claims of asylum are adjudicated not to be valid. Eight out of ten claims for asylum are adjudicated not to be valid. And I don't hear anybody on the other side of the aisle saying that we should change the standard for an asylum claim. So for someone to say that everyone coming from these countries is fleeing a fear of some sort of harm by staying in their country or maybe staying in Mexico while they sort things out--that is simply not true.

If you take a look at the severalfold increase in illegal crossings, 80 percent

of them are deemed invalid in terms of a threat to life or liberty from their country of origin based on our standard for asylum. I am not making this up; this is a matter of court records. These cases are being adjudicated by officials who were appointed by Democrats and Republicans, so it is not as though we have someone down there setting a different standard for asylum. Eight out of ten asylum claims for people crossing the southern border are deemed invalid.

But now what is happening is that we are spending so much time adjudicating, detaining, and processing this influx of illegal crossings that we are creating a more dangerous situation because bad actors are getting through. Our resources are being spent trying to process this influx of crossings that we have to stop. How do you stop it? You stop it by preventing future flows. You stop it by changing the treatment of a family who crosses from Mexico being different from a family who crosses from Ecuador, El Salvador, or any other Latin America country. You treat them all the same. You treat them respectfully. You try to give them an opportunity to make their case, but you also send a clear message that if you can't come through the normal asylum process, which means you show up and you lawfully request that your asylum claim be heard, then you cross the border and you put yourself and your children at risk.

We have a crisis at the border. I spent a week--in fact, Senator Cornyn will be speaking after me. Senator Cornyn invited some of us to spend a week down on the southern border, and it was very revealing to see what is going on there--seeing crossings happen right before us, seeing cane along the Rio Grande River that prevents border security from even seeing somebody who may be 10 feet away as they are snaking through in the middle of the night. We were on horseback, we were in low-draft boats, and we were in helicopters. We saw the crisis at the border in real time. That was last year. Now we have severalfold more people coming across the border.

The crisis has several layers to it. One of the ones that I think every American should get behind is that the crisis is occurring because our resources are being diluted by trying to police these borders and apprehending people, 8 out of 10 of whom will ultimately be deemed not to have a valid asylum claim. While we are tracking them down, the cartels are smuggling millions of doses of poison across our border that are killing people every year. These are the deaths that have been reported, and they are reported, sadly, almost on an annual basis--tens of thousands of people dying as a result of drugs coming across the southern border. Because our resources are spread so thin, I think this will get worse if we don't figure out how to secure the border.

We have deaths of immigrants. Every year on American soil, we recover nearly 300 bodies of people who paid hundreds or thousands of dollars to the cartels so that they could pass through the plazas at the southern border. There is no way you can cross the southern border without paying a fee to these organized crime gangs who literally control the border. In fact, we were told yesterday in the committee that it will cost you $500 to put your foot in the Rio Grande River, and if you don't, you are probably going to die before you ever leave Mexico.

We have no earthly idea of the thousands of people--men, women and children--who die trying to cross the border and can't pay a toll at the appropriate time, or they get caught up in a conflict between the cartels along the plazas of the southern border, but I know thousands of people have died. Over the last 20 years, nearly 10,000 bodies have been recovered on American soil--men, women, and children--because this has become one of the most profitable enterprises for the human smugglers, human traffickers, and drug traffickers in Mexico. That is a crisis, ladies and gentlemen, and it is a crisis that we need to recognize.

Gang members. Thousands of MS-13 gang members have crossed the border illegally, and here is the sad reality. When they successfully cross the border, they go into Hispanic communities. They go into communities, many of them communities where the majority are legally present, and make them more dangerous. They hide there. They coopt them. They actually recruit kids into their gang activities and use minors to do a lot of the illegal activities--distributing drugs, trafficking humans, and all the other illicit activities that the gangs are involved in. That is a crisis.

The human toll is devastating. When we were down at the border, we were told of one massacre--this is one instance--where there was a coyote. That is a person who is responsible for moving people through the plazas, ultimately, to cross the border illegally. In one instance, we had a human trafficker--a human smuggler--who apparently took a lot of the money that should have been passed back to the cartels to pay for the passage of these folks trying to get across the border, and they didn't have the money to pay the cartel.

