Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the growing threats to American national security and to the security of our friends and allies in the Middle East. Under President Obama and Vice President Biden, the policies put in place were a catastrophe for our allies in the Middle East and a boon to our enemies. They boosted the Muslim Brotherhood and criticized Arab governments that tried to crack down on religious extremists. They gave Palestinian groups tied to terrorism a veto over peace between our Israeli and Arab allies, and they elevated those groups. They pushed the catastrophic Obama-Iran nuclear deal, which dismantled pressure on Iran and put the Ayatollah on a path towards a nuclear arsenal, while sending pallets of cash in the dead of night as ransom for hostages. Of course, the Obama-Biden administration didn't tell the American people and didn't tell Congress what they were doing. Instead, they deliberately hid that information. They lied as long as they could about their policies, and they developed and built an echo chamber designed to drown out their critics. I rise today because history is repeating itself, because I am deeply worried that President Biden and the Biden-Harris administration are returning to the very worst policies and the very worst tactics of the Obama years and that the consequences are going to be far worse. Once again, the Biden-Harris administration is boosting the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious extremist groups in the Middle East. They are elevating the Palestinians at the expense of our Israeli and Arab allies, and they are dismantling pressure on Iran. And, once again, they are hiding those details from Congress. They do not want Congress to know, and they do not want the American people to know. And, in some cases, unfortunately, they are outright lying. I know that President Biden and his administration are refusing to answer, even lying about their Middle East policies, because I asked them. I asked them as part of questioning Barbara Leaf, the President's nominee to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. Over the next several minutes, I will discuss the answers I got back. Ms. Leaf has been--and will continue to be--at the center of the Biden-Harris administration's Middle East policy. She was responsible for Middle East policy from the very beginning of this administration as the senior director for Middle East and North African Affairs at the National Security Council. In her new position to which she has been nominated, she would be America's most senior diplomat for the Middle East. I asked Ms. Leaf written questions about Biden's administration's policies in multiple areas of Middle East policy, as part of her testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Her answers ranged from deliberately nonresponsive to simply false and, throughout, thoroughly, deeply distressing. For example, right now, today, the Biden-Harris administration is withholding $130 million of assistance for security and counterterrorism from our Egyptian allies, allegedly on human rights concerns. What we don't know is exactly why they are doing it and exactly what the Biden-Harris administration is asking for. Under the Obama administration, the United States repeatedly, inexplicably boosted the Muslim Brotherhood, which openly advocated terrorism against the United States. Those extremists were boosted at the expense of moderate Arab allies, and they consistently misled the public about their goals. Here, the only reason the American public found out in the first place about this $130 million is because the Washington Post revealed it. The Biden-Harris administration didn't explain to the American people what they were doing. It was only the reporting of journalists that revealed it, and we still don't know enough. We don't know the details. The Post reported that the administration is withholding the aid until Egypt addresses certain human rights concerns. We don't know what they are. They apparently include releasing 16 unnamed prisoners. We don't know who they are. So I asked Ms. Leaf about these details. I asked about the 16 people. I asked for their names, their institutional affiliations, what they were charged with. I also asked if they were American citizens. And if they were not, I asked whether they were involved in organizations that push Islamic extremism or anti-Semitism. Ms. Leaf is obviously very familiar with the case. She wrote back over 1,000 words of highly technical responses. Here is just a third of her answer. That is the part we could fit on the poster board. Lots of words, lots of numbers, but, as you can see, not a single detail that I requested was provided. Of the 16 people the Biden-Harris administration is demanding that Egypt release, you will see not a single name--not a one. Congress doesn't get to know who those 16 people are. The American people don't get to know who those 16 people are. The answer from Ms. Leaf to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is, to not put too fine a point on it, Go jump in a lake. How many of those 16 are affiliated with terrorist organizations? The answer from Ms. Leaf: Go jump in a lake. How many of them are American citizens? The answer from Ms. Leaf: Go jump in a lake. Why is that? Why is that--that the Biden-Harris administration is extorting Egypt to release 16 prisoners, and yet they are embarrassed to say who those prisoners are? Well, we do have some public hints about the sort of people that the White House and the congressional Democrats maybe tried to coerce our Egyptian allies into releasing. Buried inside a very recent Senate appropriations report, there is an instruction that seems very much like what we are seeing with these secret conditions. It came presumably from Senate Democrats, although we don't know who. No Senate Democrat has stood forward to own this language, but there is a Senate Democrat who authored this language. It says: In making the certification required by subsection (a)(3)(A), the Secretary of State shall consider the cases of Ola Al-Qaradawi, Hosam Khalaf, Salah Soltan, Abdulrahman Tarek, and Mohamed El-Baqer. The Committee urges that humane treatment and fair trials be afforded these and other prisoners in Egypt. So, apparently, for some unnamed Democrat who is unwilling to put his or her name to it, these names are people the United States should champion, and it suggests the sorts of people the Biden-Harris administration may be trying to extort Egypt into releasing. Who are they? Well, let's start with Salah Soltan. Who is Salah Soltan? He is a Muslim Brotherhood propagandist. He is a hate preacher. He is someone who goes on TV over and over again and preaches the most vicious sorts of libel against Jews. Why are Senate Democrats trying to release vicious anti-Semites? If you go back to the appropriation language, why are they suggesting in the appropriation language that the United States should be fighting to release that anti-Semite and hate preacher? We don't know because Senate Democrats aren't defending that position, and the administration refuses to answer. Who are some of the other people on that list? Well, you have Mohamed El-Baqer. He was a Salafist youth activist. He was part of the Revolutionary Youth who started the revolution, and he has been implicated in security violations. How about Ola al-Qaradawi? She is the daughter of Yosef al-Qaradawi, who is one of the major voices for jihad inside the Muslim Brotherhood. The paper trail on her is deliberately opaque from both sides. How about Hosam Khalaf? He is Ola al-Qaradawi's husband, and he has been allegedly connected to a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot. How about Abdulrahman Tarek? Well, we don't know. His presence has not been accounted for publicly. And yet these names mysteriously appear in a Senate appropriations report. When I asked Ms. Leaf about it, she provided 1,000 words and not a single name. And I will tell you that, actually, the names on that list are not secrets from Congress. They have been provided to Congress in a classified form. So the Presiding Officer and I can go into a secure SCIF, and we can read it in the SCIF. We can read the names. You know what we are not allowed to do? Tell anyone what the names are. Why is it that those names are classified? They are classified because President Biden and Vice President Harris don't want the American people to know who it is they are trying to release. There is no reasonable justification for those names to be classified. They are extorting our friend and ally, Egypt, to get 16 people released from jail, and they refuse to tell us who. The American people have a right to know if the Biden administration is trying to pressure our allies to release Muslim Brotherhood extremists; if the Biden administration is trying to get our allies to release anti-Semites; and, if they are, to hear a justification for why. But Ms. Leaf, instead, simply defies the Senate and refuses to answer. Let's turn now to Israel. During the Trump administration, there was a decision to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel, which led to an historic flowering of peace across the region. The name and framework for those peace agreements was the Abraham Accords. This was something that the Obama administration said would never happen and something, unfortunately, tragically, that they were actively hostile to. The Obama administration insisted that Israel would have to make massive concessions to the Palestinians on their sovereignty--on the security of Israel--before there could ever be peace deals between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors. When asked whether there could ever be peace like the Abraham Accords without a prior deal with the Palestinians, then-Secretary of State John Kerry said: ``There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. . . . No, no, no, and no.'' No ambiguity to what they thought--they don't want peace without massive concessions from Israel to the Palestinians. Well, turned out President Obama and Secretary Kerry were tragically wrong, as they were on so many issues, and President Trump demonstrated that to the world. And, sadly, President Biden and Vice President Harris have never forgiven our Israeli allies and our Arab allies for that--for demonstrating that with strong, resolute clarity from the United States' unequivocal support of Israel, that peace could be the result. That was an outcome anathema to the foreign policy objectives of the current administration. As a result, there are many in the Biden administration that are enormously, deeply, seethingly hostile to the Abraham Accords. At the beginning of the Biden administration, the State Department even issued internal guidance prohibiting the use of the phrase ``Abraham Accords.'' Those words were verboten. You may not say those words. The instructions were instead to call them the ``normalization agreements.'' George Orwell is, no doubt, looking down from Heaven and smiling at the power of language to be redefined. There are no Abraham Accords. Now, they are normalization agreements. Once again, the only reason that the public knows about this is because journalists revealed it. This time, it was the ``Washington Free Beacon,'' but the details have never been clarified. After those public reports, the Biden administration was forced to at least partially reverse that policy. They insisted they fully support the accords that must never be named. But it is not clear how true or how broad that reversal has been. On September 13, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Thomas-Greenfield, gave a speech about the Abraham Accords in which she stubbornly refused to utter the words ``Abraham Accords.'' Instead, following, apparently, the State Department guidance, she simply used the bland term ``normalization agreements.'' On October 13, Secretary Blinken met with Foreign Minister Lapid, and the spokesperson issued a formal readout from that meeting. Once again, the formal readout from the State Department carefully eschewed any mention of the Abraham Accords and used the bland term ``regional normalization efforts.'' This is conscious. This is deliberate. This is a pattern. It is a classic example of where congressional oversight is called for. Madam President, many Senate Democrats claim to support the Abraham Accords. Now, I would note, I was at the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accords. Not a single Senate Democrat showed up for that historic peace agreement--none. Presumably because of partisan loathing of President Trump. But, nonetheless, congressional Democrats say they support the accords today. If that is true, we need to see congressional oversight. So I asked Ms. Leaf for the specific guidance that was issued to the State Department. Give Congress--give the Senate--the written guidance prohibiting reference to the Abraham Accords. We know about it from public reports in the media. She and the State Department refused. They refused to provide that guidance to Congress. They refused to show it to the public. And, in doing it, it is not accidental. She refuses to answer this question because they want to hide it from the American people, just like the names of the 16 prisoners they are demanding that Egypt release. Presumably, if the American people knew those names, knew the affiliations, knew the backgrounds, they would be outraged. Likewise, if the American people read the written guidance issued by this State Department, prohibiting uttering of the words ``Abraham Accords,'' then the charade so many Democrats try to play in supporting those accords would be that much harder to maintain. A third example, turning to Iran, perhaps more than anything else, first and foremost, this administration wants to return to the catastrophic Obama-Biden-Iran nuclear deal and to dismantle meaningful sanctions against the theocratic regime in Iran. From the earliest hours of the administration, the effort began to do exactly that. As part of that push, the administration has quietly, and sometimes secretly, reduced pressure on Iran and released frozen Iranian funds. But the Ayatollah wants to see just how much he can get, and he may not think that President Biden will ever do anything meaningful. If the United States isn't going to impose pressure on Iran, there is no reason for the Ayatollah to return to the deal at all. He doesn't need to take ``yes'' for an answer for a deal because he is getting everything anyway. And so since very early in the administration, the Biden-Harris officials have contemplated what has been called a ``less for less'' agreement in which they would reduce some pressure on Iran for something less than full compliance. You will only nuke some of us. Once again, we only know about the existence of these considerations from public reports. In February and again over the summer, Reuters reported on administration officials contemplating these deals, the so- called ``less for less'' deals. We here in Congress know a little more but not much. Congress and the public deserve to know what is being contemplated to reduce pressure on the Iranian regime, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and a regime that seeks--and, I believe, may well be willing--to use nuclear weapons to murder millions of Americans and millions of our allies. I believe that if the Ayatollah had the ability to murder millions of Americans or millions of Israelis in the blink of an eye, the odds are far too high that this theocratic zealot, who glories in death and suicide, would be willing to do so. And so I asked Ms. Leaf for the details of such agreements. Here is what she said in response: There have been no such arrangements, deals, or agreements contemplated to reduce pressure on Iran. That statement is false. It is categorically, directly, unequivocally false. It is false testimony in writing to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ms. Leaf knows it is false, and the State Department handlers who transmitted her written answer to the Senate know that it is false. What is the Biden administration trying to hide? What deep details don't they want us to know? This isn't just about policy disagreements, although I disagree vehemently with many of this administration's policies. I understand some people, some Democrats, will disagree. But even more fundamentally, this is about transparency and oversight. On that, there should be no disagreement. And these questions are ones that go to the very core of this administration's Middle East foreign policy and of American national security. What extremists are President Biden and Vice President Harris trying to empower? Whom do they view as allies worth supporting in the region? What deals are being contemplated with the Iranian regime? I asked Ms. Leaf for these details. She has, after all, been working right in the center of Middle East issues for this administration. She and the Biden-Harris administration are refusing to answer. The public has a right to know. Let me also point out that President Biden, in recent days, said publicly that if Iran enters into a new nuclear deal, the United States would stay bound by it in perpetuity as long as Iran didn't renege on that deal. I want to be absolutely clear on something: President Biden has zero constitutional authority to make that commitment. The Ayatollah in Iran could be forgiven for misunderstanding that. The Ayatollah, after all, is a total dictator with the ability to line up anyone who disagrees and execute them on the spot. But, thankfully, the President of the United States does not enjoy such dictatorial powers. Under our Constitution, there are two ways, and two ways only, that a President can make a binding commitment on the United States of America. The first is through passing a law that passes the Senate, passes the House, and is signed into law by the President. If President Biden wishes to do so with any Iran deal, he is welcome to do so. The second and the way, traditionally, that foreign policies agreements are handled is through a treaty--a treaty that is submitted to the Senate and ratified by two-thirds of the Senate. The chances that the Biden-Harris whatever disastrous nuclear deal they work out with Iran, the chances that that would be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate I can quantify exactly. There is 0.00 percent. President Biden knows that. He knows that because the Senate has been unequivocal that this deal is disastrous and harmful for American national security, harmful for Israel, and harmful for our allies. And so, instead, President Biden makes an empty promise that he cannot commit. In that, he is following in the footsteps of President Obama. President Obama made a similar promise, and President Obama knew it was a lie when he said it, and President Biden knows it is a lie when he says it. History demonstrated that President Obama told a falsehood because the next Republican President, Donald J. Trump, ripped the Obama-Iran deal to shreds and withdrew from the deal, which was the right decision. I urged President Trump to do that. Our allies and our enemies should mark my words on this: Regardless of whatever empty promises President Biden makes, he lacks constitutional authority to bind a subsequent administration. And I believe it is 100 percent certain that the next Republican President who is sworn into office will once again rip to shreds any disastrous deal negotiated with the Ayatollah and Iran. So President Biden has 3 more years to try to give away the store, to try to send billions of dollars, perhaps on pallets in the dead of night like Barack Obama did, to fund theocratic terrorists who want to murder Americans and murder Israelis. But the Ayatollah needs to know, Europe needs to know, our friends need to know, our enemies need to know that President Biden's promises are empty words that will expire the instant his Presidency is over. We don't have a dictator in this country. We have a constitutional republic. If President Biden wants to bind subsequent administrations, he can negotiate a treaty, submit a treaty to the Senate, and get it ratified. But he doesn't have the votes, and so instead he makes empty promises. If President Biden and Vice President Harris were proud of the policies they are pursuing in the Middle East, they would give the American people the list of the 16 prisoners they are trying to force Egypt to release. We know that multiple of the names Senate Democrats have put in the appropriations language are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. We know one is an anti-Semitic hate preacher. And we suspect that the administration knows full well that if it released those names, it couldn't defend them to the American people. It is counting on darkness and secrecy to hide their conduct. I believe the Senate--both Republicans and Democrats--have an obligation to the American people to shine a light. If you are going to extort our allies to release prisoners, tell us now: Are they affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood? Are they anti-Semites? Are they a national security threat to the United States or our allies? The American people deserve to know. