Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to discuss a matter that will likely be before the body next week, a vote on my bipartisan War Powers Resolution to advance the proposition we shouldn't be at war against Iran without a vote of Congress.

I want to take a few minutes today to put this in a context that we may all be discussing a little more next week. I believe very strongly that a war with Iran today is both unnecessary and dangerous. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about why we are at this moment right now where President Trump, as recently as Tuesday night at the State of the Union, is suggesting that we may possibly need to be at war with the Nation of Iran.

The history of relations between the United States and Iran from the beginning of the 20th century to now is very, very tragic. The United States and Iran were generally allies from the turn of the 1900s until the early 1950s.

In the middle of World War II, at the Tehran Conference, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Leader Stalin basically devised what would be the boundaries of the current-day Iran. That has essentially stuck.

Iran's prehistory was very complicated, and the United States earned really good--significant good will from the Iranian people, from the Iranian Government being involved in that discussion.

We continued being seen as a real ally of Iran. In the early 1950s, after having had essentially a dictatorship or monarchy, Iran elected a popular Prime Minister. The British Government was worried about that government--the Iranian Government's efforts to potentially nationalize British oil assets.

So the British Government tried to talk the United States into a military action to topple the Government of Iran. The United States refused and convinced Britain not to do it. But later in 1953, the United States and Britain together arranged--and these are basic facts, no supposition, no opinion here--the United States and Britain joined in an effort to foment a coup d'etat that toppled the popularly elected Government of Iran and installed Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran over the objections of the Iranian people.

We did that. Britain did that.

The United States then funded the training of a secret police operation in Iran, the SAVAK, that between 1953 and 1979 perpetrated gross human rights abuses against the Iranian people.

This is a history that is not that well known to Americans, but a history that is very well known to Iranians.

That dictatorship and the human rights abuses perpetrated by the SAVAK and the Pahlavi regime eventually led to an uprising in Iran in 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini, another opposition leader, toppled the Pahlavi regime and took control of the Iranian Government.

Most Americans remember that Iranian protestors stormed the U.S. Embassy, took 52 hostages in that Embassy, and held them for 440-plus days. It was not as a result of the change in regime, but there was an additional fact.

After the regime changed, the Shah of Iran sought to come to the United States for refuge and medical treatment. The State Department urged President Carter not to allow it on the grounds they were trying to at least maintain some positive future relationship with the Iranian Government, but the United States allowed the Shah of Iran to come into the United States for medical treatment and care, and that led Iranian protestors to attack the American Embassy.

That was a horrible, unlawful act, and the hostages held for 440 days were treated very, very badly. But that then led to a series of back- and-forths between the United States and Iran.

The United States, in the 1980s, funded Iraq in an 8-year war against Iran that cost hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives. The United States supplied military assets to Iraq, to Saddam Hussein, to carry out war against Iran. We transferred military assets, including chemical weapons, to Saddam Hussein that were used against the Iranian population.

The Iranian population grew to have a deep distrust and fear and even hatred of the United States because of this toppling of the Prime Minister through U.S. funding of a war against Iran.

During this Iran-Iraq war, the USS Vincennes, a Navy ship, accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner in the region, killing more than 250 Iranian civilians. It was an accident, but Iran didn't believe it was an accident because they knew that the United States was funding Iraq in the war against it, and they viewed that attack on their civilian aircraft as something they could not countenance.

As this was happening, then-Iran-funded Shia militias and terrorist groups bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in the early 1980s as the Iran-Iraq war was going on and the United States was funding the war against Iran. This back-and-forth started to escalate.

Later, as you all know, the United States invaded Iran's two neighbors--to the west, Iraq; to the east, Afghanistan--and put U.S. troops all around Iran in its neighborhood. Iran interpreted those invasions as a piece of the toppling of their government and the downing of the commercial aircraft and the funding of the Iraq war.

And so, by the time we get into the 2000s, the depth of enmity between the United States and Iran was so intense, the Iranian regime chants ``Death to America'' because of this history. And we were friends just 60 or 70 years ago. We took a fundamental turn in the relationship and opened the path for a potential new chapter in United States-Iranian relationships when, during the Obama administration, the United States, European allies and China and Russia joined together to negotiate with Iran to curb their nuclear program.

I wrote a piece of legislation, the Iran Nuclear Review Act, that led to a

vote on the floor of the Senate on a diplomatic treaty with Iran to curb their nuclear program.

The diplomatic treaty, on the first page, in the first paragraph, in the first sentence, had this declaration: Iran reaffirms it will never seek to purchase, acquire, or develop a nuclear weapon.

And the agreement contained other provisions limiting for many years Iranian centrifuge production, Iranian enhancement of uranium. It compelled significant inspections of the Iranian facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This deal was a solid deal that, for the first time in 60 years, actually had us around the table with a party that had grown to be an enemy, together with other allies but also adversaries, like Russia and China, to control Iran's nuclear program.

Many of you know that in President Trump's first term, over the objection and advice of his first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his first Secretary of Defense James Mattis, told President Trump: Please maintain the JCPOA. Please maintain the agreement that curtails Iran's nuclear program and use U.S. sanctions against other Iranian behavior; bad actions in the region, human rights violations, development of missile programs. The JCPOA allowed the United States and other nations to use sanctions to punish Iran for nonnuclear activity.

President Trump's team told him keep the deal in place and use the sanctions against some of these other bad behaviors.

Contrary to the advice of these seasoned foreign policy professionals, seasoned defense professionals, Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA, and the United States walked away from it, even though our allies said it was working, even though China and Russia said it was working, and even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said that it was working.

The consequences of abandoning that deal were very obvious at the time. If the United States walked away from a deal that was working, so would Iran. And so they began again to enhance the enrichment of uranium. They began again to produce centrifuges. They ceased allowing the intrusive inspections that had been a component of the JCPOA.

But that wasn't the only effect of President Trump abandoning the deal. The parties around the table--our allies who had worked with us on it--couldn't believe that the United States was walking away from diplomacy. It weakened trust with our allies, and maybe more importantly, we had China and Russia--two of our great adversaries today--at the table with us to make sure there was not a nuclear Iran. And by walking away from the deal, we further poisoned relationships with those nations that now pose such challenge to the United States.

There was an additional consequence. We were in the middle of negotiating with North Korea about limits to their nuclear program. As soon as they saw the United States abandon a deal that was working, they stopped negotiating with us over limits to their nuclear program.

Why would we do a deal with the United States if the United States will back out of it? And there has been no real and meaningful progress about the denuclearization of North Korea since the United States decided to pull the plug on the JCPOA.

So here is where we are today. We have an armada around Iran. The President has said multiple times--and when he says it, you have to believe it because he bombed Iran in the summer--that he is potentially on the verge of going to war with Iran.

What does it mean to have the armada? Let me use a Virginia example. The USS Ford carrier is now positioned near Iran to be used in the case of an attack.

Carrier deployments--and the USS Ford deploys out of Virginia, thousands of sailors--carrier deployments last about 7 months. The carrier was in the Middle East. President Trump ordered the Ford to go to the Caribbean--to be a show of force around Venezuela before it steamed to the Caribbean. Now the President has ordered the Ford back to the Middle East.

A normal deployment for a carrier is 7 months. This is a deployment that is now going to be 11 months long. Our sailors who thought they were going to be home seeing their families for Christmas--it is now going to take 11 months. It will be the longest deployment of any carrier since the Vietnam war, and our sailors are just ready to be home.

The problems with the Ford are almost ones that I don't want to talk about on the floor. Many of the toilets on the Ford are inoperable. These are the kinds of things that happen during a deployment, and that is why you limit a deployment to certain months. You get the ship back in port, and you fix it up. The Ford is in tough shape right now and needs to come back to port so that the sailors can see their families, but also the quality of life and morale on the Ford are in dramatic decline.

So we are at a precipice, with U.S. military troops arrayed around Iran.

I just want to say this: War is unnecessary, and war is dangerous. Then I will conclude.

War is unnecessary.

The President says we may need to go against Iran to stop their nuclear program. We had stopped it through diplomacy. Do we really prefer war to diplomacy? And President Trump, in the bombing of Iran in the summer--you will remember he said we had obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. Well, if that was true 6 months ago, there is no need for us to invade Iran now to stop their nuclear ambitions.

The President said we may need to go to war against Iran to protect the protesters. There are protesters against dictatorial governments all over the world. Are we going to put our sons and daughters in harm's way against those nations to protect protesters?

I have to say I don't really accept that the President is that worried about Iranian protesters. Why not? The President is currently deporting people to Iran--Iranians who were in the United States who do not have appropriate immigration status, even Iranian Christians, even Iranian dissidents who would be subject to persecution if they were returned to Iran. President Trump has now sent more than 100 of them back to Iran. If he really cared about the rights of Iranians and how they would be treated by their government, he wouldn't be doing that.

Finally, the President has said Iran has ballistic missiles. They do, but the U.S. overmatch to Iran's military is so dramatic that any effort by the Iranians to use missiles--and there has been no evidence that that is their intent against the United States unless we use missiles against them--we would obliterate that capacity in an instant were they to use it.

War is unnecessary.

War is dangerous. War is dangerous for U.S. troops.

We have put troops all around Iran, all around its borders in Lebanon, in Israel, in Syria, in Iraq. We not only have troops, we have consulates, for example, in Erbil, in the Kurdish section of northern Iraq.

U.S. assets are everywhere. We can do a great job of protecting an awful lot of territory, but it would not be hard for even an overmatched nation like Iran, if they are attacked, to reach out and do harm to the U.S. troops or U.S. consulates or U.S. civilians. And for what?

This is dangerous to U.S. troops, and I say this as a father of a U.S. marine and representing a State that is one of the most military States in the Nation.

War is dangerous to the region.

When the United States has believed it could change regimes before in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, what has it gotten us? What has it gotten us? Has it created a more stable region? Hardly. Hardly.

To think that we could go in at the barrel of a gun and invade a nation and guarantee that lives lost or injured in that would be worth it because we would be producing something would be making a prediction about the Middle East that has not been borne out by events in the last 25 years.

War is dangerous to broader diplomacy.

We had the nations of the world, both our friends in Europe and China and Russia, around the table, and we broke a diplomatic deal, and it would suggest that we are preferring war to diplomacy. Why would nations want to engage in diplomacy with us if they can't trust the United States to stick to our word?

Finally, war is dangerous to the U.S. economy.

An invasion of Iran would immediately lead to dramatic increases in the price of oil. American citizens, Virginians, are already laboring under costs that are too high for energy, for health, for groceries, for building supplies. The last thing we need is an unnecessary war that will drive energy prices even higher.

War also risks inciting other dictators.

If the United States can decide, well, we are going to invade a sovereign nation because we want to do it, what is our ability to stand and justly criticize Vladimir Putin and Russia for invading Ukraine? What argument can we have to China to suggest that they shouldn't incur upon and invade Taiwan?

The United States should uphold a moral standard so that we can look others in the eye and say: You should uphold a moral standard.

We would badly degrade our ability to prevent dictators from invading other sovereign nations if we are to get into a war with Iran.

Look, Iran is not a good guy. Iran is a bad guy. Iran punishes protesters. Iran is engaged in all kinds of activity in the region-- funding terrorist groups in Syria, in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. They are doing that. They are doing that at the expense of their own people.

Iran engages in activities far away from the Middle East. They have had to remove their Ambassadors from nations as far-flung as Morocco and Australia because of activities that are designed in those countries to destabilize them. Iran funded a bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina a couple decades ago, and they still haven't been held to account.

So they are not a good guy; they are a bad guy. But are they worth wasting U.S. lives, U.S. money, U.S. credibility over? Let's use other tools, like sanctions, and not use our own kids' lives to deal with this threat.

I will conclude and just say this: My time as Governor from 2006 to 2010 coincided with the mass deployment of Virginians into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the Governor of Virginia, I had an authority over members of the Virginia National Guard. The Virginia National Guard deployed in the thousands to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I went to the deployments, and I went to the homecomings, and I went to the wakes, and I went to the funerals.

Some of these are too emotional for me to describe on the floor, but in an odd way, one of the most emotional was the day that I went to the Virginia War Memorial to watch a homecoming. U.S. troops coming out of Afghanistan had landed in a base in New Jersey, and they had hopped on a bus to come back to Virginia to reunite with their families. They exited the bus. They got in formation, and their commander announced that this National Guard unit was now returned all present and accounted for.

I knew that commander. He had been a Richmond police officer, and he was deployed with his unit. I saw in his face that for that entire 6- month deployment, he labored under the incredible strain of wanting to be able to say those words at the end of the deployment--``all present and accounted for.''

I saw him say those words, and I saw the care and the tension and the fear melt away. It made me think of the other homecomings I had been to where the commander couldn't say those words, and it made me think about them and what they had labored under.

I made a vow when I came to this body that I would do everything in my power to fight tooth and nail against sending our sons and daughters into unnecessary wars. I am on the Armed Services Committee. I voted for war authorizations. If we need to go to war to defend this country, then those who have signed up to do that, knowing that that might be a possibility, they are ready to serve us to defend the Nation. But an optional war at the whim of a President--ordering troops here and there around the globe as if they are a palace guard--for no articulated rationale puts our kids at risk in a completely unacceptable way.

We will have a vote next week on something that I believe is just bedrock constitutional law. We shouldn't be at war without a vote of Congress. We shouldn't be at war with Iran unless Members of this body have the guts to have a debate and vote and put their thumbprint on it and say: This is in the national interest.

No shortcuts. No end runs around Congress. No end runs around debate in front of the American people and laying out the stakes for them.

