Randy Fine

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the women's rowing team at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on their first-ever national championship as a rowing team and to recognize the university for its first-ever national championship since it joined the NCAA II era. They won this race, rowing more than a mile, 2000 meters, in Mercer Lake, New Jersey. If we think about it, that is a long way to row. I understand this. I have two sons who are rowers. It is a very, very challenging sport. I congratulate them for doing it. Not only did they win the national championship but Head Coach Grant Maddock earned the Sunshine State Conference Coach of the Year honors. Soleil Edwards, my son's former teammate, was named winner of the NCAA ELITE 90 award. This means she had the highest GPA of anyone rowing at that national championship. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate them, and I wish them the best of luck in the season ahead.

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today not just as a Member of Congress but as the father of two Jewish boys. I speak for all the Jews across the country, millions of them, who today go to the grocery store, their jobs, and school and live their lives afraid of what might happen to them. Eighty years ago in Germany, Jews were burned in ovens for being Jews, and on Sunday, as I sat at home with my children watching TV, we saw that here in the United States, in 2025, Jews are being burned again. You see, Mr. Speaker, it feels like open hunting season on Jewish Americans. I wear a kippah not because I am a proud and observant Jew. I am not all that observant. I wear it out of respect for all the Jews around America who do not feel safe wearing theirs today. That is because, by wearing it, they feel they literally have a target on their heads. We have heard for 18 months that the intifada should be globalized. We have heard ``resistance by any means necessary.'' On Sunday, and again 2 weeks ago, we saw what that looked like. In this country, we have a hard decision to make. We have to make a decision about whether we are going to continue to be afraid or whether we are going to call evil by its name. I have news for you, Mr. Speaker. When someone chants ``Free Palestine,'' what they are calling for is the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world. When someone says, ``From the river to the sea,'' what they are calling for is the genocide of every Jew who lives in Israel and abroad. We have to make a decision as a country: Are we going to call evil by its name, or are we going to continue to live in fear? There are things that we can do, things that we must do, and things that I will be working here to make happen. We must join Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain and declare the Muslim Brotherhood and all of its affiliates the terrorist organization that it is. We must tackle the anti-Semitism that we have seen at our universities, and I have a bill that will deal with that. That is because when people hear lies that come from the universities that they believe are truthful and honest, and when they hear lies about what is going on in the world, it inflames them and leads to the actions that we have seen in the past couple of weeks. The murderer--I don't know that he murdered anyone, so I apologize. The attempted murderer in Colorado was someone who is here illegally. That is the worst kind of crime because it is done by someone who shouldn't even be here. We need to do everything possible to back President Trump in getting these people out of this country. There is no right to come to the United States if a person is not a citizen. It is not a right. It is a privilege. If a person does not share our values and if they do not believe in this country, then they should not be here. I call on every one of these illegal immigrants to either get out or for us to get them out. Lastly, as it relates to visas, I am a huge believer in immigration. America is a country of immigrants. Immigrants are what have made us great, but it is the immigrants who wish to come here and build us up, not those who wish to come here and tear us down. For those who come to this country and go to our universities and work in other places, and their job is to undermine and defeat what has existed for 249 years, it is time for us to revoke those visas and to send them home. The most important thing, Mr. Speaker, is that we must not be afraid to tell the truth.

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, I am a new person in this Chamber, and one of the things I have observed over the last 6 weeks is the fundamental question of: Who is it that we should be most worried about? See, Rome is burning, and it doesn't seem as though people realize that. It is not thoughtful, it is not generous, it is not compassionate to borrow money from our children and our grandchildren to give it to people who should not be in our country anyway. It is not compassionate to borrow money from them to give it to people for healthcare if they could work and they could provide it for themselves. What is compassionate is to tell someone who is a waitress, working hard to support her family, that she doesn't have to pay taxes on her tips. It is compassionate to someone like my father who is blind to know that he might not have to pay taxes on his Social Security. There is compassion in this bill. There is compassion for the American people, and I hope that everyone will support it.

