Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Are you aware of the fact that people routinely vote not to proceed until they get some kind of understanding of what is coming next? And here is what came next: Not one effort to sit down and talk to the 41 of us: What would you like to change your vote? The fix is in. We jump right into Ukraine. We are going to do it this weekend. We did the minimum on the border when it comes to changing a bill that has many good qualities. So you are not convincing me that I am the problem. I have seen this. You have not. I have seen a debate on this floor with Senator Bennet where we got the crap kicked out of us for weeks. We gave everybody who didn't like what we did a chance to come down here and say their side of the story and kick us in the ass. That is the way the process works. We did not do that here. So you are losing votes on Ukraine. You are losing me in terms of trying to fix this problem. I can't tell our House colleagues that you should accept this product, because we have not done what I think needs to be done to try to secure our border. That is why I am voting no. With that, I yield the floor. Oh, wait a minute. Can I take that back? I have got to say something to my friend, if I may, just for a minute. This is the Polish Prime Minister. I like Poland. It has been a great ally and a good NATO ally. Dear Republican Senators of America, Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today. Shame on you. To the Prime Minister of Poland, I could care less what you think. To the Prime Minister of Poland, if Ronald Reagan were alive today, we wouldn't have this broken border. To the Prime Minister of Poland, I want to help Ukraine. I want to help make a stronger NATO, but my country is on fire. We have had 7 million people come across a broken border. How would you feel if 7 million people came in illegally into Poland? Would you have this attitude that we have got to put Ukraine ahead of Poland? I am not going to put Ukraine, Israel, or anybody else ahead of America. I am going to try to create an outcome where the bill gets through the House. It has got to get through the House. And, to our House colleagues, we have not done everything that we could. We have let you down. Now I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I want to speak a few minutes on the business before the Senate here. Apparently, S. Res. 504 will be taken up in about an hour or so. And this resolution basically requires the Secretary of State to submit a report to the Foreign Relations Committees of the House and Senate regarding human rights practices and violations against the State of Israel regarding their operations in Gaza. I can only imagine how this is playing in the Middle East. I can only imagine the joy that terrorist groups throughout the world have that we are even talking about such a proposal. The question, I think, for this body--certainly, for me--is, what was October 7? Was it just a continuation of a tit for tat between Israel and Hamas, or was it an effort by Hamas--a terrorist organization under United States law--an effort to kill innocent civilians in Israel at a rate we haven't seen since the Holocaust? I just got back. I would urge everybody in the body to go over there and take some time to visit the kibbutz--the kibbutzes in question, where Hamas came en masse, took over kibbutzes, cut the heads of children off, slaughtered people in front of their parents and their children, committed atrocities on par with the Nazis, if not beyond, and recorded them for posterity. So the response is, the U.S. Senate is going to ask for a report about how Israel is conducting military operations. Wow. Again, to the terrorists who are emboldened, maybe, by this discussion--this is going to go down in flames. The Senate is going to reject this big time. And here's why: I think most people--at least on my side--see October 7 as Pearl Harbor on steroids. What would happen after Pearl Harbor if some Senator or Congressman did something like this to America? Did anybody in America believe that the response after Pearl Harbor was anything but total war? The Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany were in league with Mussolini in Italy to destroy the world as we know it. A surprise attack against our forces on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, awakened this country, and we embarked on ``a noble crusade,'' I think as General Eisenhower-- eventually President Eisenhower--described, in destroying the Nazi regime and Imperial Japan. Nobody during those times would have suggested anything like this, because the only way you could destroy those regimes was to destroy the infrastructure around the regimes. The problem I have with this--not only does it empower the terrorists, it is the most tone-deaf thing maybe in the history of the Senate--is that it ignores the fact that Hamas has tunnels under hospitals, under schools. They use civilians as human shields. They routinely violate the law of war--and there is nothing in here about that. So all I can say is that the Senate will reject this idea. And to the left, what are you thinking? To the people who go in and try to interrupt cancer treatments in New York at a cancer hospital, what are you thinking? A ceasefire with Hamas only allows Hamas to regroup. Do you not see Hamas for who it is? It is a terrorist organization. They are religious Nazis. They are not taking up the cause of the Palestinian people. They are abusing the Palestinian people probably greater than anybody. A Hamas spokesperson said a few weeks ago that there will be another October 7, another October 7, and another October 7. Probably the biggest mistake Israel made was withdrawing from Gaza, because when they did, the Palestinians took over. To the Palestinians who want to live in peace with Israel, Hamas throws them off the roofs of buildings in Gaza. So we are dealing with the most barbaric organizations in the history of the world who are bent on destroying the Jewish people, are calling for attacks on the United States, and we have a resolution in front of us asking the Secretary of State to investigate the Government of Israel for war crimes. You talk about upside down and backwards. Just having been back from Israel, I can assure you the IDF is spending more time trying to protect innocent Palestinians than Hamas. What is odd about this whole thing is that Hamas is doing everything they can to expose civilians to military action, and Israel is trying-- I think in a reasonable way--to lessen the exposure. What do you call a group of people that build tunnels under hospitals and have command infrastructure under a hospital? You call them bloodthirsty terrorists who are trying to prey on the rules that exist in the law of war. By being under the hospital and the schoolhouse and firing rockets from apartment buildings, they have militarized these locations. So here's what I would tell our friends in Israel: This effort to have you investigated will fail in the U.S. Senate. Keep doing what you need to do to make sure there is no more October 7s. Make sure that Hamas, as we know it, is destroyed. Do the best you can to protect civilians who are in harm's way. A little bit about Gaza: From the time you are born, you are taught to kill the Jews. The most radicalized nation on the planet, I would say, is Gaza, and a close second would be the West Bank. When Germany and Japan were destroyed by military force, it took a generation to change the culture. So the Prime Minister of Israel says his goal is to demilitarize and deradicalize. Well, the way you demilitarize is you destroy Hamas as a military power. They have, I think, about 24 brigades. If we end this conflict with their military capability still standing, we will have made a huge mistake. The idea of anything but unconditional surrender in World War II was laughable. We used two nuclear bombs, and that is what was required to get Japan to surrender. So when you look back in history, the invasion of Japan that was being planned could have resulted in up to 1 million casualties of American forces. We brought that war to conclusion by using two atomic bombs that eventually allowed unconditional surrender. Anything less than unconditional surrender in World War II would have been a mistake. Anything short of destroying Hamas militarily would be a mistake for the ages. If Hamas is still standing militarily after this attack of October 7, we will all pay a heavy price. The world is watching. To the world: If you see Israel as the bad guy here, you are missing a lot. There is no moral equivalency in play. Hamas goes out of its way to make sure civilians are killed in large numbers. That is part of their strategy, to require Israel to use military force in a way to heighten the likelihood of death by integrating their military infrastructure with civilian infrastructure. So we will have a vote here soon. This resolution will fail. But the idea behind this resolution is scary to me. You need to go to Israel and get briefed about what happened on October 7--what happened to the women, what happened to the children, and what is happening to the hostages. If you go and have that briefing and you believe that the only response--and if you believe anything less than total war to destroy Hamas is required, I would be surprised. What would we do if this happened to us? What would we do to any terrorist group or government that brought about such atrocities against the American people? We would hunt them down. We would make sure they could never do this to us again. That is exactly what Israel has to do. It will be a long time before the populations of Gaza and the West Bank are going to be capable, I believe, of living in true peace with Israel, because if you have been taught from the time you were born and all through your life to hate somebody and to learn math by the following: ``If you had 10 Jews and you killed 6, how many would you have left?'' it is going to be a tall order to change that population. But here is the good news: We have seen from Germany and Japan that it can change, but it is going to take a lot of effort. I am willing to help the people in the West Bank and Gaza once Hamas has been