I can't believe that Virginia, one of the most military States in the country, is so different than other parts of this Nation. I can't believe that this Nation is itching for another war in the Middle East. Haven't we learned something from a quarter of a century of war in the Middle East? I hope we have.

I hope my colleagues will join me next week in suggesting no war unless we vote to authorize it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to continue an important Senate tradition. Each year, beginning in 1896, on a day near in time to George Washington's birthday, a Senator, alternating between parties, stands in the Senate to read Washington's Farewell Address, presented 100 years earlier as our first President neared the end of his second term.

During the 130 years of this tradition, seven Virginia Senators have preceded me in reading the Address, which was written by the archetypal son of our Commonwealth, with the assistance of close confidants Alexander Hamilton and another Virginia native son James Madison. Those Virginians who read the Farewell Address on the Senate floor are: John Daniel, Claude Swanson, Carter Glass, John Warner--twice--Paul Trible, Chuck Robb, and George Allen.

It is particularly appropriate that this year's reading is delivered in the Senate Chamber hours before President Trump is set to deliver his State of the Union Address in the House Chamber.

Washington's words demonstrate the mixture of wisdom, patriotism, and selflessness that should serve as a model for all Presidents and set the expectations for all Americans for how a President should approach the sacred trust of serving as America's Chief Executive.

Washington's Farewell Address to the people of the United States.

Mr. Kaine, at the rostrum, read the Farewell Address as follows: To the people of the United States:

Friends and Fellow-Citizens: The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country--and that, in withdrawing the tender of service which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then

perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that in the present circumstances of our country you will not disapprove my determination to retire.

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself, and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.

In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me, still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise and as an instructive example in our annals that, under circumstances in which the passions agitated in every direction were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these states, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occasion like the present to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint efforts-- of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South in the same intercourse, benefitting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort--and what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.

While then every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value! they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same government, which their

own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations--northern and southern--Atlantic and western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head. They have seen in the negotiation by the executive--and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate--of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the general government and in the Atlantic states unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi. They have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a Constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions, that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country, that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypotheses and opinion exposes to perpetual change from the endless variety of hypotheses and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable; liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is indeed little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of

sight) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true--and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in

the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall counsel.

Why forgo the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rival-ship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world--so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it, for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements (I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy)--I repeat it therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectably defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed--in order to give to trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them--conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another--that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character--that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish--that they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good, that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism--this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the 22d of April 1793 is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

After deliberate examination with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take--and was bound in duty and interest to take--a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it with moderation, perseverence, and firmness.

The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though in reviewing the incidents of my administration I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion,

as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free government--the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors and dangers.

Geo. Washington. United States, 19th September 1796.

Mr. President, I rise today--and I know other colleagues have done the same--to talk about H.J. Res. 142, the resolution we will be voting on later. It is a resolution that would overturn a recent law passed by the DC City Council regarding local taxes.

I care a lot about this not just because Virginia is a neighbor to DC. But I have been a mayor and a Governor and dealt with local and State tax issues and the interplay between those issues and Federal taxation.

Last year, this body, with colleagues across the aisle carrying the ball, passed a large reconciliation bill, which included numerous changes to the Federal Tax Code. Now, everyone here is aware of this fact: that our system of federalism that is ingrained in our Constitution only gives us, in this body, authority over Federal taxes. The reconciliation bill didn't and couldn't change Missouri's State income tax, Virginia's State income tax, Oklahoma's State income tax, or local property taxes for cities in those States.

Some States, when there is Federal tax legislation that is passed, choose to align their State and local tax policies directly with Federal tax policy. That is called conformity. You make a change to the Internal Revenue Code, and some States choose--and it is their choice-- to conform their own State tax code and even local tax codes with the Federal Tax Code. But other States choose--and, again, this is a choice--to decouple all or parts of their tax code. They may accept most of the Federal changes but decide to go their own direction in a couple of areas.

The important part is that this is part of a system of federalism, and it is a choice that States and localities get to make.

Blue and red States have made decisions to decouple in the aftermath of dealing with the reconciliation bill from last year. Alabama is a very red State. They decided to decouple their State tax system from some of the provisions in the reconciliation bill. My State, Virginia, made that decision. So did California. Altogether, now 19 States have affirmatively chosen to decouple some portion of their tax code from the tax changes that were made in the reconciliation bill. Another 20 to 30 States haven't yet made that determination; their State legislatures are grappling with it right now.

Look, if Kansas decides to lower State taxes for millionaires in a way that Democrats disagree with, I can't, as a U.S. Senator, introduce and pass a bill that would stop them and force them to use that funding, say, for local schools instead. That is not in my power.

But because of the Home Rule Act, Congress has the ability to intercede in local laws passed by the District of Columbia. We could argue about whether that is a good idea or not. I actually think, as a former mayor and Governor, we shouldn't be interceding. The District of Columbia elects a city government--a Mayor and a city council--and we should in almost all instances, I believe, respect the wishes of those who live in DC and not impose our values on them--those of us who live in Virginia or Oklahoma or other States. I think that is the right rule, and I have long been a supporter of the District of Columbia having both self-governance and representation.

The DC Home Rule Act was intended to serve as a pathway to allow them more freedom and authority to self-govern in relation to local affairs. It was a dramatic improvement over what came before. Specifically, it established the Mayoral position, a city council, and neighborhood commissioners that provide residents with direct representation on matters of local government.

Since the Home Rule Act was passed more than 50 years ago in 1973, Congress has respected the District of Columbia's authority and autonomy and rarely used this tool to overturn and nullify local matters. In fact, there have been only four instances in which this law has been invoked, and I believe this is the first time it has been invoked to challenge DC decisions about their own local taxes.

Remember, DC is not making a decision about the Federal Tax Code; they are making a decision about their own local taxes in a city council that is made up of people who have been elected by DC residents.

If we pass the resolution that is before the body, we would be telling the city that they have to adopt tax policies that have nothing to do with what their constituents, who elected their city council, want.

This would be about local taxes, not Federal taxes. DC residents have to pay Federal taxes in accord with the laws we pass here. So the matter we are contemplating on the floor is just interfering with DC's local taxes. We would be blowing a $600 million hole in the District of Columbia's budget if we pass this.

Again, everyone in this body, all 100 Senators--we live elsewhere. We live elsewhere, but we would be blowing a $600 million hole in the budget for the people who live in the District of Columbia if we pass this.

What did DC do? DC decided that they didn't want to conform their tax code to allow certain forms of accelerated depreciation for investments. Alabama actually made the same choice.

They didn't conform their tax code over a similar part of the tax code.

What did DC do instead? Instead of allowing this accelerated depreciation, DC decided that they would give a child tax credit to DC families. They viewed that as a more important thing to do with their local tax code than to do accelerated depreciation. I think that is a choice that makes perfect sense to me, and it certainly made sense to DC voters.

So the impact of this will not only be to blow a hole in the budget and to, mid-tax season, create chaos; it will also be to take away an important priority whereby DC has decided that they want to put dollars in the pockets of families with children to help them with the expenses of raising a child. This will cause confusion and cost the city millions in additional expenses in addition to the revenue effect.

I see my colleague from Virginia is on the floor, so I want to allow him to go quickly, but I do want to read a letter that has been written to the Senate by the DC business leadership. This is from the DC business and civic community--the Federal City Council, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, DC Chamber of Commerce, Apartment & Office Building Association, DC Association of REALTORS, D.C. Hospital Association, the building authority, Association of REALTORS, Hotel Association--a broad cross-section of the DC business community--and they have written a letter to us saying the following:

We write you, in unison, as representatives of the District

of Columbia's business organizations, urging you to oppose

the Joint Resolution of Disapproval H.J. Res. 142 . . . that

would reverse the District's decision to decouple the local

tax code from some provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill

Act.

A reversal of decoupling would create chaos in the middle

of tax filing season. The District has already begun

accepting and processing returns. It would take the DC

government and private vendors months to adjust local tax

administration. Filing deadlines would have to be pushed back

to the Fall of 2026.

Local tax code decoupling from the federal tax code is not

unique. Many states have also voted to decouple from

provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as they have

many times in the past in response to federal tax changes.

I read the letter from the business community because I want to make clear to people: This is not just parents who want the child tax credit so that they can better afford to raise their children; it is also the business community in DC.

Those of us who live elsewhere have the ability to affect tax policy at the State and local level in our own communities. We shouldn't impose our values over the DC residents, who have elected a Mayor and city council who have made tax policy for them just as our own local and State officials made tax policy for us.

For that reason--both to not blow a hole in the DC budget, to respect the wishes of DC residents, to respect the need for a child tax credit to support families, and to respect the wishes of the DC business community--I ask my colleagues to oppose the resolution.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the issue that will dominate attention in the Senate between now and next Friday, Friday the 13th, a discussion about reforms to the Department of Homeland Security and the activities it has engaged in all around the country.

It is common, during the 13 years that I have been in the Senate, for folks to talk about immigrants as a problem. It is very uncommon for people to take this floor and talk about immigrants as a strength. And based on my experience in 31 years now, coming on 32, in elected office in Virginia, I believe immigrants are a strength and not a problem. That doesn't mean there aren't issues that we need to resolve, but I think it is high time that people in this Chamber talked about immigrants to this country and recognized the strengths that they bring.

President Trump and his administration have launched upon an unprecedented campaign against immigrants--immigrant crackdowns in Virginia and elsewhere. And the claim of the administration and many who support it is that this is because of a desire to protect Americans and rid American streets of criminals.

I maintain that President Trump has, instead, demeaned and dehumanized immigrants and their countries of origin since day one of his political career for matters completely unrelated to public safety. And since he has been in power to be President, both in his first term and now this term, he has thrown everything he can at keeping people out and even rounding people up who he views as the wrong kind of people, the ``other.'' His efforts to round

up thousands and thousands of people he views as ``the other'' on spurious charges and without due process are sweeping up all kinds of people, including children, and they are hurting our country, hurting our economy, and hurting my Commonwealth.

I would like to start with what the President has said. These policies are motivated by a President who has said a number of things about the immigrant community, and I think these express the basic motivations for his actions. There is a beautiful phrase in the New Testament that says: From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. On this topic, the President has a very full heart, and he has spoken very plainly about his motivation.

In the speech marking the beginning of his campaign in 2016, day one, President Trump embarked on a tirade against Mexicans and Mexican- Americans saying:

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their

best . . . they're sending people that have lots of problems

. . . they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're

rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

So most of them are bad--drug addicts, criminals, rapists--but some are good people. That is the very essence of bigotry and discrimination, and we know that to be a lie.

One of President Trump's first actions when he became President in 2017 was to impose a ban on people entering the country if they were coming from countries that were predominantly Muslim in nature. It wasn't based on the vetting of an individual to determine if they posed a problem. If you are a Muslim, if you come from a country that was predominantly Muslim, you are banned--the very essence of bigotry and discrimination. That policy was struck down by the Supreme Court. The administration recalibrated it to do it in a different way, but the President revealed what is his motivation.

A few months into his first term, he said in an Oval Office meeting of top officials that he thought that Haitians ``all have AIDS''--a despicable and discriminatory lie.

And he also said in that same meeting, we should keep Nigerian immigrants out of the United States because, if they come to America, they would never ``go back to their huts''--derogatory, discriminatory.

I don't like to curse. I am not perfect at this, but I don't like to curse. And when I try, I can't do it convincingly. And I don't like to quote people who are cursing, but I am going to do that because I don't think this should be sanitized.

Later in his first term at a meeting with top Cabinet officials and the White House staff and Senators, President Trump said:

Why do we want all these people from shithole countries

coming here?

Now at the time when that was revealed, the President denied it, said he had not used that phrase. But we know that that was a lie because, recently, at rallies he has been acknowledging that he used that phrase, and he still uses that phrase. Just a few months ago, he loudly and proudly repeated the same line. He said:

Remember I said that to the senators that came in, the

Democrats. They wanted to be bipartisan. So they came in . .

. we had a meeting. And I say: Why is it we only take people

from shithole countries, right?

This is the President recently acknowledging that language, discriminatory and bigoted language.

Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden--just a

few--let us have a few from Denmark--do you mind sending us a

few people? Send us some nice people, do you mind? But we

always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster,

right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.

Bigoted and discriminatory--linger on that for a second. Some nice people from Scandinavia, instead of filthy or dirty places like Somalia.

Recently the President, after canceling many refugee programs from other nations--including Cuba--opened up a path for refugees to come from South Africa if--if--they are Afrikaners. South Africa has all kinds of ethnic groups. Afrikaners are just one. The path that the President opened for refugees coming to the United States from South Africa was limited to Afrikaners, even though Afrikaners are represented in the current National Unity government of South Africa, but he claimed that Afrikaners are being persecuted.

Notice a few months later, he also claimed that Nigerians were being persecuted if they were Christians, and he used military action against Nigeria, but he wouldn't open up a path for Nigerians to come to the United States.

He asserts that Afrikaners are being persecuted against, and so we will have a refugee program for them. But Nigerians who are being persecuted, even for their Christian faith, there is no refugee path for them. What is the difference between an Afrikaner and a Nigerian subject to persecution? I think we all know the answer to the question.

So if you support President Trump's immigration policies, I think you have to look in the mirror and grapple with the fact that his motivation is about fundamentally not liking people of different skin colors from continents or countries that he views as disfavorable or who come from religious backgrounds that he views as disfavorable. Anyone supporting President Trump's policies ought to look in the mirror and ask if that is a motivation that you share or is that a motivation you reject?