So what did the cartel do? They ordered the massacre of 72 people. This is one group--one group--of 72 people on the other side of the border who were murdered--men, women, and children. They never got to the United States.

The sad fact is, statistically speaking, after they had spent virtually all of their life's belongings, if they had gotten across the border, 8 out of 10 of them probably wouldn't have had a valid claim to asylum. We have to figure out a better way to help these countries, where these folks want to come to the United States and enjoy our liberties and enjoy our economic blessings. Crossing the border illegally is not the way to do it.

That is why I have consistently supported any measure to secure the border. There is no recommendation that President Trump has made that I haven't supported. I supported a package last year that was nearly $25 billion for people, technology, and infrastructure to secure the border--to build all-weather roads, to build walls where necessary, or structures, to invest in technology, and to provide more personnel to secure the border--not to harm these folks but to help them, to actually protect people in the border States, but also to send a very clear message: Don't try to come to this country illegally, where your claim for asylum is more likely than not going to be rejected, and the likelihood that you and your children could be hurt is very high.

So there is a crisis at the border. We need to fund the President's priorities. The President's immediate priorities require $5.7 billion to fully fund his 10 key priorities at the border. I support that. I applaud the President for taking the steps he did. I am going to do everything I can to continue to come down here and send the message to those who may be contemplating making the dangerous trip--from whatever country where they may be living--with their children and potentially being harmed, to not do that. Let's find another way to help them and their country of origin. Let's find another way to let them request asylum that doesn't involve making the dangerous trip and then, potentially, being denied.

I also wanted to come to the floor today to send a very clear message to the President and to the administration: I support the border plan. I support funding the wall, people, technology, and infrastructure proposals that the President has made. We just have to do it in a sustainable way, and we have to do it in a way that goes far beyond the $5.7 billion we need right now to fund the President's immediate priorities.

I want to end by thanking Senator Cornyn. Senator Cornyn said something yesterday that I think was extremely important. It is interesting for somebody in a State, maybe in New England or far, far away from the border, to say: There is no crisis. We don't have an issue down at the border.

I have to believe that somebody like Senator Cornyn, who knows this issue, knows the threat, knows the impact, and knows the human toll better than just about any of us, can say: Why don't you come down there and spend some time with me? Why don't you do what so many others have done to see it firsthand?

Now, let's get out of the politics and saying that it is a manufactured crisis the President is acting on. It is a real crisis. Human lives are at stake. So many lives have been lost. We have to stop the carnage, get the politics out of it, secure the border, and move on to immigration reform and so many other things that we should do.

With that, I yield the floor, and, again, I thank Senator Cornyn for all the great work he has done on this issue and for his leadership. I am glad to follow him into any issue that, hopefully, will get us to secure the border.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my colleagues in expressing concern over the maybe well-intended but poorly constructed policy in the Green New Deal.

First, I want to start by saying I have no intention of yielding until the end of my remarks, but the one question I would have for people across the aisle is, Do you actually support the Green New Deal? Do you support it in the form it has been proposed? I can't imagine that you do because you understand the math, you understand the challenges, and you understand the reality that $65,000 a year is the median household income in North Carolina.

So what we are talking about--the cost of the bill over 10 years is roughly what the average North Carolinian family makes. We know that is not sustainable. We know it is not sustainable to have our electric bills increase by $3,800 a year. We know it is not sustainable to go beyond just the energy components of the Green New Deal to other aspects of the Green New Deal that just don't make sense.

So $93 trillion is not something I can get my head wrapped around. I know that is the number we are talking about. But I think we can get to the household impact and recognize that it is not sustainable, right? So why are we having this discussion?

I do not yield.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I will state for any other Members who come in that I have no intention of yielding. And in my time, in the 4 years I have been here, it has never occurred to me to interrupt in the way that we have been interrupted here, but maybe that actually gets to the point. This bill, as proposed, doesn't work.

