Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I just want to say amen and now pass it to Senator Klobuchar.

Mr. GRAHAM. I just want to say that Senator Klobuchar has been tenacious in trying to find common ground and in bringing people together but also in getting a result. Senator Hawley will be next. Then I will wrap it up and make the request.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, to my colleagues, thank you for coming down. I really appreciate it. Senator Durbin, you have been a great partner on this journey. We have some victims groups, and we are going to keep doing this until we get the result we think America needs. Very quickly, in 2024, here is the state of play: The largest companies in America, social media outlets that make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, you can't sue if they do damage to your family by using their product because of section 230. Now, if you wanted to give complete liability protection to a group of people, this would be the last group I would pick. So in the 1990s, there was a law on the books that, to make sure the internet could get up and running, the platforms couldn't be sued for the content that is on their platforms. Now these platforms enrich our lives, but they destroy our lives. These platforms are being used to bully children to death. They are being used to take sexual images involuntarily obtained and send them to the entire world, and there is not a damned thing you can do about it. We had a lady come before the committee, a mother, saying her daughter was on a social media site that had anti-bullying provisions. They complained three times about what was happening to her daughter. She killed herself. They went to court. They got kicked out by section 230. The sexual exploitation of children is just mind-boggling, so we have legislation to strip away section 230 absolute liability protections. One is called the EARN IT Act, and I will make a request for that to come to the floor. All of these bills have passed the Judiciary Committee--made up of the hardest of the hard in the body--unanimously. We have seen and heard the same thing. We have different views about the way the world should work, about the role of government in our lives, but we come together on this. Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham and Josh Hawley and--you just name it; all of us--we see the problem the same. We hear from our constituents, who are helpless and hopeless. So we are going to keep this up until we bring these people to heel. There are three ways to protect the consumer. If the consumer is damaged, they can go to court and seek relief. They have the burden to prove their case, but they have a chance to right a wrong that they believe has been done to them by a business. You can't do that here. Another way to protect the consumer is to have regulatory agencies, licensing agencies, deride hurt on businesses to make sure they perform effectively and don't abuse the consumer. There is no such thing here. The third is to have a series of laws on the books to protect consumers. There are no laws on the books. We are zero for three--you can't sue them, there is no regulatory body, and there are really no laws on the books to protect the consumer. That needs to change. With that, I want to call up--as in legislative session, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 70, S. 1207; that the committee-reported amendments be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate on the EARN IT Act. That is my request.

Mr. GRAHAM. I see the chairman of the committee, Senator Durbin. Go anytime you like or, Senator Cornyn, if you want to go next, then we have Klobuchar and Hawley and myself.

Mr. GRAHAM. Very quickly, and I will move to CSAM, Senator Durbin's bill. There is nothing in this bill about encryption. We say that this is not an encryption bill. The bill, as written, explicitly prohibits courts from treating encryption as an independent basis for liability. We are agnostic about that. What we are trying to do is hold these companies accountable by making sure they engage in best business practices. The EARN IT Act simply says: For you to have liability protections, you have to prove that you have tried to protect children. You have to earn it. It is just not given to you. You have to have the best business practices in place, have voluntary commissions that lay out what would be the best way to harden these sites against sexual exploitation. If you do those things, you get liability. It is just not given to you forever. So this is not about encryption. As to your idea, I would love to talk to you about it. Let's vote on both. But the bottom line here is there is always a reason not to do anything that holds these people liable. That is the bottom line. They will never agree to any bill that allows you to get them in court-- ever. If you are waiting on these companies to give this body permission for the average person to sue you, it ain't never going to happen. Now, CSAM, Senator Durbin has been tenacious on this. We are talking about making sure that sexually explicit material is taken down when you notify people. Is that unreasonable? And if they don't take it down, knowing that it is up there, you ought to be able to sue them. My God, if we can't do that, what good are we? There are millions of these photos out there. Senator Durbin has been terrific to empower consumers with some hope they don't have to live this over and over and over again. Is it too much to ask the company, once notified, to take this stuff down? With that, as in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 69, S. 1199; that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. GRAHAM. We have one more. And I will just respond that I