Let me turn now from the President's motivations that explain this entire policy to the actual actions. President Trump's immigration crackdown has been violent. It has been inhumane. It has rounded up innocent people--mothers, children. It has rounded up U.S. citizens. The visceral disdain for immigrants, but particularly for those who don't look like him or from countries he doesn't like, has led to a crackdown that has far exceeded--far exceeded--the stated claim that it is about law enforcement and public safety. While he and his enablers claim that they are after the ``worst of the worst'' or that they are only going after people who are criminals, that is just not true.

Last month, Federal agents detained this youngster, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, and his father from their driveway in Minneapolis, MN.

Is this a criminal? Is this a public safety threat to the United States? How could you make that argument with a straight face or accept it from a President with the kind of motivation that he has demonstrated in his hostility to immigrants?

Liam had just gotten home from preschool with a Spider-Man backpack and his bunny stocking cap. He and his father were held in a facility in Texas, more than 1,000 miles away from their home, for over a week until a Federal judge ordered that they be released.

Dangerous criminal. Keeping our streets safe.

Over a 2-month period last year, according to the right-leaning Cato Institute, nearly three-quarters of people rounded up by ICE had no criminal conviction--none whatsoever. Of those who did have a criminal conviction, the biggest category was--drum roll--traffic violations.

In February 2025, 3,165 immigrants with no criminal charges or convictions were detained by ICE--3,000 in February 2025. Last month, January 2026, the number of people detained by ICE with no criminal conviction and no criminal charges had grown to 25,193. From September 21, 2025, until last month, January 7, single-day ICE detentions increased to 11,296 a day. But, again, this stat showed that well over two-thirds had no criminal convictions and no criminal charges.

How about U.S. citizens? As of October 2025, more than 170 U.S. citizens were detained by immigration agents. That is what we know of. Two dozen were held for more than a day without being able to call their loved ones or a lawyer. Nearly 20 of those U.S. citizens detained were children, and 2 of them had cancer. More than 50 American citizens were detained by ICE on suspicion of being undocumented. And, guess what? All 50 were Latino, people whose skin color or ethnic background have been demonstrated by the President to be those he disapproves.

Late last month ICE agents went to a U.S. citizen's house with no warrant, broke his door down, dragged him from his home at gunpoint in his underwear in below-freezing temperatures in front of his 4-year-old grandson. Neighbors took it all on video. The ICE agents drove him to the middle of nowhere and made him stand in the cold while they photographed him undressed. Then they finally drove him back to

his home and dropped him off there with his broken down front door.

This is not about law enforcement. This is not about public safety. It is a campaign against people because of the color of their skin or where they are from.

If you support President Trump's policies, you have to ask yourself: Wait a minute. It is not really about law enforcement. It is about 5- year-old kids. It is about U.S. citizens. It is about people who have no criminal background. And you ought to ask yourself whether that is, in fact, what you support.

Immigrants are crucial and beneficial to the economy in Virginia and throughout America. Just some statistics: Nationwide, our immigrant families generated more than $236 billion in income in 2022 and paid nearly $66 billion in local, State, and Federal taxes.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that immigration flows to the United States that are projected currently will likely increase American gross domestic product by nearly $9 trillion between now and 2034, if we don't screw it up.

As of June 2025, 15.4 percent of U.S. residents are immigrants, including naturalized U.S. citizens. So everyone in this room has, in their State, hard-working immigrant families who do not appreciate being demonized by the President and his policies.

Immigrants make up 13.2 percent of Virginia's population. That is more than one in eight. When I was born, it was 1 in 100. I was born in 1958. So 1 of 100 Virginians in 1958 had been born in another country. Today it is one of eight. I guess that must mean, if you follow the President's logic, that this has been a horrible thing for Virginia. To the contrary, Virginia, by my last checking, was one of only two States in the United States that, in my lifetime, has gone from bottom quarter per capita income to top quarter per capita income. There is nothing about life in Virginia today that is not dramatically better than in 1958.

And the growth of our immigrant populations with their strength and their innovation and their culture has been a huge part of the reason that Virginia has gone from back of the pack economically to front of the pack economically.

Virginia has started to see some population decline in recent years, except for immigration. Immigration has actually enabled our State to continue to grow. Growth is helpful to the economy. Immigrants contribute $104 billion annually to the Virginia economy. Get this: 29 percent--nearly one-third--of our Main Street business owners in Virginia are immigrants; our Main Street business owners, nearly 30 percent. Sixteen percent of our workforce is immigrant.

Let me tell you about a couple of industries, specifically, and give you some Virginia statistics: 34 percent of our chefs are immigrants; 44 percent of our computer engineers are immigrants; 28 percent of our childcare workers are immigrants; 52 percent of our painters are immigrants; 46 percent of our agriculture workers--ag and forestry is still the No. 1 industry in Virginia as it is in most States in the country. Forty-six percent of our ag workers are immigrants; 43 percent of our construction workers are immigrants. Health aides--more than 20 percent of our health professionals are immigrants. I notice this particularly when I visit rural Virginia; that if it weren't for immigrant-trained doctors and workers and allied health professionals, many of the rural parts of our State would not have health providers at all.

Demeaning and attacking, terrorizing and frightening, disrespecting immigrants is not only the wrong thing to do, it hurts our country and it hurts our economy.

What would we do without 46 percent of our agriculture workers? What would we do without 43 percent of our construction workers or 23 percent of our health aides? Don't they deserve some positive words? Some thanks, like: Thanks for choosing us. You could have chosen someone else. Instead, you chose to come here and enrich our communities.

And the skills I gave you are everything from sort of more manual skills to high-end computer engineering and health professions. I could have done this with virtually any profession in Virginia, and I would have made the same case. We would not be the Commonwealth that we are, the success that we are, without the growth of our immigrant populations.

I want to conclude by just saying, in being here for 13 years, I just have heard too few words on this floor that talk about the contributions that immigrants have made to this country during our entire history. Immigration is the transfusion into the bloodstream of the American economy and the American politic that keeps our Nation young at 250--new skills, new ideas, new connections to places around the world.

Are there challenges? Yes. Do we need order? Of course, we do. Should we reform? Yes. But it should be within the overall framework of immigrants like this little guy are not a problem. Our immigrant communities are part of what makes our Nation great and successful. I am tired, after more than 13 years, of hearing immigrants just dragged down, called ``illegals''? Why don't we call people convicted of fraud ``illegals''? Why don't we call people convicted of sexual harassment ``illegals''?

There is only one kind of person that some label an ``illegal'' in the United States and that is if they have violated the laws to enter the country. What about all the other illegalities people in this country commit?

But there is only one kind of person we demonize with the label, and I am tired of it. I am tired of people getting kicked around because of the countries they came from and color of their skin.

I speak from personal experience having worked as a missionary in Central America. And I know the kinds of people who come here, and I know why they come here. They come for the same reason my great- grandparents came here from Ireland in the late 1840s--because there weren't opportunities for them. The laws may be a little different today than then, but the motivations are no different.

Virtually, everybody in this Chamber has an immigration story where, thank God, their family decided that they could make a better life for themselves in the United States. And just as we don't demonize each other because we have immigrant roots, we shouldn't be demonizing people like this young 5-year-old's family and terrorizing them as we are.

Any policy that begins with the assumption that immigrations are a problem or a threat or a public safety concern, instead of beginning with the reality that our immigrant communities have been part of the great success of this Nation--any policy that starts with the wrong assumption is bankrupt morally, bankrupt legally, bankrupt economically, and it will hurt our Nation. It is already hurting our Nation and will continue to hurt it even further.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to follow my colleague from North Carolina and with Senator Collins, the Senator from Maine, on the floor.

I hope also to be voting today--and hopefully soon--on behalf of the bill that is pending before us that would advance five completed appropriations bills that are very solid bills, to my point of view. None of us ever think these bills are perfect. There are always things in them we wish weren't and other things that we wish had been in them that aren't, but I think these are very solid bills.

I think it is time--not just because of the shutdown--it is time to advance these bills to the President's desk. I appreciate that colleagues are recognizing what we need to do is advance those bills and then focus in a very intense, high-stakes way on what I believe is the need for dramatic reforms of DHS and its Agencies. We all know the controversies, and we all know some things that need to be done, and we will see if we can reach an agreement. The idea in this proposal is to take 2 weeks to see if we can find it. If we find sufficient reforms, you will have votes like mine. If we do not find sufficient reforms, my vote will not go for the ultimate bill. But in 2 weeks, we will be able to know whether we can provide significant reforms that would curb the abuses that we are seeing and that people all around the world are seeing, to our discredit.

I was inspired to speak when I heard about the Graham amendments. Now, as I stand here, I have not seen the filed amendments or their text, and I am not yet sure whether, in fact, there will be a vote on the amendments that my colleague from South Carolina has described. However, I want to explain why I think both of these amendments would be a very bad idea. Maybe in explaining that, I might be able to convince colleagues not even to vote on them. But if we do have votes, I am going to be voting no on both and encouraging my colleagues to do the same.

Let me tackle the first issue raised by Senator Graham: proposing to offer an amendment that would create some cause of action against ``sanctuary cities.''

I have two very serious concerns about the proposal as he has described it on the floor and as I have read about it. The first is, what is a sanctuary city? Is a sanctuary city or community a city that just says, ``We are a sanctuary city''? Is that enough? What if a city doesn't say they are a sanctuary city, but they refuse to enter into a 287(g) agreement with DHS? What must a city do or not do to be labeled a ``sanctuary city?''

If we are going to have a cause of action that would impose damages that would have to be paid by, not the city--it all comes from the local taxpayers; it would have to be paid by local taxpayers--you have to have a real clear definition of what a sanctuary city is.

I am very, very worried about any amendment that would try to punish sanctuary cities, for two reasons.

First, the administration does not know what a sanctuary city is--the Trump administration. Why do I say that? I say it because of actions earlier this year.

In May of 2025--I am sorry, last year--in May of 2025, the Trump administration, through the DHS, listed sanctuary cities in each State. They put out a massive list. Now, I didn't pay attention to 49 States' lists, but I paid a lot of attention to the Virginia list, and let me tell you who was on the Virginia list. There were 20 counties and 13 cities. Virginia has 134 cities and counties. So the Trump administration said that 20 counties were sanctuary counties and 13 cities were sanctuary cities. But when we looked at the list, it was comical. It was like Stephen Colbert or somebody had written this list.

One of the counties listed was Martinsville County. That is not a county in Virginia. One of the cities that was listed was Tazewell--but wait. That is not a city in Virginia. There is a town of Tazewell that has 4,000. There is a county of Tazewell that has 40,000. It is not clear whether Tazewell city was meant to refer to either or both of those communities.

The list of 33 was rife with not only errors but misspellings. But my favorite one was this: One of the cities listed as a sanctuary city in Virginia was Duffield, VA, in the heart of Appalachia. It is 0.6 square miles, population 73, in the heart of Appalachia--sanctuary city.

Well--I don't know--maybe Duffield is a hotbed of immigrants or something. I went to the census data, the 2020 census data. The 73 people that live in that 0.6-square-mile town are 100 percent Caucasian. It is not a hotbed of immigrants. It is not a sanctuary city. Yet the Trump administration listed them.

This was news all over Virginia. The list got published everywhere: Duffield is a sanctuary city.

If mistakes were made on this list about Virginia, I know they were made about other communities as well. To its credit, the Trump administration in August put out a new list of sanctuary cities in Virginia, and instead of the 33 that were on the list in May, now there were zero sanctuary cities--just 2 months later, zero sanctuary cities.

Clearly that initial list was prepared by someone who didn't know anything about Virginia, anything about sanctuary cities. I suspect it was AI, and I can't decide whether ``AI'' stands for ``artificial intelligence'' or ``artificial ignorance.'' But it included many communities that definitely are not sanctuary cities.

I have only given you the most egregious errors. If you look at the others that were on that initial list, none of them have ever passed sanctuary city legislation, and none of them have refused to cooperate with immigration officials in doing their job.

So the first thing about an amendment that would impose a cause of action against sanctuary cities is, how could we trust that it would be applied fairly when the administration can't even figure out what a sanctuary city is?

Here is the second reason I would oppose this amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same should it be offered for a vote. What about local elections? I have heard from many of my Republican colleagues and, frankly, not just Republican colleagues--those of us who have been mayors and Governors don't think Federal officials in this Chamber should micromanage everything a city does or a county does or a State does.

If folks in Duffield, VA--population 73--decide that they don't like being a sanctuary city, which they are not, they could change out their mayor; they could change out their city council; they could elect different people to have different policies.

Why would we have a Federal cause of action against a city or a county that is responsive to its voters? Allow voters to decide whether their elected officials at the local level or State level are embracing the right or wrong policies.

We shouldn't use lawsuits, as much as I like them--I was a lawyer for many years and tried a lot of cases--we shouldn't use lawsuits against localities that have the power to elect their own officials, to embrace policies and kick out officials if they are embracing the wrong policies.

So on Senator Graham's first proposed amendment--a cause of action against sanctuary cities--we can't even really trust that this definition will be worked out right, as evidenced by the problems that the administration has had. And let's let local and State governments govern themselves and the voters kick out people if they are embracing the wrong policies.

Let me talk about the second amendment, which I also think would be a very bad idea. We squirreled away, in a bill that passed out of here in November, a very unusual provision giving a cause of action for various Senators to sue if they felt like they had been unjustly targeted by an investigation connected to what happened in this Capitol on January 6.

It is very unusual to create a cause of action for such a limited number of people, and most of us were unaware it was in the fine print of the deal and only found out later, to our surprise and chagrin.