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise to speak for the generations of Americans who this body is irresponsibly drowning in debt. Now, to be clear, debt is a bipartisan problem. Debt is a problem both parties bear substantial responsibility for. To understand just how true that is, we need look back just 21 years. In the year 2000, when this century began, our national debt stood at roughly $5 trillion. Mr. President, I want you to pause and think about that. The year 2000 wasn't that long ago. Five trillion dollars is the total amount we owed. In 2001, George W. Bush became President. During the 8 years of Bush's Presidency, the debt doubled from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. My party bears a significant degree of responsibility for that growth. Then in 2008, Barack Obama was elected President; and over the next 8 years, the debt doubled again, from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. I want you to pause and reflect on that. The $5 trillion debt that we started the 21st century with had been accumulated by 42 Presidents over two centuries; and then two Presidents, over 16 years, one a Republican and one a Democrat, took our debt and increased it by 300 percent, quadrupled the Nation's debt in 16 years. As we stand here today in 2021, some 9 months into the Joe Biden Presidency, the debt is roughly $29 trillion. My home State, the great State of Texas, has roughly 29 million residents. That means the national debt is $1 million for every man, woman, and child in the State of Texas. That is reckless and irresponsible. Now, my Democratic colleagues point out that Republicans spent too much during the Trump Presidency. I agree. Much of that spending I voted against. And I would note last year was an extraordinary year with a pandemic unlike anything any of us have ever seen in our lives. I wish Republicans had been better at exercising fiscal responsibility when we had control of the White House and both houses of Congress. The unfortunate reality in this body, though, is that when you have a multitrillion-dollar spending bill, you can usually count on the votes of every single Democrat and about half the Republicans. So on spending bill after spending bill, we see 75 to 80 Senators coming together-- usually all the Democrats and half the Republicans. And there are about 20 of us who try to say: Why are we bankrupting our kids and grandkids? Why are we digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper? But that is--at least right now--a minority view in this body. But the fact that my party bears significant responsibility for the debt we have today is not to draw an equivalency between what has happened in the past and what is happening right now, because, Mr. President, what Senate Democrats, what House Democrats, and what President Biden are doing now has no precedence in our Nation's history. It is an order of magnitude different. Senate Democrats, House Democrats, and President Biden, if the spending proposals they have put forth pass, within a 12-month period, they will have spent $9.5 trillion. One of the problems people have at home is understanding big numbers. A million, a billion, a trillion--they have all got an ``illion'' in them. It is hard to tell the difference. That just sounds like a lot of money. Well, let's put $9.5 trillion in context: $9.5 trillion is more than twice what the United States spent to win World War II. The entire course of the war, it cost us less than half of that to save the free world and defeat the Nazis. And Washington Democrats are trying to spend that in 12 months. It is wildly irresponsible. It is reckless. They are trying to accompany that with trillions of dollars of new taxes. If the Democrats get their way, every tax you can think of is going up. Individual income tax is going up. Corporate taxes are going up. Small business taxes are going up. Capital gains taxes are going up. The death tax is going up. Farmers are paying more in taxes. Ranchers are paying more in taxes. Small businesses are paying more in taxes. Working families are paying more in taxes. Joe Biden campaigned promising no one who makes $400,000 a year or less will see their taxes go up. That statement was a flat-out falsehood. And, by the way, look, I recognize Joe Biden and I are of a different party, so maybe you are inclined not to credit me with my assessment of the truth or falsity of President Biden's promise. Well, if you don't take my word for it, take the Joint Committee on Taxation's word for it, that analyzed the Democrats' tax program and found, for roughly 80 percent of Americans, taxes either stay the same or go up; that it is cutting taxes for a very small portion of Americans. It is raising taxes on people with incomes as low as $40,000 a year. By the way, it is also worth noting part of the Democratic talking points is that the deficit is driven by the 2017 tax cuts. Those are good partisan talking points. Those will get a round of applause in any Democratic gathering. Although I say that, with all candor, Mr. President, I haven't been to many Democratic gatherings, but I feel confident that is accurate; that Democrats like: ``Yes, too many tax cuts.'' Before you are inclined just to believe that political rhetoric, however, you might at least pause to look at the facts, to look at the numbers. And the facts and numbers show that, after we passed the 2017 tax cuts, cutting taxes on working families across this country, that we saw record prosperity; we saw the lowest unemployment in 50 years; we saw the lowest African American unemployment ever recorded; we saw the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever recorded; and we saw Federal tax revenues go up. So the next time you hear a Democrat say the debt comes from the tax cut, it just ain't so. The next year, the Treasury got more money in taxes than it had the year before. So the Democratic narrative about tax cuts driving the debt is--to borrow a term from the current President--malarkey. The debt that we are facing as a result of this wild spending spree is going up and up and up, and one of the consequences of that spending and that debt is we are seeing an inflation bomb going off in this country. Now, for younger Americans, inflation may not sound very real. Inflation is not something we have lived with in recent times. We have been in this sort of weird holiday from economic history with inflation being very, very low. Mr. President, you and I are both old enough to remember the 1970s. We are both old enough to remember double-digit inflation, 21-percent interest rates. Inflation is a cruel tax, and it is a tax on everybody, but it is particularly cruel on the most vulnerable. You know who gets hammered with inflation? Senior citizens, seniors who spent their whole lives saving. And they suddenly see the values of their savings going down and down and down because Washington politicians are devaluing their money--seniors who are on a fixed income get the same amount of money each month, but suddenly the cost of everything goes up. Right now, today, all across this country--in Texas, in Virginia, and in every other State--prices are going up. The cost of gasoline has skyrocketed as a direct result of Joe Biden and the Democrats' policies. The cost of food is going up. The cost of rent is going up. The cost of lumber is going up. The cost of homes is going up. According to the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, for households earning the U.S. median annual income, which is about $70,000 a year, the current inflation rate has forced them to spend another $175 a month in food and fuel and housing. That works out to $2,100 a year. So each month, if your family is at the median income level in the United States, the Democrat inflation tax is about 175 bucks a month. And that is before their massive tax rates kick in, and that is before this body passes the Bernie Sanders socialist budget. It is worth noting just how radical these Democrats are. President Biden is in the White House; that is true. But in the Senate, Senate Democrats have the slimmest majority possible. This is a 50-50 body. It is only by virtue of the Vice President's tie-breaking vote that they have any majority at all. Yet Democrats have interpreted this incredibly close election as a mandate to radically transform this country. Joe Biden didn't campaign on that. Joe Biden campaigned as a nice, happy, centrist moderate. No more mean tweets. Nothing to scare you at home. We are just going to return to the halcyon days of yesteryear. Five years ago--well, let's go back even further than that. Nine years ago, Mr. President, when you and I were both elected to the Senate--we arrived here the exact same time. Nine years ago, there was exactly one socialist in this body that admitted he was a socialist. That was Bernie Sanders. If you asked Senator Sanders, he would say: I am a socialist. I am not a Democrat. I am running as a socialist. And most of the Democrats in this body would say: No, no, no. That is not me. I am not a socialist like him. That was a fringe view. Even in the 2020 election, Joe Biden, when he was running in a primary against Bernie Sanders, said: No, no, no. I am not a socialist. Well, today, Bernie Sanders is the chairman of the Budget Committee. We are in the midst of debating, passing, the Bernie Sanders socialist budget--$5.5 trillion. That is radical. That is extreme. And I think our Democratic colleagues are too scared of the left flank in their own party to dare stand up to it. Now, in addition to the reckless spending, to the reckless taxes they are trying to ram through, to the massive debt they are trying to ram through, we also have a radical agenda across the country, including on our southern border, where we are facing a crisis on our southern border. Over 2 million people are expected to cross illegally this year. The highest rate of illegal immigration in 21 years, and congressional Democrats refuse to do anything about it. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have handed the agenda over to the open- border radicals, and we are seeing a public health crisis; we are seeing a national security crisis; we are seeing a humanitarian crisis as a result. As bad as the economic and domestic policy has been, the foreign policy has been even worse, including the greatest national security disaster and foreign policy disaster in a generation--the utterly incompetent and calamitous surrender in Afghanistan. All of that extreme agenda is being pushed by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, which brings us to our present crisis, the debt ceiling crisis. Our national debt is roughly $29 trillion. Yet Democrats want to add trillions more to that. How many trillions? We don't know. They are battling within their conference just how many trillions more with which to saddle this country, but it is going to be a lot. But do you know the curious thing? This crisis is 100 percent manufactured by Democrats. Why is that? Because for the entirety of this Congress, Democrats have had complete, 100-percent power to raise the debt ceiling anytime they have wanted. How is that? Well, ordinarily, in this body, the way legislation moves, it needs 60 votes to move. It is called the legislative filibuster. But there is an exception to that, and it is a big exception. It is called budget reconciliation. It comes from the Budget Act of 1974. Under budget reconciliation, you only need 50 votes, not 60 votes. It is the biggest exception that exists to the filibuster rule. Democrats, unfortunately, have 50 votes in this body. They have a majority in the House, and they have the White House. That means Democrats, using budget reconciliation--and it is clear, by the way, that you can raise the debt ceiling by using budget reconciliation-- could have raised the debt ceiling in January. They didn't. They could have raised the debt ceiling in February. They didn't. They could have raised it in March or April or May or June, July, August, September. They didn't. We are in October. Democrats could have raised the debt ceiling today. They didn't. They could have done it with only Democratic votes, and there would not have been a single thing Republicans could have done to stop them. They know that. They don't dispute that. So why are we facing a crisis? If, for 10 months, Democrats could have done this anytime they had wanted, why didn't they? Well, it is because there are at least some Democrats who realize that drowning the Nation in debt and spending and taxes is not popular back home. The voters don't like it. So, instead, Majority Leader Schumer has not once, not twice, but three times tried to move a legislative vehicle to raise the debt ceiling that requires 60 votes. He didn't have to do it. He could have done it using reconciliation and using only Democratic votes. He had the total power to do that, but he didn't want to do that. He wanted to use it--to move it forward in a way that required at least 10 Republicans to join with him. Why? There is one and only one reason for this. I would challenge any Senate Democrats to ask Majority Leader Schumer if there is any other reason he proffered for not doing what he could have done at any time, day or night. The only reason is to obscure accountability. The only reason is to blame some of that debt on Republicans so that Senate Democrats could claim: Hey, both parties did it. What the Democrats are doing right now is unprecedented. It is radical. They know it, and they are scared of it. So what are we seeing instead? We are seeing Chuck Schumer tell the American people: We are on the verge of a default. We are seeing Joe Biden threaten that the United States will default on our debt. We are seeing the Treasury Secretary threaten that the United States will default on our debt. Joe Biden's threats to default on the debt are wildly reckless and irresponsible. Let me be clear so that no one is confused: The United States should never, ever, ever default on our debt--period. All 100 Senators in this Chamber agree with that. There is not a single Senator in either party who believes the United States should default on our debt. Why does Joe Biden go on national television and threaten to default on the debt when he could have raised the debt ceiling anytime he wanted? Because he is playing a game of political brinksmanship, threatening a calamitous result on the American economy because he wants to browbeat Republicans into serving as a smokescreen to help hide the responsibility Democrats pay for their massive spending and debt. I have got to say, for the last several months, I was proud of my party. The Republicans were united. We were standing together. We were standing as one. And every single Republican--all 50 Republicans were telling anyone who would listen: We will not participate in raising the debt ceiling. If the Democrats are going to raise trillions in spending, they need to raise the debt ceiling and own the debt that their reckless spending is producing. Our party was completely united. The Republican leader and I--and he and I have had significant disagreements over the years, but on this question, we were in exactly the same place. We were saying exactly the same thing. Our conference has a wide range of views from conservatives to moderates to libertarians. All 50 of us were on the same page. The Democrats have the power to raise the debt ceiling on their own. They are engaged in wildly reckless spending, and if they are going to do that, they need to be the ones to vote for this debt. We were united for 2 months. Indeed, 46 of us signed a letter to Chuck Schumer, I think 2 months ago, making clear what our position was. I helped write that letter. It was not a fringe position of a couple of members of the conference; we got 46 out of 50 Republican Senators to sign it. So Schumer knew. Pelosi knew. Biden knew. But they chose to engage in reckless brinksmanship. Now, I believe the end result of this game of chicken was clear: that Democratic Leader Schumer was on a path to surrender. He was on a path to doing what he should have done a week ago or 2 weeks ago or 3 weeks ago or a month ago or 2 months ago, which is moving a reconciliation bill and raising the debt ceiling. I can tell you there were Democratic Senators--multiple Democratic Senators--coming to me and coming to the other members of my party, saying: OK. How much time would it take to move a reconciliation bill? Can we get it done in time for the October 18 date that the Treasury Secretary has laid out? To a person, Republicans answered: Yes, there is plenty of time, under the rules of reconciliation, to move forward. There is no barrier. You have all the time you need. I believe Democratic Leader Schumer was on the verge of surrendering, and then unfortunately, yesterday, Republicans blinked. I think that was a mistake. I think that was the wrong decision. Now, I will tell you, the reason Republican leadership made that decision to blink was because Senate Democrats threatened to nuke the filibuster, to eliminate the filibuster. I don't know if that threat was real. I don't know if they would have carried through on it or not. But I understand why Republican leadership blinked. Ending the filibuster would enable the Democrats to pass an even more radical agenda than the one they are doing right now. It would enable the Democrats to pass things that would profoundly alter this Nation, perhaps irreparably. So I understand why Republican leadership blinked, but I wish they had not. I wish they had not because I believe we were on the verge of victory. The American people agreed with us. The Democratic position, on its face, was objectively unreasonable. Here is the Democratic position: We have complete power to raise the debt ceiling anytime we want, but the only way we will do it is if Republicans do it with us. Otherwise, we will default on the debt. Even the Capitol Hill press corps--and, Mr. President, in your quieter moments, you will admit it leans very far left--even the Capitol Hill press corps knew that was ridiculous. So unfortunately, yesterday, we were on the verge of victory, but we turned that victory into defeat. Now, let's be clear what the order of magnitude of this defeat is. We are soon going to vote on moving to take up the debt ceiling. The political games played by Democratic Leader Schumer may have prevailed in the short term by cajoling 10 or more Republicans to vote with the Democrats to allow a vote on the debt ceiling. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope we defeat that vote. I am certainly going to vote no, and I am urging my colleagues to vote no. But if 60 or more Senators vote to take up the vote, then we will see a clear divide. On the debt ceiling, all 50 Republicans will vote no. On the debt ceiling, all 50 Democrats will vote yes. We will see a clear divide. I wish it had happened without the political games, without the political theater, that Democratic leadership played. One of the reasons I think it was a mistake for Republican leadership to give in to the demands, to the hostage-taking, to the political terrorism of the other side, is that it significantly hurts the credibility of the Republican conference. The Democratic leader is no doubt telling every Democratic Senator: You see, they won't hold their ground. They will give in. All we have to do is stand strong, and they won't stand and fight against us. Now, I hope that proves nothing more than hot air. I hope that proves a bad estimation of what Republican Senators will do. I can tell you this conference remains absolutely united that the Bernie Sanders' socialist budget of $5.5 trillion, with trillions in taxes, is wildly and recklessly irresponsible and would do massive damage to this country. I hope and believe we will stay united on that. But we could have stayed united on the debt ceiling as well. We could have stayed united in making clear that the Democrats had every ability to do this on their own, but sometimes in a poker game, a bluff wins the pot. In this case, to mix my metaphors, which would make my high school English teacher very angry, in the game of chicken, Chuck Schumer won this game of chicken. As two trucks drove toward each other on a country road, one or the other was going to turn or you were going to have a lot of dead chickens. I wish Republicans had not blinked. We shouldn't have done that, but the strategic mistake by our leadership should not distract from the fundamental divide in this body. I don't know why it is the Democratic Senators look at this last election--an unbelievably close election--and conclude that there is no need for bipartisanship in the Senate, that their mandate is to ram through a radical and socialist agenda. And let me be clear by the way: The first major bill the Democrats took up was a $1.9 trillion spending bill, a so- called COVID relief bill. I say so-called COVID relief because only 9 percent of the bill was healthcare spending on COVID. It was a liberal wish list, paying off special interests that support the Democrats. You know, Mr. President, you and I were both at Joe Biden's inauguration. We sat on the steps of the Capitol. We heard President Biden give what I thought was a pretty good speech; a speech about unity, a speech about coming together, a speech about healing. Sadly, that speech didn't even last the time it took for the words to be transmitted over the airways to the people listening at home. It would have been easy for President Biden and Democrats to pass a bipartisan COVID relief bill--easy. There were Republicans eager to do so. And to show that that is not just empty posturing, that that is not just partisan language, last year, when we had a Republican majority in the Senate, we passed bipartisan COVID relief bills not once, not twice, not three times, not four times--five times. Five times. When Republicans had the majority, we didn't ram through COVID relief bills that were hard partisan bills, but, instead, we worked together with the other side. When Joe Biden, who promised healing and unity, the first big bill he had, he made a choice: Do I want to honor what I said, or do I want to give into the angry socialist left? And he rammed through a bill--a $1.9 trillion spending bill--that in the House of Representatives got zero Republican votes, and in the Senate got zero Republican