will take you up on your offer. You are a good friend and a good man. The bottom line is, there are 21 of us on the committee from every corner of the political spectrum, and we are not buying any of this. Again, what does Senator Durbin want to do? He wants to make sure companies, when they are notified that there are sexually explicit material involving you or somebody you love, that they will have to take it down. If they don't, you can sue them. Who in America is against that, except the people making money off the images? We will keep talking, but this ain't going to stop. There will be a day when every seat is full up here because word is going to spread about what we are trying to do. Senator Tillis, you have been terrific. I don't think you are a lawyer, are you? You are the smartest guy on the committee, then. He figured this out really quickly. You don't have to be a lawyer to figure this out, just common sense and human decency. The SHIELD Act--as in legislative session, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 78, S. 412; that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. GRAHAM. If you want to keep going, I will yield you some time.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, we will be back. We will work with Senator Booker. We have tried in committee. Senator Wyden will keep talking, but I think 21 of us are pretty determined that there be some consumer protection laws in this space on the books this year. I am going to talk to President Trump. Looks like he is going to be the Republican nominee. I have known President Biden a long time. He has been on the Judiciary Committee. I hope both of them will see this as something they would agree to. Senator Durbin, I will let you wrap up. I just cannot thank you enough. We have our differences for sure; but on this, you have been a great leader of the committee. No matter what happens in 2025, if we take over or you all keep the Chamber, we are going to keep doing this.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this will take a little bit of time. Do you want to speak, sir? OK. So I want to explain sort of where we started and where we are at. Those of us old enough to remember 2001, that was a very bad day for America, and it will stick with me forever. I remember being here, during the attack, in Washington and asking myself: What can I do to make sure this never happens again? We did some things, made some mistakes, did some things right, but I will remind you at the end of this discussion that before the attack, the lights were blinking. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan and started killing women in soccer stadiums for sport and blowing up Buddhist statues, to think that wouldn't affect us was pretty naive. So there is sort of a debate in my party, to be honest with you, about America First, what does that mean, and isolationism. Isolationism sounds good; doesn't work, never has, never will. When people are willing to do horrible things to others in the name of religion or a master race, to think that they will leave you alone is just really very naive. So when Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews because they were an inferior race, for a long time America sat on the sidelines. Voices like Lindbergh and others saying: This is not our fight, no more foreign wars. Well, you wind up allowing the guy to get stronger. You could probably have stopped him dozens of times, but nobody wanted to get involved because of the aftermath of World War I. Well, what did we learn? Allowing Hitler to get stronger and not standing up to his abuse of the Jewish people and his desire for a master race led to about 50 million people getting killed and hundreds of thousands of Americans getting killed because of World War II. So America First--America First was a slogan being said in the 1930s. President Trump talks about America First. It is different to me. If America First is isolationism, count me out; I don't believe it is. If America First is weak, count me out; I don't believe it is. So America First and strong, what does it mean? It doesn't mean you don't care about the other parts of the world, but you have to get your own backyard right, and you do expect other people to carry their fair share of burden. That is what it means to me, and it means having a strong military, not a weak military. It means letting people know if you screw around with America, you will regret doing it. Just ask Soleimani. But you can't; he is dead. He had blood on his hands, and President Trump saw that his reign of terror ended. That is being strong. So that is sort of where we are at in our party right now. I am going to jump from 2001 to 2011. So, in 2001, America united. We were hurt as a nation. The country went through a lot of turmoil. Three thousand of our citizens, almost, were killed in various ways. But terrorists, if they could kill 3 million of us, they would have. We go to the Mideast. We make mistakes. The source of the problem is Afghanistan. Bush decides to get involved in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was truly a bad guy, but we can debate whether or not we should have done that. But the one thing that I said, Senator McCain said, and Senator Lieberman said: We are down to about 10,000 troops. We need an insurance policy force to make sure that the forces we are trying to contain--radical Islam in Iraq--do not come back. So President Obama had an option of leaving 10,000, and he chose to pull the plug. And here is what I said: I feel all we have worked for, fought for, and sacrificed for is pretty much in jeopardy by today's announcement. I hope I am wrong and the President is right, but ``I fear this decision has set in motion events that will come back to haunt our