The House, to their credit, kicked that provision out, and that is smart. It should stay out. Senator Graham is now proposing an amendment--and I am at least gratified that he is not proposing an amendment that just gives like a special, you know, E-ZPass lane for Senators to bring lawsuits. He is proposing an amendment that would allow more generally individuals who had been subject to that January 6 investigation to bring a lawsuit.

But let's just hold on for a minute. We are going to create a Federal cause of action to allow people who felt they were unjustly targeted by the January 6 investigation to bring a damages lawsuit against the U.S. Government. What about somebody who is shot in the back 10 times by an ICE agent? Shouldn't that person be able to bring a cause of action against the Federal Government? That person can't, not only because the person is dead--Mr. Pretti--but because Federal law does not allow that lawsuit. The family of that individual cannot bring a wrongful death action against the United States because of sovereign immunity doctrines.

What about somebody manhandled or beaten by an ICE agent or a Federal prison guard or what about somebody who is mistreated by somebody in a TSA line by a TSA employee? I mean, shouldn't there be a cause of action against a Federal employee who abuses somebody in another way? But there isn't. Federal law generally prohibits these claims because of sovereign immunity doctrines against the Federal Government, and it is nearly impossible to bring such a claim against the individual Federal employee that carried out abusive behavior.

So the proposal that Senator Graham is making is to say that individuals who were targeted in an investigation about an attack on this Capitol to overturn the peaceful transfer of power will be given a unique status in American law and be able to file lawsuits against the Federal Government or against Federal officials in a way that no one else can--even people who have been grievously injured or even killed by the actions of Federal employees.

We should not elevate people's concerns about the January 6 prosecution and give them a special status in American law above those who have suffered grievous physical injury and even been murdered. We shouldn't.

Now, Senator Graham is a good lawyer, tried many a case. He knows that there has long been a debate about whether and under what circumstances one might create a cause of action for individuals, a Federal tort claim for individuals who have been on the receiving end of illegal behavior by Federal employees. That has been a debate that has been kicking around for a long time.

If Senator Graham or anyone in this Chamber wants to engage in a discussion about what should the parameters of such a cause of action look like and how it shouldn't be just for one group of people, but it should be for anybody whose rights have been grievously violated by the actions of Federal officials, that would be a worthy discussion to have. It has some challenges to it, and it is not an easy discussion, but it is one that has been going on for a long time, and it would be a worthy discussion to have. But for God's sake, especially in the aftermath of the horrific killings of these civilians in Minneapolis, who don't have any ability to seek compensation from the Federal Government for their losses of life, let's not create a cause of action for a certain group of people who were investigated over their role in the January 6, 2021, effort to overturn the peaceful transfer of power in this country.

It is my hope that these amendments will not be called up for a vote. If they are, I will strongly oppose them and encourage my colleagues to do the same so that we can move forward on passing the appropriations bills and then getting into a focused discussion about DHS reform.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, thank you so much, and what an honor it is to be together with our colleagues from Minnesota to appreciate their leadership and how they stood in the gap for Minnesotans who have really suffered in these last weeks, to be together with so many colleagues on the floor to talk about this most existential moment.

You don't have to be a spiritual or religious person to--when you see a mother murdered and her last name is ``Good'', the murder of good--it should make all of us step back and look in the mirror and ask what it means. You do not have to be a spiritually attuned person to watch a VA employee ICU nurse get 10 bullets in his back and step back and ask: Who are we?

These images are going around the world, and people are not looking at these images as who a particular person or administration is. They are looking at this as: Is this who America is? And that is what this debate is about.

I take this very personally. From birth to age 2, I was a Minnesotan. I was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, MN. I still have family connections in Minnesota.

I, then, was a Kansan until I was 26, and my more persuasive Virginian wife convinced me to become a Virginian. And now, 42 years later, I still have these strong feelings and ties about the State where I was born.

And as I watch the events and I hear the pain and I get the dispatches from friends and family who are in the midst of this sharing with me the stories, much as my colleagues have shared them today, I realize this isn't just about Minnesota. It could be anywhere in our country.

Although, I will express this question: Could it be anywhere? Because it does seem as if the administration is targeting this kind of rogue violence in certain communities, not others. And when the Attorney General of the United States, our Nation's chief law enforcement officer, by letter suggests that the rogue activities in Minnesota could stop if Minnesota would only turn over its voting rolls, it does make you wonder, as my colleague Senator Smith asked: Is this really about law enforcement?

But the fear that immigrant communities and others who want to peacefully assemble and present grievances about government--a right guaranteed in the First Amendment--that fear is something that isn't just in Minnesota; it is in my community too. I live in Richmond, VA. The Commonwealth has a population that is about 12 percent immigrant. The church I go to is heavily a Congolese parish. It is a Catholic parish. Many folks in the Congo are Catholics, and we have seen a refugee population grow in my parish.

We have immigrant communities all over. The meeting I had right before I came to the floor was with a Cub Scout group from McLean, VA, and they talked to me about the rights of immigrants because so many of them or their parents are immigrants.

And the fear in our immigrant communities is palpable even when there haven't been roving patrols. Will they start tomorrow? You see reduced attendance at childcare centers. You see reduced attendance at church events because people hear rumors that, if they go, they might be targeted. The fear is palpable.

What I want to just say, Mr. President, that I hope we will kind of bear in mind, and this is: We all come to this place with different life experiences, and a life experience that I have had that is, you know, different than some is I have been a mayor and Governor and know what it is to have a police force.

When I was the mayor of Richmond, we had a police force. When I was the Governor of Virginia, we had the Virginia State Police.

Let me tell you something police forces don't like: They don't like roving bands of people with masks and without IDs roving through their communities without coordinating.

In Virginia, this kind of started a couple of months back in a couple of our courthouses who are patrolled by deputy sheriffs. The court function and jails are run by sheriffs in Virginia, and they are there to provide security.

And in courthouses in Chesterfield and Albemarle Counties in Virginia,

they started to see masked, unidentified folks show up to grab people. Now, these are courthouses that are guarded by deputy sheriffs with weapons who are there to provide stability and security. And when there are masked people coming into the courts to grab others who don't identify themselves or coordinate with local law enforcement, you raise the risk of a horrible--horrible--injury or accident or tragedy occurring.

Now we see this happening in Minnesota and elsewhere.

At a minimum, the mayor and Governor in me says we should not be allowing these roving patrols to run roughshod in local communities without fully getting the approval and coordination with State and local law enforcement authorities. Anything short of that treats State and local law enforcement as if they are the enemies instead of partners in trying to promote public safety.

The other thing that I would point out before handing it off to my next colleague is something that is just so common. It is so common in law enforcement at the State and local level. If there is an officer- involved shooting in virtually every law enforcement agency in this country, the officer involved in the shooting is immediately put on administrative leave. That is not a judgment that they were wrong; it is just a judgment that shooting is so serious that there should be an investigation before that officer is allowed to return to duty. This is standard operating procedure in tiny town police offices that have a handful of officials in Virginia and elsewhere. Yet that is not what is being done at the Federal level.

In fact, the Washington Post ran a wonderful story yesterday that analyzed many instances of DHS officials shooting folks, and before an investigation was even done, the administration was out vindicating them, not putting them on administrative leave, and, finally, even blaming victims, calling them domestic terrorists and assassins.

That is the last thing I want to say. The scale of the lie goes up depending upon the depth of the shame and guilt feeling. So when someone is killed and a key Cabinet Secretary jumps out--or a key White House official--to label them as a domestic terrorist or an assassin, clearly contradicting all the available evidence that every American and every person in the world can see, you know that the lie is being magnified to cover up the depth of shame and guilt that individual is feeling.

It is time for us to do right by reforms, but it is also time to stop lying. Stop lying about these people who are standing up and trying to be good neighbors and protect their fellow man. Stop calling them domestic terrorists. Stop calling them would-be assassins. Stop trying to trash their memories, pour salt in the wounds of their parents and their loved ones and their children to cover up your own lack of responsibility and your lack of accountability.

We are going to hold you accountable. We are going to make sure that you are accountable--not based on a promise of future action by this administration.

We need to get the five bills done. We can get them done and then turn to a DHS reform that is put in law, that is signed by the President, so that when the President or his cronies decide later to break it, we can go to court and enforce it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President and my colleagues, last week, the Senate agreed to discharge our bipartisan War Powers Resolution from the Foreign Relations Committee so that we could finally, after months, debate military action against Venezuela and Venezuelans, on the floor of the Senate, and not just allow the administration to wage combat on its own with no information shared except in classified settings.

I thank my colleagues, two of whom are here on the floor today, who voted for this resolution. They did not vote to rebuke a President, although, for some reason, he has chosen to see it

that way. Instead, they voted to uphold a basic constitutional principle that we should not be waging offensive hostilities without a debate and vote in Congress.

As I described last week, the reason for that principle is clear: Don't send our sons and daughters into military hostilities without the debate and vote in Congress that would put the thumbprint of the Nation's leadership on the validity of the mission.

I believed that today we were going to have a debate about the War Powers Resolution, possibly consider amendments to it, and then hold a vote on final passage. But I have now learned that some want to foreclose the possibility of a debate and allow the President to carry out this unauthorized campaign with no public debate and no vote. And they are apparently preparing a parliamentary move to deprive our resolution of the privileged status given it under the War Powers Resolution and, thus, shut debate down.

First, an effort to declare this resolution not privileged-- apparently, by arguing that the campaign in and against Venezuelans is not hostilities--is something that the House has actually been doing, but the Senate should not emulate.

Some of you remember that the Senate has passed a number of resolutions against President Trump's unilateral tariff taxes that are privileged. They are also privileged--or they used to be--in the House, but the House was so afraid to even have a debate or vote about this matter that they used a procedural parliamentary trick to turn off the privilege. I don't think that is worthy of emulation by the ``greatest deliberative body'' in the world. We shouldn't be afraid to debate or discuss anything, especially matters of war and peace.

Second, an argument that the Venezuelan campaign is not ``imminent hostilities'' within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution is a violation of every reasonable meaning of that term.

Let's begin with the boat campaign against boats with Venezuelans on it, starting in mid-September, that has now killed more than a hundred designated combatants; the amassing of U.S. military assets, what the President calls an armada in and around Venezuela; the President' authorization of covert action in Venezuela; the U.S. military's use in the interdiction of oil from Venezuela; the attack, over two weekends ago, to seize the Venezuelan President, President Maduro, and his wife, where more than a hundred combatants were killed, where U.S. troops were injured; and now ongoing control facilitated by the U.S. military.

The United States is determining who can govern Venezuela. We have tapped the Vice President of Venezuela and determined that she is somebody who should be the leader, rather than the opposition who won an overwhelming election, just a year ago.

We have said we can determine when Venezuela will finally be entitled to have its own election, saying that they are not going to be ready for that for some long period of time.

We are seizing the nation's primary economic asset, its oil. We are deciding how the oil revenues--every penny of the oil revenues--of this nation should be spent, and President Trump is even saying that he gets to determine which U.S. companies can even invest in the Venezuelan oil economy.

And it is all being done with the active participation of the U.S. military. The U.S. military assets in place around Venezuela are, as President Trump said, an armada, 16,000 U.S. personnel. This is open source reporting as of 2 days ago, arrayed around Venezuela:

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group: Carrier Air Wing 9, the USS Winston Churchill, the USS Bainbridge, and the USS Mahan.

The Iwo Jima Amphibious Readiness Group, which includes: the USS Fort Lauderdale, the USS San Antonio, and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), the USS Stockdale (DDG-106), the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), the USS Gettysburg (CG-64), the USS Wichita (LCS- 13), the USNS Waters, the USNS Joshua Humphreys, and the USNS Kanawha.

And that is in addition to air assets that are arrayed all around the region that have been used and are likely to be used in the future.

Everything that is being done to control Venezuela, its politics, and its economy are being facilitated by the U.S. military, but it is more than assets in place. Operation Southern Spear, the boat strikes of Venezuelan boats in international waters, is still being carried out by the U.S. military. The U.S. military is engaged in a naval blockade of Venezuela, transit out and transit in. Would we think that was an act of war if Russia was blockading the United States and not allowing commerce to come into or out of our ports?

The U.S. military is engaged in active interdiction of Venezuelan oil in the Pacific and the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world, and the United States is threatening future military action.

President Trump said about Vice President Rodriguez, if she didn't act well, she would have a fate worse than President Maduro. President Trump was going to do a second invasion, last Friday, that he called off after our vote Thursday afternoon--threats of future invasion.

If this is not ``imminent hostilities'' with the death now of more than 200 combatants, with U.S. troops injured, with an armada arrayed around, a naval interdiction of oil, and a blockade of this country's economy, it would violate every reasonable meaning of this term, and to pretend otherwise would weaken the respect that this institution should aspire to.

Finally, to my colleagues, there has been some recent correspondence between the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Risch of Idaho, and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, that basically underlines my points.

Some Senate colleagues wanted to use this procedural maneuver today, and they felt that it would help if they could have a clear definition or description from the administration that the military operation is over.

And so, I have the letter here that Senator Risch wrote to the President of the United States yesterday, and he asked two simple questions: First, ``provide Congress with an official correspondence confirming that Operation Absolute Resolve has ended''--first request-- and second, specify ``that U.S. military personnel are no longer involved in hostilities in Venezuela.''

Two simple questions. I don't know that those questions would have been sufficient for me, but, apparently, Senator Risch thought if he could get ``yes'' answers to both of those questions, it would be sufficient for him.

Secretary Rubio sent a response today and would not answer yes to either of the questions. The letter from Senator Secretary, dated earlier today, January 14, very explicitly does not say that Operation Absolute Resolve is over. He was asked to say that it ended; he would not say that it has ended.