I want to go back and tell you, as a Member of the North Carolina House, when I was in the minority as a Republican, I supported the renewable portfolio standard. I went to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and said: What you are proposing is not sustainable. Let's work together and do something different. And we did. That gave rise to almost 13 percent of all the energy generated in North Carolina today being generated from renewable sources. It gave rise to a sustainable electric bill that is one of the most competitive in the country.

What has happened with the Green New Deal is that the people at the extreme are preventing those of us who actually want to make progress from having a reasonable discussion instead of shouting over each other.

I don't care if it is $93 trillion, $43 trillion, or $10 trillion--it is unsustainable. We can sit here and question the sources, but at the end of the day, we all know that this was theater. This was something that people

wanted to pitch. They wanted to win an election. But it was a dishonest promise that could never be fulfilled.

If you take a look at the other provisions of this bill--guaranteed jobs. I mean, it is reading like some sort of a socialist manifesto. As somebody who grew up in a trailer park and who didn't get a degree until I was 36 years old, I want an America that gives me an opportunity, not an America that tells me what my job is and how much money I am going to make.

So we have to have a realistic discussion about the Green New Deal. We are pushing people into corners and not having a good discussion about things we should be making progress on.

By the way, just out of levity, we even had some people go so far as to say that maybe we should reduce the number of cows we have on the planet because they create methane gas. I will not get into the gross reasons as to why. So maybe the chicken caucus is in favor of getting rid of cows or eating more cows.

Why don't we lower the temperature, recognize we have a proposal that doesn't work, and recognize it was generally motivated by politics. And when you take such an extreme stand, you should expect the other side to come to the floor, just as we are doing today, and make it real.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to finish my comments before the vote. I expect it to take not more than about 3 or 4 minutes.

Madam President, I come to the floor to thank my colleagues who voted and who will be voting to move forward the nomination of Allison Joan Rushing to be the U.S. Circuit Court judge for the Fourth Circuit.

Ms. Rushing has a great history in North Carolina. She is actually from East Flat Rock, NC. Both of her parents were educators who taught in the North Carolina public school system. She received her degree with honors from Wake Forest, and she received her law degree from Duke University. She now has over 11 years of experience practicing law and is really considered one of the fast-rising stars of the legal profession.

I have had the opportunity to get to know Ms. Rushing through the nomination process, and I know she is going to do a great job as a circuit court judge on the Fourth Circuit.

From the ABA, she has received from a substantial majority a ``qualified'' rating and from a minority a ``well qualified'' rating. She is clearly qualified to do this job. She is young. She is bright. She is a topnotch litigator, and I look forward to casting my vote here in a couple of minutes. Again, I think my colleagues will also be casting a vote in support of confirming this nomination.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Well, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday I took a position that I think some people consider to be unpopular--particularly some of my friends back in my State--that I thought I would come back and explain. It has to do with the President's Executive action. It also has to do with communicating an important and somber subject.

There is a crisis at the border. I have been there. I didn't read about it. I didn't watch it on TV. I didn't read a tweet about it. I invested time down

there, hours and hours with border security. I was on shallow draft boats. I was on horseback. I have been on ATVs. I spent a lot of time down at the border, and the one thing I will tell you is that the President is absolutely right. There is a crisis on the border--and not only on the southern border, but I will state that ranchers on the northern border also believe they have challenges that this President is right to address.

I also happen to agree with a good portion of how the President is going to do it after Congress failed to do its job. Keep in mind that over the last year, we have had on this floor Democrats and Republicans voting for as much as $25 billion for border security--Democrats and Republicans--and now we are fighting over a fraction of that.

The President needs to act. He got an appropriation of about $1.5 billion through the negotiated settlement a couple of weeks ago, and now he is taking the only action he can until Congress acts, and that is to figure out other sources of funding that he believes he can use within current statutory limits. The way he has done that is he has first taken the $1.3 billion that Congress did appropriate. He has another $2.5 billion and another $600 million that I believe he is right to reprogram, send to the southern border, and probably make some investment in the northern border.

Here is where I have a respectful difference of opinion with the President and the administration: It is the emergency order, that under the emergency powers act, he is using his authority to appropriate the remaining funds.