votes. And I have got to tell you, Senate Democrats didn't want a Republican vote. There wasn't even a minute of discussion of negotiation. There wasn't an attempt to make it bipartisan. It was: We have the power by the narrowest, narrowest margin, and we are going to abuse that power. And, sadly, it hasn't changed. It has continued. This Bernie Sanders, socialist budget--$5.5 trillion--is reckless and partisan, and it will get zero Republican votes in the House, it will get zero Republican votes in the Senate--because the Democrats believe they have a short window to fundamentally transform this Nation and to destroy the free market system that has produced the greatest prosperity this Nation has ever seen. This is tragic, and I, for one, will continue doing everything humanly possible to lead the fight to stop this radical agenda that threatens the lives, the safety, the security, the liberties, the constitutional rights, and the financial future of 29 million Texans. Bankrupting our kids and grandkids is serious business, and the political games from the Democrats are meant to distract from that. And let me note, finally, there is legislation I have supported all 9 years I have served in this body. It is legislation introduced by the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, called the Full Faith and Credit Act, although I actually prefer a different name for it. The name I prefer is the default prevention act. It is legislation that says, in the event the credit limit is not raised, the United States will never ever, ever default on the debt; that even without the credit limit being raised, there are tax revenues coming in every month. So the default prevention act makes clear we will prioritize those tax revenues to interest on the debt, to paying our Active Duty military, and to Social Security and Medicare. Government by crisis would end, or at least be substantially mitigated, if we pass the default prevention act. Earlier today, I was on a radio program--Sean Hannity's radio program, where he played an interesting clip of Democrats all talking about debt ceiling denial or default denial. And I would commend the other party. One of the things the Democrats do really well is message discipline. When they come up with talking points, it is remarkable. Every Democrat in these United States of America, from Joe Biden down to the county dog catcher, they repeat the exact same words. So Sean Hannity played a whole series of just clips of Democrats using the identical talking points: Debt ceiling denial, default denial. You know who is in denial is the Democrats. They are in denial that the debt ceiling exists. They are in denial of the $29 trillion that is bankrupting our kids and grandkids. And they like these crises. Why do I know they like these crises? Because they don't want to pass the default prevention act. If the Democratic Senators who give speeches about how bad a default would be, if they actually believed that, we could come together today and we could ensure the citizens of Texas, the citizens of Virginia, the citizens of Utah that there will never ever, ever, ever be a default of our debt. But if we did that, it would mean that Senator Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and President Biden couldn't engage in the kind of theatrics, the kind of reckless brinksmanship that we have seen over the last several weeks. That would jeopardize their radical agenda. I hope and pray that this body, the Senate, serves as the last bulwark to stop the radical socialist agenda that Washington Democrats are trying to ram through. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President.

Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object. Mr. President, this continues a discussion we have been having for days and indeed weeks and indeed months. Joe Biden is being flagrantly lawless, in that he is refusing to impose mandatory congressional sanctions passed by Congress in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, also known as CAATSA. CAATSA was designed for precisely the purpose of taking away the President's discretion to impose sanctions on Russia in cases where Congress deemed it necessary to mandate them. CAATSA passed Congress overwhelmingly. The vote was 98 to 2. Indeed, in September 2020, my colleague Senator Wyden wrote a letter that was joined by 10 other Democrats about Russian malign activities. Senator Wyden's letter stated: ``Congress has mandated a broad range of sanctions tools, and it is long past time for the administration to send a direct message to President Putin.'' The letter continues, specifically citing the ``sanctions mandated provided for in'' CAATSA. President Biden is legally obligated to Nord Stream 2 AG, the company responsible for the planning, the construction, and the eventual operation of Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Nord Stream 2 AG has committed acts that require the imposition of these mandated sanctions under CAATSA Section 228. Section 228 mandates sanctions on any company that conducts any ``significant transactions,'' including ``deceptive transactions,'' for Russian companies that are already sanctioned. In May, the Biden State Department sent Congress a certification confirming that Nord Stream 2 AG had engaged in those actions. It is clear that Nord Stream 2 AG falls under the mandatory sanctions of CAATSA. Nobody, not even the Biden administration, denies that the Biden State Department sent that certification confirming those actions. Nevertheless, President Biden and, in particular, the Department of Treasury is refusing to implement the law. I have spoken directly with Secretary Yellen. I have spoken directly with the Deputy Secretary of Treasury. The law is clear and unequivocal. And because of the political agenda of the Biden White House, because of President Biden's desire to surrender to Vladimir Putin and to give him a multibillion-dollar pipeline, weakening America, weakening Europe, and giving vast resources to Putin to hold Europe subject to energy blackmail, Treasury is refusing to follow the law. Nevertheless, I have been willing to offer a compromise. I have placed holds on nominees to the State Department and some of the nominees to the Treasury Department. And I have offered a compromise to lift the holds on this nominee and other nominees to the Treasury Department, and also to lift the holds on career nominees to State if either the Biden administration follows the law in CAATSA and impose sanctions. That is option A. That would be the best option. Or option B, if they decide because, for whatever political reason, they believe surrendering to Putin is a good idea notwithstanding America's national security interest, there is a second option that I have offered to lift those holds, which is they could impose the sanctions under CAATSA and then immediately delist Nord Stream 2 AG. That would prevent the sanctions from going into effect, but it would also trigger an automatic vote here in this Congress to override that decision. I have made that offer, along with Senator Toomey, in writing months ago. It is a reasonable compromise, and yet the Biden administration won't take it. They won't take it because they are terrified, if and when Congress votes on that override, that an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress in the Senate and the House will vote to override Joe Biden's indefensible decision to surrender to Vladimir Putin. Nonetheless, in the spirit of reasonableness, I am happy to offer the Senator from Oregon the same deal or a similar deal, at least, right here and right now.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I recognize that my friend from Oregon has been busy with affairs on the Finance Committee and so has not been involved in the now 2 years of debate over Nord Stream 2 on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But, unfortunately, that has resulted in the Senator from Oregon being given talking points--perhaps from the administration, perhaps from colleagues--that are simply factually incorrect. I am sure that is inadvertent. The Senator from Oregon just said that there is no way to stop this pipeline, and that the Trump administration failed to impose sanctions to stop the pipeline. Both of those statements are factually wrong. I was the author of two separate pieces of legislation that passed into law concerning Nord Stream 2. Both were bipartisan legislation. Both, I authored with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, in the Senate. Both passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from both Houses of Congress. The first bill passed in December of 2019. Nord Stream 2 at the time was more than 90 percent complete, and the argument then that was being pushed by Russian disinformation and that, sadly, has been echoed by the Biden administration and was just echoed by the Senator from Oregon--the argument from Russian disinformation was, the pipeline can't be stopped; it is too late. We know that was Russian disinformation because it was conclusively disproved. Putin stopped building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline the very day that the Cruz-Shaheen bipartisan sanctions were signed into law-- not the next day, not the next week. That day, we stopped the pipeline in its tracks. But, Mr. President, it was not only stopped for 1 day; it was stopped for more than a year. For December of 2019, for January, February, March--every month in 2020, the pipeline lay dormant. It was a piece of metal at the bottom of the ocean. So the claim that we cannot stop this pipeline is flat-out false because we did. By the way, when the Senator from Oregon said the Trump administration couldn't stop this pipeline, that, again, is just incorrect. When the President signed the legislation, the pipeline was stopped that day. It remained stopped for over a year. When did Putin return to building this pipeline? The date is important. Putin returned to building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline on January 24, 2021, 4 days after Joe Biden was sworn into office. And he did so because Joe Biden and his team had already conveyed weakness that they would not enforce U.S. sanctions law and that they would roll over and give Putin and Russia a generational geopolitical gift. The only reason Putin began building again is because the Biden White House defied U.S. law to surrender to Putin. Now, Joe Biden is entitled to believe that is a good policy idea. What he is not entitled to do is ignore U.S. law. And the Senator from Oregon suggests this nominee has nothing to do with that. Well, it is the Department of the Treasury that is ignoring the CAATSA law, that is refusing to follow the policy. Sadly, this moment marks a new threshold in that debate. Up until this point, it has only been the Biden White House that has been surrendering to Russia. Sadly, now we have a Democratic Member of the Senate objecting to legislation to stop the Biden White House from surrendering to Russia. That is a move in the wrong direction. That being said, my offer of reasonable compromise remains if we can come together as we have repeatedly, Republicans and Democrats, to force the President to obey the law and to stop surrendering to Russia in a way that hurts America, hurts Europe. By the way, the European Parliament--my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle like to consider themselves lovers of our friends in Europe. The European Parliament voted on Nord Stream 2. The vote was roughly 500 to 50 against Nord Stream 2 because it makes our European allies subject to energy blackmail by Putin and his successor dictators. This is bad for America, bad for Europe, bad for peace, bad for the environment, but good for Vladimir Putin and for Russia. Joe Biden is mistaken to be committing this surrender, and my friend from Oregon errs in joining Joe Biden in that surrender to Russia. I hope the Senator from Oregon reconsiders. I hope Congress comes together again. But as long as that does not happen, I object.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I don't have objection to the article being included in the Record, but I would note that, once again, the Senator from Oregon is limited by the fact that he has not participated in the debate on this in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the last 2 years, because what he stated in his first remarks was that there was no way to stop the pipeline initially and the Trump administration failed to do so. That was factually incorrect. We stopped the pipeline the day President Trump signed the bipartisan Cruz-Shaheen sanctions into law. That was December of 2019, and the pipeline was stopped for over a year. As I mentioned, on January 24 of 2020, 4 days after Joe Biden was sworn into office, Putin began-- returned to building the pipeline because Biden had already telegraphed his surrender to Russia. Now, what my friend from Oregon just said is--he repeated news coverage that the pipeline is now, today, complete. That is, in fact, correct, that because Biden surrendered on this point, Putin went all in and finished the pipeline. But this is where being part of the Foreign Relations Committee discussion matters, because even though the pipeline is now physically complete, it does not mean it is operative. After the pipeline is physically complete, there are months of certifications required and multiple authorities. The legislation that Congress passed as a bipartisan matter also imposes sanctions on any entity, any company that certifies the pipeline. Indeed, the position of the Biden State Department has been that even when the pipeline is complete, we can stop it from ever going online by stopping certification. So the legislation that I just asked for consent would do exactly that--it would stop certification, and it would leave it as a hunk of metal rather than an operating pipeline enriching Putin at the expense of Europe and America. So we still have time to stop this. One final observation. This morning, I spent a couple of hours in a classified briefing on this topic, on Nord Stream 2. A question that I posed to the Biden State Department--I said: What exactly did Joe Biden, did the administration get in exchange for surrendering to Russia in a way that will impact this country and Europe for decades to come? The answer, I will say, was altogether unsatisfactory. The only thing the Biden White House got was good will from Angela Merkel, whose party was just defeated resoundingly this past weekend in the election. So Angela Merkel is on her way out. We got good will from someone who will very soon no longer be the leader of Germany. Instead, the German people voted in--elevated the Greens, who were vocally opposed to the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. So the new government in Germany is not going to appreciate Biden surrendering to Putin in a way that hurts the environment and hurts Germany. But we have alienated the Ukrainians; we have alienated the Poles; we have alienated Eastern Europe. The European Union voted 500 to 50, roughly, against Nord Stream 2. We got nothing, and we hurt U.S. jobs. This is foolhardy, and I am hopeful that the Senate will exercise our historical role over foreign policy and prevent a President and an administration from making this mistake. I would note, Secretary of State Blinken and the State Department argued vociferously in the interagency process to sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, and it was the political operatives at the Biden White House who overrode the State Department. They should not have done so, and today the Department of the Treasury should follow the law and impose sanctions under CAATSA or delist them and trigger a vote in this Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to conclude my remarks before the scheduled rollcall vote.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to continue the discussion that we have been having about the harms of Nord Stream 2. I will discuss in this speech one of the administration's legal responsibilities, in particular to impose sanctions in a way that they are now defying those legal responsibilities. I do want to note that every day brings new evidence of the incoherence of President Biden's sellout and surrender to Vladimir Putin. Since we last discussed this, elections have occurred in Germany and the government of Angela Merkel, on whose behalf the Biden administration claims to be acting, will now be replaced. So the entire surrender to Russia by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was for nothing. I will discuss that further throughout the day and throughout the week. We have heard repeatedly from my Democratic colleagues that my actions to block some of President Biden's nominees are unprecedented. That accusation doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Senators routinely use their prerogatives, and, indeed, Democrats regularly engaged in massive obstruction over months and years of President Trump's nominations. What isn't unprecedented, however, is Joe Biden's open defiance and literal lawlessness in not imposing the sanctions mandated by multiple laws passed overwhelmingly by Congress. Right now, I would like to talk about one of the laws that the President is violating: CAATSA--the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Before getting into the details of Nord Stream 2, I would like to note a couple of things about CAATSA. First, CAATSA was explicitly designed for the purpose of taking away the President's discretion whether or not to impose sanctions on Russia in cases where Congress had deemed it necessary to mandate them. And secondly, on that basis, CAATSA passed Congress with nearly unanimous support: 419 to 3 in the House, and 98 to 2 in the Senate. As for the purpose of CAATSA, I would like to quote some of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle who were both clear and celebratory about the bill. Senator Murphy, who has been particularly loquacious in opposition to these holes, said about CAATSA: ``It is not often that Congress takes away, from the president, discretionary powers on foreign policy.'' Worth remembering. Senator Schumer, who has also had more than a little bit to say on these holes, said that CAATSA was necessary because of what he described as the President's ``seeming inability to deal with the many transgressions of Russia.'' Gosh, Senator Schumer was right. We now have a President unwilling and unable to deal with, as he put it, the ``many transgressions of Russia.'' What about Senator Menendez? Senator Menendez has stood on this floor, including at 4:00 and 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning, railing about these blocks. Well, what did he say about CAATSA? He said that CAATSA sent ``the most powerful message in the world, that the United States--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--stand together.'' Those were really fine sentiments. I wish they held true when there was a Democratic President as much as Senator Menendez believed them when there was a Republican President. And how about Senator Durbin? Senator Durbin is never lacking an opinion on any topic. Here is what he said: ``We had to tell them enough is enough, and when it came to the sanctions and trusting the president, we basically said we want to make sure the president will not lift these sanctions.'' Well, do you know what? Senator Murphy was right. Senator Schumer was right. Senator Menendez was right. Senator Durbin was right. That is why Congress came together to pass CAATSA, tough legislation to prevent a President from doing what Joe Biden is doing right now: surrendering to Putin, surrendering to Russia, ignoring U.S. law, and giving Putin a multibillion-dollar gift. And, when my Democratic colleagues didn't believe the Trump administration was implementing the full breadth of mandatory sanctions under CAATSA, they made the purpose of CAATSA even clearer. On January 30, 2018, Senator Cardin led a letter about CAATSA to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, cosigned by 21 other Democrats-- almost half of the caucus. They said that the Trump administration's failure to impose mandatory sanctions ``do not fully reflect the clear congressional intent described in the legislation . . . We expect the administration to provide a full explanation as to why it has not imposed mandatory sanctions'' under several provisions of CAATSA. Then, on May 18, 2018, Senator Menendez led a letter about CAATSA to several inspectors general, cosigned by two other Democrats. They said that ``[s]everal mandatory provisions of the law have not been implemented . . . despite strong evidence that actions taken by or on behalf of the Russian government are in violation of the CAATSA sanctions law.'' In fact, I would like to read more of that letter because it is so abundantly clear about the purpose of CAATSA: In light of the apparent violations and the lack of corresponding sanctions actions, we are concerned about whether the sanctions implementation process within the administration is fulfilling CAATSA's mandate and intent. In general, with respect to mandatory measures, the President is required to make determinations in the event he has established that sanctions behavior has taken place, and then either impose sanctions or exercise a waiver. So a binary choice: One or the other. That is what of a President is required. And do you know what? Senator Cardin and Senator Menendez, well, they might have meant it, but they didn't say it: Only Republican Presidents are required to do this. They didn't write that in their letters because, of course, CAATSA doesn't say that. What they said is a President is required to make that choice. The law requires the President to make that