How could it be ended when the President is still threatening other sanctioned and indicted Venezuelan officials with a fate worse than Maduro's if they don't meet the U.S. standards?

So in this letter which my colleagues sought to justify this parliamentary maneuver that is coming up, Secretary Rubio would not specify that Operation Absolute Resolve has ended.

Well, how about the second question: Please specify ``that U.S. military personnel are no longer involved in hostilities in Venezuela.''

Secretary Rubio would not say that either. ``There are currently no U.S. Armed Forces in Venezuela.'' He didn't say U.S. forces aren't involved in hostilities in or against Venezuelans because he couldn't say that with the interdiction, with the blockade, with the boat strikes.

And so even the effort of my colleagues to try to find a parliamentary escape hatch--oh, there is no hostilities--and softball set of two questions to the Secretary of State to justify their position produced a response where he would not agree that the operation is over--the military operation--and he would not agree that the United States is now not in hostilities in or against Venezuela.

This is the third vote we have had on Venezuela in the last 3 months. Only now--only now--does the administration and its supporters make the claim that there are no hostilities. They didn't make that claim in the first 2 months, as the armada was amassing, as we were killing people in open

waters, as we were committing to covert action, as we were preparing and practicing for an invasion.

They knew that it was hostilities, and that is why they didn't challenge it. But only now, on the third vote, are they challenging whether this is or is not hostilities, and they are doing so to avoid public debate. That is the reason they are doing this.

If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous and so lawful, the administration and its supporters would not be so afraid to have this debate before the public and the U.S. Senate.

For that reason, I urge my colleagues to avoid a parliamentary gag rule on discussion of this military operation and support the bipartisan War Powers Resolution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in a moment, I will make the motion that my colleague from Idaho mentioned, the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 298, but I do want to just address the points that he made very briefly.

My colleague from Idaho had said there is no current use of U.S. hostilities in Venezuela, and he has also said that the military operation Absolute Resolve is over. That is what he has just told this body. And he has said, because of those two facts, he is making the motion that we will hear in a moment, the inquiry.

I just want to refer my colleagues to the letter exchange between Senator Risch and Secretary Rubio because that is not what the letters say. The letters do not say what has been represented by my colleague.

Let me read what Senator Risch asked the President, and then let me read Senator Rubio's response.

Senator Risch said: I respectfully request that you provide Congress with an official correspondence confirming that Operation Absolute Resolve has ended and that U.S. military personnel are no longer involved in hostilities in Venezuela.

Those were the two questions posed to the President.

Let me read you Senator Rubio's answer. He did not confirm in his answer that Operation Absolute Resolve has ended. The letter does not mention Operation Absolute Resolve because it hasn't ended. The President himself has said that he is holding out the possibility of doing the exact same thing that he did to President Maduro to other Venezuelan officials who have been indicted by the United States, and that is why Secretary Rubio, in the letter, could not give an affirmative answer to Senator Risch's question. Operation Absolute Resolve has not ended.

There was a second question Senator Risch asked: Confirm that U.S. military personnel are no longer involved in hostilities in Venezuela.

Secretary Rubio wouldn't confirm that either. All Secretary Rubio says is: There are currently no U.S. Armed Forces in Venezuela.

What about the boat strikes? What about the naval blockade? What about the naval seizure of Venezuelan oil? Those are all hostilities under domestic and international law. They are all hostilities. And that is why Secretary Rubio, I think, being intellectually honest, refused to give an affirmative answer to my colleague's question. He said there are no troops currently in Venezuela, but he would not say that the U.S. military is not involved in hostilities.

So even on this record, with my colleague posing two questions to the administration--tell us the operation is over; tell us the United States is not involved in hostilities--the administration would do neither. And for that reason, I ask that we proceed on the path we are on to have this debate finally before the American public.

Mr. President, I therefore move to proceed to Calendar No. 298, S.J. Res. 98.

Mr. President, I am glad to join my colleagues to talk about the upcoming vote on S.J. Res. 84, the use of the Congressional Review Act to strike down a recent regulatory attack on the Affordable Care Act launched by the Trump administration.

I think my colleagues have done a pretty good job of explaining what is at stake. Even the Trump administration's own experts at CMS, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, say that implementation of this rule could lead up to 1.8 million people to lose health insurance just this year, 2026. That would be devastating.

On top of the premium increases that people have seen because the Affordable Care Act extended tax credits were not extended when tax cuts for the wealthiest were extended, this additional burden on this 1.8 million-person population is unacceptable, and the vote we will cast today gives us all an opportunity to sort of shore up the healthcare network for those nearly 2 million people.

I wanted to focus, in particular, on the kind of person who is really going to be affected by the Trump rule if we do not affirmatively embrace this Congressional Review Act resolution, and that is self- employed entrepreneurs and gig workers.

You know, one of the challenges about the American healthcare system before the Affordable Care Act was it was very, very difficult to buy health insurance if you were an individual entrepreneur, if you had a very small business.

Without exchanges and the offering of policies on the exchanges with premium support for those who were lower or middle income, you had a lot of people who were self-employed entrepreneurs who couldn't buy insurance at all, and then you also had a huge group of people working with companies that had insurance that had this great American dream of an idea to start their own business, but they couldn't do it because if they were to leave their large employer to go off and follow their dream, they couldn't get health insurance.

And one of the very salutary effects of the ACA, through the creation of exchanges with premium support, has been to enable people to pursue their dream and become innovators or entrepreneurs or gig workers and work in the way and in the flexible circumstance they choose. And I speak from experience because two of my three kids fit into this category.

The rule that has been put in place by the Trump administration isn't going to make it particularly hard for large group plans to just re-up insurance, but it will make it very hard for those individuals that don't have an HR department fighting for them, that have to figure it out all on their own. It will make it very hard for them to negotiate the marketplace and buy insurance.

And, sometimes, their income is up, and, sometimes, their income is down. And, sometimes, they want to enroll, and, at other times, they don't. It is precisely this kind of person that is going to be hit the hardest by the Trump rule and why I am so strongly in support of my colleagues' efforts to repeal it.

You know, we often say--and I will conclude--that small businesses and startups are the backbones of the American economy, and they are. I grew up in a house with a dad who worked for a huge company, and it was his dream to start his own business. And he bought a little iron working shop that, at the time that he bought it, had like four employees. And during the entire growing-up period when I worked in my Dad's shop, in a good year, it would be seven employees, and in a bad year, it would be four, plus my mom and my two brothers and me.

So many American businesses are just like this. They are one or two employees. They are somebody who even has another gig, maybe as an artist, and they are moonlighting in some area where they can make just enough to afford to buy health insurance on the exchange, if we don't crush them with high premiums and if we don't make the paperwork burdens so substantial.

The CRA that my colleagues are offering will be directly responsive to the needs of this very, very important group of American innovators and entrepreneurs. And that is why I so strongly support it and urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Control Act of 1976, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 98, to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.

Mr. President, I have spoken before; so I am going to be very brief. And then I am going to call up the business of the Senate, this War Powers Resolution.

Two points. In the aftermath of the briefing yesterday, I have had good conversations with colleagues, and many of them have asked me about the distinction between the execution of a valid arrest warrant and a larger military operation.

I want to state very clearly that I do not challenge, nor does this resolution

challenge, the execution of a valid arrest warrant against Nicolas Maduro. That valid arrest warrant bringing him to justice in the United States will be good for America and good for Venezuela. We do not challenge that.

In fact, under the War Powers Resolution, I am not even sure that the execution of an arrest warrant, even if accompanied by a military escort, would rise to the level of hostilities that would allow such a challenge, and I certainly wouldn't be calling it up for a vote on the floor.

But this is obviously bigger than the initiation of an arrest warrant.

From the beginning, on September 2, the striking of Venezuelan boats in open waters, the amassing of naval assets around Venezuela, the President's authorization of covert activities, the seizure of ships, the coordinated attack of 150 aircraft that not only extracted President Maduro and his wife but also bombed sites around the country--this is bigger than an arrest warrant.

More than 200 enemies have been killed. U.S. troops have been injured. Two are still hospitalized. And now we understand, after the hearing yesterday and what has been made public, that this will go on for a long period of time. The seizure of oil, the dictation of terms about elections and the politics of Venezuela will go on for years.

This is not an attack on the arrest warrant, but it is merely a statement that, going forward, U.S. troops should not be used in hostilities in Venezuela without a vote of Congress, as the Constitution requires.

The second point I will make is this: We are all humans in this place, and one of the things we try to do is minimize votes that we might regret. It is impossible to eliminate those.

We are humans, and we cast thousands of votes even in a single term in the Senate. There will be some we might look back on and feel like: Oh, maybe we should have done this differently.

The most likely vote where regret would be most painful is a vote on matters of war.

And I just want to assure my colleagues: Here is something I can guarantee you. No one has ever regretted--no one has ever regretted--a vote that just says: Mr. President, before you send our sons and daughters to war, come to Congress. That is a vote that no one has ever regretted, and no one will ever regret.

Mr. President, I rise to speak with other colleagues about my War Powers Resolution, a bipartisan resolution cosponsored by Senators Paul, Schumer, and Schiff that will be called up for a vote tomorrow. A number of Senators will speak in this block, most in support of my resolution. I know at least one Senator, my colleague from South Carolina, is scheduled to come speak in opposition.

I spoke at length last night about sort of what I view the big picture of this--and I don't intend to speak very long. It is better now to let others have a chance to speak. But what I wanted to focus on, just briefly, was the fact that we did have a briefing by administration officials in the SCIF this morning, the classified setting, and I am not at liberty to discuss the matters in that setting.

I will say what I said last night. I think it is important on matters of this importance, especially war, when 200 combatants have been killed--and that number is climbing--when U.S. troops have been injured--two still in the hospital--when U.S. assets are arrayed around Venezuela, and when there is now a commitment for the United States to essentially manage and control the Venezuelan economy and even civil governmental services for some significant time, I think it is time for us to get this debate out of the SCIF and into the public.

So I am hoping that the Senate committees with jurisdiction, including the Armed Services Committee, on which I sit, the Foreign Relations Committee, and to the extent this was a law enforcement operation, the Judiciary Committee, will finally start to have the first public hearings where administration officials can be questioned in full view of the public so that the American public knows what is at stake.

I will say one additional thing. I made my Democratic caucus mad early on when I came to the Senate because I challenged President Obama in 2013, his proposed use of the U.S. military in Syria to punish a bad dictator, Bashar Assad, for using chemical weapons against civilians.

Now, he was a President of my own party and Bashar Assad was a horrible dictator. But despite that, I challenged President Obama's ability to act and deploy U.S. military against Assad, even to punish Assad for bad behavior, without Congress.

I remember the first time I really got shouted out in a Democratic caucus meeting, it was standing against President Obama's ability to do that unilaterally without us.

I tried to maintain that consistent standard under President Obama and then President Trump, term one, President Biden, and President Trump, term two.

Even in an instance--even in an instance--where military action may be a good idea--and I might have voted for use of military action to punish Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons--it should not be done on a Presidential say-so without a vote of Congress.

So the vote tomorrow on the War Powers Resolution is not about whether we like Nicolas Maduro, whether he is a good guy. He is a bad guy. He is a dictator. He has wreaked havoc on Venezuela's economy and on human rights within Venezuela.

It is, instead, whether the United States should engage in military action against Venezuela on a Presidential say-so without a vote of Congress. I believe the Constitution is clear, and I believe the equities, in terms of the respect we owe to our troops, if we are going deploy them, gives life to the constitutional provision and really explains why it is there.

The last thing I will say before I yield to my colleague from Kentucky is one of the arguments that is being made--and this is not out of the classified setting because it is being made publicly by the administration--is this was not a military action; it was a law enforcement operation.

I think that argument is specious. I think it is--it kind of doesn't really pass the laugh test. Now, it might be an argument you would make if there were a covert operation to go into Venezuela in the dead of night and extract an indicted criminal, Nicolas Maduro--not a criminal until he is prosecuted but an indicted person--to bring back to the United States and face justice.

If it were just the execution of an arrest, you might make the argument, maybe that is just law enforcement. And you might make it even if the military was somewhat needed to carry out the arrest warrant.

This is far different than that. The boat strikes against Venezuelans in international waters, the amassing of 20 percent of the American Navy around Venezuela, the use of 150 aircraft deployed from 20 bases throughout the Western Hemisphere to carry out this operation, the arrest and deposition of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, but then also the U.S. decision to occupy and control the Venezuelan economy, its oil reserves, the indication

from the administration that this is not a few days or a few weeks; it is likely a few years of U.S. occupation and involvement in this country with a military blockade stopping commerce into and out of Venezuela--this is not an arrest warrant. This is far bigger than that, and it is the kind of hostilities that Congress specifically had in mind when they wrote the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

I urge my colleagues to cast a vote for their own relevance. Cast a vote for your own relevance by saying that power that the Constitution gives to Congress, that it is the only body that should declare war. If you vote for me tomorrow, you reserve your right to vote for war, if you think it is a bad idea or a good idea.

But if you vote for the resolution, all you are voting for is the proposition that the Nation should not be at war with an end run around you but should only be at war if you have had the opportunity to debate and vote and put our thumbprint on the validity of the mission, and your thumbprint should be necessary if we are going to send our troops into harm's way to potentially be injured or killed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise with my colleagues and thank them for gathering to talk about this most important anniversary. I think all of us are used to giving speeches on the Senate floor to an empty Chamber.