First off, those funds will come what we call the MILCON budget. That is military construction. Right now, we are trying to find out what that means--which projects we think are critical to help the readiness of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines; which investments that we were going to make, that we have already determined we should make in military construction, are going to be put on hold while we reprogram those dollars to go to the southern border.

The real problem I have is that this is only a fraction of what we all know we need to secure the border.

I want to go back to the humanitarian crisis, though. My wife and I had an interesting discussion the other night. She wasn't too happy when I took this position originally. I am still not sure if she is happy.

But to understand why I respectfully disagree with the President, you have to understand, again, as I started this discussion, that there is a crisis. There are people dying. There are millions of doses of poison coming across the border every single year that are killing tens of thousands of people. That is a crisis. There are thousands of people crossing the border and dying. They have what they call coyotes, human traffickers who will get them across the border, get people who will pay thousands of dollars to cross the border, and then they will say: Civilization is just an hour away.

It is an hour plane ride away. Most people don't understand the sheer size and scale of Texas, particularly those crossing the border in the dead of night, working with basically organized crime. You have to pay a toll to get through the so-called plazas that run the northern border of Mexico.

My problem right now has to do with an Executive order, the emergency declaration that the President intends to send to Congress.

My wife and I were having a discussion. She said: You just said you agree with the President that there is a crisis on the border; you agree with the President that we need to send resources down to the southern border and work on the northern border; you agree that Congress has failed to act; and you agree that if you were President, you would do exactly what he is doing.

I said yes.

She said: Why don't you support it?

I said: Because I am not the President. I am a Member of the U.S. Senate. I am a Member of a coequal branch who actually believes that this action falls within our purview. Now we are going to find out because I am sure we are going to be challenged in the courts. But I also worry not so much about this one--frankly, even the way this money is going to be programmed, I agree with. What I worry about are future Presidents and what they may do if we set this precedent going into the future.

We actually have a Democratic candidate running for President--this is one hypothetical. There have been some far-flung ones that I am not sure I completely agree with, but let me give this one. It relates to border security. We have someone who is a Member of this body who has publicly said that their priority, if they were elected to be President, would be to tear down borders, tear down walls, build bridges, and open the borders. Well, if you argue that there is a humanitarian crisis--and I have said there is already is one--what would prevent that President from issuing an Executive order that would divert military construction funding to tear down the walls that are going to be built now? If we give this President--a President I support and a President whose policies and priorities I agree with--that authority, that could be aiding and abetting a future President and empowering them beyond what I believe their authorities are, vested in the Constitution in article II.

So I have come here today in part to maybe take another stab at explaining to my wife why I have taken this position but also to explain to the American people and folks in North Carolina and across this country. I agree with the President. I know we have a crisis we have to take care of. We have a national security crisis, a homeland security crisis, and a humanitarian crisis. It is not the end; it is a portion of the means.

I applaud the President for taking the action up here and getting things going. I hope that over time, we can find a way to fully fund the border strategy on a bipartisan basis and also address other immigration issues that I believe are pressing for this Nation.

Madam President, thank you for allowing me to come to the floor and explain my position.

If anybody in North Carolina has any questions, I know they know how to get ahold of me because my phones are blowing up right now. But I do want to explain it to them in a way that makes sense. I am a steward of the U.S. Senate. I am a steward of the article I branch. That matters to me.

Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. President, I have a request for one committee to meet during today's session of the Senate. It has the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committee is authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress and the following nominations: Mark Anthony Calabria, of Virginia, to be Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bimal Patel, of Georgia, to be an Assistant Secretary, and Dino Falasrnetti, of Montana, to be Director, Office of Financial Research, both of the Department of the Treasury, Todd M. Harper, of Virginia, and Rodney Hood, of North Carolina, both to be a Member of the National Credit Union Administration Board, Spencer Bachus III, of Alabama, and Judith DelZoppo Pryor, of Ohio, both to be a Member of the Board of Directors, and Kimberly A. Reed, of West Virginia, to be President, all of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and Seth Daniel Appleton, of Missouri, and Robert Hunter Kurtz, of Virginia, both to be an Assistant Secretary of Housing and, Urban Development; to be immediately followed by a hearing to examine.