destroyed. I am hopeful we can do a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel in normalizing and effectively putting an end to the Arab- Israeli conflict. I believe Iran is the root of all evil here and that this attack was partly due to stopping the normalization efforts between Saudi Arabia and Israel. I have been supporting the efforts of the Biden administration, and I want to publicly thank them for continuing to push. I will do all I can as a Republican to help President Biden bring about the normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That would isolate Iran, and it would effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the benefits of that deal would be to give the Palestinian people a better future. This resolution is not only off base; it is dangerous. It is doing harm. It sends absolutely the wrong signal at the wrong time. So, to the people who believe this is a good idea for the United States to launch an investigation of Israel as a potential war criminal after October 7, you have learned very little from history. The proper response by Israel is to destroy Hamas. The problem Israel has in that task is that Hamas is trying to make sure Israel kills as many innocent people as possible. Therein lies their dilemma. So this is a horribly bad idea. To the American people, put yourselves in the shoes of Israel: an attack, barbaric in nature, that is designed to destroy you. Hamas's goal is not to liberate the Palestinian people; it is to kill the Jews. Hamas's goal is not to bring about a better life for the Palestinian people but to destroy the lives of the Jewish people. They are religious Nazis. If you don't believe me, listen to them. They will not hide their agenda. They celebrate it. The SS tried to hide their war crimes. They tried to rebury bodies and destroy the concentration camps, but they were unable to hide their crimes. Hamas filmed their crimes. They want you to see what they were willing to do to babies and to women. The question for the world is, What is the right response? The right response, ladies and gentlemen, is, when you see evil, confront it. When you deal with people who are willing to destroy children or to rape daughters in front of the mother and father, you need to destroy them. So, not only will this resolution fail, I believe the U.S. Senate will ensure that Israel has the latitude it needs to destroy not only an enemy of the Israeli people--Hamas--but the enemy of mankind itself. I look forward to voting this resolution down, and I will be coming up with one of my own to try to correct the record. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I will just pick up where my colleague left off. There are four parts to the supplemental appropriations sent over by President Biden. One deals with Ukraine. And count me in for Ukraine. Robust aid to Ukraine really helps us here at home. Helping Israel--no- brainer--count me in. Beefing up Taiwan makes perfect sense. There was money in the supplemental for border security, but it really didn't address the problem we have. And here is what I want the body to understand. Here is what happened yesterday. The FBI Director testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the level of threats we face as a nation. And he said: [W]hile there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they might be right now, I've never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated, all at exactly the same time. This was yesterday. What did he say? Post October 7-- The horrible attack on our friends in Israel-- [Y]ou've seen a veritable rogues' gallery of terrorist organizations calling for attacks against us. He said that yesterday. [T]he threat level has gone to a whole other level since October 7. This was what the FBI Director said yesterday. Are any of us listening? I see blinking lights everywhere I turn. I asked him about blinking lights regarding 9/11. Apparently, they were blinking, and we missed them. Do you see any blinking lights? And he said: I see blinking lights everywhere I turn. He said that yesterday. Now, why are Republicans, apparently, more than anybody else, insisting that the supplemental package not only help Ukraine, not only help Israel and Taiwan but actually help us? We have got to change the policy because what we have got is not working. Yesterday--yesterday--12,000 encounters at the border. The highest ever, yesterday. Two days before, 10,000 were marching in the wrong direction. As these numbers go to new levels and historic levels, the FBI Director yesterday told us he has never seen more threats against our homeland than he does today. And since October 7, every terrorist group in the world is calling for an attack on America. I asked him about the border. He is very concerned about the status of the border. So we are on track, if this continues, to have 3.6 million illegal encounters that we know of at the border. That is like beyond unsustainable. All-time highs every day. From 2023 to 2020, the encounters at the border are up 368 percent. Why? Because the policies of the Biden administration make people believe that if they get to our border, they stay in America and never leave. And if you don't change that, you are never going to fix the problem. Six million people have already come to our border in the first 3 years of the Biden administration. We are on track to do 3.6 million in fiscal year `24. The day that people think Trump is going to be the nominee and could win the White House, you are going to see a run on the border like you have never seen because people want to get the last good deal under the Biden administration. Because when Trump wins, if he does, all this is going to change. There are two problems that have to be fixed. You make an asylum claim in America at the border; you pass the initial credible fear standard, which needs to be elevated; you are released into the country to go to your hearing regarding your asylum claim 3 to 5 years later-- that makes people believe they are released, and they will never show up. Once you are here, you are never going to leave. We have to change that. While you are waiting for your hearing that may be 3 to 5 years away, you need to wait outside the country. That would stop a lot of the illegal immigrant flow because when people realize you can't wait in America, you are home free once you make your asylum claim, they will be less likely to pay $10,000 or more to wait in Mexico or some other country for 4 or 5 years. The second thing is that this administration is abusing the law. The Secretary of DHS has the ability on a case-by-case basis to allow urgent humanitarian parole for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. This is meant to be an individual case-by- case analysis. They are using this concept--the Biden administration-- to have blanket humanitarian parole for 240,000 people from four different countries. That is an abuse of the law. This law is being used to just flow people through, and that needs to change. So if you put a cap on how many people could come into the country through humanitarian parole, getting back to the original intent of the law, and you told people if you apply for asylum, you have to wait outside the country before your hearing is held, then you will have a dramatic reduction in illegal immigration. I know that works. That doesn't fix a broken immigration system, but it does give us control over an out-of-control border at a time of elevated threats. To my Democratic colleagues, I have been negotiating with you for 20 years on how to fix an immigration system that is broken. You need more legal immigration. You need border security. You have to have a pathway to citizenship for those who are deserving. I get all that. This is not all about an immigration reform negotiation; this is about securing the border at a time of heightened threat to our country. One hundred seventy-two people on the Terrorist Watchlist we know of have been caught. Only God knows how many we missed. This run on the border is locking the Border Patrol down just processing people, fentanyl poisoning of Americans is at an alltime high, 100,000 people have died because fentanyl is coming through a broken border. So to my Democratic colleagues, this is not about immigration; it is about national security. There are ways to fix this problem if you choose to do it. I want to help Ukraine. I want to help Taiwan. I want to help Israel. But we have got to help ourselves. There will never be a bill I will vote for to help other countries that are very deserving until we control our own border that is completely broken. You need to understand that, and the public is with us. Most Americans would like to have their border more controlled, not less, and what you are doing is not working. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I just want to pick up where Senator Cornyn left off. He has been a great person to try to work with to find a solution to our immigration problems. But what we are dealing with on the Senate floor is not an immigration issue. To my Democratic colleagues: I have worked with many of you on solutions to immigration, comprehensive immigration reform. We are now having to deal with a broken border from a national security lens--172 encounters that we know of, of people on the Terrorist Watchlist. In fiscal year 2021, it was 15. So it is going through the roof. So we have to get control of our border for our own national security sake. Terrorism is on the rise. The world is on fire. Now is not the time to have a broken border. The numbers are really astounding. In September, we had the highest encounters at the border in recorded history. In December of 2020, we had the lowest in decades. In fiscal year 2023, which ended September 30, 2.5 million people. Since President Biden has been in office, 6 million people. That is larger than the State of South Carolina. So one of two things is going on regarding the border. The Biden administration wants it to be this way for some reason or they are incompetent. If they are incompetent, they need to listen to people who have actually tried to secure the border successfully and work with us to get it done. If they want it to be this way, it is going to end if you want money for other countries. I have been involved in about every game there is on immigration reform, but I am here to tell my Democratic colleagues: I am not going back to South Carolina and say I provided money for Ukraine and Israel, which I desperately support, unless we fix in a real way the problems at our border. That is unsustainable for me. The Speaker of the House was just addressing the Republican Senate. I think he understands the need for Ukraine funding, but he says border security has to be real for the House Republicans to be able to do what they need to do. To my Democratic colleagues: You are fighting us in a way that makes no sense to me. I understand why we should send money to Ukraine. You had me at hello. I understand why we need to help our friends in Israel. I don't understand why you fight the changes that would bring back order out of chaos. Is that the position of the Democratic Party, that the policies that led to this overwhelming surge in illegal immigration are not subject to change? We are not going to vote for legislation that doesn't stop what is on this chart, period. Look at the line. Fiscal year 2020, 458,000 encounters; fiscal year 2023, 2.5 million. It has to stop. Look at the asylum system that is being completely gamed. It has become a joke. It needs to stop. Parole. We have had some major efforts to reform asylum. Senator Lankford is doing a good job. To my good friend Senator Bennet, I want money for Ukraine. I support Ukraine funding. I think a lot of Republicans do. But we have to have real reform on the border. And your statement that Ukrainian aid should be separate and apart from the border is not going to happen. Parole is meant to be a case-by-case analysis based on two things: There is an urgent humanitarian reason for the person to come in under parole or a significant public benefit--any alien applying for admission to the United States. That is the law that is being abused. Past administrations granted parole in a handful of cases. There had to be an urgent humanitarian reason or the individual in question had to provide a significant public benefit. The Biden administration is using the parole statute to allow people in by the hundreds of thousands without any individual analysis, in my view. So all I am asking to do is follow the law. Quit using the parole statute to allow hundreds of thousands of people in, in violation of the law. If we went back to what the law says, most of this would stop. Secretary Mayorkas, here is what he said to Senator Lankford: We need . . . the ability to remove individuals who [do] not qualify [for asylum] . . . with efficiency and speed. Why are so many people coming? Word is out that if you get into America, you ask for asylum, you never leave. We release you into the interior of the country, years pass before your asylum claim is heard, and you are here in America, and you never leave. We have to change the asylum laws so that you actually have to apply to the first safe third country you pass through, not just here in America. And we should not release you until your claim has at least been adjudicated at the initial stages. And 90 percent of the asylum claims are eventually denied; so, clearly, the screening system needs to change. So long story short, we are not going to pass a supplemental that doesn't have policy changes to dramatically stem the flow at the border. This is not an immigration negotiation. There is not going to be a DREAM Act provision attached to this. This is about locking the border down in a fashion to give the public confidence that as a nation, we have the ability to secure our own border. To all of my friends on the other side--and on this side--who have negotiated immigration reform in the past, President Biden's irresponsible handling of the U.S.-Mexican border has made it virtually impossible to do an immigration deal any time soon. No Republican in their right mind would vote for a comprehensive immigration bill until the Democratic Party can prove that they are capable of securing the border. Everything we worked for all these years has been lost. Your approach to the border during the last 3 years has made it impossible to do immigration reform until we first secure the border, not as part of an overall effort to deal with immigration, but you need to prove to us and the people of the United States you can and will secure our border. Until you do that, no deal. How this ends, I don't know. I just know this: I am OK with aid to Ukraine. I am more than OK with aid to Israel. I am insisting on border security that is meaningful. I am not asking for H.R. 2. I am not asking for everything I would do to secure the border if I were King of the country. But I have been around this issue enough to know what works and what doesn't. The policy changes we are insisting upon regarding asylum and parole need to be implemented to regain control of our border. And that is not too much to ask. I look forward to working with our colleagues on the other side--and you--to find a way to help Israel, who are in dire straits, find a way to keep Putin from going past Ukraine, bring some sanity back to the world. But you are going to have to work with us. And we are not looking for half measures. We are smart enough on our side to know what works. And I am not into doing a deal that doesn't work. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you very much, and thank you for your service and to everybody that served. Next week is Thanksgiving. We are all going to go home here in a little bit and enjoy our families. God willing, we make it home safe. I mean that for everybody--Coach, everybody. There are a lot of people who won't be with their families next week because they are in some place doing things that are very difficult, risking their lives. This is where I am here tonight. How do you right wrongs? You don't create another wrong. I want to right the wrong of having abortion paid for by public taxpayer dollars from the defense coffers that I think not only violates the Hyde amendments, it is just bad policy. Count me in, Coach. I am with you on that, Mike. I am with you on that. You say it is illegal. I tend to agree with you. Go to court. One way you right a wrong in America if you think the law is broken, you actually bring a lawsuit. I think we found a way--talking to Jay Sekulow--to bring a lawsuit challenging the Defense policy of President Biden using taxpayer dollars to pay for transportation costs from DOD funds to perform abortions. I think that is in violation of the Hyde amendment. The good news is I believe the Speaker of the House has standing to bring the lawsuit. Generally speaking, in America, when you get in a legal dispute, you go to court. The DOD general counsel has a memo that it doesn't violate the Hyde amendment. I think they are wrong, but we are not a court of law here. There is a court of law available to resolve this dispute, and I would encourage us to seek that remedy. Another remedy is to try to find a compromise between the House version and the Senate version of the NDAA. The House strips the policy; the Senate--because they are controlled by Democrats--we have the policy, and we will try to work out some way to reconcile that through the legislative process. That is one way to fix this problem. What we have chosen to do--and every Senator has a lot of power. That is what makes the Senate different than the House. I have served in both bodies. With power comes responsibility. The wrong we are creating here is to put our military at risk at a time of great need. If you do not believe these holds are having an effect on the military, I don't question your sincerity; I question your judgment. If you ask anybody out in the field right now--there is one flag officer for the whole continent of Africa. This is like a car wreck on I-95. It keeps backing up. Last time we were talking, there were 300. We are up to 450. This is affecting the ability of the Nation to defend itself. I will not tolerate being told something I know is wrong. The policy is wrong, but holding these officers who had nothing to do with this is wrong. They deserve better. They have done nothing to get us here in this spot. We have got a political difference between the Department of Defense and the Senate and the House, and the courtroom is available to resolve this. And I just ask my good friend from Alabama--I don't doubt your sincerity--but if this continues, this is one of the worst self- inflicted wounds I have seen in 20 years. We pulled out of Afghanistan; that was a self-inflicted wound. We had a chance to deter Russia, and we chose not to by having pre-invasion sanctions; that was a self-inflicted wound done by the Biden administration. We have a broken border; that is self-inflicted. We will challenge all of those self-inflicted wounds. And as Republicans, it will be easy. What is hard is to challenge people of your own party at times. When it comes to the military, I lay the party label down because I have seen what it takes to defend this Nation up close and personal. It means you miss birthdays. You miss graduations. You miss babies born, and you lose your life. That is what it means to serve. And all the people, the 450 people, if you have got an individual problem with one of these folks, I will support your right to object, and we will hear your side of the story. But I don't believe that all 450 people are woke. So here is what I would say about the 450 people. They have dedicated their adult lives to serving this country. They have given every ounce that they could give to get to where they are at to be promoted. Do you know how hard it is to become a sergeant major in the enlisted corps? It is 1 percent of the enlisted force. Do you know how hard it is to become a general officer, because you are competing with some of the best people on the planet? For every one that gets promoted, there are 10 that could be promoted or would do great in positions of responsibility. We are taking the military and throwing it in the ditch in terms of command structure. There are people filling jobs today that are waiting to go to their next assignment, and they can't get there because they can't get