country.'' That is what I said when President Obama wanted to pull the plug on Iraq. This is what Senator McCain said: This decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Senator Lieberman: This failure puts at the greater risk all that so many Americans and Iraqis have fought, sacrificed, and, in the thousands of cases, gave their lives to achieve: an Iraq that is self-governing, self-defending, and aligned with the responsible nations of the world in the fight against Islamic extremism and terrorism. My last line was: But I fear this decision has set in motion events that will come back to haunt us. Hoping I was wrong. Here is what happened: We pulled the plug on Iraq. The JV team called ISIS runs wild, and the carnage that followed was devastating to the world, the attacks after the withdrawal in 2011. In 2015, 130 people killed in Paris by attacks that came from the caliphate that was established after our withdrawal. In 2016, 86 people killed in Nice, France. I can go on and on and on--2017, Istanbul, Turkey. Just on and on, carnage by the thousands throughout the world, and it came to get us here too. The Orlando, FL, Nightclub attack was inspired by somebody who pledged allegiance to ISIS. You just remember all of the beheadings in Syria. They took large parts of Iraq and Syria after the withdrawal. Everything we were worried about actually came true, even greater than I thought. Yazidi genocide, the Yazidi people were raped and murdered by the tens of thousands all because everybody was ready to leave Iraq. That was in 2011. Let's fast forward to 2021. After having left Iraq, saw what happened, had to go back in, we decided to pull out of Afghanistan where it all started, 2021. So if you had told me in 2001 we would allow the Taliban to come back 20 years later, I would not have believed it. But we did. We wanted 2,500--that is what I wanted, more if you needed it--to keep the country from falling apart, a residual, follow-along force. Secretary Blinken said: If 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in support, equipment, and training did not suffice, why would another year, another five, another ten [make a difference]? Let me answer that question. If after all that blood and treasure we pulled the plug because we are tired based on the passage of time and the enemy comes back and they take over, then other people in the world will see us as weak. So, Secretary Blinken, you didn't understand the ripple effect of allowing Afghanistan to fall back into the hands of terrorists, and President Biden, against sound military advice, you chose to pull the plug. Ten years earlier, President Obama pulled the plug on Iraq--the rise of ISIS. Apparently, it is hard for us to learn much at all. Because it's the right one--it's the right decision for our people. The right one for our brave servicemembers who have risked their lives serving our nation. And it's the right one for America. He is talking about pulling out of Afghanistan. President Biden, it was a horribly bad decision. But he is not the only one. Some of my best friends were sort of in that mindset. ``I write to express my support for President Trump's plan for the prompt withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan,'' Senator Hawley. ``After the loss of over 2,000 American servicemembers and thousands of others injured in action, I agreed it was past time to get our troops out of Afghanistan,'' Senator Marshall--really good friends. All I can say is, it is not when we leave, it is what we leave behind. So we pulled the plug, jointly, on Afghanistan. President Trump, at the time of the end of his term, had about 2,500 servicemembers still. He was going to leave them there, I hope and think, but at the end of the day, there was a plan to withdraw by May. I think he put in place it was conditional, and the Taliban didn't abide by any of the conditions. So when President Biden announced he was going to get out, I think, on May 1, ``Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.'' So that was President Trump. And I can't remember exactly when we got out, but it wasn't very much after that. So 20 years, almost to the day, after 9/11, you have got Republicans and Democrats saying: Enough already. Let's leave--not understanding why we should stay. And apparently leaving Iraq in 2011, nobody really remembered that much at all. So the Secretary of Defense said: I don't have any regrets about supporting the decision to leave Afghanistan. He really probably needs to resign, quite frankly. I like the man personally, but he has been so wrong so often, I have lost all confidence in his ability to make good, sound decisions. And when he speaks, nobody listens. So the idea that he would defend what happened in Afghanistan, the withdrawal, ``I have no regrets'' is a bit disappointing because I have a ton of them. So what happened after we withdrew or announced we were leaving? Thirteen servicemembers were killed in the disaster that was a withdrawal. And now the talking point is, that was a disaster. That was embarrassing. We shouldn't have done it that way. Well, I will just give you my two cents' worth: There is no good way to do a dumb thing. What was dumb was to leave Afghanistan and allow ISIS-K and ISIS and al-Qaida to come back when a fairly small force compared to what we have done in the past could have held the country together. So it was just carnage, the 13 brave Americans killed at Abbey Gate. What happened after our withdrawal? Remember the C-17 going down the runway with Afghans jumping on the wheel, the wings, babies being passed over the wire to soldiers. It was just really hard for me to sleep, quite frankly, for days after that. And the Veterans' Administration had a real spike in assistance from veterans because