choice. Senator Cardin was right. Senator Menendez was right. And Joe Biden is telling them: Go jump in a lake. He is telling the U.S. Congress: Go jump in a lake. He is telling the American people: Go jump in a lake. He is cutting a deal with Putin, and don't bring no stinkin' laws to get in his way. That brings to us Nord Stream 2. One of the provisions that my Democratic colleagues cited in both of those letters was section 228: ``Sanctions with respect to certain transactions with foreign sanctions evaders and serious human rights abusers in the Russian federation.'' Section 228 mandates the imposition of sanctions on any company that conducts any ``significant transactions,'' including ``deceptive transactions,'' for Russian companies that are already sanctioned. There is no doubt--zero--that the company Nord Stream 2 AG, which is the company responsible for the planning, the construction, and the eventual operation of Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, has committed acts that require the implementation and the imposition of those mandated sanctions under CAATSA 228. Indeed, that is one of the many reasons the pipeline was halted for a year, and Putin only began building it again on January 24 of this year--4 days after Joe Biden was sworn in. Because Joe Biden has been so weak on this issue, because the pipeline exists only as a gift from Biden to Putin, this pipeline is, in a very real sense, the Biden-Putin pipeline. We know that the Biden administration is defying the law, because the Biden administration told us so in May. The Biden administration sent a report to Congress describing how Nord Stream 2 AG had conducted deceptive transactions for sanctioned Russian companies. That is the explicit trigger in CAATSA for sanctions, and yet the Biden administration has refused to meet its obligations under CAATSA, and that leads to the reasonable compromise that I have offered. For several months, I have had in place a hold on all State Department nominees and on several Treasury Department nominees as well. The reason for the hold has been simple--because Joe Biden is defying the law and is giving Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift that constitutes a generational geopolitical blunder that puts billions of dollars into the Russian coffers every year that Putin will use for military aggression against America and our allies. Biden's surrender to Putin weakens Europe profoundly. It makes Europe dependent on Russia even more so for energy and subject to Russia's energy blackmail. And it also, on top of that, destroys jobs here in the United States. For months, I have had in place the blanket hold that has caused increasing cries of pain and dismay from our Democratic colleagues. Interestingly, these same Democratic colleagues all agree that what Biden is doing with the Biden-Putin pipeline is terrible. Almost to a person, the Democrats who are complaining about this have denounced Joe Biden for giving Putin this multibillion-dollar gift, but they say they want to confirm his nominees anyway. So what I have said is: All right. Fine. If the Biden administration wants to defy the sanctions law that I drafted--the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions law, it is two different bills that I drafted with Senator Shaheen, Democrat from New Hampshire. We passed into law, overwhelming bipartisan support from both Houses of Congress. If Joe Biden wants to ignore those laws, then there is another avenue to resolve much of this dispute, which is simply to follow the law under CAATSA. So I extended an offer to Secretary Blinken, to Secretary Yellen, to the White House that I would lift my holds on every career State nominee and on the Treasury nominees where I placed holds in exchange for one of two things: No. 1, the best outcome would be for the Biden administration to actually implement CAATSA and sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, to follow the law, to do what is mandatory. That would be the best outcome. If they did so, I would immediately lift my holds. But, secondly, I get that the White House politically has decided they want to surrender to Putin on this. My understanding is there is an interagency process--the State Department argued to do the right thing. The State Department argued: Impose the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, stop this pipeline, which, by the way, is what Tony Blinken sat in my office and promised State would do. It is what just about every senior nominee to the State Department has promised they would do. State argued to do the right thing, but according to public reports, the political operatives at the White House overruled their own State Department. They said: Never mind the national security interests of the United States. Never mind protecting America. Never mind stopping Putin and Russia. Never mind protecting Europe's energy security. Never mind protecting Europe from blackmail by Putin. We want to surrender because Angela Merkel wants us to. I talked last week about how a friend of mine jokes that the White House political team sleeps with votive candles of Angela Merkel under their beds. There is a view in the White House that what Merkel wants, Merkel gets, even if it is bad for America, bad for Germany, bad for Europe, but good for Russia. Of course, Merkel is on her way out now, but they still want to do this surrender. And this surrender, by the way, if it is completed, will hurt America for generations to come--10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now. The next Russian dictator will be enriched by Joe Biden's surrender to Putin on the Biden-Putin pipeline. The two options: First, after imposing sanctions, they could leave them in place. But, secondly, recognizing that they don't want to do it, there is a second option I gave them, which is that they could impose sanctions under CAATSA, but then they could delist Nord Stream 2 AG. In other words, they could exercise the political decision not to impose the sanctions. That gives them their policy--preferred policy outcome. What it also does under CAATSA is it triggers an automatic congressional override vote. So I told Secretary Blinken, I told Secretary Yellen: It is very easy. If you believe in this foolhardy policy of surrendering to Putin, then put your money where your mouth is. Follow the law, which is clear, unequivocal, black letter law. Impose the sanctions. And you do have a vehicle. You can delist it. The President can make a determination that even though the sanctions are mandatory, he wants to delist it. But here is what Congress did. In CAATSA, it triggered an automatic congressional override vote. And what I have told the administration is: You know what. Whether I win or lose that override vote, if you actually follow the law in such a way that it triggers that vote, I will lift my holds--my holds on the career State nominees, my holds on the Treasury nominees. You have a path. Simply subject yourself to congressional oversight. Now, it is very clear why they haven't taken this offer, which has been in writing for months now. Because Joe Biden thinks if we had a vote in this Senate, he would lose. He thinks if we had a vote in the House, he would lose. He knows that Republicans would vote against him. And if Democrats had a modicum of consistency, virtually every Democrat in this Chamber and the House has been unequivocal that the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline is devastating to U.S. national security. And so the Biden White House doesn't want to risk members of his own party voting against his surrender to Russia. So, instead, they defy the law. That is an irresponsible course of action. There is a very reasonable compromise on the table, and all of the perils the Democrats are lamenting about these holds can be avoided if, if, if Joe Biden will simply follow the law, follow CAATSA. The mandatory sanctions that Democrats explained were designed to prevent a President from doing what Joe Biden is doing right now, which is surrendering to Russia. There is a reasonable compromise on the table. All that is required is for Joe Biden to take it. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, over the last several weeks, I have talked at length about the damage that President Biden and his administration are doing to the national security of the United States and to the security of our allies in Europe by giving Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift in the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Today, I am going to talk about the staggering diplomatic damage that the President is doing by allowing and, indeed, facilitating this project proceeding. It is well known that Nord Stream 2 is opposed across Europe as an enabler of and, indeed, an example of and a weapon of Russian expansionism and aggression. Europeans have good reasons for their opposition. They know firsthand what the costs are. They know that completing Nord Stream 2 will leave the entire continent vulnerable to Putin's blackmail and aggression, and that NATO's ability to act will be severely constrained while billions will flow into the Kremlin's coffers. What is sometimes underappreciated, however, even by the people who are familiar with this issue, is the all-but-complete unanimity of the opposition in Europe. In 2018, the European Parliament voted by a vote of 403 to 105 to oppose the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The pipeline proceeded, nonetheless, until it was halted by the bipartisan sanctions passed by this Congress in December of 2019--sanctions that I authored along with Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. The pipeline was halted the very day those sanctions were signed into law. Then, in January of 2021, after Vladimir Putin tried to murder Alexei Navalny, the European Parliament voted again to oppose Nord Stream 2, this time by a vote of 581 to 50. So I want you to pause for a second and reflect on the fact that Joe Biden looked at that vote and said the President of the United States is with the 50--never mind the 581--in the European Parliament. The Biden administration was going to side with Russia on a 90-percent issue, where the Biden White House is on the losing side. Throughout all this process, there were plenty of voices in Germany who were opposed, especially after this vicious attempt on Navalny's life. The Parliamentary leader of the Greens, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, said: The blatant assassination attempt by the mafia-like structures of the Kremlin can no longer leave us merely concerned, it must have real consequences. Stating, ``We need a clear answer'' that will ``make clear, Nord Stream 2 is no longer something we can complete with Russia.'' Mr. President, my request to Senate Democrats, my request to President Biden, my request to Kamala Harris is listen to the Greens. That is not a sentence I have uttered on the floor of the Senate before, nor is it one I anticipate saying frequently in the future. But the Greens in Germany are telling you this is a bad idea; yet today's Democratic Party that exalts climate change as the greatest issue in the cosmos, when it comes to kissing up and surrendering to Putin, decided to tell the Greens to go jump in the lake. Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen issued a statement that: Germany is asking for European and NATO solidarity in response to the despicable Navalny poisoning. They will get it, but an honest answer from Putin is unlikely. Time has come for Germany to halt Nord Stream 2 construction, before it's too late. If Senate Democrats mean what they have said for years on Nord Stream 2, then listen to the former Secretary General of NATO; listen to the Greens in Germany. But now, bizarrely, after Joe Biden has ignored the Greens, after Joe Biden has ignored NATO, after Joe Biden has ignored our Central European allies, all of this was done in the hopes of getting goodwill and support from Angela Merkel. The Biden White House--the political geniuses that presided over the surrender and failure in Afghanistan, the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in a generation--their plan was, let's piss the whole rest of the world off so that we can make friends with Angela Merkel. By making friends with Angela Merkel, let's let Putin complete his pipeline. Perversely, President Biden and Merkel issued their statement as a declaration for support of our Eastern European allies. Boy, with support like that, who needs enemies? I would like to read a joint statement from our Polish and Ukrainian allies in response to the laughable statement that Biden and Merkel put out. Here is what our Polish and Ukrainian allies said: The decision to build Nord Stream 2 made in 2015 mere months after Russia's invasion and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, created security, credibility, and political crisis in Europe. This crisis is significantly deepened by the resignation from attempts to stop the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. By the way, as an aside, that resignation would be Joe Biden's abandoning of U.S. law sanctioning Russia. The letter continued: This decision has created political, military, and energy threat for Ukraine and Central Europe, while increasing Russia's potential to destabilize the security situation in Europe, perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union member states. Let me read that again: This decision-- Joe Biden's political genius, surrendering to Russia-- has created political, military, and energy threat for Ukraine and Central Europe-- That sounds bad. It is bad-- while increasing Russia's potential to destabilize the security situation in Europe, perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union member states. The letter continued: Ukraine and Poland will work together with their allies and partners to oppose Nord Stream 2 until solutions are developed to address the security crisis created by Nord Stream 2, to provide support to countries aspiring to membership in Western democratic institutions, and to reduce threats to peace and energy security. Mr. President, what do our friends in Ukraine and Poland tell us? That Joe Biden's decision has created a ``threat to peace and energy security.'' But even then, Biden-Harris officials insisted that they had worked out security arrangements; it was all perfectly taken care of. They would ensure that Russia would never, ever, ever use Nord Stream 2 for blackmail. Mr. President, that is their promise. That is Joe Biden's promise. Fear not, they have it figured out and they have commitments that Russia will never use Nord Stream 2 for energy blackmail. How long do you think those commitments lasted? If you have a stopwatch, I am not sure the stopwatch could measure increments of time that small because Russia didn't even give a decent interval, didn't let the ink dry on the Biden White House press release before they immediately began doing the thing that Biden promised Russia would never do. Biden White House said: We have an agreement to make sure Russia never uses it for energy blackmail. What did Putin say? Excuse me, we are in the middle of energy blackmail. So we don't even have to wait a year, 2 years, 5 years. We don't have to wait a month. We don't have to wait a week. We don't have to wait a day to know if the Biden promise was true or false that Russia would never engage in energy blackmail over Nord Stream 2. Why? Because they are doing it right now, this instant, as we stand here. Just one week ago, the Kremlin and its gas barons, the oligarchs--the corrupt mafia oligarchs that run Russia--said that if Europe wants reliable gas as we approach winter--and, gosh, did we mention it gets cold in Europe, that having gas to heat your homes and prevent your grandmother from freezing to death might be a nice thing? Well, the Kremlin and the gas oligarchs said it is very simple: If they want to have heat, all they need to do is rush through the activation of Nord Stream 2. They said: ``Undoubtedly, the earliest possible commission of Nord Stream 2 will help balance the natural gas crisis in Europe.'' Undoubtedly. Russia is literally reducing the supply right now, today, exercising its blackmail in September. The Presiding Officer lives in the Northeast United States. September is a beautiful time of year. The autumn leaves are turning. The breeze is crisp. You are not right yet shivering to turn on the heat at night. The same is true in Europe. But fast forward to November, fast forward to December, to January, to February, when the bitter cold starts setting in, when having gas or not, and having heat or not, is the difference between living and dying. What are the Russian oligarchs saying? They say, very simply: ``Undoubtedly, the earliest possible commissioning of Nord Stream 2 will help balance the natural gas crisis in Europe.'' And, of course, the response from Biden and from Germany has been crickets. Remember, Biden and Merkel said, if they try that--those dastardly Russians--we will stand up boldly to them, we will hold them to account. Where is Joe Biden? No, I mean that seriously. Where is Joe Biden? Nowhere. Maybe in the White House basement. I don't know. But he is not doing anything to stand up to the Russian energy blackmail happening right now. By the way, neither is Merkel. Their promises just weeks ago have already been demonstrated to be completely hollow and empty. The protections of their bogus deal were, on their face, a bluff; were, on their face, empty. But how often is it in politics that such an empty promise gets revealed as a lie minutes after it is made? In this case, Putin was only too happy to oblige. That is why we call the pipeline the Biden-Putin pipeline. But, of course, the punch line of all of this--so the Biden administration has managed to tick off Europe, to tick off the European Union. They managed to tick off Ukraine. They managed to tick off Poland. They managed to tick off the Eastern Europeans. They have also independently managed to tick off the French so much that they pulled their Ambassador home from the United States. But they did all of this, they said, in the deep gravelly tones of the Foggy Bottom establishment. They did all of this to build lasting relationships with Angela Merkel. And that would pay dividends. Never mind a generation of billions for Putin and Russia; never mind a generation of energy captivity for Europe; never mind thousands of high-paying jobs in America--union jobs, good union jobs--destroyed by Biden; never mind that. The benefit of making Angela Merkel is worth it. Mr. President, you know, there is an old saying that God has a sense of humor. That was illustrated this weekend because, this weekend, there was an election in Germany. The people went to vote. And what happened? The German voters went to vote, and Merkel's party didn't win the election. Now the Social Democrats will be looking to form a coalition with the Greens. Which Greens? Oh, the very same Greens that are passionately opposed to Nord Stream 2, that cried vociferously to kill the pipeline, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris said: Go jump in a lake. The new coalition. By the way, just about every electoral scenario that comes out of this election will empower the Greens in Germany, and the political geniuses in the White House have just alienated and antagonized the Greens. Biden's supine giveaway. Isn't that a good word--supine? It describes the Biden foreign policy for every enemy of America: Be flat on your belly, and give our enemies what they want. Biden's supine giveaway to Putin was all for nothing. It literally produced nothing for the United States. It alienated our friends, and it emboldened our enemies. If you are Xi in China and you see Joe Biden rolling over and surrendering to Vladimir Putin, giving him everything he wants--giving him a pipeline that will enrich him for generations to come--what do you think Xi is thinking? I can tell you what Xi is thinking. Xi is thinking this is a President who is weak who will surrender to me too. We saw that demonstrated just in recent days, where the Biden administration surrendered on a senior executive from Huawei in allowing her to go back to China, giving Communist China exactly what it wanted. And, once again, what does Xi take and what do the Chinese Communist leaders take from that? That this President will roll over, will surrender. And, you know, there is a striking irony. These catastrophic decisions and failures are particularly jaw-dropping given that President Biden ran on a platform of restoring diplomacy. Do you remember the refrain ``the adults are back''? It was said with this moral superiority--that the Biden guys were going to come in, and no more of this American strength. Huh-uh. The adults know better. Here is what Joe Biden said on February 4: I want the world to hear today: America is back. America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy. . . . We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again, not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's. Biden spoke specifically about Russia. He said: American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including . . . the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy. Biden added that ``we must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom [and] championing opportunity.'' You know, if irony had ever been alive, that speech killed irony. If irony were dead and buried, that speech made irony roll over in her grave. Literally every word of that speech, every syllable of every word down to ``and'' and ``the,'' has been proven false. ``America is back,'' Biden told us. ``Diplomacy is back.'' ``We will repair our alliances.'' Mr. President, how has that gone? Have