promoted. They are paying two house payments, not one. Their children don't know what school they are going to go to. They deserve better than this. This is my promise. I will work with Senator Tuberville and Senator Lee and anybody else and everybody else to find a solution that is acceptable to them to get us back on track and talk about the issues I just discussed. But I promise you this, this will be the last holiday this happens. If it takes me to vote to break loose these folks, I will. I am not going to talk about me being pro-life. Just look at what I have done. To my pro-life friends, you are not advancing this cause. You are hurting this cause if the average American believe that the reason these people are getting blocked from promotion is because of some policy choice they didn't make. It is not fair to have people in uniform, who have to follow their civilian leadership, when the fundamental precept of American democracy is civilian control of the military--they have no choice. Don't punish them because in our system the civilians make the decisions. Let's punish the civilians who make these choices. There are plenty of people we can hold and should hold. There are plenty of things we can do to fight to right this wrong. We can go to court. We can insist on change to the NDAA process. But this is not righting the wrong. This is creating another wrong. This is putting our Nation at risk. And I would just say this. I have been here for 20 years now. I have never seen the world on fire like this. The only reason that an American soldier hasn't been killed in Iraq and Syria because of drone attacks by a Shi'ite militia controlled by Iran is they had a dud. They were just lucky as hell. And what is going on in Israel, that could spread like wildfire. We could be in a shooting war with Iran tomorrow. So we need our best team on the field, and the best players we have are being blocked from serving. This needs to come to an end for the national security of this Nation.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. And we will be doing this 376 times.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you to my colleagues. Thank you for your leadership here. Senator Tuberville, I hope we can find a way to get this behind us, if possible. So my contribution to the debate is as follows: The bedrock of our democracy is that the military will be subordinate to civilian control. That has served our Nation well--that no matter who is in uniform, they answer to civilian authorities, and they are subordinate to the will of the civilian leadership elected and appointed. That has really helped our country be who we are today. One of the things that I can't understand is, if you require our military to be subordinate to the people above them in the civilian world, why would you punish them for something they have nothing to do with? All of these people--and if we need to call all 376, I will be glad to do it. I will get some rest this weekend and come back next week. I am going to start with two. All I am asking is to allow Major General Lenderman to get promoted. I will make that request in a minute. Major General Lenderman is a two-star general. She got promoted to three-star because her peers--the military promotion system--saw in her leadership qualities. And after I read her bio, I now know why she got promoted. But the job she is going into, she is going to be the Deputy Commander, Headquarters, Pacific Air Force, Hawaii. She would be responsible for Air Force activities over half the globe. The command supports 46,000 Airmen serving principally in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam. That has a lot to do with the Indo-Pacific theater. She has 3,000 flight hours as a KC-135, KC-10, KC-46 pilot. In case you don't know what that means, she flies the air refueling tankers that our fighters and our bombers come up to to stay in the fight. This is some of the hardest flying in the Air Force. You have to have your stuff together because refueling at night is not some easy thing. I have actually seen it done. I am an Air Force lawyer. They shouldn't let me near an airplane, but they did. I can tell you this, this lady has proven herself time and time again: 3,000 hours--I am sure most of it is combat--doing some of the hardest things any pilot can do in the Air Force. And she has zero to do with what happened. I don't know what her beliefs are about the life issue. I am pro-life, too, but I don't want to start asking our military members litmus test questions. She deserves to be promoted. You are not going to change policy that she didn't make by denying her the ability to be promoted. We need this lady as a three-star yesterday to deal with the threats coming from China and that part of the world. She is a graduate of Duke University. She has had every major job I can think of in Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, which I have been to several times. I am asking tonight that she be allowed to be promoted because she has had nothing to do with the policy we all object with. Holding her hostage doesn't help the pro-life cause. It hurts the military. The most pro-life people I know are the ones willing to die for us. She is willing to die for this country. She has proven herself time and time again. She needs to be promoted. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of the following nomination: Executive calendar No. 189, Laura L. Lenderman, to lieutenant general and Deputy Commander, Pacific Air Forces; that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. GRAHAM. I will have another one. Let me respond to my colleague respectfully. We have courts. If you think they have done something illegal, go to court. That is how you handle these things. The Pentagon has issued a legal opinion I disagree with, saying this doesn't violate the Hyde Amendment. I disagree with it. Here is what is going to happen. You just denied this lady a promotion. You did that. All of us are ready to promote her because she deserves to be promoted. She had nothing to do with this policy. Let me say it again. Everybody in this body could find an issue with any administration they don't agree with. And what we are going to do is open up Pandora's box. Today is abortion policy. If we take back the White House, we will go back to the Mexico City policy, limiting dollars to be given to overseas entities that are engaged in the abortion business. Some pro-choice people don't like that. What would happen if they put a hold on all of the officers because they don't agree with the Republican administration? There is a reason this has not been done this way for a couple hundred years. No matter whether you believe it or not, Senator Tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military. I don't say that lightly. I have been trying to work with you for 9 months. Folks, if this keeps going, people are going to leave. Let me tell you how the system works. You have 18 months, I think, from the time you are promoted to pen on. If you don't make that gate, your time and grade up-or-out rule kicks in. There are some people that are waiting to be promoted that if they don't get promoted soon, they will be out of the military. Now, how does that help anybody if they are qualified? There is not one Senator in here that cannot find a reason to object to an administration policy in the military. None of us. We could all find something. I just hope we don't do this routinely, because if this is the norm, who the hell wants to serve in the military when your promotion can be canned based on something you had nothing to do with? She had nothing to do with this. If you think it is illegal, go to court. We have courts in this country. I have one more: Rear Admiral Fred Kacher. Fred, sorry if I mispronounced your name. He has been promoted to three-star. OK? That is a pretty big deal. I made colonel and that is as far as I could go and that is probably a gift. What job does he have? He is going to be the Commander of the 7th Fleet, Japan. Somebody is doing his job right now, but they are not a three-star. We have a military promotion system to reward people who are good at what they do so they can have more responsibility. This officer had zero to do with the Pentagon's decision, which I don't like and you don't like, but he can't get promoted because of one of us. There is no end to this, folks. If this gets to be the norm, you are going to wreck the military promotion system. You are punishing people who, by law under the Constitution, require to be subservient to civilian control. They have to follow civilian control. And you are punishing them for something they didn't do. Punish the civilians who made the policy. That is the way to do it. I am going to move that Rear Admiral Fred Kacher be immediately promoted to three-star, 7th Fleet, Japan, Commander. It is the largest forward-deployed fleet operating around China, Russia, and North Korea. Given the threats coming from that area, I think we need this guy, like, yesterday. He is a 1990 U.S. Naval graduate. He commanded guided-missile destroyers. He has been--this is amazing; you need to read about this guy. We want this guy. Coach, we need this guy. We are in a fight. We need the best people on the field. He is off the field for something he had nothing to do with. And if this gets to be normal--I will end where I started. If this gets to be normal, God help the military because every one of us could find some reason to object to policy. Let's just don't hold hostage the men and women who have to follow civilian control. Let's don't ruin the lives of all these people who have been serving our Nation for decades. Their families can't enroll in school. Some of them are going to be knocked out of promotion because of time and grade problems. There are families struggling out there because they can't move to the next assignment. This doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help any cause. So I ask unanimous consent that this promotion be taken up under Executive Calendar No. 189; Rear Admiral Kacher, 7th Fleet Commander; that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. GRAHAM. Oh, sorry, sorry. This is why I didn't get promoted. Executive Calendar No. 85.