all those who fought and lost loved ones and sacrificed in Afghanistan were pretty upset. So that was in 2021. Ten years after we withdrew from Iraq and ISIS stormed the world, we made the same stupid decision to withdraw in Afghanistan. The rest is history. The Taliban has taken over. Now, the question is to Secretary Blinken: Did our withdrawal set in motion bad things? I would say it did. February 24, 2022, Russia invades Ukraine. Many of us believe that when we pulled the plug on Afghanistan, it showed a lack of resolve, and all the bad guys got bolder. So you will never convince me that our decision in 2021 did not encourage and lead to aggression by Russia in 2022. Now, we wanted preinvasion sanctions--Senator Menendez, Blumenthal, I think Whitehouse. We had a package of sanctions to hit Russia as the buildup was coming. You could see the amassing of Russian forces. And we said: Why don't we tell Russia right now, here is what comes your way if you invade? And many of us wanted to give lethal weapons to Ukraine before the invasion to deter Putin. Well, the administration said no to preinvasion sanctions. They said no to sending any weapons. They didn't want to be provocative. Well, it didn't work. They invaded. And your effort to deter the invasion never occurred. Once the war started, many of my Democratic friends, to their credit, joined all of us to help Ukraine the best we could. We were arguing for military assistance that would change the tide of battle. We were told that Kyiv would fall in 2 or 3 weeks. Well, they were wrong. The Ukrainians have been fighting like tigers. They have put a hurting on the Russian military. And for months after the invasion, I, along with many others--Democrats included--were pushing the Biden administration to help. How do you fight the Russians? You need more tanks. It took 10 months to get the first delivery of M1 Abrams tanks after Secretary Austin opposed tanks, 1 year and 7 months to get to ATACMS. They resisted HIMARS, long-range artillery. They have yet to get the F-16s. So every time we would talk about a weapon system that would change the course of battle, it was like pulling teeth. And it is amazing the Ukrainians have done as well as they have. But the people who decided not to impose preinvasion sanctions, the people who wanted to slow-walk military assistance are the same people who wanted to get out of Afghanistan, the same people who wanted to withdraw from Iraq. I don't mean to be overly critical, but they lost me a long time ago. Devastation in Ukraine, great country, proud people, it has just been terrible. Putin, by the way, is now an indicted international war criminal for kidnapping and stealing Ukrainian children, and this is over 2 years into the war. What else has happened since 9/11? There was a defense budget approved by this body against my wishes to produce a military budget that was below inflation. At a time when you had a war with Russia and Ukraine, you had the rise of radical Islamic terrorism, you had Iran pushing everybody around in the Mideast and China threatening their neighbors, so the response in 2024, the fiscal year 2024 budget, in light of all of these threats, to pass a military budget below inflation, what are we thinking? Have we learned nothing from 9/11? So, everybody talks about China, for good reason. We are not at war with China, thank God, but I, along with many of my colleagues, want to be tough on China. Well, if you want to be tough on China, you have to have credibility. The budget we passed over my objection, which was agreed to by the former Speaker of the House, a Republican, has put us on track to have less ships in the Navy by 2030 than we have today. And you want to be tough on China? The Navy tells us they need about 450 manned and unmanned vessels to deal with the threats we face throughout the world. We passed a military budget that goes from 292 ships in 2030 to 290, not 450. What does it take to get 450 ships in the Navy? Five percent spending above inflation for about a decade. We are spending below inflation, so I don't think we are ever going to get there. What is China doing? Well, they have 370 ships. By 2030, they are going to have 435. Today, we have 292; the Chinese navy is 370. By 2030, they are going to have 435, and we are going to have 290. Well, we must come up with some super-duper ships. We are going in the wrong direction. What are we thinking as a nation? How do you expect to deter China when you are reducing your military spending below inflation, you are reducing the number of ships available to help our friends in Taiwan and throughout the world, and they are dramatically increasing their navy? Do you think they feel deterred? I don't think so. So I really don't want to hear any more talk about being tough on China until we pass a budget that shows we actually mean what we say. That is 2022. We have Russia invade Ukraine. In 2021, we get out of Afghanistan. In 2022, Russia invades Ukraine. In 2023, we pass a budget below inflation. So what also happened in 2023? On October 7, Hamas attacks Israel. Now, I heard my colleague Senator Sanders talk about we shouldn't be sending any more aid to Israel. I respectfully disagree. This was the largest loss of life to the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas is the perpetrator of the attack, and there was this belief--somewhat in Israel and somewhat in America--that you could keep this caged tiger somewhat fed, but they wouldn't bite you. That proved not to be true. They openly talk about destroying the Jewish people. Israel pulled out of Gaza I think in 2005 or 2008. I can't remember the day. It wasn't very long until Hamas took over, and anybody who wanted to make peace with Israel, they killed--Hamas did. They have an