we, in fact, repaired our alliances? With Nord Stream 2, Biden has pissed off the French, the Polish, the Ukrainians, the European Union. Has Biden repaired our alliances? Has Biden engaged with the world once again? Well, if ``engaged with the world'' means to surrender to Putin and give him everything he wants, then I guess so. To meet not yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's--how is giving Putin a massive natural gas pipeline meeting tomorrow's challenges unless the challenges are how to fund Russia's military? If those are the challenges he is talking about, then congratulations, Joe Biden; you actually lived up to that. He spoke about Russia. ``American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism.'' How did Joe Biden and Kamala Harris meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism? By funding it. Every year, Putin will cash a check of a couple billion dollars, courtesy of Joseph Biden. What should we use this couple of billion dollars for? How about for advancing authoritarianism. Biden said: We must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom. Mr. President, let me ask you something. Whose freedom did Joe Biden defend with this pipeline? He certainly didn't defend the freedom of the Ukrainians. He didn't defend the freedom of the Poles. He didn't defend the freedom of Europe. He didn't defend the freedom of France. He didn't defend even the freedom of Germany. Merkel wants this, but the voters in Germany have made clear that they don't want it. He didn't defend the freedom of the men and women of Georgia, of the Baltics--of all the former Soviet Republics whose safety and security is now jeopardized because Biden has decided to be a principal funder of the Russian military. That is not defending freedom. He certainly didn't defend America's freedom. On his first day in office, Joe Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline. He killed 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs. John Kerry helpfully told those union members: Learn to code. You silly, dirty worker who wants to work on a pipeline, no, no, no. Sit down at a MacBook instead. How is it that the same President who kills American jobs on an American pipeline creates Russian jobs on a Russian pipeline? I don't know what you call that, but you don't call it defending freedom. You don't call it championing opportunity. You know, I have to say, some years ago, I traveled to Europe. I was in Ukraine. I was in Poland. I was in Estonia. When I was there, I met with the leaders there, and I asked them about Russian aggression. This was years ago. I asked them about standing up to Russian aggression. To a person, when I asked them that, the blood drained out of their face, because, for the Poles, for the Ukrainians, for the Estonians, Russian tanks in the streets is not a hypothetical. That is not a scenario they are wondering what that would be like. Those of us old enough to remember it, as they sat at the table with me, they remembered. They remembered those Russian tanks. Vladimir Putin has said, in perhaps the most candid moment of his life, that he considers the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century to be the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The natural corollary of that is that his foreign policy objective is to recreate the Soviet Union and to subjugate the former Soviet Republics. One of the most dangerous consequences of this pipeline, of the Biden-Putin pipeline, is that if this pipeline is allowed to go online, I fear we will see Russian tanks again on the ground in Ukraine. Mr. President, you and I both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If and when that happens--in 6 months, in a year, in 2 years--I am going to ask you to remember these remarks, if and when we see Russian tanks on the streets in Ukraine, because Putin is no longer afraid that Ukraine is needed to transit energy. Putin now has his own pipeline--the Biden-Putin pipeline--to circumvent Ukraine. If we see that subjugation of our ally, if we see that subjugation of liberty, Mr. President, I hope you and I hope every Member of this body and I hope the American people remember right now that Joe Biden, in February, said: ``We must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom [and] championing opportunity.'' He has an opportunity to do so. By the way, let me point out something. The Biden administration has a fantastic opportunity for a reset. Let's assume somebody in the administration realizes they screwed up on this pipeline. When they are losing votes in the European Parliament by a vote of 500 to 50, that ought to be a signal, particularly for people who pride themselves on their foreign policy prowess, on the adults being back. Losing a 10-to- 1 vote in the European Parliament is not indicative of diplomacy being back. By the way, when they lose the vote in this body--in both the House and Senate--when we have addressed Nord Stream 2, every time we have done it, it has been virtually unanimous. The margins of the U.S. Congress have been bigger than 500 to 50. So let's say somebody in the Biden White House is having second thoughts. I don't know if they are. Maybe they are so committed to their policy that facts be damned; no second thoughts on that. But let's say someone is. Then Joe Biden has been given a gift. He has been given a gift of the recent German election. There has been only one argument that the Biden White House has put forward for surrendering to Putin on this pipeline, and that is to make the German Government happy. It is a bad argument. It is an argument the Presiding Officer has rejected, that I have rejected. Virtually every Senator in this body, Democrat and Republican, has rejected it as a bad argument that hurts America, that hurts Europe, that helps Putin. But, for sake of argument, let's give the Biden White House the benefit of the doubt. Let's assume they really believe that. Well, this weekend gave him a gift. If the lone benefit they achieved was this will make the German Government happy, what do we know now? This makes the German Government unhappy. As we stand here today, the ledger of cost and benefits is very simple: There is one winner on the Biden-Putin pipeline, and that is Vladimir Putin; that is Russia; that is the Russian Army. Everybody else is a loser. So I would say to the Biden White House they have an easy gift: Reverse course. By the way, the Biden State Department, Secretary Blinken, fought to impose these sanctions, and political operatives in the Biden White House overruled the Secretary of State. Secretary Blinken, you have a fabulous opportunity. The Secretary of State is unhappy that I have holds on nominees to the Department of State. The Presiding Officer is unhappy as he sends repeated tweets, expressing his dismay that I am using the leverage of a Senator to try to stop this pipeline. Well, I have good news: The German electorate has given you an answer to this problem. The Biden White House has an easy excuse. The German Government is changing. So their only benefit--to make the German Government happy-- has disappeared. If all they care about is making the German Government happy--if they don't care about the rest of Europe; if they don't care about Ukraine; if they don't care about the European Union; if they don't care about American jobs; if they don't care about Putin getting richer and stronger--if the only criterion is to make the German Government happy, do you know what they should do today? Sanction Nord Stream 2 AG. Follow the law. If they do that, I will lift the holds, and these nominations can proceed very, very quickly. The German voters have given Joe Biden a gift. The only question is if anyone in the White House is paying attention, if anyone wants to accept the gift, or are they too stubborn? They have picked their course, dammit, and they are going to go down with the ship even if it hurts America forever. There is still time to stop this pipeline. The question is, Does anyone in the White House care? I hope and pray that they do because if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris persist in their decision to completely and totally surrender to Vladimir Putin, that will harm the United States not for a year, not for 10 years, but for 30, 40, 50 years going forward. Mr. President, the German voters have given you a gift. You should take it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I have spoken throughout these last several days about how the Nord Stream 2 pipeline--the Biden-Putin pipeline-- runs counter to everything that the Biden administration professes to stand for, and, indeed, what much of the Democratic Party has been insisting for the last half decade are the most important issues of the country. We, of course, spent 4 years, during the Trump Presidency, listening to Democrats say, ``Russia, Russia, Russia,'' over and over and over again. It was a newfound discovery. Some of us are old enough to remember Barack Obama turning to Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential election when Mitt Romney was advocating for strength in dealing with Russia and for taking on Putin, and some of us remember Obama looking at Mitt Romney and saying: [Mitt], the 1980s called. They want their foreign policy back. That was in 2012, when the Democrats thought it was passe to stand up to Russia. Then 2016 happened, and Donald Trump was elected President. Suddenly, the Democratic Party got religion. Suddenly, Russia was bad. Now, I thought Russia was bad before. I thought Russia was bad when Trump was President. And I think Russia is bad now. I don't like dictatorial thugs like Vladimir Putin, who is a KGB thug. But, interestingly, for our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, their outrage against Russia is situational. It applies only in the situation that a Republican is in the White House. When a Democrat is in the White House--when Joe Biden is there--suddenly, Putin is hunky-dory. Suddenly, Democrats don't have much of a problem with Joe Biden defying Federal law, ignoring Federal law, and giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin. Suddenly, the Democrats have given all of these speeches on Russia, who passed CAATSA. I talked earlier about CAATSA, the legislation that imposes mandatory sanctions on Russia to stop a President who refuses to impose those sanctions. Well, Joe Biden is in defiance of CAATSA. Do you see a single Democrat standing up, saying: Mr. President, obey CAATSA? No. They are whining that the deputy assistant under secretary of whatchamacallit has not been confirmed yesterday, and, clearly, the world is going to come to an end without a deputy assistant of whatchamacallit. If our Democratic colleagues believed their rhetoric of the last 4 years, we would see Democrats stand up with me and say, ``Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Putin is a mistake,'' but they are not. One of the ironies, in addition to the ``Russia, Russia, Russia'' thing--and the truth of the matter--is most of the Democrats never believed Russia, Russia, Russia. If you go back to the Soviet Union, if you go back to the Reagan administration, the Democrats had spent decades as apologists for Soviet Communists, as apologists for Russian dictators. But for 4 years, I have got to say that our Democratic colleagues can give a good speech. They sure sounded genuine when they said, ``Russia, Russia, Russia.'' But if they believed those words, then they would look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and they would say, ``Russia, Russia, Russia.'' By the way, they didn't like Donald Trump's rhetoric on Russia, and by the way, I didn't like a lot of the things President Trump said on Russia. I wish his rhetoric had been stronger, but it is worth noting that Trump had the courage to call out Germany for Nord Stream 2. Trump had the courage to impose sanctions under the bipartisan sanctions legislation we passed into law. The Cruz-Shaheen legislation passed in 2019, and the second wave of the Cruz-Shaheen bipartisan legislation passed in 2020. President Trump imposed. What did Joe Biden do? Waived it. What did Joe Biden do? Ignored the law. What did Joe Biden do? He gave a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin. So, if any Democrat meant a word they said about Russia, we have got to see them standing here. You will note the Democratic side of the floor is largely empty. But not only is Joe Biden's rhetoric and the Democrats' rhetoric on Russia not matched by their action, but we also know that Biden's actions don't meet the Democrats' rhetoric on climate.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I want to talk today about Russia. I want to talk about Vladimir Putin. I want to describe to this Chamber a bipartisan victory that together we won, and then I want to describe, tragically, how President Joe Biden is giving that victory away to Putin and Russia. To understand this issue, we need to go back to the summer of 2019. In the summer of 2019, Russia was in the process of constructing a pipeline called the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Behind me is a map demonstrating where the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline runs. It is a pipeline that was to run from Russia to Germany, going underneath the Baltic Sea. In the summer of 2019, the pipeline was nearly complete. At various periods in time, it was 70 percent complete, 80 percent complete. There was widespread consensus that if this pipeline were completed, it would have devastating consequences. In a few minutes, I will discuss those consequences in greater detail. But in an effort to stop the devastating consequences, I worked on bipartisan legislation, along with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat from New Hampshire, and we introduced bipartisan sanctions legislation designed to stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. That legislation, when we introduced it, was almost immediately subject to a Russian disinformation campaign. In Europe, the Russians were saying to anyone who would listen that the Cruz-Shaheen sanction legislation could never pass; that there was no way Congress would come together in a bipartisan manner to stop the Nord Stream 2; that it was hopeless; that no one needed to be concerned that this legislation could pass. They also made the argument as part of their disinformation campaign that the pipeline was nearly complete so that U.S. sanctions could not stop it. There was nothing that could be done to stop it. Well, to the surprise of nobody who follows these issues, that Russian disinformation was precisely that--it was disinformation. It was lies. In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Shaheen and I worked with our colleagues, and our legislation was initially voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 20 to 2--overwhelming bipartisan support. At that point, Senator Shaheen and I began working to get it passed on the floor of the Senate. While we were doing so, the Russian disinformation continued: This cannot pass. We endeavored to have our sanctions legislation attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, which was moving in the fall and winter of 2019. To do so was not easy. To do so, we needed to get the explicit signoff of the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We needed the explicit signoff of the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We needed the explicit signoff of the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. Then we needed the explicit signoff of Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer, the Republican and Democratic leader respectively. All eight of those Senators needed to agree with our legislation for this to proceed on the NDAA. And then we had to do the exact same thing in the House of Representatives and get the chairman and ranking member on Foreign Relations, on Armed Services and on Banking, and we had to get the signoff of Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy. To get the explicit support of all 16 of those congressional leaders--8 Republicans and 8 Democrats--in any world is not easy. And I will say on my part and Senator Shaheen's part, we invested dozens, if not hundreds, of hours in terms of talking to our colleagues to build that bipartisan consensus, and we ended up getting that overwhelming support. In many ways, that support was miraculous. Why is that? Well, one of the reasons why Nord Stream 2 is particularly problematic is that Russia is building Nord Stream 2 in order to cut off Ukraine. There is currently a pipeline running through Ukraine and, through Nord Stream 2, Russia has the power to starve Ukraine. Why is it miraculous in December of 2019 that we were able to pass this legislation? Well, if you will recall what was happening in the House of Representatives in December of 2019, the House of Representatives was in the middle of impeaching President Donald Trump for alleged high crimes and misdemeanors concerning Ukraine. If you will recall, from the trial we held on this Senate floor, central to the allegations that were raised by Democrats against President Trump was conduct concerning Ukraine. It remains astonishing that right in the middle of a partisan gladiatorial battle concerning Ukraine, simultaneously we were able to get Republicans and Democrats to work hand-in-hand to agree with complete consensus that we were going to come together and stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. We were going to stop what Vladimir Putin was doing. In December of 2019, our legislation passed. The Cruz-Shaheen sanctions legislation passed. Now, I will remind you what the Russian disinformation did when we first introduced it. They said it will never pass; and they said, even if it does pass, it is too late for it to have any effect. Well, if my memory serves me correctly, President Trump signed the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions legislation at 7 p.m. on a Thursday. At 6:45 p.m. on a Thursday, 15 minutes before our sanctions legislation was signed into law, the company that was laying the pipeline in the Baltic Sea announced it had immediately halted laying the pipeline and it was lifting anchor and sailing away. It was an incredible bipartisan victory. The pipeline was stopped in its tracks. What happened next was absolutely nothing. For a year, the pipeline lay dormant. The talking points from Vladimir Putin--and now, sadly, adopted by Joe Biden and his administration--is the pipeline is 90 percent complete or the pipeline is 95 percent complete. But it is not rocket science that a 90-percent complete pipeline is zero-percent complete. Until you build both ends of the pipeline, it ain't nothing but a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean. Nothing is traveling through it until the pipeline is complete and online. For a year, the pipeline lay dormant. Then in the year 2020, Senator Shaheen and I joined together again in a second round of bipartisan legislation, a second round of sanctions. We had stopped the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline in its tracks. For a year, Putin was stopped altogether. And we came together for a second piece of legislation--the second version of Cruz-Shaheen--and just like the first sanctions, we passed it through both Houses of Congress and it was signed into law with overwhelming bipartisan support--nearly unanimous support of all 535 Members of Congress. So we now had two major pieces of sanctions legislation on the books. Those sanctions had been working for a year and the pipeline was stopped. Then in November of 2020 was the Presidential election. And in the wake of the Presidential election, Joe Biden and his transition team almost immediately began telegraphing weakness to Russia. Members of Joe Biden's foreign policy advisory team in the German newspapers expressed openness to Nord Stream 2 being built, expressed a willingness to try to circumvent the sanctions that had been working and had worked for over a year. Within days of Joe Biden and his team expressing weakness to Putin, Russia and Putin heard and they began the process of getting ready to return to building the pipeline. (Thereupon, Ms. STABENOW assumed the Chair.) Russia did return to building the pipeline. Do you know what day? January 24, 2021. Four days after Joe Biden was sworn into office, Putin said: We are safe. We are free. Our man Joe is in the White House. And we know that the administration is not going to follow U.S. law anymore. And so on January 24, the Russians returned to building the pipeline. Now, for 2 years, this body had been united, Republicans and Democrats, that we were going to stop this pipeline; but Joe Biden and his administration decided instead to waive the sanctions, decided instead to give Vladimir Putin what amounts to a multibillion-dollar gift--and not just a gift one time. If this pipeline is allowed to go online, it will put billions of dollars in Putin's pockets every year, year after year after year. What are the consequences of Nord Stream 2? No. 1, Russia gets richer; Russia gets stronger; Russia gets billions of dollars that it can use to build its military, to threaten its neighbors, to threaten our allies, to endanger the lives of Americans and our friends. No. 2, Europe is hurt. Our friends and allies in Europe are made even more dependent on Russian energy. Our former colleague in this body, Senator John McCain--may he rest in peace--had a phrase for Russia that was memorable, that I have used many times. He referred to Russia as ``a gas station with a country attached.'' That is Putin's plan. It is very simple. Putin is a petrol tyrant. He is a tyrant, he is a bully, he is a KGB thug, and all his aggression is funded by selling oil and gas. Together, Republicans and Democrats in Congress had taken billions out of Putin's pockets; and, sadly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris decided the world would be a better place if instead Putin had billions more not just this year or next year, but for decades to come. When Putin is dead and buried and the next dictator is ruling over Russia, that next dictator will be reaping the benefits of this pipeline. Indeed, as a result of Joe Biden's decision, many are referring to this pipeline as the Biden-Putin pipeline for a very simple reason: It is Putin who is building it; it is Putin who is profiting by it. And the only reason Putin is allowed to do so is because President Joe Biden has given a multibillion-dollar gift that strengthens Russia and it weakens Europe. It makes Europe subject to energy blackmail. Putin has demonstrated a willingness and, indeed, a history of using energy blackmail, of using those who are dependent on natural gas to coerce them to do what he wants. In the dead of winter, when people are at risk of freezing to death, Putin has threatened to--and has, in fact--cut off gas to endanger the lives of innocent civilians in order to coerce governments to bend to his will. As a result of Joe Biden's surrender to Vladimir Putin, Putin will have the continued ability to exercise economic blackmail against Europe. But not only that. Europe has energy needs. Those energy needs could be readily satisfied by American energy. Europe has expressed a willingness and, in some instances, an eagerness to import American energy. But Joe Biden has decided that American jobs are unimportant. On his first day in office, Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline, killing 11,000 jobs in the United States, including 8,000 union jobs--8,000 high-paying union jobs that, with a stroke of a pen, Joe Biden eliminated. And at the exact same time that Biden is shutting down jobs and a pipeline in America, he is green lighting and giving Putin a gift of a pipeline between Russia and Germany, producing jobs in Russia, producing billions of dollars in Russia, and taking away jobs in America. This pipeline is a disaster. As the afternoon goes on, I will elaborate on different aspects on which it is harmful and on the steps we can and should be taking to stop it. But at this point, Senator Barrasso is here and has some thoughts he wishes to express, and so I will yield the floor to Senator Barrasso for his remarks.