Mr. President, I come to the floor with a heavy heart today. A colleague in the House passed away, and right at this very moment, down in Greenville, NC, we have a number of Congressmen and friends and family members congregated to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Congressman Jones.

Congressman Jones served in Congress for over 24 years. His dad served before that. Between the two of them, the Jones family has represented the eastern portion of North Carolina for 50 out of the last 53 years.

Now, Congressman Jones was somebody who was a bit of a maverick and a bit of an independent spirit on the House side, and we didn't agree on certain measures. But I never doubted his sincerity and his heart and his commitment to North Carolina and to this great Nation.

He is survived by his wife Joe Anne of over 50 years. In fact, they were married in 1966.

He has a number of people in the statehouse who served with him, in a chamber where I was speaker of the house. They are mourning his death today. I couldn't be there in person because we have to be here for the votes that we are taking up this afternoon, but I wanted the Jones family to know, and all the people in Eastern North Carolina, how much I cared for and loved Walter Jones.

Mr. President, one of the reasons why I continue to be here in Washington rather than visiting with family and friends of Congressman Jones is that we have a very important vote that we expect the Senate to take up here sometime this afternoon.

It is a vote that is borne out of compromise. To quote Winston Churchill--I think it was--it is the worst possible option except for all the other options considered up to this point.

It is not perfect, but it is important that we get the votes and that we encourage the President to sign this bill into law.

Now, I walked through the hallway this morning, and I had the press come up to me. Some in the press probably want to report honestly, but others want to create a narrative.

So the latest narrative is this: Senator, how do you feel about a bill that just got published last night--1,200 pages--and you are going to be asked to vote on it today?

I told them, specifically, because I have been following this measure since the last Congress. I said: Are you referring to the almost-1,200- page bill, of which all but 41 pages were matters that were taken up in the Appropriations Committee, voted out of committee unanimously in all but one case and with 26 votes in the other case? Are you referring to that bill?

If the Senators are doing their job and the Congressmen are doing their job, they read that months ago when they were passed out of the Appropriations Committee. Most of this is not new information. About 41 pages of it relates to the compromise that ultimately--because we couldn't get a compromise back in December--resulted in the government shutdown.

It absolutely funds some of the President's priorities for border security. There are people that get caught up on either end of the spectrum. It reminds me of how my kids used to fight in the back of the minivan when we used to take them on vacations. It is a childish argument: It is a wall.

No, it is not.

It is a wall.

No, it is not.

Look, it is steps taken forward in a positive way for border security. It is a structure that makes sense. It is technology. It is personnel. It is what we need to ultimately secure the border.

Some people can call it a wall because you could argue that in total it is. Other people could say it is not a wall. I don't care as long as you ultimately recognize that voting for this measure and sending the signal to the President that we have his back, that we understand his priorities, and that we will continue to work on other measures on a bipartisan basis makes sense.

So I intend to support it today. It is not a vote that I am going to enjoy, but sometimes we have to do things here to make progress, to compromise, and to move on. We owe it to the American people to keep the government open. We owe it to border security to listen to their recommendations to fund people, technology, and infrastructure. This is a step in the right direction.

Mr. President, it was a year ago today that I was presiding and something occurred to me. One is that in the 12 years that I have been in public service, I have virtually spent none of those Valentine's Days at home. Last year, I was thinking about how I messed up. I didn't even order flowers or do the things that I would normally do, although, I usually get flowers on Valentine's Day.

But then I started contemplating the Senate rules, and I know that there are a number of, well, things you just can't do on the floor.

I determined, for example, that you can't do an ad hoc prop and say something because it would be a violation of the rules. So although I thought about putting this heart up and presenting this and saying, ``I love my wife Susan Tillis of 32 years,'' I am not going to do that because I think it would be a violation of the rules.

But in the event that someday we do change the rules and we are able to come to the floor and express our love for our spouses and people who sacrifice as much as we do, I hope someday to be able to give that speech on the Senate floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am here for what I hope will be the last time to talk about a subject I have come to the floor and discussed virtually every week we have been here since I went and visited a man who has been in a Turkish prison since October 7, 2016.