underground tunnel complex, and that money they used to build the tunnels is pretty much all the aid the world has given them. And all of a sudden, Israel is the bad guy. I hate that so many people are being killed, but Hamas uses the Palestinian people in Gaza as human shields. They want Israel to kill more of their people because they think it helps their cause to isolate Israel. I have been to Israel more times than I can count. I think the idea is a professional military force. And here's what is so ironic: The Jewish State, Israel, if they wanted to, could kill everybody in Palestine. They have the ability to do that. The Palestinians would love to kill everybody in Israel; they just don't have the ability. The one that could do it has chosen not to; the one with limited capabilities is willing to bet the farm on killing as many as they can. What an upside-down world we are after 9/11. If somebody in a Parliament had made the speech that Senator Sanders just made, criticizing America for our response after being viciously attacked, I think we would have taken offense to that. And we are only talking about October. We are talking about months, not years. There were 24 brigades that Hamas had. They are down to the last four or five. They are hiding among a million Palestinians. I don't blame Israel for wanting to destroy them all. I actually support Saudi Arabia and Israel recognizing each other and trying to find a better future for the Palestinians. That better future cannot include Hamas. The First Minister of Northern Ireland, which is a beautiful place, said something--I really don't know her; I just thought it was an odd thing to say--that one day Hamas will be seen as part of the solution. I am not so sure that is the case. I don't ever see Hamas being considered part of the solution anytime. So that is 2023. What else is happening in 2023 and now 2024? So Secretary Austin came before our committee. We are helping Israel. There is money for Israel in this package, and I want to help Israel. There is money for Ukraine in this package, and I want to help Ukraine. There is money for Taiwan in this package, and I want to help them too. I asked Secretary Austin: Is it a red line for Iran to orchestrate an attack on our forces that kills an American in Syria or Iraq. . . . Can you say that? This was weeks before they actually did this. [AUSTIN:] I think Iran should be held accountable for the activities of [Iran]. [GRAHAM:] Can we say to Iran, if you escalate the second front, if you activate Hezbollah against the State of Israel to create a second front, we will come after you? [AUSTIN:] Whether or not we attack Iran because of a decision on the part of Lebanese Hezbollah, that is a Presidential decision. Back to my original question. I wanted him to tell the world, so the Iranians could hear, that if your proxies kill an American, we are coming after you, not just the proxies. Well, unfortunately, it wasn't long after that exchange that these three brave Americans were killed in 2024 by an Iranian militia. So 2020, we get attacked. We say: Never again. In 2024, Iranian militia are killing American servicemembers in Jordan and then almost 200 attacks since the invasion of Hamas against Israel. And we are helping Israel, and Hamas and all the terrorists throughout the world, including Iran, are trying to pay us back. After 9/11, I didn't think this headline would be possible: ``Iran closer than ever to weaponizing uranium, building nuclear bomb.'' So 20-some years after 9/11, we have a budget below inflation. We have pulled out of Iraq; 10 years later, pulled out of Afghanistan. Russia is trying to dismember Ukraine. Hamas attacked Israel with ferocity and barbarity beyond what the Nazis did. How could all this happen? And Iran, the ``Great Satan,'' religious Nazis, on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon? What the hell happened? Now we are going to turn to something else that happened. September 11, 2001. I don't know how many illegal crossings we had at the southern border, but it wasn't that big of an issue. We did immigration reform with President Bush, trying to secure our border. So on September 11, 2001, if you had told people that in 2024 we would have a border that was completely broken, wide open, with terrorism on the rise, fentanyl coming in to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, rabid Islamic extremists on the Terrorist Watchlist pouring through the border, nobody would have believed you. What happened? Did we learn anything from 9/11? Apparently not. When President Trump left office in December of 2020, we had the lowest illegal crossings in 40 years. For fiscal year 2020, it was 458,000; 2021, 1.7 million; 2022, 2.4 million; 2023, 2.5 million. We are on track for fiscal year 2024 for 3.6 million. Over 9 million have come across since President Biden has been in office. He inherited the most secure border we have had in a long time. We have been talking about what to do. In April of 2023, Secretary Mayorkas said: We need policy changes to remove individuals who do not qualify for asylum. The asylum system needs to be reformed from top to bottom--policy changes. To Senator Lankford's credit and Senator Murphy's and others, they have been working for a very long time to come up with a border security proposal that would change asylum, and I thought they did a pretty good job, to be honest with you, but there was more to be done. The bipartisan bill was a serious effort. It had many good things but not quite everything I wanted, for sure. So, you see, from 2020 to 2023, there has been a 300-percent increase in the encounters, and 172 people on the Terrorist Watchlist came through in fiscal year 2023, the end of September of last year. Here is the one that just blows