When you grow up and you learn about the Senate, you generally think people are here listening to one another, but when you come to the Senate, you find that is usually not the case.

One of the things about January 6, 2021, that was very memorable in my mind was that we were all together. We were all here in the midst of a most momentous occasion--the certification of the 2020 election result--looking each other in the eye. And we all experienced the confusion of the Vice President being ushered away and those doors shutting--first the glass doors, and then the wooden doors--as the Sergeant at Arms told us that the Senate was under attack. We remember sheltering here for 45 minutes to an hour before a path had been cleared where we could go elsewhere to be safe.

We remember the brave Senate staff as we were exiting remembering to pick up the wooden boxes that contained the certifications from the various States so that we could actually complete the work of that day and not see those boxes burned by the rioters out on the grounds of the Capitol.

We were all together.

It somehow seems fitting that as we gather 5 years later, it is an empty Chamber again because many want to forget or pretend or ignore what happened that day.

I express my thanks to my colleague from Washington and others to make sure that even if we stand in this Chamber virtually alone, we are not going to forget, and we won't be silent about what occurred.

I want to mention three things as I think about those days. Only one is a memory that I have, but I want to begin with just telling you the names of the five police officers who lost their life defending this Capitol. All five were residents of Virginia.

Brian Sicknick was a member of the Capitol Police, from Springfield, VA. He was 42 years old. He had served with the Capitol Police for 13 years. He was attacked directly by that mob on January 6, and 1 day later, on January 7, he died from multiple strokes that occurred just hours after that attack.

Brian Sicknick, 42 years old.

It is a little painful to say that the other four names that I am going to now read to you and describe were four police officers who lost their lives by suicide--who were here defending this Capitol, defending us, defending me--and were so traumatized by this seat of democracy being attacked by a mob that they lost their lives by suicide in the days and weeks after the attack.

The first was a friend of mine--and I suspect a friend of many--who were here: Howie Liebengood, a Capitol Police officer who grew up in Vienna, VA. He was 51 years old. He was a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police.

Howie was an interesting guy because of his tie to the Senate. His father had worked for the Senate during Howie's entire life. This was his family. It wasn't just his job. He grew up coming to work with his dad. He grew up knowing the Halls of this Capitol as if it was his backyard.

When he graduated from college, he actually tried to break into being a NASCAR driver, which was his passion and his dad's passion. But after a few years of finding that that was hard to do, he went into the family business; he came to the family office, which was the U.S. Capitol.

Most of us remember Howie because he usually worked at the Delaware door into the Russell Building where folks come in, that door that staff and Senate visitors come in too. And I would see Howie every morning. My office is in the Russell Building, one floor up from that door where he would be every morning.

He would be this cheerful guy, greeting you, greeting your staff, making a joke, and always quick with a smile and quick with some funny quip. Howie just seemed like that kind of classic definition of just the hail fellow well met. He didn't ever meet a stranger. He loved this place as if it were his home.

He was here protecting the Capitol on January 6. He saw this place that had been his home under attack. This home of democracy, his personal home for him, everything in his life--his dad's career, his own career, his love for this institution, his love for the people in the institution--he saw it under attack by those trying to disrupt our democracy.

His wife Serena, who has also gotten to be a friend, said that Howie went into a deep depression. After this, a few days later, he came back to work and he actually was in an accident in one of the Capitol Police vehicles because his attention was elsewhere.

One day shortly after that accident, he came home and Serena said he seemed to be in a very distant mood, and he went upstairs and, a few minutes later, died by suicide.

I worked with Serena and other Senators, and I do thank Senators for this because there was a provision in the benefit for Capitol Police officers that, frankly, was a national provision for most that you could receive a benefit if your death was in the line of duty. You had to prove that it was in the line of duty. If it was during a traffic accident or summer vacation, you didn't get a line-of-duty death benefit, but there was an exclusion if you died by suicide.

You weren't even allowed to prove that the mental health or depression or the pressure that drove you to die by suicide was connected to the line of duty, and that was a bar that was common in law enforcement agency benefits packages all over the United States, including the Capitol Police.

I worked with Senator Duckworth and Senate colleagues, and we got that law changed, so that law enforcement officers who died by suicide after a traumatic event, such as that attack, at least tried to make their case that that death was not in vain, but it was a death that was connected to your law enforcement career.

And I worked with Serena on that, and we were able to get the law changed in a way that affects Capitol Police and others, that corrects an arcane or old-timey view of what suicide is. I think of Howie every time I walk in that door. That is the door I come into work every day. I have been here for 13 years now. It has been 5 years since January 6, 2021. But when I walk in that door, and Howie Leavengood is not there, I think of him.

Jeffrey Smith was a Metropolitan Police Officer and lived in Fairfax. He was 35 years old. He was a 12-year patrolman with the Metropolitan Police Department. Like Howie, he died shortly after the attack by suicide.

Kyle DeFreytag was a Metropolitan Police officer from Alexandria, VA. He was 26 years old, had his whole life before him. He was a 5-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department. He died after the attack--after defending this Capitol, after defending us--by suicide.

Finally, the fifth was Gunther Hashida, who was also from the Metropolitan Police, lived in Dumfries, VA, longtime resident of Northern Virginia, 43 years old, an 18-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, also took his life after the attack by suicide.

These were law enforcement officers who are tough people who see a lot of tough stuff, but they weren't prepared. They weren't prepared to deal with an attack on the Capitol motivated by the President of the United States, and that caused them to spiral into a depression. And they are no longer with us as a result.

I just felt like it was important that we tell their stories. They are Virginians. Their families are Virginians. Their names should not be forgotten. Their names should be displayed in the Capitol.

The second thing I want to say is just one memory from that day, and then I will conclude with something that motivates me.

There was only one thing that day that happened that gave me some, I don't know, glimmer of hope, I guess. And I think we all know in life that sometimes in dark moments you can get a glimmer of hope, and sometimes in really good moments there can be a worm in the apple too. It is one of the mysteries of life.

We were gathered in a room after we had been escorted from this Chamber. It was during the thick of COVID, packed full of Senators and staff. Everybody but one person, as I recall, was wearing a mask, packed together for hours and hours and hours. And we were told by Senate officials that the room had been equipped so that we could complete the electoral college count and certification in that room.

And I give some credit to my Senate colleagues because it was interesting, without even discussing it, all 100 people looked at each other and just said: We are not doing it here. You are going to get the Chamber clear. We don't care how many hours it takes, and we are going to go back. And we will complete this business in the full view of the American public. And we did. But we had to wait for hours to do that because it took hours to suppress the attack.

TV monitors were wheeled into the room so that we could watch what was happening. Here was the only thing that happened that put a smile on my face that day, and it made me reflect upon who we are as a nation and gave me a sense of hope.

As the Capitol Police, together with the Metropolitan Police, were battling to stop the attack, a few hours in, the television showed Virginia State police cruisers arriving so Virginia officers could help defend democracy.

And I went over to Senator Warner, my colleague and friend of now 46 years, and I said: Mark, the last time there was an insurrection against the government of the United States, 160 years ago, Virginia was leading it. Virginia was leading it. And here we are, and the Virginia State Police are arriving at the Capitol to save the Union from an insurrection fomented by the Commander in Chief of the United States. There was a tragedy in that statement, but there was also something positive about the arc of history in a Virginia that had led an insurrection and was now so committed to the Union that the first to respond, other than those immediately here on the campus, were the Virginia State Police.

The last thing I will say is this, a motivation, because you have got to look for motivation on days like this, and you have got to look for motivation when you think nobody really cares about what you are talking about.

Senators usually wear Senate pins. I generally don't wear mine because I lose everything, and the Senate pin that we wear is actually kind of valuable. And I was told when I got here, if you lose it, it costs $400 to get a new one. So I have it in a special place, and I don't wear it. And I hope I may be

able to give it to one of my kids one day. But this year, 2026, 250 years of American democracy, I am wearing a different pin, and I have been wearing it most days. And it is the Virginia State seal.

And I will just tell you about the seal quickly. I have talked about it once or twice on the floor, but I just feel motivated to talk about it again.

Mr. President, 250 years of American democracy, July 4, 1776, we know what happened in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence. On July 5, 1776, now on the Fourth, there were a lot of Virginians in Philadelphia like Thomas Jefferson and others. The A team was in Philadelphia. The B team was in Williamsburg, the Virginia B team.

And on July 5, 1776, here is what they did: They wrote the Virginia bill of rights and passed it. They passed the Virginia Constitution, the first constitution. They elected Patrick Henry the first Governor of the Commonwealth, and they passed and embraced a draft of a State seal that had been designed in 3 days by a four-member committee, including George Wythe, who was the dean of the William & Mary Law School.

The seal is an interesting one. It is a woman, an Amazon, sometimes controversial because one breast is exposed--it is a figure from Roman mythology--standing on top of a deposed Monarch with his crown falling off with the motto ``Sic Semper Tyrannis,'' ``Thus be it always to tyrants.''

Of all the States, every State has a motto, but Virginia's is the only one that is kind of a warning. New York has a good one, ``Excelsior,'' ``Onward.'' Most States have great--``Ad Astra Per Aspera,'' Kansas, ``To the stars through adversity.'' Michigan is a funny one. ``If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.'' I have always wondered about that one.

But Virginia's motto is the only one kind of a warning or rebuke: ``Thus be it always to tyrants,'' ``Sic Semper Tyrannis.'' And those who put this together, they used the future verb tense. They didn't say: We don't like tyrants; down with tyrants; King George is a tyrant. ``Semper'' means always. They used the future verb tense because they knew tyranny was not something that was just in the rearview mirror.

Virginia has never changed its motto. We have never changed our flag. We continue to hold out the sad reality that tyranny is a fact of human nature, not just a form of government. It is a fact of human nature. And the woman standing atop the tyrant in Roman mythology represents virtue, and virtue is a permanent factor of human nature as well.

The Founders believed we had to be on guard against tyranny. The Founders also believed, with confidence, that virtue would prevail over tyranny but not without our effort. And so standing in a nearly empty Chamber today on a day that has meaning to me, and maybe not to a whole lot of other people, I just say I am motivated by this. I am motivated by the notion that if we put our shoulders to the wheel in this great democracy, at 250, we can win out over tyranny. We can turn this year of 250 into a celebration of American democracy, not a requiem, not a wake, not a saying goodbye but a revitalization.

And with that, I thank you for your indulgence.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I first ask unanimous consent that my legislative fellow Molly Sanders, a proud Navy lieutenant, be granted floor privileges for the duration of her fellowship with my office.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the invasion of Venezuela that the U.S. military carried out last weekend, which will be the subject of a War Powers Resolution vote on Thursday morning.

The news that President Trump had ordered an invasion of Venezuela on Saturday to capture Nicolas Maduro was a shock but not a surprise. Beginning with unauthorized military strikes against unknown persons on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific starting in early September and continuing through the massing of U.S. military assets in the region over the past several months, the likelihood of this happening one day has been obvious to most observers.

In November, I forced a vote on a privileged and bipartisan War Powers Resolution to explicitly prohibit the use of the U.S. military to strike Venezuela without congressional approval. The administration, in my view, has not provided any clear rationale for the military pressure campaign, much less any legal rationale or request for congressional authorization for military action against this sovereign nation.

At that point, all Democrats supported my resolution, and two Republicans did so as well. But there were insufficient votes to pass it.

Many of my colleagues who voted against the resolution at that time told me that they did so because they viewed that President Trump was bluffing, and so they voted no for that reason.

In the aftermath of the invasion with the administration claiming it has the right to seize Venezuelan oil and ``run Venezuela'' under the supervision of the U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State, and with the President threatening to put boots on the ground and even conduct additional strikes to control the country, we can now agree this was no bluff.

After the administration actions over the weekend, which resulted in several injuries to U.S. servicemembers, and we are praying for them and their families for their recovery, Congress needs to tell the American public where it stands. And so on Thursday morning, I will, again, ask my colleagues to vote on a resolution specifying that we shouldn't wage military action within or against Venezuela unless Congress votes to authorize it.

We will have to vote later this week, and there will be a floor block of an hour tomorrow where a number of Senators are scheduled to speak briefly. But I wanted, for personal reasons, to speak at some length tonight about why this is such an important vote for the Senate, for the United States, and for the world.

Speaking as the lead Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee's Western Hemisphere Panel, before the Presiding Officer, who is the chairman of that panel, I know far too well the despotic nature of the Maduro rule in Venezuela, following a similarly despotic rule by Hugo Chavez. I have condemned the Maduro rule for years. I have visited the Venezuelan border in Cocuta, Colombia, and interviewed people exiting the country, from children to senior citizens leaving behind everything they have known because of this despotism.

And together with all of my colleagues in the Senate, I have advocated forcefully for a democratic transition for the electoral malfeasance of the last election where Maduro claimed victory when that was clearly not the case, and I have supported the Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado's efforts, with others, to bring democracy to Venezuela.

So this discussion, this invasion, this vote is not about whether Maduro is a bad guy. He is. But here is the thing: I also speak as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as a military dad, and as a former missionary in Latin America. The use or misuse of American troops is very personal to me, and the role that the United States plays in Latin America has been a lifelong field of both study and lived experience.

Mr. President, I know you served as a missionary in Taiwan.

I was a 21-year-old first-year student at Harvard Law School when I decided I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and that I needed to take a year away from my studies to figure it out. So I wrote a letter to Jesuit missionaries working in Honduras that had a connection to the high school I attended in Kansas City, and I offered to take a year off school and come volunteer with them.

