Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support this amendment to create a point of order against any legislation that would fund or subsidize the import of electric vehicles with supply lines that run through Xinjiang. Right now, the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against millions of Uighurs in Xinjiang. They are being tortured, murdered, and forced into slave labor. The CCP has exploited that slave labor to ensure that much of the world's EVs are made in Xinjiang and have parts produced in Xinjiang. Our Nation is in perilous risk of becoming complicit in these atrocities as part of the massive rush to import EVs. This amendment would prohibit our bringing in EVs that are made with slave labor. We cannot and should not fund slave labor in communist China.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, I would note, as the Senator from New Jersey knows well, that I pressed President Trump vigorously on this topic, engaged aggressively with the Trump administration, with the Treasury Department, with the State Department, with the National Security Council, and we prevailed in those battles. The Trump administration issued a series of sanctions, and they worked. They stopped the pipelines. So I have demonstrated a perfect willingness to stand up to a President of my own party on this issue, and we succeeded in stopping the pipeline. Now, when there is a Democratic President, we have yet to see Democratic Members of this body willing to stand up as vigorously to their own party's President, who is actively and eagerly facilitating the building of this pipeline. I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a massive strategic error, one that weakens our allies, that endangers our allies, and makes Russia more dangerous, more aggressive, more willing to attack and undermine U.S. national security, and because Joe Biden and the Biden administration are defying U.S. law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from Congress, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a generational geopolitical mistake for Joe Biden to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, because that mistake weakens America, strengthens Russia, and endangers our national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a generational geopolitical mistake to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin to strengthen Russia and to undermine national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving my right to object, because Joe Biden is giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, which weakens America's, strengthens Russia, and endangers our national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden should not be giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, strengthening Russia, and undermining U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden is giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, in defiance of U.S. law, in contravention of the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress, which hurts America, strengthens Russia, and endangers the people of this Nation, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object. The Senator of Texas spoke of revisionist history. Perhaps it was fitting that he did so because we proceeded to hear quite a bit of revisionist history. The unfortunate reality is the Democratic Party in this Chamber has been reluctant to stand up to Russia and reluctant to stand up to the Soviet Union before that, for decades. The Democratic Party consistently has embraced weakness on Russia and the Soviet Union. I am old enough to remember President Barack Obama in debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney when Mitt Romney said we need to stand up to Russia. And President Obama stood up and said: Mitt, the 1980s called and they want their foreign policy back because the Democratic Party position was weakness to Russia. I am old enough to remember President Obama leaning over to Medvedev caught on a hot mic saying: Tell Vladimir--that would be Putin--I'll have more flexibility after the election. It was only when Donald Trump was elected that the Democratic Party suddenly discovered Russia is a menace. I welcome that. I welcome that sudden discovery. I think Russia was a menace before and after. But for too many Senate Democrats, it is purely political. Russia, Russia, Russia was a stick to beat up on Donald Trump and the substance of it didn't matter So the Senator from Connecticut said: Well, gosh, Donald Trump--he thinks--was terrible on Russia. Here is a simple fact. Under President Trump, we stopped the pipeline the day this sanctions legislation was signed into law. Under President Biden, Putin began building the pipeline again. Those are facts. You want to talk about who is weak on Russia? Those are simple facts, and those facts are dangerous. Because Joe Biden giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin was a generational geopolitical mistake because it strengthens Russia and it weakens America because it endangers U.S. national security interests, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object. Just a few moments ago, the Senator from Connecticut said something bad is going to happen. Let me tell you, he is right. Something bad is going to happen, and there is a reason for it. The Biden foreign policy, in just 7 months, has been the most disastrous foreign policy we have seen of any administration since Jimmy Carter. To every enemy of America, they have projected weakness. On Russia, Joe Biden has given Vladimir Putin what he wanted most: A multibillion-dollar pipeline to let him extort Europe. On China, the Biden administration has been projecting weakness over and over and over again, including kowtowing to China and reversing the State Department policy on Taiwan, prohibiting Taiwan from displaying their flag or wearing military uniforms on U.S. Government property; kowtowing to the Communist Party of China. On Iran, the Biden administration said their top foreign policy objective is sending billions of dollars to the Ayatollah Khomeini, even as he is the leading state-sponsor of terrorism to the world and chants, ``Death to America.'' And on Hamas, the Biden administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, much of which has found its way to Hamas and has been materialized in rockets raining down on Israel. So is something bad going to happen? Yes, because when you show weakness to our enemies, it encourages our enemies and they get more and more aggressive. Where I differ with the Senator from Connecticut is I don't think the way to avoid something bad is to keep showing weakness and give Putin what he wants. The way to stand up to our enemies is to demonstrate strength, not weakness. I believe in peace through strength. I think appeasement invites conflict. Because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and because it undermines U.S. national security interests, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I would note one of the efforts that the State Department has endeavored to do to try to force these nominations through is planning a whole series of articles in papers, which they