Mr. GRAHAM. Frederick W. Kacher. Thank you.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I think Senator Hoeven is absolutely right. If we don't secure our border, it would be a big mistake. I just returned from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt with a 10- person--5 and 5--Senate delegation. So the Senate is working. I am glad we have a Speaker of the House. But we had five Republicans and five Democrats, and here is the takeaway. This is happening in Israel now because Iran fears reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Building on the Abraham Accords that President Trump was able to achieve, President Biden has been working to try to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to have diplomatic ties and to recognize each other to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. That is a nightmare for Iran. For the region to come together, look forward; go to the light, not the darkness. Here is what we have to decide as a country. Let's not let Iran win here. To our Arab allies, to our friends in Turkey, this barbaric attack on Israel by Hamas is beyond what happened in the Holocaust. I have seen the photos. It is so vicious. It is so lacking any humanity. Does it have a purpose? Yes. They filmed it so Israel had to go in. The Ayatollah wants Israel to have to take action, hoping the world will turn on Israel, call for a cease-fire, and let time pass so that the moment to reconcile between Saudi Arabia and Israel passes. It is putting pressure on our allies in Jordan, in Egypt, and in Turkey by saying some pretty provocative things to our Arab allies, to our Turkish friends. This attack by Hamas against Israel has to be dealt with by the destruction of Hamas. If you are in the region and you are expecting Israel not to go on the ground, that is not going to happen. You cannot destroy Hamas from the air. They are going in on the ground, and they are going to destroy Hamas to the best they can. The goal then is to have a Palestinian plan that would give hope to the Palestinians who lost all hope and to continue the reconciliation process. As long as Hamas exists, there is no hope for peace. It was mentioned in Turkey that Hamas is a liberator group. Hamas could care less about the Palestinian people. They want to destroy the Jewish people. If you don't believe me, listen to what they say. They are not trying to achieve a better life for the Palestinian people. They are trying to kill all the Jews. That is their charter, their religious nonsense. To expect Israel not to go in is unrealistic. They are going to go in, and they are going to have our full support. The goal is to destroy Hamas without destroying the chance for peace. I see an opportunity here, once Hamas has been dismantled, to bring the region together to get the Palestinian people a better life. The Iranian Ayatollah is the great Satan--not Israel, not the United States. He is a religious Nazi. He wants to purify Islam in his own image. He wants to destroy the Jewish State and come after us. It is a religious theocracy that can't be compromised with. Here is what I would say we need to do today. Let the Iranians know if there is a second front opened by Hezbollah against Israel--which could be devastating--that we will be going to Iran to fix the problem. If one American soldier is killed by Shiite militia attacks against our forces in Syria and Iraq, we are going to blame the Ayatollah. I appreciate moving the military force forward--two carrier battle groups--and moving assets into the region. I do not want a war, but I am tired of living this way. The Ayatollah needs to know that a second front means three fronts-- that we are coming after you. We are going to destroy your ability to fund terrorism. Ninety-three percent of all the money Hamas receives comes from Iran. All of their money comes from their oil industry. They are incredibly exposed to being knocked out of business. To the Members of the Senate here, we need to tell Iran clearly what happens: If you escalate against America, you escalate against Israel, you will be in the crosshairs of American military response. It is your choice to make. If you want a war with America, you will lose it. If you continue to try to throw gasoline on a fire, you are going to regret it. Anything short of a military response being real to the Ayatollah will lead to more bloodshed. So if you want a smaller war, well, let Iran know: You are going to be in a bigger war if you attack Israel or kill an American. If we don't do that, we are making a huge mistake. I am trying to stand behind the Biden administration. I want to help them reconcile Saudi Arabia and Israel. I appreciate what they have done with the military force posture moving forward, but it needs to be clear to the Iranians: Escalation means an attack on you. And if they believe that, I think we can stop this thing from getting bigger. If they don't believe it, we are going to wake up with a real big war on our hands beyond what we have today. I have never been more worried about the situation of the world than I am right now. But here is what I am confident of: The Israelis will fight. They may get killed, but they are going down fighting. There will not be a second Holocaust. The Israeli people, through their IDF, will fight anybody who tries to destroy the Jewish people. That is Hamas. They want to kill all the Jews. I can't believe this is being said in 2023. To the world: To get to our friends in Israel, you have to come through us. If you want to destroy all the Jews, you have to come through America. And good luck with that. I want peace between the Arabs and the Israelis. I want a better life for the Iranian people. I want a better life for the Palestinian people. But you cannot have a better life when the forces of darkness are in control. Destroy Hamas once and for all. Create a better life for the Palestinian people. Reconcile the Arab-Israeli conflict, and move forward. God bless our friends in Israel. Amendment No. 1237 to Amendment No. 1092 Madam President, I call up Senator Rubio's amendment and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today, along with my colleague Tim Scott of South Carolina, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Wild Turkey Federation and to recognize the organization's significant contributions to research, habitat conservation, as well as its promotion and protection of the long-honored outdoor traditions of the United States. The National Wild Turkey Federation was incorporated on March 28, 1973, with the aim of bringing together State, Federal, and nongovernmental partners to promote the conservation of wild turkeys. Edgefield, SC, is proud to house the organization's national headquarters, and both the State and Nation continue to benefit from their stewardship. Since 1985, the National Wild Turkey Federation, its members, and chapters have invested more than $500,000,000 to conserve or enhance more than 22,000,000 acres of critical wildlife habitat, forests, and grasslands, as well as more than $8,500,000 in research to ensure a healthy wild turkey population. In addition, the organization is a long-standing Stewardship partner with the U.S. Forest Service and is heavily engaged in the development and implementation of the Department of Agriculture's Wildfire Crisis Strategy. These efforts have played a significant role in one of the greatest conservation success stories in the United States: the return of the wild turkey from the brink of extinction. I ask that you and our colleagues join me in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Wild Turkey Federation and wish the organization and its members continued success in fulfilling their mission.

Mr. GRAHAM

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

Mr. GRAHAM. I just want to compliment Senator Cotton for reminding us what the job in Congress is, defending the Nation, and the odd outcome here is that at a time of growing conflict, we are reducing the Navy. There are 296 ships in the Navy today. Under this budget, by 2025, there will be 286. If we continue with the Biden budget, there will be 290. The Chinese Navy today is 340. By 2025, they will have 400, and by 2030 they will have 440. This budget locks in a smaller U.S. Navy at a time the Chinese Navy is growing dramatically. There is not a penny in this budget to help beat Putin. The Navy is smaller. The Army is smaller. The Marine Corps is smaller. This is not a threat-based budget. This is a budget of political compromise where people have lost sight of what the country needs. We need safety and security. To my House colleagues, I can't believe you did this. To the Speaker, I know you have got a tough job. I like you, but the party of Ronald Reagan is dying. Don't tell me that a defense budget that is $42 billion below inflation fully funds the military. Don't tell me that we can confront and challenge China. Everybody in this body is patting themselves on the back that we see China as the most existential threat to America. You are right. We did the CHIPS Act. We are doing things to help our economy combat China. At the moment of decision when it came to the military, this budget is a win for China. Please don't go home and say this is fully funded because it is not. Please stop talking about confronting China when you are dismantling the American Navy. How does this end? Senator Cotton is right. We will be here until Tuesday, until I get commitments that we are going to rectify some of these problems. The ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Susan Collins, has been steadfastly in the camp of fiscal responsibility and national security. This deal has taken the Appropriations Committee out of the game. The CR, which kicks in, cuts defense and increases nondefense, making it really hard for me to believe that we are actually going to do our appropriations job. So what I want to do is, I want a commitment from the leaders of this body that we are not pulling the plug on Ukraine. There is not a penny in this bill for future efforts to help Ukraine defeat Russia, and they are going to gain on the battlefield in the coming days. And it is just not about Ukraine. I want a commitment that we will have a supplemental to make us better able to deal with China. I want a commitment that we are not going to weaken our position in the Mideast. There is a report out today that Iran is planning to attack our troops in Syria to drive us out. We are expending weapons that need to be replenished. Our military is weakening by the day. This budget that we are about to pass makes every problem worse. I want to end the war in Ukraine by defeating Putin. If you don't, he keeps going and we are going to have a conflict between NATO and Russia and our troops will be involved. And if you don't send a clear signal now, China will see this as an opportunity to leap into Taiwan. So to the Members of this body, we are staying here as long as it takes to get some commitment that we are going to reverse this debacle sooner rather than later. With that, I will yield to my good friend from Alaska.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield my time to our next speaker, who is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, but I just want to say one thing before she speaks. The Chief of Naval Operations said we need 373 ships manned and 150 unmanned platforms to deal with the threats we face around the world. We have 296 today. Under this budget deal, we will go to 286 by 2025. What does it take to get 373? The CNO of the Navy said, to get 373 ships, you have got to spend 5 percent above inflation for a sustained period of time. This bill is 2 percent below inflation. So we are undercutting the ability of the Navy to build the ships we need to defend America. With that, I yield to Senator Collins.