That is how I found myself in El Progreso, Honduras, in the intense heat in early September of 1980, more than 45 years ago. And during that academic year, I ran a small technical school, teaching teenage boys carpentry and welding. I was a Harvard Law student, but that meant nothing there. But being the son of an ironworker who ran a welding shop, now that was a vocation that the Jesuit missionaries could put to use during my time in Honduras.

I will say that year, from September of 1980 until, essentially, May 1981, was the pivotal year in my life. It put me on a path to serve others. As a civil rights lawyer in Richmond, VA--the capital of the Confederacy--for 18 years and as an elected official for 30 years and counting that year in Honduras, that formation year, that fortified my Catholic faith. It forged my fluency in Spanish. It taught me so many lessons about myself, my country, and the circumstances under which so many people live around this world in settings far less comfortable than what I had been used to growing up. I have drawn on those lessons from that time in Honduras every day for the last 45 years.

The families and students that I worked with showed me how to live with grace under the most challenging conditions. And the Jesuit missionaries--Brother Jaime, Father Patricio, Father Ramon, and others--showed me how serving other people is the path to happiness. I can never repay--never repay--the good they did for me, both my students and their families and these missionaries. But my life has been an attempt to do so ever since.

Now, the lessons of my time in Honduras were not all pleasant. When I was there, Honduras was a military dictatorship, and it was also one of the poorest countries in the Americas, second poorest next to Haiti. People prayed--prayed--for the day when they might have the ability to choose their own leaders, and they also hoped that they might have a future with a path out of the grinding poverty that surrounded them.

But I learned, as a naive 21-year-old, much to my sorrow, of the many instances in which misery throughout the region was spread by actions-- sometimes unintentional but sometimes intentional--of the United States.

When I was in Honduras, the military dictatorship there suppressed political opposition and dissent, and it was supported by the United States in doing so. A long history of U.S. intervention in Honduras to protect the interests of two American fruit companies has left a legacy of corruption and underdevelopment whose consequences are still felt today, 45 years later.

Toward the end of my year in Honduras, the United States began secretly funding a band of rebels in the southern part of the country to wage destabilizing military action against the Government of neighboring Nicaragua, which had been ruled for decades by the U.S.- backed Somoza family dictatorship until it was overthrown in 1979.

Another neighbor just dozens of miles away, maybe 50 miles away--El Salvador--was in the midst of a devastating civil war in which a rightwing government used U.S.-trained military and security personnel to murder civilians, including Catholic bishop Oscar Romero, a few months before I arrived, and four American missionaries--Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan--a few months after I arrived. The civil war in El Salvador led to more than 65,000 civilian deaths.

Yet another neighbor not that far away, Guatemala, had a similar longstanding civil war sadly initiated after the United States engineered the overthrow of a popularly elected government in 1954. That war lasted for nearly 40 years, with as many as 200,000 deaths and nearly a million refugees chased from their homes by the civil war.

The Presiding Officer can think about his time as a young person as a missionary, and he can imagine. This was shocking to me. I had just gone to Honduras to teach carpentry and welding, but the conflicts I described were at my doorstep, with refugees from violence in neighboring countries flooding into Honduras and the murders of bishops, priests, and nuns spreading fear among the Catholic missionaries whom I worked with. And I was confronted with this very painful question: Why was the United States--my country, a nation that I loved--backing military dictatorships and death squads and the plotting of the overthrows of democratically elected governments at the expense of poor people who were just struggling so hard to feed their families?

I came home from that experience a changed person--fortified in my faith life, energized to serve others with my life, but also deeply concerned about the role that the United States was playing in Latin America. This part of our history--the part that I have given, the Reader's Digest version here in the last few minutes--isn't taught a lot at home because we have some reason to be ashamed of it, but it is remembered very clearly and very well throughout Latin America. They view a U.S. military invasion of a sovereign nation today to seize its oil as a sinister repeat of decades, generations, and even centuries of a painful past.

The Trump administration released a National Security Strategy in early December--barely more than a month ago--and it announced a clear plan for the Americas. I am going to quote from it:

After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and

enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence

in the Western Hemisphere and to protect our homeland and our

access to key geographies throughout the region.

The strategy prioritizes the Western Hemisphere first among all regions of the world, and I am going to get to a complement of that toward the end of my comments.

But let's talk about the Monroe Doctrine because that is not so well- known, and when the President and his

team say that we want to reassert the Monroe Doctrine, it is really important to discuss what that is.

The Monroe Doctrine goes all the way back to the 1820s. In that doctrine, Virginian President James Monroe and his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, declared the Americas were now off-limits to European colonization or interference. Remember, most nations in the Americas had had a prehistory after their indigenous history of European colonization. So the Monroe Doctrine was like, you know, a ``No Trespassing'' sign or a ``Do Not Disturb'' sign, where America said the Americas would now be off-limits to European colonization or interference.

While it was a foreign policy doctrine about the Americas, it wasn't fundamentally about building good relationships with nations in the Americas. Rather, it was about keeping Europe away. Initially, Latin American nations appreciated it. They appreciated the United States clearly stating that European colonizers could no longer have free rein to continue the past practices that had used the Americas as a region for plunder or slavery. But over the years, after the initial declaration in the 1820s, Latin American leaders also came to see that the Monroe Doctrine had evolved to being more about American dominance than American partnership.

In the early 1900s, President Teddy Roosevelt expanded the doctrine to also assert the right of the United States to intervene in the domestic politics of all nations in the region. It was called the Roosevelt Corollary, and it declared that economic challenges in Venezuela threatened the nation's economy--the economy of Venezuela-- thereby increasing the likelihood of its default on international debts.

How ironic that Venezuela thus became the first use of the Monroe Doctrine to justify U.S. intervention into another nation's domestic affairs rather than just, as it had been previously, a defensive doctrine to ward off European interference. The people of Venezuela know this history very, very well even if Americans have largely forgotten it. The reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine to now allow the U.S. intervention led to escalating U.S. military intervention in the region. Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic all were affected in the first half of the 20th century. During World War II, the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine to occupy Greenland once Germany occupied Denmark.

In more recent years, under the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries, President Eisenhower authorized U.S. assistance for the overthrow of a democratically elected Government in Guatemala and for a coup against the Government of Brazil. President Kennedy, as we know, authorized a U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba. President Johnson authorized U.S. troops to invade the Dominican Republic. President Nixon authorized U.S. support to assist the toppling of the democratically elected Government of Chile. President Reagan secretly funded the Contra war against Nicaragua and also authorized an invasion of Grenada, and the first President Bush authorized the invasion of Panama.

You will notice that I mention both Democratic and Republican Presidents. The Monroe Doctrine was not the fault of one party or the other. It was an attitude of the United States that stretched for nearly 200 years that we had the right to interfere with and dominate the politics of nations in our region.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a few decades of relative calm in the relations of the United States and its neighbors, and we turned our attention to the Global War on Terror. But now, after many years when the phrase ``Monroe Doctrine,'' I am sure, was not even mentioned once on the floor of the U.S. Senate, President Trump now pledges to revitalize the doctrine of American dominance in the hemisphere and go even further.

In his own words, ``[T]he Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine.''

Now, I am not sure which marketing department came up with the name ``Donroe Doctrine.'' It sounds sort of comical, but it is anything but humorous to Latin American nations whose history books are filled with example after example of the United States using our military to interfere in their domestic politics.

And that brings us to President Trump's invasion of Venezuela to arrest and depose its de facto leader and seize its oil.

Again, Nicolas Maduro was an incompetent and barbaric dictator who stole the last election just less than 2 years ago, which he clearly lost by every internal and international count, and he has presided over the economic collapse of a nation that was recently one of the most prosperous countries in the entire region, but multiple things can be true.

It is also true that President Trump's haphazard initiation of a unilateral war against the country of Venezuela is, in my view, a mistake of historic proportions that will make our country and our region and our world less secure. I view this invasion in the same way that many warned about the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam or in the initiation of the war in Iraq in terms of the potential negative consequences that it will likely deliver.

I hope to convince my colleagues, whether they believe the war is a good or a bad idea, to at least stand up and support the constitutional requirement that the United States shouldn't be waging a war without a vote of Congress.

I assert that the military action against Venezuela is illegal, is confusing in its true motives, is harmful to U.S. interests in the region, is a dangerous precedent if when followed by our adversaries is unnecessarily and suspiciously secret, is a frightening return to forever wars, is unpopular, and, finally, is profoundly disrespectful to U.S. troops.

First, the war is illegal. As I have argued on the floor of this body since I came here in 2013 and as I have asserted face-to-face with Presidents of both parties, only Congress can declare war or, in the modern phrase contained in the 1973 War Powers Resolution, ``authorize the use of military force in hostilities.'' That legislation was passed in response to the abuses of President Nixon both initiating war without notice to Congress, and it builds off one of the clearest parts of the Constitution: Congress and only Congress initiates war, and once initiated, the President and only the President as Commander in Chief is charged with the duty to execute the declared war.

The text of the Constitution is so clear. The Constitution has some phrases that are superclear: that you have got to be 35 years old to be President. Then there are other phrases that are a little vague. What is ``due process of law''? What is ``cruel and unusual punishment''? So you can put the phrases of the Constitution on a spectrum between extremely clear and somewhat ambiguous to be determined under the standards of the time.

When it comes to warmaking, the Founders of this Nation were very, very clear, and the meaning of the Constitution is not just in the text of that document. It was additionally clarified by the notes taken during the debate at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, by the Federalist Papers that were written by those involved in drafting the Constitution, and in correspondence between the Founders who were there which described what they were trying to accomplish. Congress declares war. The President executes upon that declaration.

Now, the Presiding Officer knows that the narrow exception has already been understood. The President as Commander in Chief has the power and the duty to defend the Nation for ongoing or imminent attack without asking for prior congressional approval, but any war that is offensive in nature or that would be sustained beyond that initial point of self-defense needs congressional authorization.

This administration has advanced no credible legal basis, under either American or international law, to invade Venezuela, to depose its leadership, to seize its oil, to run its country. There is a legal analysis issued by the administration to justify military strikes against boats in international waters. The administration has been unwilling--in a very rare instance--has been unwilling to share that rationale publicly. And I know why because I have read it. It is laughably weak, and the administration knows this.

As evidence of the administration's own insecurity about its own legal rationale, in October, the U.S. military carried out a strike against a submersible in international waters, and there were two survivors. The U.S. having slaughtered struggling survivors in September made a different decision in October to rescue the two survivors.

Well, they were narcotraffickers, so we would bring them to court, right? No. After rescuing survivors, the U.S. military returned these alleged narcotraffickers to their own countries for release rather than prosecuting them. Why? Because the U.S. understood that the flimsy legal rationale allowing targeting these individuals would not stand up if scrutinized in an American court.

While I am not at liberty to share the many weaknesses of the classified legal opinion, it does not violate any rule of classification to say what is not in the opinion--what is not in that 40-page legal document. There is nothing whatsoever about the legal rationale in that document that would allow for military action against the sovereign nation of Venezuela or any sovereign nation.

Now, the assertion of the administration that this is not military action but merely a law enforcement operation doesn't pass the smell test, and it doesn't pass the laugh test. The coordinated military mission--massing of ships and aircraft, deployment of forces on land, dropping of bombs, and seizures of a country's main political leader-- is the very definition of hostilities.

The Saturday operation alone involved more than 150 aircraft-- fighters, bombers, surveillance platforms, drones, refueling tankers-- launched from at least 20 air bases across the Western Hemisphere. The killing of untold Venezuelan civilian and military personnel--the number is 80 and climbing by the U.S. Armed Forces--is hostilities. American troops were wounded in this invasion. That is the essence of hostilities.

Deep concerns about the legality of this military operation are widespread not only in this Chamber, but in the Pentagon, where leaders have been forced into retirement for raising questions about the legality of these actions among the American public and among American allies, some of whom have stopped sharing intelligence with the United States in these operations because they do not believe they are lawful. Unless and until the invasion of Venezuela and the ongoing operation to seize its oil and run its government are authorized by Congress, it is illegal.

Second, the reason for this war is deeply confusing to the American public because of the mixed messages sent by the administration. If you listen to Secretary Rubio, it is about countering narcotrafficking. If you listen to other officials, it is about changing the Venezuelan regime. If you listen to President Trump, it is about seizing oil or carrying out a ``Donroe Doctrine'' that allows the U.S. military to smash and grab anything we want anywhere in the hemisphere.

Why can't the administration get its story straight? We know narcotrafficking is a horrible scourge responsible for massive deaths in the United States and elsewhere, but President Trump has shown, as I have earlier discussed on the floor of the Senate, by the pardons of narcotraffickers Ross Ulbricht and Juan Orlando Hernandez, that he cares little about narcotrafficking.

The charges handed down against Nicolas Maduro--if you read the charging document--are eerily similar--eerily similar--to the same charges that were successfully prosecuted beginning in Donald Trump's first term when the case initiated against Honduran former President Hernandez, using his position as a head of state to manage a massive operation smuggling narcotics into the United States. But President Trump recently pardoned Hernandez in a shocking move. That proves that fighting narcotrafficking is not the goal here.

The likely goal is President Trump's desire to seize control of Venezuela's oil reserves. That explains his admission that while he chose not to notify Congress of the invasion in advance, he did disclose his war intent to his friends at American oil and gas companies. This is a war for plunder to benefit campaign contributors, and that explains why the President did not want to seek congressional authorization for this invasion and occupation.

As the father of a marine, what American parent wants to send their son or daughter to war risking injury and death to seize the oil of another nation on behalf of billionaire oil companies?

Third, this attack endangers American influence in the region by pushing nations away from the United States and toward China. We have seen in recent years, in the Foreign Relations Committee and others, how China has ramped up investments in the Americas. They have taken advantage of our focus in the Middle East to expand their influence in our neighborhood.