somehow believe would pressure me. The most abusing of which was an article, I believe, in POLITICO, if I remember correctly, that began ominously: The mansions in Europe where our ambassadors reside are sadly empty due to this one Senator's objections. I will confess, my heart is not broken that some rich Democratic donor is not wining and dining people in a grand ambassadorial mansion. I am sure that is an enormous crisis in Georgetown. What I think is a crisis is making Putin stronger and Russia stronger and weakening Europe, weakening our allies, and weakening America. And because Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Putin weakened America, strengthened Russia, and undermined our U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object. I would note there is irony in the Senator from Connecticut expressing deep concern about China just an hour or 2 after this Chamber voted on an amendment I introduced that said we should not be importing electric vehicles that were made in China using slave labor in concentration camps. The Senator from Connecticut and every single Democratic Senator, save one, voted to reject that amendment. The consequence is that the Biden administration is preparing to import millions of dollars of electric vehicles that were built--or parts of them were built--using slave labor in concentration camps in China. You want to talk about what is encouraging and empowering the Chinese Communist regime? It is the willingness of the Democratic Party to overlook their murder, torture in concentration camps because of their commitment to the Green New Deal. Because Joe Biden giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security interests, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object. Because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift of this pipeline in defiance of U.S. law and contravention of the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake that strengthens Russia at the expense of America and undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a generational geopolitical mistake for Joe Biden to give Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift that will continue for decades into the future, because that mistake strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate my friend from New Jersey's attempt to abbreviate this, and I am endeavoring to be concise but nonetheless lay out the factual predicate, because it was a mistake for Joe Biden to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, to disregard U.S. law, to weaken U.S. national security interests and to strengthen Russia at our expense, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, because I think it is a generational mistake, one that will harm U.S. nationality security interests, will endanger U.S. service men and women, will weaken America, will weaken our allies, and will strengthen our enemies and our adversaries, because I believe that Joe Biden giving a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin to make him stronger and more aggressive is enormously harmful to America, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, you know, the Senator from Connecticut is correct in that, if a Senator were to halt a large number of nominations for an idiosyncratic concern, for a concern unique to that Senator that was not widely shared, that could constitute an abuse of power, and I am going to suggest some aspects of this situation that make it quite different and that, in a subsequent administration, if there were a comparable situation, would make these same levers appropriate No. 1, the Biden administration is defying three separate Federal laws: two different Nord Stream 2 sanctions, both of which I authored, along with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, both of which passed the Senate and the House and were signed into law, both of which enjoyed massive, near-unanimous bipartisan support. In addition to that is CAATSA--strong Russia sanctions that are mandatory, that are designed to force a President to sanction Russia even if they are reluctant to do so like Joe Biden is. Right now, the administration is defying the law, and so the message that I have conveyed to the administration repeatedly is, follow the law. I am not asking for a change in the law; I am saying follow the law. That is No. 1, if you have an administration that is openly defying the law, but No. 2, that is openly defying an overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress. This is not a narrow partisan issue. And I would note, after Joe Biden waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I introduced an amendment to reverse his decision. Every single Senator but one on that committee voted in favor of my amendment. The Senator from Connecticut voted in favor of my amendment. The Senator from New Jersey voted in favor of my amendment. The Biden administration is telling all of Congress, essentially: Jump in a lake. We don't care that every Democrat and virtually every Republican has a dramatically different assessment of this situation than they do. Third is the national security magnitude of this issue. This was a major national security victory. When I met with the Biden administration, with each of their successive national security officials, I said: Look, I understand the instinct of any new administration to say, ``Whatever the old guys did must be wrong.'' I get that the Biden guys want to say, ``Whatever Trump did must be wrong.'' And by the way, the Trump guys, by and large, said, ``Whatever Obama did must be wrong.'' That is not a new thing. Whenever you have a change in an administration, that tends to be a default position. But what I urged them to do is, just because that is your knee-jerk instinct, this was a massive bipartisan victory for America, a national security victory that we won that Joe Biden is on the verge of throwing away. The Secretary of State sat in my office and promised to fight to sanction Nord Stream 2. The Deputy Secretary of State sat in my office and promised to fight to sanction Nord Stream 2. The Under Secretary of State sat in my office and promised to fight to sanction Nord Stream 2. They did, in fact, fight to sanction Nord Stream 2, but unfortunately they were overruled by the White House, which made a political decision to give in to Putin. In those circumstances, when you are defying explicit U.S. law, when you are defying the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress, and when you are endangering U.S. national security and, indeed, turning a victory into a loss, I think it is appropriate to use the tools we have in front of us. That being said, I have engaged in active negotiation with the Biden administration. In the past week, I have had conversations on this topic with the Secretary of the Treasury, with the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, with the National Security Advisor. I have had conversations with multiple Democratic Senators about a path forward. But I will tell you what the path forward is not going to be. It is not going to be, let's roll over, give Putin his pipeline, and accept a massive national security loss for America. If that is