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for the opportunity to speak today, and I think 4 minutes will turn out to be an appropriate amount of time. My colleague on the other side talked about the nature of things being deadly. I would like to talk about that. On April 17, less than 1 month ago, at 11:56 in the morning, a shooter carrying a gun walked onto the campus of Florida State University and began to shoot students and adults. It was a gun crime that we would all agree was horrific. Mr. Speaker, I am new in this place. I only got elected here a month ago. What I will tell you of my observation of my first 4 weeks of being here is I hear a lot of canned speeches that don't actually address the bills and issues that the American people have sent us here to work on. I think it is why we may be held, to some degree, in such low regard. During this shooting at 11:56 on April 17, seven people were shot. Fortunately, five were not killed. We only know one of them. She was a graduate student. The other names have not been released. In that shooting, two were killed. Robert Morales was 57 years old and a dining coordinator at Florida State. Tiru Chabba was a vice president at the food service company at Florida State. Why do I tell this story? Law enforcement at Florida State did everything right. They rushed to the scene. They subdued the shooter. Mr. Speaker, do you know how long it took them to do that? It took them 4 minutes, the amount of time that I will speak here today. In those 4 minutes, with law enforcement doing everything, seven people were shot, and two were killed. H.R. 2243 would say that if any one of them were a retired or an off- duty law enforcement officer, they could have protected themselves. When these horrific things happen, the fact of the matter is that it will take law enforcement time to get there. Mr. Speaker, the only way for you to defend yourself is for you to do it. I am not saying that, had that bill passed, these seven people wouldn't have been shot. I don't know if there was retired law enforcement there. I don't know that any of these people were that. I know that when shooters consider the places that they are going to go, one of the things they think about is what might be the response. When we tell people who have spent their entire careers and who are trained--not just anyone but someone who for their entire career gave themselves selflessly to protect us all, when we tell that person because they are off-duty, because they are retired, all of that service is no longer useful, we needlessly put people at risk. I don't want another shooting like we had at Florida State. God forbid, if there ever is another one, I want people there to respond. I am grateful to the law enforcement officers who took longer to get there than my speech will take, but I worry about what will happen next time. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Bacon for bringing this bill forward. I thank Representative Roy for giving me the opportunity to speak. We were told we should stand up for our citizens in this process. When we stand up to keep them safe, that is exactly what we are doing.

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, I was not intending to speak. I had the privilege of just standing in the Speaker's rostrum a few minutes ago and witnessing this debate on an issue that has been important to me ever since I got into public service. I think it is no small coincidence as I was able to wear my kippah up there. I am not sure whether that has happened before as a debate like this happened. I thank Representative Wasserman Schultz for bringing this forward and saying that we should stand together on anti-Semitism. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that I am new, but a resolution like this that says that people should care about these issues is not the time for people to go and make partisan potshots about anti-Semitism. It is not productive. It is divisive. It is not helpful, particularly in a world where folks on our side could go through a long list and a litany of problems on the other side of the aisle, including the people who actually serve in this room. This is a problem that, while I appreciate that Democrats want to work on and while I appreciate that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to help on it, I can say from personal experience that the folks who are on my side, from President Trump on down, are committed. Mr. Speaker, are there bad people? Something I often say in Florida-- as my colleagues work with me, they will find this--anti-Semitism doesn't have a monopoly on either party. Both have it. My side does, too. Yet, where we fight together to take it on and not take shots, we actually begin to solve the problem. Commentary like that about President Trump is just not helpful because I can say that I have seen it in my State where we don't have many of the problems that we find in other parts of the country because we have tackled these issues, largely in a bipartisan way, including with people who serve here in Congress on the Democratic side. Mr. Speaker, I say, moving forward, while I am grateful for the desire and the belief to tackle anti-Semitism, there is a time and a place for those kinds of arguments. This was not one. I thank my colleagues for the resolution and letting us focus on the importance of celebrating achievements that I was not aware of. I will now share with my family where the slow cooker came from. I didn't know. It makes sense given the kind of food that we eat at home. Yet, I ask us as we tackle this issue to be focused on solving the problem and not making it worse by trying to come up with things that will divide us all.