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his powerful remarks, and I thank each of the Senators who have worked with me, both Republicans and Democrats, in our successful effort for over a year to stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline--successful, right until Joe Biden became President. I want to talk now about the precise dangers that are posed by the completion of Nord Stream 2. Many agree it would be a catastrophe for the security of the United States and for our European allies. Nord Stream 2, if it goes online, would double the gas flowing from Russia to Germany while circumventing American allies that Putin targets militarily, diplomatically, and commercially. As a result, if Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will expose Ukraine and Poland to deep, long-term dangers, and it will leave them vulnerable the next time Russia targets them for aggression. Right now, one-third of Russian gas exports to Europe travel through Ukraine. That provides Ukraine a curious kind of protection because Putin knows that he can't endanger that energy infrastructure without endangering his economic line to the world. With Nord Stream 2, Putin and Russia are given, by Joe Biden and by Kamala Harris, effectively open season on Ukraine. And when a year from now we see Russian tanks in Ukraine, we will remember this moment that it was Joe Biden's surrender to Putin on Nord Stream 2 that enabled Russia to carry out that aggression. If Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will enrich Putin with billions of dollars to direct toward his malign activities. And, by the way, if you don't want to take my word for it, here is what the Polish Prime Minister said about Nord Stream 2; that Nord Stream 2 ``strengthens Russia's power, helps President Putin to build a military power, [and] helps to intimidate other nations.'' In addition, if Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will solidify Russian energy dominance at the expense of European energy diversification. If Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will deepen the corruption that tragically is endemic across Russia's energy sector, and it will export more of that corruption to Europe. But I want to talk a bit more about the crushing, overarching danger of Russia using Nord Stream 2 for blackmail and for coercion. Putin uses energy as a weapon. We have seen that pattern over and over again. He uses energy for blackmail and coercion. He turns it off or on to punish resistance to his expansionism. This is a real, acute, and proven threat. Russia turned off the gas to Europe in the winter months of 2006 and again in 2009 because of political disputes. The Kremlin company that owns and would run Nord Stream 2, Gazprom, has repeatedly cut off gas to Ukraine during political crises. It is open blackmail, and because of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Putin will have more power to blackmail our friends in Europe. And it is not only me; it is not only Republicans; and, indeed, it is not only Republicans and Democrats in Congress who understand the magnitude of this threat. Our European allies understand fully just how disastrous Nord Stream 2 would be. Ukrainian President Zelensky has said that it is flatout ``wrong'' ``not to notice that'' Nord Stream 2 ``is a dangerous weapon'' not only for Europe, ``not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe.'' I want you to pause and reflect. President Zelensky of Ukraine said this pipeline is a dangerous weapon directed at Ukraine and the whole of Europe. Why is it being built? Because Joe Biden decided to give it as a gift to Vladimir Putin. In a meeting with the Biden administration, the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister said: Poland considers this project to be detrimental to the security of not only Ukraine, not only Central Europe, but also to the security of the whole of Europe, making the EU dependent on Russian gas. If we give a damn about our friends in Poland, if we give a damn about our friends in Ukraine, if we give a damn about our friends in Europe, don't allow Joe Biden to allow Vladimir Putin to point this weapon at the heart of Europe. In a joint statement signed by representatives of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, here is what the Estonian Foreign Affairs Committee stated: ``Countering malign Russian aggression is in the vital national security interest of the whole of NATO, the EU and our partners in Central and Eastern Europe,'' and that ``Nord Stream 2 is a geopolitical project geared towards expanding Russia's influence on Europe, through energy dominance.'' A question for every Member of this Senate to decide: Do we care about endangering the national security, about threatening, about making our European friends subject to blackmail? Do we care about what Estonia has told us, about what Latvia has told us, about what Lithuania has told us? Do we care about the Czech Republic? Do we care about Ireland? Do we care about Poland? Do we care about Ukraine? Do we care about the United Kingdom? Well, our actions can decide that. Unfortunately, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have decided that our European allies, their security is not of sufficient concern to them. And, instead, they have actively given this pipeline to Vladimir Putin. My Democratic colleagues and, indeed, the vast majority of American lawmakers, also understand the precise danger of blackmail and coercion posed by Nord Stream 2. In 2018, Senator Coons, my Democratic colleague from Delaware, said quite plainly that ``we have to work with Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian energy exports and in particular to convince it to discontinue the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany.'' Senator Coons continued: ``As long as Russia dominates the provision of energy to Europe it will continue to hold a veto over many European policies and [it] will be in a position to weaken and marginalize countries like Poland and Ukraine.'' Senator Coons was right in 2018, and what he said is right today. Joe Biden is committing a generational political blunder, a catastrophic mistake that hurts American national security and that hurts European security. Congress has repeatedly passed sanctions targeting Nord Stream 2, targeting Russia's corrupt energy market more broadly. Those sanctions, especially CAATSA and PEESA--and I am going to discuss in greater detail, later today, the specific sanctions legislation that is on U.S. books that Joe Biden is ignoring, that he is flouting, that he is disregarding, that he is refusing to enforce. Those sanctions impose mandatory sanctions. This body, Congress as a whole, Democrats and Republicans, past administrations--everyone has worked together not just to counter Russia but, specifically, to prevent Putin from being able to leverage energy as a geopolitical weapon. The Biden administration, however, tells us they have a better solution, a better solution than both Houses of Congress, a better solution than following U.S. law. Instead of imposing sanctions to stop the pipeline, they tell us they have worked out a deal with Germany that they promise will prevent Putin from being able to use energy as a weapon. It is the best of both worlds, they say. They don't have to use sanctions, and they still solve the problem of Russian energy blackmail. President Biden said: ``Chancellor Merkel and I are absolutely united in our conviction that Russia must not be allowed to use energy as a weapon to coerce or threaten its neighbors.'' Those are nice sentiments, if they weren't accompanied with Joe Biden giving a multibillion-dollar generational gift to Putin to do exactly what President Biden just said he didn't want Putin to do. Here is how an official from the Biden State Department described the deal: ``There's a clear commitment on the part of the United States and Germany in this statement that should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon''--and, as an aside, they have done so over and over and over and over again in the past--``should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon . . . Germany will take action at the national level and press for effective measures at the European level, including sanctions to limit Russian export capabilities to Europe in the energy sector, and that includes gas and/or other economically relevant sectors.'' So understand what they are saying. If and when Russia does what they have done in the past over and over again, if they do--one of the reasons they want Nord Stream 2 is to exercise economic blackmail. If and when they do that, Germany is going to send a really stern letter to the European Union. One of my favorite movies that Heidi and I have watched many times is a movie called ``Team America.'' It is a comedy. It is done by the creators of the movie ``South Park.'' It is a movie that involves puppets. I will give a warning: It is a movie with an enormous amount of profanity in it. It is also one of the most sidesplittingly funny movies ever made. In ``Team America,'' they talk about Hans Blix and the tool of sending a stern letter to the United Nations. The movie ``Team America'' understandably ridicules that as being utterly ineffective. In the case of that movie, it was North Korea. But in the case of Putin, I assure you, Vladimir Putin has not lost 1 minute of sleep worrying about Germany's letter to the European Union. Once Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will become a dominant source of energy for Europe. Putin knows this. Merkel knows this. Biden knows this. Turning off Nord Stream 2, which Germany has suggested: Oh, once we are addicted to the crack, we will just turn it off when we don't want it anymore--that would be suicidal, which Putin knows, and he is counting on it. It is as empty and hollow a threat as has ever been uttered on the international stage. And, even worse, we already know that it is a hollow threat because Putin has already, in just the last few days, crossed the line into using energy as a weapon. So we don't have to go back to 2006. We don't have to go back to 2009. Let's go back to last week. In just the last week, it has become clear that Putin has been turning down gas exports to Europe to coerce our allies into dropping opposition to Nord Stream 2. The blackmail is open, and it is brazen. Russian and Gazprom officials have said: If Germany and the EU approve Nord Stream 2 coming online, then the Russians will turn exports back up. On Friday, more than 40 Members of the European Parliament called for an investigation of the coercion, saying Gazprom was driving up prices to ``pressure'' the European Union into speeding Nord Stream 2 activation. So I want you to pause and reflect. The Biden administration's claim to prevent Nord Stream 2 being used as a weapon for energy blackmail is, if Russia ever does it, Germany will stand up to them. Russia is doing it right now--not in 2006--well, yes, they did in 2006. Not in 2009--well, yes, they did in 2009. Today, last week--and they are not hiding it. They are saying: We are going to cut off your energy until you approve Nord Stream 2. How exactly is the Biden administration claiming they are going to prevent the malign use of this pipeline? They are literally surrendering to blackmail right now for no reason. You know, sadly, the reason--over the past 9 months, I have had conversations with just about every senior Biden State Department nominee, in my office, over and over and over again, about Nord Stream 2. Almost to a person, the nominees agree: Nord Stream 2 would be terrible. It would be disastrous. It would be bad for America. It would be bad for Europe. It would be good for Russia. They all agree with that. By the way, Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, said so vociferously in his confirmation hearing, and he said so even more vociferously sitting on the couch in my office. They all admit this. So why, then, would Biden have committed this disastrous mistake? Sadly, I think there are two reasons. One, the Biden team entered office with an almost pathological revulsion to anything the previous administration did. If the Trump administration did it, it must be wrong and must be reversed. Now, listen. None of us in this Chamber are naive. We understand politics. We understand that when one party takes over from the other party, they often reverse policy decisions. That is not unusual. Obama reversed decisions of the Bush administration. Trump reversed decisions of the Obama administration. And there are a whole lot of decisions of the Trump administration that, sadly, from my perspective, Biden is reversing. As a general matter, that is why we have elections, and there are differences between the policy positions between the two parties. But the Biden team is further than that. It is almost a pathological ``if Trump did it, it must be bad.'' Never mind that the Trump administration did this only after the Congress came together in an extraordinary moment of bipartisan unity and passed this as mandatory legislation. In my office, over and over again, with just about every senior Biden State Department nominee, I asked them: Please don't turn one of the biggest foreign policy victories of the last several years into one of the biggest foreign policy defeats of the last several years. The reports came out, actually, that State tried to honor its commitment; that State--the Department of State--in the interagency process, argued for ``let's follow the law; let's impose the sanctions.'' And what public reports have suggested is that the Biden White House--the political operatives in the Biden White House-- overruled State. So even though State knew that the right policy was ``shut down the Putin pipeline'' and the wrong policy was ``turn it into the Biden- Putin pipeline,'' the Biden White House desperately wanted to stamp their imprimatur on this, because if it was done under President Trump, they were going to reverse it. The second reason is that the Biden foreign policy team, for whatever reason, has a deep and abiding interest in giving to Germany whatever it is they want. Now, look, Germany is an important friend and ally. We work together closely with Germany on economic matters, on diplomatic matters. We have long and positive relationships with our friend and ally Germany. It doesn't mean we agree with everything the Germans do, any more than we agree with everything any other ally of ours does. Indeed, I will point out, in the past week, the Biden administration precipitated the French withdrawing their Ambassador from America--an extraordinary moment, which, I will point out, at least illustrates that we have a history of having disagreements, and sometimes serious disagreements, with our friends and allies. But one friend of mine has a phrase--he puts it--that the Biden foreign policy establishment, they sleep with votive candles of Angela Merkel under their beds; that they view Chancellor Merkel as someone who must be surrendered to, acquiesced to no matter what. Never mind that Chancellor Merkel has an extremely limited tenure in office. She is on her way out. Never mind that the next successor government in Germany may well decide that they don't even want Nord Stream 2. This Biden foreign policy team, perhaps as a farewell gift to Angela Merkel, has decided that President Biden should surrender to Putin. That makes no sense. That is dangerous. It is harmful to Europe, it is harmful to Germany, it is harmful to America, and it helps Russia. We are going to have an extended period of time to continue to discuss these matters, but at this point, I see that Senator Shaheen is preparing to speak, so I yield the floor to Senator Shaheen.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I would like to discuss now how Nord Stream 2 is an unprecedented example, a contemporary example, of bipartisan unity. Democrats and Republicans both know that Nord Stream 2 is a terrible idea. It is a terrible idea for Europe, and it is a terrible idea for the United States. Here are several examples of the bipartisan agreement we have. It has been commonplace to say that bipartisanship doesn't exist, but Nord Stream 2 refutes that. The first wave of sanctions authored by me and by Senator Shaheen goes back to the summer of 2019. At a July 31 hearing, several Democrats spoke out against Nord Stream 2 and its support of the Cruz- Shaheen sanctions to stop it. Here are some of the things they said. Senator Menendez said: I think the international community must stand firm against opening more doors and creating new opportunities for further Kremlin aggression in Ukraine leading to the loss of life. The Russian Federation has repeatedly used its energy resources as a lever of power, and I believe Nord Stream 2 is no exception. Not only will it considerably strengthen the Kremlin's stranglehold on Europe, but it allows Moscow to further undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and stability. Senator Shaheen said: We have heard in our office directly from other countries in Eastern and Central Europe, and the Baltics, and many of the Nordic states, and of course especially Ukraine, who understand that this pipeline is an effort to increase reliance on Russia among Europe. And I would argue that this does nothing to strengthen the transatlantic alliance, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In fact, it actually decreases support for the alliance. Here is what Senator Coons from Delaware said: I, like many of us, have been to Ukraine, remain gravely concerned about Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and the ways in which Russia finances its aggression through the use of its sole remaining export of any interest, which is energy. Senator Menendez was right. Senator Shaheen was right. Senator Coons was right. That consensus has held for over 2 years, Democrats and Republicans, even through the Biden administration's catastrophic decision to green light the pipeline and to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin. This issue was central to a June 8 meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after Biden had defied U.S. law and given a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin. Here is what Senator Menendez said after Biden acted: I think many of us on a bipartisan basis were deeply concerned about the administration's decision to waive sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG. . . . I would have thought that one of the most significant ways to show strength is to ensure that the pipeline is killed. Senator Menendez was right. Senator Merkley even condemned the pipeline for issues he said were directly related to climate change, which is something Biden officials claim is utterly sacrosanct in this administration. The consensus, even after the Biden administration formally announced that it had struck a deal surrendering entirely to Russia on the pipeline--nonetheless, we saw the bipartisan consensus remain. On July 21, Senator Kaine said: I'm not happy about it. . . . I'm not happy about it in terms of Russian politics, and I'm not happy about it in terms of climate change. Senator Kaine was right. Senator Shaheen said she was ``skeptical that [the agreement] will be sufficient when the key player at the table--Russia--refuses to