where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want to go, they can go there, but they are not going to go there with my acquiescence, and I am going to use every tool I have as a Senator, elected by the people of Texas, to prevent that outcome. Accordingly, because Joe Biden's decision to defy U.S. law; to defy the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress; to surrender to Vladimir Putin; to give him his No. 1 priority--a multibillion-dollar pipeline that will provide billions of dollars of rewards for Russia for decades to come--because that decision is a generational geopolitical mistake on the order of magnitude of Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal--that even 50 years later, the consequences of that geopolitical mistake still reverberate--50 years from now, Russian dictators will benefit from Joe Biden's weakness on Russia. Because that strengthens Russia, because it empowers Russia to attack our enemies, to extort our enemies, to engage in economic blackmail against our enemies--our allies, rather--because our allies are begging us not to do this--I have met with senior officials of the Ukraine. The Ukrainians are begging us not to do this, and the Biden White House is threatening Ukraine: Keep your mouth shut because we have a political objective here. Because that strengthens Russia at the expense of the United States, at the expense of Europe, at the expense of our allies, because it destroys jobs in America, and because it endangers U.S. national security, I emphatically object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden should not be defying U.S. law, disregarding the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of both Houses of Congress, because Joe Biden should not be giving a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin that constitutes unilateral surrender to Russia in a way that strengthens Russia, weakens America, and endangers our Nation, undermining U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, you know, I would note there is a long history of government trying to force the disclosure of the identity of political contributions, and much of that history is sordid. Indeed, in a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court, racist southern Democratic politicians tried to force the NAACP to hand over their donor list, and they wanted to do so for reasons that were not difficult to discern, because they intended to persecute those who dare contribute to the NAACP. And the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, concluded that the Constitution protects against that forced disclosure. But I will say, the majority leader said just a few minutes ago that surely there must be some area of common ground, and indeed there is on this issue. I think all of us, if we were speaking in a moment of candor, if we were not engaged in our typical partisan battle on the floor, would acknowledge the current system is stupid. The current system makes no sense. Super-PACs make no sense. Why is that? Because in all of our elections--every one of us has run for election--there are super-PACs, which are independent groups. It is illegal for us, as candidates, to speak with those independent groups. And in every one of our races--I see the Senator from Arizona. He is going have a hotly contested race. It wouldn't surprise me to see $100 million or more spent in his race, perhaps on both sides. Much of that will be spent in super-PACs. It is illegal for us, as candidates, to communicate with those super- PACs. So we are left with the bizarre situation where there is millions or sometimes tens of millions of dollars being spent on behalf of us; millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, spent attacking us; and we can't communicate with them. We hope it has some bearing or relevance to what we believe. Every Congress, since I have been here, I have introduced legislation to end this. This is legislation called the SuperPAC Elimination Act. This act does two very simple things. No. 1, it allows unlimited individual contributions to Federal campaigns, not from unions, not from corporations but from real human beings, from people--unlimited contributions. I would note this is the way the State of Texas handles State elections. No. 2, my legislation, the SuperPAC Elimination Act, requires immediate 24-hour disclosure. So if an individual writes a check to a campaign, that gets disclosed immediately, and you can debate about whether that contribution was corrosive or not. This legislation would not prohibit super-PACs, but, as a practical matter, super-PACs would fade from relevance because every candidate would much prefer money given to their campaign, where you can spend on your own message. It would make far more sense to have an open, transparent system. Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a bill at the desk that would protect freedom of speech in America's electoral process and ensure transparency in campaign finance. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that a motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the able.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the text of the Constitution explicitly assigns power to engage in redistricting to elected State legislatures in the States. There is a reason for that. That ensures that redistricting is controlled by the people. We have an unfortunate pattern in today's Congress, which is today's Democrats no longer believe in democracy. Their bill, S. 1--what many call the Corrupt Politicians Act--is designed to prevent the voters from voting Democrats out of office. This bill, the bill to remove the State legislatures from their constitutionally appointed responsibility of being in charge of redistricting, would instead assign that to commissions and ultimately to the Federal courts, to unelected Federal judges. Now, redistricting and gerrymandering can lead to ugly consequences. This is not new. The Founders were well aware of the ugly consequences of gerrymandering. Indeed, the very word ``gerrymander'' comes from Elbridge Gerry, one of the Founders whose district was so contorted, it looked like a salamander. That is where the district came from. The Founders knew that if you give redistricting to elected politicians, they will act based on political concerns. The reason the Founders did so is, even with those down sides, it keeps the process accountable to the people. If you instead hand it over to unelected commissions or to unelected Federal judges, the people are disenfranchised. That is a serious mistake. I would note, over a decade ago, I defended the constitutionality and the constitutional assignment of that responsibility to the State legislatures before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Texas redistricting case, and we won a landmark 5-to-4 victory where the Supreme Court upheld the clear constitutional authorization of legislatures to engage in redistricting even if they engaged in political concerns because the check on that is not unelected judges second-guessing the people; rather, the check on that is democracy and the people engaging in their own check and balance. Accordingly, I object.