His name is Andrew Brunson. He is a Presbyterian minister from North Carolina who, in 2016, under emergency orders in Turkey, President Erdogan ended up ordering the arrest of a number of people, many of whom I think were probably involved in the illegal coup attempt.

To the extent that evidence demonstrates they were, they should be held accountable for their actions, but, unfortunately, thousands of people--journalists, people of faith, and a number of other people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like a NASA scientist who already spent 2\1/2\ years in prison--were also arrested. They were also put in prison.

In the case of Pastor Brunson, he spent almost 17 months in a Turkish prison, in a cell designed for 8 people that had 21 people in it. None of the others were even English-speaking. Then, about 17 months into it, he had an indictment against him. It was about a 70-page document. It is a document I have read. Quite honestly, I don't think a first- year law student or a magistrate anywhere would consider the allegations in this indictment as worthy of any prosecution--certainly not enough to keep somebody in our U.S. justice system in prison overnight, let alone now 734 days.

The 2-year anniversary was just on Sunday. I called Pastor Brunson Sunday morning to speak with him, to see how he is doing and how his wife Noreen is doing. Noreen has been in the country the whole time because she is afraid that if she leaves the country, they will not let her come back.

After the last hearing, the Turkish officials allowed Pastor Brunson to be placed under house arrest. He can't leave his house. He has an electric monitor, but the fact is, he is still incarcerated. He is still worried about the very real possibility that he could be convicted for up to 35 years in prison.

The reason I hope this is the last speech I have to give is, tomorrow is what many of us believe may be the last time that he is in a courtroom. I hope President Erdogan and their justice system find justice for Pastor Brunson. What that justice looks like to me, regardless of whatever conclusion the Turkish courts draw--innocence or guilt--is that they simply complete the judicial process in Turkey and return Pastor Brunson and his wife Noreen back to the United States, most likely back to Western North Carolina.

I visited Pastor Brunson in a Turkish prison about 6 months ago, after I heard he was concerned that once the indictment was issued against him, the American people would read that indictment and just forget about him. It was important for me to go to Turkey, to go to that Turkish prison just outside of Izmir, Turkey--one of the major cities in Turkey--and look him eye to eye and say: I will never forget you.

Since that meeting, and after that meeting in prison, we had some 70 Members of the U.S. Senate from both sides of the aisle sign on to a letter to send a very clear message to Pastor Brunson that we are not going to forget him and also a very clear message to Turkey that there will be a consequence if we have a miscarriage of justice in this case.

I went back to the Turkish courtroom almost 2 months after I met him in prison, and I saw firsthand how the Turkish justice system works. It is not like ours, which is largely devoid of any political influence or what I view as completely devoid of political influence. The President can't call a judge and tell them to put their thumb on the scale of justice here in the United States, but sometimes it looks that way in Turkey.

I am asking President Erdogan, the Turkish judiciary, the Foreign Ministers, and the others I have spoken with over the past several months: Please, let's have justice for Pastor Brunson. Regardless of what the outcome is tomorrow in the courts, get him home. I hope that happens tomorrow or early next week.

If, on the other hand, his hearing is continued again or he is found guilty and is likely to be sentenced to 35 years, I will have to take a different tack--a tack very similar to what we took in putting a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, really questioning our long-term relationship with Turkey in terms of sharing technology with the Joint Strike Fighter. When we went through that process, we identified a number of other measures where I believe we can get strong support in the House and Senate that would take our relationship with Turkey in the wrong direction.

I want Turkey to be a strong NATO ally. I want Turkey to be a strong trading partner. I want the Turkish people to have a vibrant economy, but at the end of the day, I will have to be motivated to convince the Members of Congress and the President, who has been very helpful to this point, and Secretary of State Pompeo that absent a just outcome for Pastor Brunson, we will have to take a look at how we can continue to fight for justice. I sincerely hope I will never have to go down that path.

Over the next 24 hours, Pastor Brunson is scheduled to be in a courtroom--within about the next 16 hours. I hope the American people will keep him in their prayers. I hope the Turkish people and the Turkish leadership will do the right thing--and the right thing is having Pastor Brunson and Noreen come home.

Thank you.