play by the rules.'' Senator Shaheen was right. She was right to be skeptical that the agreement from the Biden administration, mind you, will be sufficient when the key player at the table--Russia--refuses to play by the rules. And I would note that the consensus wasn't limited to the Senate. On the other side of the Capitol in the U.S. House of Representatives, that same sentiment was broadly echoed both during the previous administration and during the current administration. At the beginning of my push for the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions in 2019, Democratic Representative Engel said: Russia has weaponized its energy resources, expanding into European markets and creating greater and greater dependency, particularly with projects such as the Nord Stream 2. Representative Engel was right. Several years later, after the announcement of President Biden's complete surrender to Russia on Nord Stream 2, Representative Kaptur told a Polish newspaper that she and much of the House of Representatives were disappointed with the deal. She said: I am very disappointed by the Biden administration's willingness to allow Russian gas to reach the heart of Europe via Nord Stream 2, endangering energy security. . . . We consider this a dangerous project from a security point of view. Representative Kaptur was right. Supporters of the Biden administration will say: Well, of course, everybody opposes Nord Stream 2, but there is no way to stop it. That excuse is disingenuous. That excuse is laughable on its face. Now, why is that? Because it is the identical excuse that was central to the Russian disinformation 2 years ago. In the summer of 2019, when I first authored the bipartisan sanctions to stop Nord Stream 2, the Russian disinformation campaign in Europe was predicated on the proposition that the pipeline was 95 percent complete, and they said: Gosh, you can't stop it. There is nothing you can do to stop it. They halted construction of the pipeline 15 minutes before our bipartisan sanctions were signed into law, and for over a year, the pipeline lay dormant as a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea. So every time the Biden administration says ``It was too far along; we couldn't stop it,'' you know what--it was just as far along in December of 2019, and we stopped it then. It was just as far along in January of 2020, and we stopped it then. We stopped it in February. We stopped it in March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. And it wasn't until January, January 24--4 days after Joe Biden took the oath of office--that Russia resumed building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The only reason they couldn't stop it is because Joe Biden wanted to surrender to Putin, because the answer is, Republicans and Democrats in this Chamber had stopped it for over a year, until Joe Biden came in and turned victory into defeat; until Joe Biden came in and offered complete capitulation--and might I note, in exchange for nothing. Let me ask you, what did the Biden administration get in exchange for a multibillion-dollar gift--and not a one-time gift; a gift every year for decades in perpetuity? What did the Biden administration get? Not a damn thing. Nothing. It was simply a complete capitulation. Surrender. Now, defenders of the Biden administration will say: Well, maybe we could have stopped it a few months ago, before the pipeline was complete. But in between January and this month, the Russian efforts built the pipeline, and they just announced it is complete. So now we should surrender, right? There is nothing that can be done about it. Well, that, in fact, is not true. That is a second wave of disinformation. Now, why is that true? That is not true because before the pipeline can go online, there are a series of certifications that are required. Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that is responsible for planning, construction, and eventual operation of Nord Stream 2, needs to be granted formal permission as a gas transmitter. There are many regulatory hurdles in their way--hurdles that have not yet been cleared. The process at a minimum should take many months, and the process could be derailed at any time. First, there has to be an inspection process. Each of Nord Stream 2's strings has to be inspected to make sure there are no leaks, and part of that requires confirming that the pipelines were installed correctly. Part of that has already begun with air. Nobody knows how it has been going. Then, there has to be an additional technical certification. This will be extremely difficult for Nord Stream 2 AG because the bipartisan sanctions legislation that I wrote and passed with Senator Shaheen and that Congress passed imposes mandatory sanctions on anyone who certifies the pipeline for operation. Now, pause and think about that for a second. The pipeline can't go into effect unless it is certified. U.S. law passed overwhelmingly by Democrats and Republicans in this Congress, signed into law in the U.S. Code, says anyone who certifies it faces mandatory, crushing sanctions from the United States. The company that was originally going to certify it withdrew after the sanctions became law. The only way that a different company would dare to certify is if they believed the Biden administration would look the other way, would bless their certification in outright defiance of U.S. law. Then, apart from the technical issues, Nord Stream 2 AG still has to be certified as a gas transmission operator as a matter of regulation and law. That should take at a minimum many months and require delicate negotiations between the company and the regulators. You know, what is striking is, everything that I am saying has been said by the Biden administration. So right now, their talking points are ``There is nothing we can do. It is a done deal. We have surrendered. We have given up. There is nothing we can do,'' but when they were in the process of surrendering, they said everything I just told you. Until recently, even the top officials of the Biden administration acknowledged that physical completion of Nord Stream 2 didn't make its activation a fait accompli. On June 8, Secretary of State Blinken testified that ``even when the pipeline is physically complete, for it to go into operation, it still requires insurance, it still requires various permits, and we are looking very carefully at all of that.'' Secretary Blinken said that ``it was too late to stop the joining of those pipes. Its operation is another matter.'' Secretary Blinken was wrong when he said it was too late to stop the joining of the pipes because we stopped them for over a year, until Biden surrendered to Putin, but he wasn't wrong when he said we could still stop the operation of it. Given these requirements and this time line, the path for America is obvious: We should sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, the parent company of the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. That will automatically isolate the company, and it will signal our readiness to follow the law, to impose more sanctions, and to ensure that everyone knows that involvement with Putin's pipeline brings with it crippling, company-ending sanctions. Indeed, that is exactly why Congress has repeatedly passed legislation--bipartisan legislation--to stop this pipeline. But instead of obeying the law, President Biden decided brazenly and willfully to defy Federal law--to defy Congress's mandate. In May, President Biden transmitted a communication to Congress that acknowledged, yes, he was obliged to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG for violating the sanctions that Congress had passed and passed overwhelmingly, but instead of imposing those mandatory sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, given the clear and unequivocal intent of Congress, the Biden administration chose instead to waive them. It was a disastrous decision. It was a decision based on weakness and capitulation to Russia. It hurt our friends and allies in Europe, and it hurt the United States of America. It is a decision that can be reversed. Right now, the pipeline, if this pipeline goes into effect, will be the Biden-Putin pipeline. It doesn't have to be. This was designed at the outset to be the Putin pipeline, and when it was the Putin pipeline, we stopped it. Republicans stopped it. Democrats stopped it. We came together at a time of partisan division and we said together: Giving billions of dollars to Putin, to Russia, for aggressive military hostility, subjecting Europe to energy blackmail, making Europe dependent on Putin's gas, and destroying American jobs is bad all around. Congress succeeded. It was the Putin pipeline until January 24, 2021. Joe Biden had just been sworn into office, and Putin, after a year of dormancy, began building the pipeline again because Biden had already signaled he intended to capitulate. When we convene next week, I am going to discuss in greater detail the compromise that I have offered to the Biden administration and Senate Democrats to move forward on more of their nominees if they accept a compromise solution on Nord Stream 2. The Biden administration has had this compromise offer for 2 months, and they have done nothing with it. But I would suggest something right now. In the course of my remarks, I have read quote after quote after quote from Senate Democrats. Senate Democrats know this pipeline is a disaster for America. Senate Democrats know that surrendering to Putin is bad for America. But Senate Democrats are scared to stand up to a Democratic President. I can tell you, when we had a Republican President, President Trump, there were some in the Trump administration who resisted these bipartisan sanctions, and as a Republican, I was perfectly willing to stand up to a Republican administration for those who were resisting these sanctions and to press them hard. So my request to my Democratic colleagues is, show that you actually believe what you said in 2019 and 2020 and 2021. Show that you care about U.S. national security. Let's stand together, and let's reclaim that bipartisan consensus we have had for 2 years that Nord Stream 2 is bad for America and bad for our allies. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to call attention to the humanitarian crisis that is happening right now in the State of Texas, another one happening right now in Del Rio, TX--yet another consequence of President Biden's and Vice President Harris's dangerous refusal to enforce our laws or to protect our border, a refusal that is causing people to die; that is causing young girls to be trafficked; that is causing drugs to pour into our State; and that is causing our communities to become much less safe. Right now, thousands of Haitians are camped under a bridge in Del Rio, TX, after illegally entering our country. Six days ago, I went down to Del Rio myself to see firsthand what was going on and why this was happening. The sheer number of people under the bridge took my breath away. People were struggling enormously, including infants, including young children, and I learned from authorities on the ground what had happened and that this was a man-made crisis. To understand what occurred, we have to go back to September 8. On September 8 and in the weeks that preceded it, there were between 700 and 1,000 people under that bridge in Del Rio. That was about the traffic that was coming in each day illegally. Then, on September 8, the Biden administration made a political decision. There were some 900 Haitian illegal immigrants who were scheduled to board planes and be deported back to Haiti. Roughly, 85 percent of the illegal immigrants crossing at Del Rio are from Haiti originally. On September 8, the Biden administration canceled those planes. It informed those 900 Haitians that they would not be deported but that they would, instead, be allowed to stay in the United States, and what happened next is simple. Those 900 picked up their phones, and they called their friends; they called their families; they texted their friends and families. Between the period of September 8, when the Biden administration canceled those flights back to Haiti and September 16--8 days later when I was in Del Rio--the 700 people under the bridge had become 10,503. That is what the total was the day I was there--10,503 packed in in deplorable conditions. They had already crossed into the United States. They were packed under that bridge because the Border Patrol lacked the capacity to process anything close to that number, and within a couple more days, the 10,503 had become 15,000 people. To put that in perspective, the city of Del Rio has a population of 35,000 people. Nearly half the population of Del Rio was under that bridge. We have seen bread and water and toilet paper and basic necessities flying off store shelves in Del Rio, which wasn't expecting to have to handle such a massive influx of illegal immigrants. The people of Del Rio are concerned; they are dismayed; they don't understand why the Federal Government refuses to enforce the law. Law enforcement is concerned and dismayed and doesn't understand why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won't enforce the law. The mayor in Del Rio is a Democrat, and he is frustrated and dismayed with the crisis the Federal Government has caused. In the past month, I have traveled throughout South Texas, doing roundtables--sitting down with farmers and ranchers, sitting down with sheriffs and local law enforcement, sitting down with elected officials. A great many of the elected officials in South Texas are Democrats. South Texas, historically, has been a very Democratic region of the State. To a person, every elected Democrat with whom I sat down was horrified at what was happening. More than one elected Democrat in South Texas said to me: If the National Democratic Party is the party of open borders, I can't be for that. You know, in this body, we listen to lots of elected officials from States that don't have a border with Mexico pontificate on how enforcing the border is somehow cruel. I will tell you what is cruel: having 10,503 people underneath a bridge, in shantytown conditions, where children, where women, where men are sleeping out in the elements and where even more come. One of the things that strikes me about that Del Rio influx is many of those individuals had already been granted asylum in Mexico. So they had come from Haiti to Mexico. They had been granted asylum--they were living legally in Mexico--but when the Biden administration canceled the flights back to Haiti and word got out of, ``Hey, come to Del Rio. It is olly olly oxen free. If you come to Del Rio, you can stay in America,'' it took 8 days for 700 people to become 10,503. The Biden administration has also shut down five Border Patrol checkpoints in the Del Rio sector area of responsibility so they can redirect personnel just to process the mass of illegal immigrants under the bridge in Del Rio, and, of course, it is at those checkpoints that trucks carrying illegal immigrants or trucks carrying drugs into our country are caught. So, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pulling the personnel away from that, we know yet more illegal immigrants will stream into this country. We know yet more women will be raped and sexually assaulted by human traffickers. We know more children--more little boys and more little girls--will face physical assault and sexual assault from human traffickers. We also know that more heroin, more fentanyl--more illegal drugs--will pour into our States. And, by the way, not just the State of Texas, but every State in the Union will have more people die from illegal drugs because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to enforce the law and are pulling law enforcement off of their job of protecting our communities. On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas went down to Del Rio. Let me say I am glad he did. Joe Biden hasn't been to Del Rio. Kamala Harris hasn't been to Del Rio. She is ostensibly the border control czar, but the czar can't be bothered to actually go to the southern border where the crisis is occurring. Secretary Mayorkas, in Del Rio, said: ``We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open.'' Well, I wonder why they think the border is open. Maybe it is because the Biden administration halted the deportation flights to Haiti. Maybe it is because Joe Biden is releasing Haitians who illegally cross the border at Del Rio into the United States at a staggering scale. Maybe it is because Joe Biden halted construction of the border wall the day that he became President. Maybe it is because Joe Biden reinstated the failed catch-and-release policy or maybe it is because Joe Biden, on day 1 of the Presidency, ended the incredibly successful ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, which was an international agreement that President Trump had negotiated with the Government of Mexico that provided that when people crossed illegally into Mexico, that they would remain in Mexico while their U.S. asylum case was proceeding. That agreement was phenomenally successful--so much so that last year, in 2020, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. I want to point out to you that some of the Democratic Party, some in the media like to say: Well, this problem has been with us a long time. This problem is not Joe Biden's fault; it is not Kamala Harris' fault. We can't solve the crisis at our southern border. If you hear elected Democrats saying that, if you hear the corrupt corporate media saying that, you know they are not telling you the truth. Why is that? Because last year, 12 months ago, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. We know how to solve this crisis. The ``Remain in Mexico'' international agreement worked, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, for political reasons, decided to tear up that international agreement and declare open season on our southern border. This year, since Joe Biden has been President, over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have come into the United States. We are on pace for more than 2 million this year, which is the highest rate in 20 years. Do you want to see how much policy and politics matter? We went from the lowest rate in 45 years last year to the highest rate in 21 years this year. And it is all because of politics, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had made promises to the open-border radicals in their party. I will tell you, I have been to the border. I have been to the Biden cages. For 4 years, Democrats went on and on and on. The corrupt corporate media went on and on and on about kids in cages. You couldn't turn on the evening news without hearing ``kids in cages.'' What they didn't tell you is that Barack Obama built those cages, and, today, under Joe Biden, the cages are bigger and they are more full than they were before. Every Democrat who stood up and lamented ``kids in cages'' and the House of Representatives--Representative Ocasio-Cortez has a famous photo of her grasping her head by the kids in cages. Well, I am going to give a simple challenge for Representative Ocasio- Cortez and for every Democrat in this body: Go see the Biden cages with your own eyes. I have seen them--the Donna tent facility, with over 4,000 people, with little boys and little girls on top of each other. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I was in the Rio Grande Valley, the rate of COVID positivity in the Biden cages was over 22 percent. And all the Democrats who talked about this, if they don't go, if they don't denounce the Biden cages, then they are telling you that they are hypocrites; that they didn't believe it when they said it; that they didn't care about it when they said it; that it was all politics. It wasn't about their kids. Why does Joe Biden refuse to go to the Rio Grande Valley? Because if he goes, the TV cameras will come with him. Why does Kamala Harris, who is supposed to be the border czar--she is supposed to be in charge of this--why won't she go to the Rio Grande Valley? Because if she went, the TV cameras would come and would show the Biden cages. And the Democrats are counting on the corrupt corporate media to suddenly say: Nothing to see here. Fifteen thousand Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio? Nothing to see here. Does anyone want to know what Joe Biden's favorite ice cream flavor is? That is the news. Never mind 1.2 million illegal immigrants. Never mind when I took 19 Senators down to the border. We went out on the river and saw a man floating dead in the river who died trying to cross illegally. Never mind the South Texas farmers and ranchers, the moms who told me: I won't let my teenage kids go out on our ranch without being armed with a loaded firearm because there are so many human traffickers and narcotics traffickers that it is dangerous for them to go out on their own ranch. Never mind the South Texas farmers and ranchers, who told me at roundtables how tired they are of going out and finding dead bodies. Do you want to understand what is happening? You say there is no crisis? Come to Brooks County. I invite every Democrat here to Brooks County. Brooks County in South Texas, it is just north of the border. Brooks County, over and over and over again, there are dead bodies of illegal immigrants. The traffickers who are bringing them in, they are not nice guys. They are not humanitarians. They don't give a damn. That means, if one of the illegal immigrants is a pregnant woman, is a young child, is elderly, is sick, they just abandon them. They leave them in the rough terrain in the summer heat, and, over and over again, the farmers and ranchers encounter dead bodies on their property, where the traffickers have abandoned them. I ask you: Is that humane? Is that compassionate, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris policy that encourages, that puts people in harm's way and results in people dying? When we were down at the border, we saw a young girl who had been gang raped by the human traffickers who had brought her to America. The rate of sexual assault is staggering, particularly among the girls and young women, so much so that a significant percentage of young women, before they take the harrowing trip with the traffickers, will implant a birth control because they know the odds of their being sexually assaulted are so great. And I will tell you, as I was doing the roundtables, one of the things I saw also was the colored wrist bands. So the traffickers are global cartels that are criminals. They are vicious criminals. They charge anyone--a young man, a young woman, a little boy, a little girl--thousands of dollars, anywhere from 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, $8,000 to cross into the United States. By the way, do you know there is 100-percent operational control on the border--100 percent--on the southern side? Nobody crosses the border without the cartels' permission. If you do, they will kill you. Every person who crosses the border does so after paying the cartels, because you will be killed otherwise. But often, when they come, they will cross, and they will end up at a stash house. I have been to those stash houses. I have been out on the midnight patrols with the Border Patrol. You go into those stash houses, and there are colored wrist bands that they put on the illegal immigrants, and the colors correspond to how many thousands of dollars they paid and how many thousands of dollars more they owe. Often, when they get here, the cartels will say: Thank you for your x thousand dollars. We want y thousand more. Tragically, it is at those stash houses in the United States where many of the sexual assaults occur. And so these immigrants, many of whom are young children, teenage children, when they get here, the Biden administration delivers them to their final destination. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their administration are the last mile of the human trafficking network. But for the 14-, 15-year-old boy who arrives in Atlanta, who arrives in New York, who arrives in Detroit, who arrives in Nashville--many of those 14- and 15-year-old boys owe thousands of dollars to the cartels, which means they arrive in your city--you might think Georgia is not a border State. But when teenagers are arriving in Atlanta owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, they work for the cartels, and the cartels know who their family is and where their family is, and they risk their mother or father being murdered if they don't work for the cartels to pay off the cartels. The young women have it even worse. There are teenage girls who make the decision: I want to come to America; I want to come to the promised land. We have been a beacon of hope to millions throughout our history. They don't realize they are stepping into Hell on Earth when the traffickers take them and then take them to a cartel facility in whatever city they end up in, where many of those teenage girls, still owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, have to work to pay off that debt by forced prostitution. Young girls forced into a life of sex slavery because the alternative is murder at the hand of the cartels. This is happening. The fact that Joe Biden doesn't want to talk about it, the fact that Kamala Harris claims it is not happening, the fact that the corrupt corporate media ignores it, it doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are suffering. Mr. President, you and I are on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have had four hearings in the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee on amnesty. In case the American people missed it, we get that the Democrats want amnesty for every illegal alien. That is not lost on anybody. We haven't had a single hearing on the humanitarian crisis at the border. We haven't had a single hearing on the Biden cages. Is it really the case that no Democrat in this Chamber cares about the children being assaulted, cares about the children catching COVID, cares about the illegal immigrants being released by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with COVID into our communities? I get, politically, that this is an inconvenient topic to discuss. It is not the political narrative Democrats want to address. But every Democrat in this body needs to ask: Did you believe one word of the rhetoric you said during the Trump administration? Or was it all politics? And, by the way, I saw the kids in cages, and I went to them directly when Obama was President. I saw them when Trump was President. I saw them when Biden was President. The difference last year is that we had the lowest numbers in 45 years. We were fixing the problem last year by enforcing the law. Joe Biden has created this crisis through political divisions. I make one final point: right now, 10 to 15,000 Haitian illegal immigrants under a bridge in Del Rio, TX. It is easy for Democrats to say: Well, that is not my problem. It is easy for Democrats to say: I have never been to Del Rio. What do I care about those folks in South Texas. I ask you: How would this issue be different if those illegal immigrants--if their point of entry was Martha's Vineyard? How would this issue be different if their point of entry was Silicon Valley, perhaps right outside the headquarters of Google--15,000 illegal immigrants under bridges? The corrupt corporate media doesn't care. The Democrats, I hope, will demonstrate that they do. And I will tell you this: The American people care. What is happening at our southern border is wrong, and it needs to end. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life of David Lee Espinoza, who died in defense of our Nation on August 26. David was a marine who was helping with the evacuation of the Kabul airport when he was murdered by a suicide bomber, along with 12 other service men and women who so senselessly had their lives taken from them that day. His mother got the call that every parent of every servicemember fears when she was told at 2:30 in the morning that her son had lost his life in Afghanistan. David was just 20 years old. David was a lifelong Texan. He was born in Laredo and raised nearby in Rio Bravo, where he was the eldest of four children. David always wanted to be a marine. And as a child, he loved to consider different military strategies as he played with toy soldiers. David joined the Marines the summer after he graduated from LBJ High School in Laredo in 2019, and he spent time serving in Jordan before being sent to Kabul the week before he died. It has been said that other service branches wanted David to join their ranks, but David always knew he was meant to be a marine. David was a beloved son, a brother, a friend, and a fellow marine. He was a patriot who had a passion for service, and our Nation can never repay the debt that we owe to David and to his family for giving what President Lincoln hailed as ``the last full measure of devotion.'' Yesterday, at David's funeral mass, Father Francisco Stodola said: As tragic as this loss is, and as deep as the wounds of sorrow have pierced the hearts of his loved ones, and particularly his mother--because a mother would rather lose an arm or a leg than to have to lose a child--we can console ourselves with the fact that David died doing what he wanted to do with the people he wanted to do it with. We will remember David and the incredible sacrifice he gave for our country. He will also be remembered by his community. The Laredo City Council has already voted to name the road in front of LBJ High School, David's alma mater, as the ``Lance Corporal David Lee Espinoza Memorial Boulevard.'' To David's parents, Elizabeth Holguin and Victor Manuel Dominguez, and to his siblings, Angel Martin Espinoza, Victor Manuel Dominguez, Jr., and Delilah Alyssa Dominguez, I want to say that your son and your brother was a brave patriot who will never be forgotten. Heidi and I are lifting you up in prayer as you mourn the loss of your beloved David. The 91st Psalm is sometimes called the soldier's or the warrior's psalm because it asks the Lord for protection against many foes, and it assures us that the Lord will be with us in times of trouble: Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. David's sacrifice was not in vain. He died as he lived, giving of himself in the service of others. David now rests from his labors, having been a good and faithful servant. And to the families of all of those whose lives were lost in Afghanistan this year and in the 20 years that preceded it, know that your sacrifice, know that your loss was not in vain. America is better. America is safer. American lives are more secure because your sons and daughters answered the call. America is better and safer and more secure because David Espinoza answered the call. Texas and America are better for having known him, and we are in his debt. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to make a few remarks on Senator Menendez's request for unanimous consent on the nomination of Donald Lu to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and also on the nomination of Brett Holmgren to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. The reality is that had these nominees been confirmed in August, they would have done nothing to stop the administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. President Biden bears responsibility for the catastrophe that has unfolded in Afghanistan. President Biden repeatedly ignored reasonable advice and the intelligence on what was happening on the ground in the runup to the disastrous withdrawal. He abandoned the Bagram Airfield well before August, setting the stage for the chaos at the Kabul airport. He wasn't even listening to his staff on what needed to be done on Afghanistan. Instead, he imposed an arbitrary deadline for political purposes, with disastrous results. I am not going to object to consent on this individual, Mr. Lu, and on Mr. Holmgren, in a moment, that Senator Menendez will ask for, but let's be clear. The administration has tried to play a blame game to deflect blame for their absolute failure to conduct a reasonable and rational drawdown, to deflect blame for President Biden's decision to abandon Bagram to the Taliban, to deflect blame for President Biden's indefensible decision to give the Taliban a list of names of Americans and Afghans who are now very much in harm's way and in jeopardy because of the foolishness and the manifest incompetence of this administration. None of the nominees I have holds on would have made one difference in what happened in Afghanistan. And it is difficult to believe that even my Democratic colleagues believe, political talking points notwithstanding, how, for instance, the Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs could have stopped President Biden from gift-wrapping Bagram Airfield and giving it to the Taliban. It is also important to provide a little bit of background on why these holds are in place in the first place. President Biden is not following the law. He is refusing to follow the law which mandates the imposition of sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Those sanctions had succeeded, had halted Nord Stream 2 in its place, and President Biden transformed an incredible foreign policy victory into an incredible foreign policy defeat. When President Biden came into office, he willfully and brazenly disregarded the law, and he allowed Nord Stream 2 to continue on its road to completion, which was, in effect, a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin at the expense of Europe's security and at the expense of American national security. However, there is still time to stop Nord Stream 2 if we act quickly. A pipeline that isn't 100 percent complete is effectively zero percent complete. And I am not going to stop working to halt Nord Stream 2 to stop Russia and to prevent Vladimir Putin from economically blackmailing our European allies and threatening American jobs. These consents--and, more broadly, what the administration is engaged in--is a blame game trying to distract blame from their own actions. But it is worth noting that I have offered to lift my holds from the beginning. And, indeed, over a month ago, I extended the offer to Treasury Secretary Yellen, to the National Security Advisor in the White House, and to Senator Menendez that I would lift these holds-- lift the holds on Treasury nominees and lift the holds on State Department career nominees if the administration either imposed sanctions under CAATSA, the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or if they waived those sanctions in such a way that it would trigger Congress having an override vote. On August 5, I extended that offer directly to Secretary Yellen. Unfortunately, the administration hasn't acted on it. They have decided that their policy of gift-wrapping a multibillion-dollar pipeline for Vladimir Putin and Russia was so important that they wanted to deny Congress even a vote on it under CAATSA. CAATSA was passed for precisely these circumstances--for an administration that refused to follow U.S. law and refused to comply with tough sanctions on Russia. That is what the advocates of CAATSA argued. This is a mechanism to force an administration to obey U.S. law and stand up to Russia. Now, at the time, the Democrats believed they were speaking about the Trump administration, but the principles behind CAATSA apply equally to Joe Biden's defying the law and giving this gift to Vladimir Putin at the expense of U.S. national security interests. This administration has had a path for months to clear these nominees. It has declined to exercise that path. That path remains before it, nonetheless, because this nominee and the next one are directly relevant to cleaning up the mess that the Biden administration has made in Afghanistan. I do not object.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I lifted my hold on this nominee a number of weeks ago, and for that reason, I do not object.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, reserving the right to be object, as I described minutes ago, the Biden administration is in outright defiance of Federal law. An overwhelming bipartisan majority of the Senate and the House have passed tough sanctions on Russia--sanctions that work; sanctions that shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for a year. But when President Biden came into office, he chose to override Federal law and instead to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin in Russia. That decision is a generational geopolitical mistake. It harms U.S. national security interests, it benefits Russia, and it hurts Europe. Moreover, my hold on these nominations, I have expressed to the administration in writing and orally over a month ago. They have a path to lifting the hold on the Treasury Department nominees and the career State Department nominees simply by either enforcing sanctions under CAATSA on Russia or overriding those sanctions and triggering a vote in this body where Members of this body can register our views on whether Joe Biden is correct in giving this multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin that undermines our national security. Accordingly, I object.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, reserving the right to object for the same reasons I just articulated--that this position, as with the previous one, is directly related to trying to clean up the mess, the disaster that the Biden administration has created in Afghanistan. I intend not to object to this nomination. The remaining holds remain in place, and the administration can lift the Treasury hold and the career state holds anytime they want by following the law under CAATSA and either imposing sanctions or, if they don't want to impose sanctions on Russia, triggering a vote in Congress so that this body can decide whether or not sanctions could be imposed on Russia. The administration has had that option in front of it for many weeks. It still has that option. I do not object.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Senator from New Jersey and, indeed, all of the Senators in this Chamber know precisely why these nominees have not moved forward, and the reason is because the Biden administration is currently engaged in open defiance of the U.S. Congress and is doing so in a way that is working serious and material harm to the United States national security. Over a year ago, December of 2019, this Senate and, indeed, the full Congress passed legislation imposing strong sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline is a pipeline between Russia and Germany designed to carry natural gas. It is a deep sea pipeline. Vladimir Putin desperately wants this pipeline completed. If the pipeline is completed, it will give billions of dollars to Putin to use for malign efforts in Europe and throughout the world. This Congress is overwhelmingly convinced that completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is terrible policy. It is bad for the United States; it is bad for Europe; and it is good for Russia and Putin. Accordingly, the Congress passed overwhelmingly bipartisan sanctions legislation that I authored, along with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, and that legislation proved tremendously successful. How successful was it? When the President signed it into law, if my memory serves correctly, at 7 p.m. on a Thursday, construction on the pipeline halted at 6:45 p.m. on that Thursday. Fifteen minutes before the sanctions went into law, they ceased building the pipeline. And for a year the pipeline lay dormant. It lay as a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean. We had succeeded together. This body had won a bipartisan national security victory for the United States. Then, in November of last year, Joe Biden was elected. When Joe Biden was elected, President Biden and his foreign policy team immediately began signaling weakness on Nord Stream 2 to Putin, and that signal was heard. Putin commenced preparatory efforts to begin building the pipeline again within days of the Presidential election in November. And Russia began building the pipeline again in January, just days after Joe Biden was sworn in. Existing laws that this body has passed, not once but twice, mandate sanctions to stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Unfortunately, the Biden administration decided to waive those sanctions. Waiving those sanctions, I believe, will prove to be a generational geopolitical mistake. If we continue on the current pace set out by President Biden, Putin will complete the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. If that happens, for decades, Putin and the next dictator in Russia and the next dictator in Russia will get billions of dollars every year from this pipeline. They will use it for military aggression. They will use it for spying on America. They will use it for attacking their enemies. Not only that, Europe will be captive to Russian natural gas. It will be subject to energy blackmail. We don't have to hypothesize this because Putin has demonstrated his willingness to use energy blackmail on Europe going forward. This undermines the interests of Europe. It undermines the interests of America. And by the way, it also hurts jobs in the United States of America. I have made clear to every State Department official, to every State Department nominee, that I would place holds on these nominees unless and until the Biden administration follows the law and stops this pipeline, imposes the sanctions. As the Senator from New Jersey knows well--he and I worked together closely on these sanctions legislation that the Biden administration is refusing to follow--I have been negotiating with the Biden administration in good faith for a month, months, laying out a path to move these nominees forward. But unfortunately, to date, President Biden has insisted on giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Joe Biden benefiting Russia, hurting America, and hurting our national security interests. That being said, there is a path where I would readily lift these holds, and it is a path I am in a moment going to propound a unanimous consent resolution--a unanimous consent request to take up and pass legislation that I have introduced that would impose the sanctions that are already required by law that the Biden administration refuses to follow. This legislation is legislation that both of the Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee have voted for substantially similar legislation in the past. If this legislation passes the Senate, if it passes the House and is signed by the President, the day it is signed by the President, I will lift these holds. But given that the President and the White House have indicated they intend to defy the law, I am not going to lift the holds unless and until they relent in their effort to give this gift to Vladimir Putin Unanimous Consent Request Mr. President, accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a bill at the desk that would require the imposition of sanctions with respect to Nord Stream 2. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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 the Biden administration should not be giving a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Putin, strengthening Russia, and weakening America and U.S. national security interests, 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.