me away: parole. During the Trump and Obama Presidencies, parole was granted at about 5,600 per year. In fiscal year 2022, the Biden administration paroled 795,000 people; in fiscal year 2023, 802,000. We are well on our way to a million this time. Again, Presidents Obama and Trump paroled 5,623 on average per year. President Biden paroled 795,561 in fiscal year 2022 alone. Now, what am I talking about when it comes to parole? Here is the law. The DHS Secretary, in his ``discretion,'' may parole into the United States temporarily, under such conditions as he may prescribe, only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, any alien applying for admission to the United States. Urgent humanitarian reasons. Significant public benefit. Case-by-case basis. That law has been completely obliterated. The bipartisan bill that is trying to rein in the abuse of parole-- they did a pretty good job but not enough for me. That is why I wanted to make sure we would debate the bipartisan bill the same way we did, the Gang of 8, which I was part of. That was on the floor of the U.S. Senate for a couple weeks. You have to defend your product. I want to put a cap on parole. And here is what is coming: We are going to start a parole watchlist. This is a discretionary decision. You don't need to change the law; you just need to quit obliterating the law and follow it. So I am going to track every week how many people the Biden administration paroles because it is supposed to be done case by case--5,600 per year for Trump and Obama and now about 800,000 a year. Clearly these people in the Biden administration want to wave in a lot of folks. And when I hear Secretary Mayorkas say he doesn't bear any of the blame, that is offensive because when you wave in that many, word gets out that if you show up, you are going to get in. You have an 85-percent chance, if you show up to the U.S. border, of being allowed in as of last month. As long as people believe there is an 85-percent chance of getting into the country, they will never stop coming. The Biden administration repealed 90-something Executive orders. They canceled the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy. Anything Trump did, they changed because they didn't want to be like Trump. Well, you have accomplished that goal. You are not like President Trump when it comes to securing our border, and I think that is one of the reasons President Biden is going to lose. The bottom line is you have a pretty secure border. You tore up all the infrastructure President Trump put in place, and you want to blame him. Give me a break. You are taking parole and abusing the law, and when an 85-percent chance of getting in the country continues, you are never going to stop the flow. So don't tell me, Secretary Mayorkas, that your policies had nothing to do with this tsunami--I dare say, invasion--of America. And it is just not people. It is drugs. In 2021, there were 71,238 people who died from a fentanyl overdose. We have seized enough fentanyl coming through the southern border to kill 2\1/2\ billion people. Most of it is coming through China. It comes through the southern border. It is literally an attack on America, and we are not doing much to respond. There was a provision in the bipartisan bill that addressed the fentanyl problem. It was pretty good but not enough--again, enough fentanyl to kill everybody in America and 2,700 pounds were seized in one fiscal year alone. In one fiscal year, there was enough to kill everybody in America. How could that happen after 9/ 11? After 9/11, we created a Terrorist Watchlist. I wish we had had one before 9/11. Now, after 9/11, one of the things we wanted to do was to kind of watch people we thought were going to be terrorists or associated with terrorists. Here is what has happened: In 2017, we found two. In 2018, we found six. In 2019, zero. In 2020, three. In 2021, 15, when we withdraw from Afghanistan. In 2022, Russia invades Ukraine, 98. In 2023, Hamas attacks Israel, 172. There have been 50 already since September. All of these people are probably up to no good. CNN, not FOX, in 2023: ``Smuggler with ties to ISIS helped migrants enter U.S. from Mexico, raising alarm bells across government.'' After we pulled out of Iraq in 2011 and the JV team became ISIS and destroyed thousands of people's lives--destroyed the Yazidis people and created attacks on our homeland--they are still in business smuggling people into our country. How could that happen after 9/11? How could that happen after 2011? Well, it is. This is a San Diego field office warning: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah are coming across in this area--fighting-aged males associated with these jihadist groups. How could that happen in October of 2023? On December 5, 2023--just a couple of months ago--this is the FBI Director's testimony before our committee in responding to a question I asked: While 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 have never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are elevated all at exactly the same time. So we take a border security proposal. I appreciate the people who worked on it. You did some good things. We had one cloture vote, and they pulled the plug. The fix was in on both sides here. We didn't really have a serious debate to fix the broken border. The elevated threat strain is real. We don't want an October 7-type attack coming against America like it did Israel. We don't want another 9/11. We have our military spending below inflation. We have a border that is completely broken. We are being poisoned by fentanyl coming in from China. Hamas has killed more Jews since the Holocaust. The Taliban is now in charge of Afghanistan, and the Iranians, through their proxies, are trying to kill Americans