Many of the Chinese investments are hollow--even predatory--and as I have dialogued with heads of state throughout the Americas, one thing they often say to me is: We would rather deal with you guys than China, but they are offering help, and you are usually nowhere to be found.

But faced with the choice between a Chinese offer of partnership of some doubtfulness and an American ``Donroe Doctrine'' that asserts dominance, no self-respecting sovereign nation will knuckle under and agree to be subservient. The United States has slashed USAID and other humanitarian and civil society programming in the region. We have imposed massive tariffs that hurt the American economy but also hurt the economies of our American neighbors.

And now, after slashing humanitarian programs and after imposing tariffs, we assert the right to invade at will to seize the assets of sovereign nations in the Americas. We will find ourselves--if we pursue this path--with less and less influence in the region closest to our shores, and our chief adversary is likely to grow stronger.

As evidence of this, the Chinese Government put out a Latin America strategy document just last month, focusing on how American overreach and dominance is opening up opportunities for China in the Americas. This invasion plays right into China's hands.

Another downside of the attack is this: Increased chaos and instability always leads to more migration. Attacking Venezuela and, as President Trump has suggested, other nations in the region is likely to lead to even more desperate people crossing borders to immigrate, including to the United States. This has happened throughout history and will only continue and accelerate if the United States continues to carry out these military operations.

Fourth, the invasion of Venezuela by American troops to topple its leadership and seize its oil sets a dangerous precedent in the world that will be used by power-hungry dictators who are adversaries of the United States. If the U.S. can invade Venezuela, what is wrong with Russia invading Ukraine? What is wrong with China invading Taiwan? If the U.S. gets to dominate the Western Hemisphere, what is wrong with Iran trying to dominate Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen? If we can interfere to destabilize Venezuela's leadership, is it acceptable for foreign nations to interfere without consequence in American domestic politics?

The entire international legal order that the U.S. has led in the construction since World War II has been based on respect for the sovereignty of nations and the objection of those who would violate that principle. That respect has worked wonders for the U.S. economy and our national security, and it has also helped advance our interests across the world. The United States--as I have indicated--we have not been perfect in upholding the principle--and others certainly haven't either--but the principle is worth upholding.

The U.S. plays a leadership role for good or bad by our actions. There is no nation whose leadership example is as closely watched and followed as the U.S. example. The invasion of Venezuela under these circumstances has given a green light to more invasions by others in a way that is bad for the world and will harm U.S. interests as well.

Fifth, the invasion of Venezuela and the boat strikes preceding it have been suspiciously secret, with critical details shielded by public scrutiny by either Congress or the American public. The first boat strike occurred on September 2. So we are now more than 4

months into this operation, close to 200 people have been killed in dozens of strikes on open waters and the Venezuelan invasion.

American troops have been injured. The administration has removed the head of state, intends to seize its oil assets, proclaim that we will run Venezuela for an indeterminate future, weighed in on who should and shouldn't be entrusted with leading the Venezuelan Government. And yet there has not been a single public hearing--not been a single public hearing--in the House or Senate about this major military campaign. This is shocking. The administration has only been willing to offer limited information on occasion to Members in classified settings. It has offered next to nothing to the American people.

Because I can review material in classified settings, I know that the legal rationale for the boat strikes is deeply inadequate and flawed. But I can't fully explain why, even to Virginians whose kids are deployed in this military operation, because the rationale is only available to a limited number of Members in a classified setting.

I have had sessions in the SCIF about the targeting criteria for who gets bombed in international waters. And I would say that those criteria contain at least one critical flaw that I believe would be shocking to the American public, but I can't describe it because I only know about it from review of classified material.

The United States, at the President's say-so, has declared war against a number of groups. I can't say what the number is, and I can't say who the groups are because that has never been made public and it has only been made available in classified settings.

That is pretty important because, when the U.S. declares war publicly against an enemy, those connected to ISIS or al-Qaida are on notice that if they act with those groups, the U.S. has put a military target on them.

But if we declare war against a secret list of organizations whose identity can only be known by a tiny handful of people who have privileges to visit a classified facility in the U.S. Capitol, then many people are carrying out activities in their lives without knowing--without any knowledge--that the U.S. has put a target on them and rendered them eligible for attack.

The Presiding Officer may have seen this as well. I have seen the video of America striking shipwrecked sailors on September 2, who didn't even know that President Trump had placed them on a secret list to be targeted. But I can't fully describe it because the administration, while proudly and immediately displaying the video of the first strike on that boat, the strike that destroyed their ship, chose to hide the fact of that second strike and hide the video of the murder of those two shipwrecked sailors, even from Congress, and from the American public for nearly 2 months and continues to hide that shocking evidence from public scrutiny, which raises the question: If the administration believes this cause is so righteous, is so legal, is so necessary, is so in the national interest, what is it afraid of?

Put the facts before Congress and the American public in a public setting where they can be subjected to the questions that should precede U.S. involvement in a military campaign of this kind.

And if my colleagues in this body believe these actions are justified, well, what are they afraid of? Why haven't the Armed Services or Foreign Relations or Intelligence committees in either House, under the Republican leadership of those committees, called for even a single public hearing on this important matter?

They have been repeatedly asked to do so. They have been repeatedly urged to do so and have, thus far, resisted.

But America and Americans shouldn't tolerate a war waged in the dark in which oil executives get better notice of our military actions than Members of Congress or everyday Americans.

Sixth, the invasion of Venezuela represents a dangerous slide to the kind of forever wars, or permanent war footing, that this President specifically campaigned against. In the first year of his second term in office, President Trump has carried out unilateral and unauthorized military hostilities against or within Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, and boats in international waters.

And the Venezuela invasion comes with a pledge to occupy the country, seize its oil, for some indeterminate future. But that is not all. The President has also strongly suggested the possibility of using the American military against other nations: Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Greenland, and our NATO ally Denmark. Where does this end? If this President, or any President, can wage war on multiple continents in secret and without congressional notice, consultation, debate, or vote, we will have transformed the United States from the world's chief diplomat--an important position that we achieved when President Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the end of the Russo- Japanese War.

Since that time, the United States has been viewed as the chief diplomatic nation in the world. But if we can now wage war on Presidential say-so in secret, without congressional authorization, anywhere in the world, we will have transformed the United States from the world's chief diplomat into the world's chief bully. Is that what the American people want?

Seventh, the invasion of Venezuela without congressional authorization is deeply unpopular in Virginia and the Nation. Polling suggests that even after the exemplary performance of American troops, 63 percent of Americans do not believe the United States should have invaded Venezuela without congressional approval.

I have had conversations around Virginia, a very pro-military State, about this very topic, and in those conversations what I have noticed is this: The opposition to war in Venezuela without congressional authorization is not about article I versus article II powers; it is not about a constitutional abstraction or theory of government; it is about an instinctive wisdom among the American people that says war should be a last resort, and it shouldn't be entered into upon the say- so of one person--it is too big a decision for one person--but instead should only proceed after careful deliberation by a President and by the people's elected Congress.

And let's be clear, the American people are not asking for more wars right now. They are telling us that housing costs too much, that food costs too much, that healthcare costs too much, that childcare costs too much, that energy costs too much. They want us to fix the American economy, stop the tariffs and the chaos, make everyday life better for them.

This endless foreign adventurism, which was precisely what President Trump campaigned against, is very likely helping his own pockets and helping out oil companies and cronies and donors, but it is doing nothing for everyday folks. Instead, they are seeing higher costs, fewer jobs, slower growth, and a distracted President focused on air strikes and ballrooms.

It is long past time for the President and all of us to work on what he promised as a candidate instead of dismissing everyday folks' affordability concerns as a hoax.

Finally, the invasion of Venezuela and threats of unilateral military action against others is profoundly disrespectful of our Nation's military. Our troops aren't a palace guard to be used by a President in chaotic ways around the globe or deployed against Americans at home. That is not what they are for.

The juvenile decision to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, completely without legal authority and sure to be abandoned as soon as this administration exits the stage, sends a loud message to our troops and their families. People like my oldest son volunteer to serve because they love this country and they want to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They take that oath just as we do.

People of integrity don't see military service as measured by how much they wage war against others; they see it as a patriotic commitment to defend the United States and our allies. And a nation committed to ill-conceived and secretive wars, waged without adequate debate and consideration, will see over time a decreased willingness to serve by those whom we would most welcome as our military leadership.

I am not aware of any military service in Donald Trump's family. I wish he

would come to Virginia and talk to military families about what it means to wonder whether your kid or your spouse might get sent to war tomorrow. I have had those conversations with Virginians, both as Governor, where I was the titular commander of the Virginia Guard as we deployed thousands and thousands to Iraq and Afghanistan between 2006 and 2010, and, in the years since, family members repeatedly deployed during the 20-year global war on terror. These families are now hoping for some respite.

I have had these conversations with Virginians serving on warships in the Red Sea while getting fired on by Houthi militias, and I have had these conversations with Virginians whose families are part of the military assets now deployed in the Caribbean and Pacific and poised to strike Venezuela and other Latin American nations.

Just at church recently, somebody came up to me and said: Don't let this President send my kid to war.

Our military signs up for a tough job. When they volunteer in this all-volunteer military, they are signing up for a tough job, and they are always ready to do it. And when we ask them to do it, they always do it in ways that are so impressive. But they deeply want civilian leadership of this Nation to be wise in decision-making about how to use military force, wise when making the decision about when or how to put their lives on the line. And wise decision-making requires careful deliberation and debate, not impulsive action such as this Venezuelan invasion, where we now find it hard to answer even the most basic questions about what comes next: How long will we be there? What is the goal? Who will be in charge?

If we can't answer those questions, do we have a right to order these young men and women to risk their lives in military actions without a real plan?

Let me conclude with a positive message--positive message--about President Trump's national security strategy and a final plea to my Senate colleagues. I believe that this Trump national security strategy, which I believe was issued on the first Thursday in December, is right in placing the Americas as the top priority. If you read both the introduction and then the portions of the strategy that really get into the regions of the world, this is the only strategy that has been produced during the entire time in the Senate that puts the Americas and the Western Hemisphere as item No. 1, rather than the last item. And I think the President is right, and I applaud him and his team because we have ignored our own neighborhood for so long--for so long. And when we have focused on it, it has usually been more about keeping other nations away than it has been about building the partnerships that will really strengthen the Americas.

The Trump administration's decision to make the Americas the top priority makes it unique among any recent administration that I have been familiar with, and if it is done correctly, I believe it offers us a great path forward to deepen the ties among the more than 1 billion people who are Americans--North, South, or Central--who live in this hemisphere.

And as the chair and ranking member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, I say getting this right is critical to American well- being because today certainly, but even going forward, how can we match up economically with nations like China or India, each with more than a billion citizens?

The productivity of the more than 340 million Americans is second to none, but at some point--at some point--the scale of our chief competitors becomes really hard for us to match. But if you think about the Americas with 1-plus billion and if we strengthen ties throughout the Americas--let's call it an ``Americas First'' policy--strengthening ties in security and education and trade and diplomacy and humanitarian assistance and democracy promotion, we can more than match the might of the world's most populous countries, even our fiercest competitors like China.

But we won't achieve it--we won't achieve it--through dominance or invasion. We have tried it before. We tried it for 200 years, and it hasn't worked. It produces hostility, suspicion, resistance. It chases nations that could be friends, that should be friends, into the arms of adversaries. But we can achieve much through respectful partnerships and by giving the attention to our America neighbors that we have often reserved solely for nations in Europe or the Middle East.

We have tried throughout our history this positive approach on brief occasions--FDR's Good Neighbor Policy, President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress--but we have too often tried it for a short period and then lapsed back into a failed Monroe Doctrine mindset.

President Trump's instinct to prioritize the Americas is the right one; it is the right one. But doing it the right way and not repeating the mistakes of the past is the key to making it a success.

And finally, a plea to my Senate colleagues: The vote we will have Thursday on our bipartisan resolution to say no to war in Venezuela without congressional authorization is actually a vote about many things. It is a short resolution, like a page and a half, but it is a vote about many things. It is about Venezuela. It is about war. It is about the use of U.S. troops. It is about our complicated history in the region. It is about the example we set and our position in the world. But it is also, ultimately, about what it is to be a U.S. Senator.

In recent months, this body has rejected my resolutions saying that the Senate should have a role, if we go to war, with Iran or Venezuela or launch strikes on unknown boats in international waters.

I have put those votes on the table, and we have had votes on them. And the Senate has opposed my resolutions. The Senate has actually voted in favor of its own irrelevance, saying that it didn't need to be consulted about war.

We have the opportunity to change this. We have the opportunity to say forcefully: Mr. President, you are the article II Commander in Chief of this country, and we want you to inhabit every square centimeter of power the Constitution gives you. But we are the article I branch, and the Constitution demands that you need to consult us before taking America to war.

So cast a vote in accordance with the Constitution, and that honors the relevance of the U.S. Senate. If you believe that a war to topple the Venezuelan Government and seize its oil is justified, you should be willing to vote to support it. You should be willing to introduce an authorization for use of military force, put it on the floor, and advocate for it. And if you don't believe a war against Venezuela is a good idea--as I don't--you should be willing to vote against it. But don't outsource this power, carefully vested in the article I branch by our Founders, to this President or to any President.

We were all sent here for a reason. We were all sent here to show courage. We were sent here to stand up for our constituents and our troops and the Constitution, and there is no more important power for Congress to maintain than the power to send our sons and daughters into war.

I yield the floor.