Mr. GRAHAM. I want to echo what Senator Collins just suggested. How do you begin to turn this debacle around? You admit you have got a problem. It is pretty hard to quit drinking if you don't admit you have got a drinking problem. So what she is suggesting is that we acknowledge the obvious, that this bill, on the defense side, is inadequate to the threats we face, that a bill that funds the Pentagon below inflation at a time of great threat is not fully funding. She is trying to get us to wake up to the reality that if we don't speak about defeating Putin now, then the Ukrainians, who are on the offense, will be undercut. I will never let this happen again, as long as I am here, to let people negotiate behind closed doors and not tell me what they are doing on defense. I blame myself for not being more involved and more active, because in my wildest dreams I never believed that the Republican Party would take the Biden budget that they have attacked for a year and celebrate it as fully funding. I know who I am dealing with now. Here is what Reagan told the Russians: Trust but verify. I will never, ever trust again, because you have got an ``R'' behind your name, that you are going to be the party of Ronald Reagan. You have to prove that to me. So, as we go forward, the game will change. Why is she asking for this to be done? If we don't commit to an orderly appropriations process, it gets worse for the Defense Department. To the people who wrote this bill, I would not let you buy me a car. The provisions of sequestration--for lack of a better word--the continuing resolution, if we don't do our legislative business, increases nondefense spending and decreases defense spending. I thought we were Republicans. Who came up with that great idea? The top line is inadequate. The CR is devastating. And what bothers me the most is that we would put the Department of Defense in this position. We are playing with the lives of men and women in the military, their ability to defend themselves, as some chess game in Washington. Well, this is checkers, at best. The fact that you would punish the military because we can't do our job as politicians is a pretty sad moment for me. But people in this body, on my side of the aisle, have drafted a bill that would punish the military even more if we fail to do our basic job. That cannot be the way of the future. So I will insist, or we will be here until Tuesday, and I will make an amendment to avoid default for 90 days or however many days it takes to get this right. I don't want us to default on the debt, but we are not leaving town until we find a way to stop some of this madness. You are not going to be able to blame me for default because I am ready to raise the debt ceiling right now for 90 days, no strings attached, to give us a chance to stop this insane approach to national security. I am supposed to talk to the President of Ukraine this afternoon. I would like to be able to tell him something: Oh, by the way, you have done a hell of a job with the money we have given you. Not one soldier has died. The weapons used by Ukraine have punished the Russian military. They are weakened and bloodied. They are about to take back territory. He is wondering, well, what does this mean for the future? I want to try to be able to tell him that I have got an assurance from this body that we are not going to leave you hanging. It is in our interest to beat Putin. I don't like war more than anybody else, but if Putin gets away with invading Ukraine, there goes Taiwan. And if you don't get that, you are just out of touch. They have a chance to evict Russia from Ukrainian territory. They need more military help, not American soldiers. If Putin loses, it is a deterrence for China. If Putin doesn't lose, he will keep grabbing territory until we have a war between Russia and NATO. This is a big, big deal. Iran is coming up with a plan, apparently, to drive us out of the Mideast. That just came out today. China is building. As Senator Collins said, they are going from 340 ships to 440 ships by 2030. We are going from 296 to 290. That can't be the response to China. You cannot say with a straight face that this military budget is a counter to Chinese aggression, that it adequately allows us to defeat Putin. You cannot say with a straight face that this budget represents the threats America faces. A military budget should be based on threats, not political deals to avoid default. Nobody wants to default. We are not going to default. But I am tired of having default hanging over my head as a reason to neuter the military at a time we need it the most. To the American public, you would suffer if we defaulted. I get it. If this budget is the end of the discussion and we don't fix it, your sons and daughters are going to have more war, not less. You are going to send a signal to all the bad guys that we are all talk. And what you will be doing is putting the world on a course of sustained conflict rather than deterrence. The last time people did this was in the 1930s. They wanted to believe that Hitler wasn't serious about killing all the Jews, that they only wanted some land, that he really didn't want to take over the world. He wrote a book, and nobody believed him. The Iranian Ayatollah speaks every day: I will destroy the state of Israel; that we are infidels, and he is going to drive us out of the region. China openly confronts our planes--400 feet yesterday. They are testing us every day. The bottom line, folks, is we are not leaving until we get a path to fix this problem. Senator Susan Collins, my good friend from Maine, gave us that path. If you want to go home, fix it. I yield the floor. H.J. Res. 45

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, Senator Cotton will be here in a second. A group of us are going to speak about this budget deal. If you believe that the No. 1 job of the Federal Government is to defend this Nation, then we have made a serious mistake in this bill. I have heard House leaders suggest this bill fully funds the military. For that to be true, you would have to believe that the military is OK if you cut their budget $42 billion below inflation. The party of Ronald Reagan would never allow inflation to reduce defense capabilities. This bill, the top-line number, locks in fewer ships for the Navy at a time China is going to expand dramatically. In 2024 and 2025, we are going to cap spending at a level that we cannot expand the Navy, and in the same period of time, China is going to go from 310 ships over a 10- year period to 440. There is less money for the Marines, less money for the Army, and fewer ships for the Navy at a time of great conflict. There is not a penny in this bill to help Ukraine defeat Putin. They are going on the offensive as I speak, and we need to send a clear message to Putin: When it comes to your invasion of Ukraine, we are going to support the Ukrainians to ensure your loss. If we don't do that, then we are going to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Senator Cotton--I am going to yield to him. He has a time problem. But we are going to take some time here to explain to you why those of us who believe that the No. 1 job of the Federal Government is to defend the Nation--that that concept has been abandoned and that we are going to insist and fight until we find a way to rectify some of this harm. OK. With that, I will yield to my good friend from Mississippi.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have been informed that shortly, the majority leader will come to the floor and announce his commitment and the Biden commitment to do a supplemental to make sure that the damage done by this bill is, at least, partially corrected. This bill puts our military behind the eight ball. There is not one penny in this bill for Ukrainian assistance. As I speak tonight, Ukraine is engaged in a fight for its life. They are going on the offensive. I have high hopes in the coming days and weeks they will liberate part of their territory occupied by Russia. The assistance we have provided in a bipartisan fashion with our European allies has made all the difference in the world. We were told after the invasion that Kyiv would fall in 4 days; but 600-and- something days later, they are still fighting. The Russian Army has been weakened and bloodied because of the weapons we have provided. I appreciate the bipartisan support to make sure we win a war in Ukraine without one American soldier being involved. If we can defeat Putin in Ukraine, that means China will, hopefully, take notice and Putin will be stopped, because if you don't stop him in Ukraine, he will keep going and we will be in a war between NATO and Russia. So I appreciate all the hard work of the staff to make a statement to the people who are facing threats from China, from Russia, from Iran, that we have not abandoned you. There is not a dime in this bill to deal with the threats I think we face from China consistent with the threat level. There is money in this bill but not enough. So I am hoping that those who are watching this in Ukraine understand that Senators Schumer and McConnell are going to say in a moment: We have not abandoned you. We are going to keep helping you as you struggle to liberate your country from the war criminal Putin. Whether you believe we should be helping Ukraine or not, I do. People in this body, on both sides of the aisle in the Senate, understand that Putin's invasion is a defining moment of the 21st century. That if he gets away with this, there goes Taiwan, and the world will begin to crumble. The world order we created since World War II would be jeopardized. War crimes on an industrial scale by Putin cannot be forgiven or forgotten. To the brave men and women in Ukraine, help is on the way. To the people standing up to China, living in its shadow in Taiwan, help is on the way. To the American military who is underfunded because of this bill, help is on the way. For 3 days, I and some others have been screaming to high heaven that what the House did was wrong. It is right to want to control spending, and there are some good things in this bill. But it was wrong to give a defense number inconsistent with the threats we face. I do believe that we are on track to right some of those wrongs. To my colleagues, I am not the perfect--the enemy of the good. I vote on my share of bipartisan bills and get crap for it like most of you. But as long as I am here, I am going to speak about the need of the Federal Government to get the defense budget right. Budgets are based on threats, not political deals. And if you think the world is safer, you have missed a lot. So, hopefully, in a few minutes, there will be an announcement that puts us on a course correction to undo some of the damage, and there will be a clear signal from both the leader and the minority leader, Senator McConnell, that help is on the way to those who live in the shadow of totalitarian governments and those who are on the battlefield. To my American citizen friends, I wish there were no war anywhere. I wish China wasn't the way they are. I wish the Ayatollah didn't want a nuclear weapon and would use it if he could. I wish that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine. I wish that the world was different than it is. But if you want peace and stability, it comes at a high price. The good news for us is that not one American soldier has died evicting Russia from Ukraine. The Ukrainians have fought like tigers. It is in our national security interest to provide them the weapons and the technology to keep this fight up. Their win is our win. So I look forward to hearing the statement that I think is forthcoming. It does not fix this bill totally, but it begins to march in the right direction. To my colleagues, thank you for listening. Thank you for working with me and others. Victory for Ukraine. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to speak for just a few minutes here. No. 1, the judge we just confirmed, I think to the 11th Judicial Circuit, Ms. Abudu, is an example of the system being broken. This nominee, whom I voted against in committee, is way beyond what I think the market should be bearing. This is, in my view, a partisan's dream. It is OK to be a litigant in causes I don't agree with. It is OK to represent organizations that I differ with. I don't hold a client against a lawyer, but I do hold positions against the lawyer when it comes to cause-driven litigation. This nominee, at every turn, has taken the left fork in the road, to the point of being in the ditch. As a lawyer, she sued a Florida community that was trying to protect children from sexual predators by having requirements of notice but also being away from schools certain distances, and she sued the community basically claiming that was unfair to the sexual abuser. It is moments like this that should be a wake-up call for this body. Her record as an advocate is not just representing liberal causes, but the rhetoric used and the arguments made convinced me in committee that this is an activist on steroids. I have tried to work with my Democratic colleagues, voting for circuit and district court judges, understanding that Democrats would pick someone I would not choose. That is the way the system works. But, in this case, it was a partisan vote. Not one Republican voted for this nominee, and her record, I think, is one of activism and stridency that will, in my view, shape her time as a judge and shape the court in a way that is inconsistent with the rule of law as I know it. So to my Democratic colleagues, you have confirmed this nominee, but I am sure this is not the last we will hear about Ms. Abudu. Today, it was announced that Rachael Rollins, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, is going to resign, I think. She is under investigation for unethical behavior and using her office for revenge. She is one of the few and may be the only U.S. attorney that I voted against in this Congress. There may have been one other. But it was pretty obvious to those of us on the committee that the warning signs regarding Ms. Rollins were rampant and that we were buying a problem. The point I am trying to make to my colleagues is, after we changed the rules of confirmation--you don't need one vote from the other side if you have the majority, and there will come a day, maybe, when we find ourselves in that situation--I always have worried that doing away with the collaborative process to get a nominee to move forward--judges or U.S. attorneys--is going to create a problem where you are down to picking people who have the most vocal support from the most active, extreme elements in both parties. And I think this is a case: Exhibit A, Ms. Rollins. And to my colleagues, all of us are going to have to understand that I respect the home State Senators' ability to nominate district court judges. The blue slip process I will honor for district court judges, U.S. attorneys. But it puts pressure on us to up our game, and Ms. Rollins I voted against in committee, and it was obvious that our concerns were justified. Mr. Delaney, nominated for the First Judicial Circuit, performed poorly in the committee. He represented a private school that was sued for allowing sexual harassment to be unchecked and to be covered up. It is OK to represent unpopular causes. Everybody needs a lawyer. But his answers about how he engaged one of the plaintiffs--a minor at the time--were terrible, and it seems to me that he should have been better prepared. He had a lot of support from people in New Hampshire, some on our side of the aisle. But I guess my point is that you have to be prepared to answer hard questions, and Mr. Delaney was woefully unprepared. And to my colleagues on the Republican side, I think you have done a very good job of asking hard, relevant questions to the nominees before our committee, and we have had a lot of bipartisan support for judges, and we have had some opposition. As to moving forward, I hope the White House will prepare these nominees better--a basic understanding of the Constitution, of a litigant practice, basic concepts of the law, like Brady motions, and just how the Constitution is set up. That is not too much to ask the people who want to be a judge for the rest of their life. So, to the White House, this process needs to change. You need to up your game. Your goal, I think, should be to try to find people who some of us can vote for on the Republican side and, when they get in front of the committee, make a good impression. I am not saying we did it all right on our side when we were in charge. There are probably examples where we didn't. But I tried to make sure that some people who were nominated didn't make it because some of us on the Republican side said no. There are more than a handful of judges coming out of the committee that I think should not be on the bench, and I say that with the understanding that my inclination is to vote for judges nominated by the other side, assuming that that is what I would like to have happen when it comes our turn--that if we all vote against the other party's judges, then you are going to put the judiciary in a world of hurt if you have a President of one party and a Senate made up of the other. And that is sort of--we will be there one day, and given the behavior of the body, I don't know how we deal with that. But between now and then, I am hoping that there will be more serious deliberation by colleagues on the Democratic side to make sure that the people we are putting forward can answer basic questions. And sometimes, maybe, we ask bad questions, but I don't believe that the questions being asked of these nominees are unfair. And it just is stunning that people have been in the law as long as some of these nominees have and can't answer the basics. So this idea that you are going to come through the Judiciary Committee and not be asked hard, relevant questions, I hope that has gone by the wayside. The idea that I will support Democratic nominees is real up to a point. And there have been several of us on this side who have probably voted for more Democratic nominees than we have opposed, and I would try to continue to honor the process. I want to keep the blue slip in place. I am asking colleagues from red States to work with the White House to see if they can find consensus. When I was chairman, there was a lot of pressure on me to do away with the blue slip so we could nominate anybody we wanted to at the district court level. If you had two Democratic Senators in the State, the blue slip would go away; we could nominate anybody we wanted to. I think that is bad for the Senate, and I think that, over time, would be bad for the judiciary. I didn't change the process; I don't want it changed now. And I do expect us on the Republican side to collaborate with the White House and find consensus where you can. But, having said that, the last several months have sort of been a disaster for the committee in the sense that people are not prepared, and you are picking folks who really shouldn't have lifetime appointments, from my point of view. And we can pass them all on party lines and make this problem worse, or you can get a handful of Democrats to do what I have done in the past: not only vote yes but sometimes say no. And Mr. Delaney, I think, will probably fall by the wayside. And I say that with no animosity toward him. I just think that is the right outcome here. So if that does happen, I would want to applaud the White House for understanding that sometimes you can't go beyond what the market would bear. I have shown a disposition and a willingness to work with you, but the recent nominee we just passed is way out of the mainstream, and I am hoping that we can get back on track and have nominees come before the committee who are prepared to make it, quite frankly, easier to find consensus. And if that doesn't happen, we are going to have less consensus. And there are a handful of nominees waiting to come to the floor whom I would vigorously oppose because I think they are not qualified. So, with that, Mr. President, I wish you a great break and hope we can go home and do our business at home and abroad--wherever that takes us--and come back safely. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. GRAHAM. I will be very brief. To my colleague and good friend Senator Schumer, I want to let you know that 99 Senators agree with what you said about Senator Feinstein. We all hope--I am the ranking member of the Judiciary. She is a dear friend, and we hope for her speedy recovery and return back to the Senate. But with all due respect to my colleague Senator Schumer, this is about a handful of judges that you can't get the votes for. I have been a pretty consistent vote in the Committee on the Judiciary in a bipartisan fashion. I understand you won the election and we lost. I want to make sure we process judges fairly. The reason this is being made is to try to change the numbers on the committee in a way that I think would be harmful to the Senate and to pass out a handful of judges that I think should never be on the bench. With that in mind and with all due respect to Senator Feinstein, I object.