and have killed Americans to drive us out of the Middle East. Other than that, we are in good shape. How does this happen? What are we thinking as a nation? With my good friend John McCain, we were wrong some. We probably had too many troops for too long. I have, by no means, been perfect, but I think I and many others have been more right than wrong. So we have to ask ourselves as a country: How could it be that we find ourselves in this national security nightmare, and isn't it time to make corrections? I will talk about that in a minute. But the hits, they keep on coming. ``60 Minutes'' did a program. If you would watch it, it would really make you mad. There is a hole in the fence near San Diego that people just literally walk through. The Biden administration decided not to plug the hole. It got on ``60 Minutes,'' and I think Mexico has plugged the hole. The number of migrants arriving at the southern border is unprecedented . . . So what is the fastest growing group among them? Chinese migrants . . . We saw large groups, including many from the middle class, come through a 4-foot gap at the end of a border fence 60 miles east of San Diego. That is according to ``60 Minutes'' a couple of weeks ago. How is this happening, and why are we letting it continue? In December, there were 302,034 border encounters. This is the most of any month on record--ever. So when Secretary Mayorkas says they bear no responsibility, I respectfully disagree. The problem you have, Mr. Secretary, is that you have abused parole, as 85 percent of the people who show up get in. You have waved in over 2\1/2\ billion people when Obama and Trump had 5,600 on average. You have created the magnet. You have made people believe that, if they get here, they are going to come and stay. You really don't deport anybody. You have been as weak as water when it comes to securing our border. You want to blame Congress. I will be the first to say, Congress should do better. I had been working on comprehensive immigration reform with Senator Kennedy, I think, during the first Bush term in 2006, I believe it was--maybe it was the second term--and on the Gang of 8 bill in 2013. I had been working on it, trying. It is just hard. I understand, but we can't stop trying. The problem we have today is that the policy choices of the Biden administration have obliterated border. You could bring about control of the border far better than we have today if you would just re-implement policies that were working and just get over the fact that Trump did it and actually put the American people first. As to the product that was produced by the bipartisan working group, thank you very much for your hard work. I know it is not easy. Senator Lankford, on our side, is one of the smartest people I know and is one of the most honorable people I know. I think you produced a good product on asylum and good stuff on parole. There are some things that needed to be changed. As to the ``break glass'' 5,000--when you can shut down the border when you have 5,000 a day--it probably should have been 1,000. There are a bunch of things. There needs to be a cap on parole to make sure it is not abused in the future. There are a bunch of things we could have done to make the bill better. The reason I am going to vote no to this package is because I have been telling people for months now that I want to help Ukraine; I want to help Israel; I want to help Taiwan; but we have got to help ourselves first. The effort to help ourselves, I thought, was halfhearted and not consistent with what we have done in the past to try to pass an immigration bill. I thought the fix was in. So the border part we did in one day. We are jumping now to the supplemental dealing with aid to our allies. I am going to stick with what I have been saying: I have been to Israel and Saudi Arabia, I think, four times in the last 8 weeks. I love our friends in Israel. We have got $10 billion in there for them. We have got money that is needed to help Ukraine keep the fight going. We have money to harden Taiwan. It all makes perfect sense to me, but we can't do that until we secure our own border. So I am going to vote no, being consistent with what I have been saying, and I am not going to Munich. It is the first time, other than being in cycle or sick, that I miss Munich. We have Codel McCain where we honor John McCain--Senator Whitehouse and myself. He came up to me-- you know, Sheldon Whitehouse is a wonderful man--saying he may not go to Munich if we don't do something on Ukraine. I said: Well, I can withstand the wrath of the Europeans, but I can't withstand going home and telling the American people--South Carolinians, particularly--that we have done a good job on their behalf, and we have not. So I will not be going to Munich. I will be going to our border. While you are over in Munich, talking to our friends and our allies, I will be at the border. You can tell our friends and allies that I want to help them, but we have a national security nightmare in our own backyard, and I intend to do all I can to get a better outcome. I meant it then, and I mean it now. Finally, here is what the FBI Director said: Post October 7, the attack by Hamas against Israel, you see a veritable rogues' gallery of terrorist organizations calling for attacks against us, [the United States]. They want to attack us as payback for helping Israel. So every problem we had before October 7 is now worse, and they want to come after us because we dare to help our friends in Israel. The threat level has gone to a whole other level since October 7. This is the FBI Director, just a few weeks ago, telling us that the October 7 attack, orchestrated by Hamas against Israel, has made us more vulnerable to attack, and people want to come pay us