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) for asking me here to talk about this important subject. Mr. Speaker, I came to speak because the cause of Iran is not just a cause that we should care about for the Iranian people, though we should. As Americans, we are a people whose country was founded because a group of people were unhappy by the tyranny we faced. There is no question they face it over there, as well. The cause of Iran is one that we should care about because it is in the best interest of the United States to care about it. We live in a world that, unfortunately, is on fire, whether it is in China, whether we see it in Russia, or certainly in Iran. Iran has chosen to not only take their horrific, genocidal, lunatic policies to kill their own people, to hurt women, and to hurt people who won't abide by their radical Islamic faiths, but they have done it to other people around the world. They are the leading sponsor of terrorism around the world. We saw this most dramatically just a little over 18 months ago when, on October 7, 2023, 1,200 people, most of which were Jews, but not all, people from dozens of countries, including Americans, were attacked and killed. We focus on Hamas, but Hamas only exists because Iran funds and supports it. Just as we saw President Trump free the last American citizen who was being held hostage because of Iran, those problems and challenges continue to happen today. I did a little research. Obviously, I have an affinity for Jewish problems around the world because I am Jewish. I have always been part of a small minority throughout my life. I am one here in Congress, as well, and it is a great honor to be here. In 1979, 100,000 Jews lived in Iran. The same people who Iran likes to fund to talk about genocide, suffering, and rooting out people and all these problems around the world, Mr. Speaker, you can say: How many of those folks still live in Iran today? Today, estimates are that 10,000 Jews live in Iran. I am not saying that 90,000 of them have been killed. Certainly, some of them have. Mr. Speaker, 90,000 have left. That is 90 percent of this population, of just one population. There are many populations of people who would be at risk in a place like Iran, but 90 percent have left and fled. Many, by the way, have come to the United States. They do that because they are not free to live their lives the way they want to live them. Today, when we talk about this, we stand with Iran not only because we believe in freedom for all people around the world but freedom of self-determination and to decide what kind of government we want. Frankly, we want to allow women to vote, to have equal rights with men, to live in a society where religion is important but is not a tool for oppression. We care about these issues because they create peace and security in the Middle East. Ultimately, that leads to peace and security here in the United States. It is my honor to speak here today to support the gentleman and his resolution. We must do everything we can to get these lunatics out of power and allow the great Persian people, where many say civilization began thousands and thousands of years ago, to reseize that initiative that they had at the founding of civilization and to rebuild the kind of society they once had and certainly could have again.

Mr. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, 35 years ago, a 16-year-old boy walked through those doors, and he marveled in this room at this temple of democracy as he watched people who gave of their lives, who gave up time with their families, and who gave up their careers in order to serve their country. When I spent 1 year working here as a House page, I learned from so many people--five of whom, by the way, are still serving today--what it meant to serve America and what it meant to put the needs of the country before yourself. I want to recognize my family because when I did this opportunity, being a good Jewish boy, my family would not send me alone. My mother, my father, and my sister moved to Washington. My mom, who I will talk about in a little bit, used to sit where my wife, Wendy, and my father are. My sons are over there. I want to recognize all of them and thank them so much for being here. My mom used to sit up there, and she used to watch me every day. She used to tell me every day: Randy, God has a plan. Now, I believe that when Donald Trump's life was saved in Butler, Pennsylvania, it was so that he could save the world. It is an honor of a lifetime that God's plan for me is to come and help all of you implement that plan. However, today is also a sad day for me because the person I most wished to be here to watch this can't be here. I will tell you a story about my mom. She was my biggest champion. She was the one who taught me how to fight. If you don't know me, and if you haven't followed me, ``fighter'' will be the word that you will know soon enough. One day when I was 16 years old, my mother came with me, and we went to the stationery store which is still in the same place that it is today. We went into that store, and my mom saw something that she thought that I should buy. She said: Randy you never know when you might actually need this. Now, I bought that thing that day. I thought it was kind of crazy, and it has been sitting in my closet for 35 years. It is in that bag over there. It is a metal seal that says: ``Member of Congress.'' When I leave here and I go back to my office, it will be the first thing that I hang. That is because God has a plan for us all. He has a plan for all of you. He has a plan for me. He has a plan for every member of my family, and He has a plan for every person who is watching here today. I believe that His plan in the days ahead is that we do everything in our power to deliver on the promise that the voters asked us to do in November, and that is to Make America Great Again.