Mr. GRAHAM

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, we will be voting about 5:30, about 30 minutes from now, to end debate and tomorrow have some amendments, then go to final passage on legislation to repeal the authorization to use military force for 2002 directed against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The problem I have with what we are doing is that we are repealing the authorization to use military force because Saddam is dead and that threat is gone, but we are not replacing it with an authorization that our troops desperately need, which is to create an AUMF to allow our military to go after Shiite militias that are attacking them routinely inside of Iraq. There have been over 78 attacks since 2021 directed at U.S. forces by different groups, mostly Shiite militias controlled by Iran, in Iraq and Syria. A couple days ago, there was an attack on an American base in Syria. An American contractor was killed. God bless him and his family. And we retaliated, and they retaliated back. The bottom line is that our response to aggression against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria is woefully inadequate. Seventy-something attacks since 2021. Clearly, nobody feels afraid to attack our troops over there, and we need to create some deterrence that we don't have today. So I had an amendment that failed that would allow authorization to use military force to exist where the Congress blesses the use of military force against Shiite militias that are operating in Iraq because they are a threat to about 2,500 troops that we have stationed in Iraq. The forces in Syria--about 900--are there to finish the counter-ISIS mission, and I hear people, particularly on my side, say that we shouldn't be in Syria. You know, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity. The last time we pulled all of our forces out of Iraq, it was President Obama with the support of then-Vice President Biden, the ISIS JV team became the varsity team. They took over great parts of Syria and Iraq. They destroyed the city of Mosul. They set up shop in Raqqa, Syria, and they launched attacks from Syria, ISIS directed, at United States and Europe throughout the world, killing thousands of people. President Trump authorized our military to take down the caliphate. And this idea that if you leave, they won't come back is stupid. You know nothing if you believe that. You may be tired of fighting radical Islam. They are not tired of fighting you. I would rather fight in their backyard than ours. They are going to destroy us if we don't destroy them. Here is the good news. They are on the run. As long as we keep some of our forces in place, working with people in Syria and Iraq who do not want to live under ISIS rule, we will be relatively safe. If you pull all the troops out, you are going to get the same outcome. People who keep arguing this, you really are doing a great disservice to the country, and your arguments make zero sense. You don't understand the enemy. You have no idea what this war is about. This is a religious struggle. They have declared war on every faith but their own. They want to purify Islam in their own image--ISIS and al-Qaida. They want to destroy the State of Israel and eventually come after us. Leaving them alone doesn't guarantee you much. In 2001, before 9/11, we didn't have one soldier in Afghanistan. We didn't even have an embassy. We totally abandoned Afghanistan, and the attack against our country on 9/11 originated in Afghanistan. When will you learn that these people are out to get you? And when I say ``you,'' I mean Americans. Anybody who believes in diversity in faith, they have a world view that has no place for you. The good news is most people in the Mideast are not buying what they are selling, but they are very lethal and dangerous left unattended. Now, when you create the right mix of U.S. forces and local forces, you pretty well keep them on the run and keep them at bay. So to those who suggest we shouldn't be in Syria with 900 U.S. forces to prevent ISIS from coming back, you are setting the stage for a reemergence of ISIS, and once is enough, folks. They destroyed the Yazidi population, raped women by the thousands and created carnage all over Syria and Iraq and projected attacks against American Western allies from a safe haven in Raqqa, Syria. Now, the theory of the case here is that we as Congress need to take back authority, and this authorization to use force no longer needs to be in place because the war against Saddam Hussein is over. We can argue about Iraq being a good idea or a bad idea. We did have bad intelligence. But here is what I would say 20 years later. Saddam being dead is a good thing, from my point of view, because he was a thug and a dictator on steroids. And the people of Iraq are on their second or third election. It has been messy, but they are moving in the right direction. And we have 2,500 troops back in Iraq to make sure ISIS doesn't come back and destabilize the region and try to have some influence against the Iranians. So if you want to repeal the AUMF, I think you owe it to the troops to follow it with something. So the people who want to do this say: Article II, which is the inherent authority of the Commander in Chief, allows President Biden to protect our troops in Iraq. There is truth to that. But the whole idea is for us as a Congress to have a say in foreign policy and not sort of give a blank check. So if you want to cancel the check to go after Saddam because he is not around, I think you owe it to the troops to lend your voice because the enemy sees this as retreat. No matter what you want the enemy to believe about what is going on here, all they understand is the American Congress is making a step to get out of Iraq, and that is good news for them. After Afghanistan--the disaster there--don't you think we should be more clear in our thought? The Biden administration was wrong to take troops out of Afghanistan. They are right to have troops in Iraq and Syria, but the Congress is trying to be a bit hypocritical here. We want to cancel one authorization to use force, and we don't have the courage, apparently, politically, to say the military has our approval, as a Congress working with the President, to go after Shiite militias that are killing our forces in Iraq and attacking them regularly. What does Iran want? Now, this is not an authorization to go after the Iranian regime. It is an authorization to protect American forces in Iraq from attacks in Iraq coming from Shiite militias loyal to Iran. What are they trying to achieve? They want to drive us out. If the 900 troops left Syria tomorrow, Assad would eventually conquer what is left of Syria and ISIS would fill that vacuum and you would have a conflict with Turkey and the Kurds. And all the people--our chairman of the Armed Services Committee is a very smart guy and a very great friend--all the Kurds who fought with us, they would be wiped out. So I am glad the Biden administration is going to stay in Syria because we need those troops to keep ISIS from coming back and to work with our Kurdish partners. But when it comes to Iraq, they are trying to drive us out because Iran wants us out of Syria so their buddy Assad can run the place. They want us out of Iraq so the Shiite radical elements in Iraq can topple the Iraqi Government, and the Shiite militias would take authority away from the Iraqi Army, and they will have influence over Iraq and Syria. It is not in America's interest to allow the Ayatollah in Iran to have more influence and more spaces to govern and more oil to generate revenue from. So if you don't get that, you are not really following what is going on. So no matter what you say about article II, I hate to tell you, ISIS probably doesn't follow our Constitution that closely. The best thing we could do, if you want to repeal the 2002 AUMF that was generated to get rid of Saddam, replace it with something new--an authorization to use force to protect our troops that we all agree or most of us agree should be in Iraq to protect America from attacks from Shiite militias. That amendment was rejected. Here is what you are doing. You are sending a signal by doing this that we are leaving, we are withdrawing, and that we don't have the will as a nation to see this thing through. There is nothing good comes from this. You are openly admitting the President has authority to use force to protect our troops, but you are not going to lend your voice to that cause, and I don't understand that. If the Congress, working with the President, said: No matter who is President, you have the ability to use military force to protect our troops against Shiite militias in Iraq, that would make us stronger. The enemy would understand it better. Our allies would understand it more clearly. And they have got to be wondering, What the hell is going on here? So the bottom line is, you are setting in motion, by not replacing the AUMF with something specific to Shiite militias that are attacking our troops regularly--you are setting in motion more danger for those in Iraq and eventually Syria. And I don't question your patriotism. I do question our judgment as a body. This is a very ill-conceived idea. It is going to juice up the enemy. It is going to confuse our allies. And it could be easily fixed, but we choose not to. I don't know what the political environment is in America today, but the idea that the war is over with radical Islam is insane. I have listened to people--some on my side--come down here and want to repeal the authorization to go after al-Qaida and affiliated groups after 9/ 11. General Kurilla, the CENTCOM commander in charge of the region, said, last week, because of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS in Afghanistan has the ability to strike us in this country within 6 months without warning. So can you imagine the damage to be done to national security interests if we repeal the 2001 AUMF? So I will close with this. While I understand theoretically why we want to replace--get rid of the 2002 AUMF because Saddam is gone, I don't understand why we are leaving this vacuum and this doubt. This is easily fixed. You are creating a narrative that is going to come back to haunt us. You think it is an accident within 2 days of introducing this idea that they hit us in Syria again? They are going to test us. And here is what I think. The Biden administration is doing a lousy job, quite frankly, of instilling fear in the enemy. Whether you like Trump or not, people were afraid of him. And there is no fear. And here is what I would like to have established: Working with the administration, not against them, to send a clear signal: You kill Americans at your own peril. We are not leaving. We are not going to let radical Islam come back and do it all over again. So I will be voting no. This is one of the most ill-conceived ideas after 9/11. I yield the floor.