back because we helped Israel. I will sort of end where I began. ``Zero Dark Thirty'' was a story about the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, but the folklore now is that there were blinking lights everywhere before the attack on September 11 and that we sort of missed it. So I asked the FBI Director that question: Do you see blinking lights against American national security interests? Do you see blinking lights that you equate with a threat to our homeland being attacked? I see blinking lights everywhere I turn. So, folks, after 9/11, in 2024, the world is on fire. We need to help our friends. They have many problems. Israel has got its back against the wall. We need to help them with military aid. I intend to do that and will do that. Russia invaded Ukraine after we withdrew from Afghanistan. Americans are being killed by Iranian proxies. I am not only willing to help our allies, I am going to insist that when we get back to appropriating--if we ever do--we get rid of this stupid budget deal that has the spending below inflation. That is just insane given the state of the world. To the House, you have been insisting on border security as part of any package to help other countries. I get it. I get it. I get it. You are right to do that, but stop sending H.R. 2. You aren't solving the problem by passing a bill that can't go anywhere. H.R. 2, no matter how much you like it--I particularly, actually, do like it--didn't pick up one Democratic vote in the House, and you lost two Republicans. We have put it on the floor of the Senate. We lost one Republican and didn't pick up one Democrat. It is not going to become a law. So it doesn't matter if it can't be enacted. I want to secure our border, but with H.R. 2, the votes are not here for it. To my House colleagues, if you can't pick up one Democrat, how are we supposed to pick up 11? And, when we voted on H.R. 2, we lost one Republican. So I would advise you to find some alternative to H.R. 2 that would really help. There are a bunch of them. Marsha Blackburn has, like, 12 ideas, and I have got three. Let's try to find some border security measures, and let's do this. There are some people rightly upset that we are giving nonlethal aid to Ukraine after all this money. Why don't we just focus on the weapons and let our European allies help them financially? I don't mind helping them financially some, but our friends in the House probably are going to take a different view. I talked to President Trump today, and he is dead set against this package. He thinks that we should make packages like this a loan, not a gift. It is what we did with Lend-Lease for the British. In 2003, I had an amendment with Senators Collins, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and a couple others to make the reconstruction of Iraq--of Iraq--in 2003, a loan, not a grant. Pay us back when you can. Get back on your feet, get your oil industry up and running, and try to pay us back, within reason, as much as you can. That was defeated by a single vote. Here is where I think the American people are at: very much supportive of Israel; very much understanding, I think, of the consequences of failure in Ukraine. There is an element in my caucus that wants to pull the plug on Ukraine. These are pretty much many of the same people who wanted to pull the plug on Afghanistan. My friend, Rand Paul--I don't know where his statement is--but he has been consistent. You have got to give him that. He wanted to pull out of everywhere. He still does. I would just tell him: You may be tired of fighting a radical Islam; they are not tired of fighting. You may want to become fortress America, but it won't work. Senator Paul, our border is our last line of defense, not our first line of defense. So when you pull out of Afghanistan, after the passage of time, and expect it all to turn out well, you miss what happened in 2011 in Iraq. The reason I keep saying this is that wanting a war to be over is not enough. The other side has to want it to be over too. Here is where we find ourselves in 2024: Radical Islam is getting stronger as I speak. They are back in charge of Afghanistan. Here is what I have come to learn since September 11, 2001, to this very minute: The enemy we are facing are religious fanatics. Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews and create a master race. He wrote a book, and nobody believed him. They should have. These people are on a mission to purify Islam, to destroy the State of Israel, and come after us. You can want them to stop. They will not stop unless you make them. Here is what I would suggest to this body and the American people: All this time has passed, but the enemy is still there. Here is the good news: There are plenty of people over there who don't want what these guys are selling, and they are willing to fight with us. Be their partner. It breaks my heart to pull the plug on all the people who stepped forward in Afghanistan. Only God knows what kind of life they are leading right now. If you show weakness in one place, it hurts you everywhere else. Putin chose to invade in 2022, I think, because he saw us weak in 2021. As to what we should do next, we should never count on a foreign country to protect American shores. We are going to need some level of troop presence--it doesn't have to be 100,000, by any means--working with populations over there fighting radical Islam so they won't hit us here. If you haven't learned that by now, you have missed a lot. How many more times do we have to do the same thing to realize it is not working? My fear is that the mistakes we have made have caught up to us big time. And when you take a broken border and put it into the mix of what has been going on for the last 23 years with a radical Islam, it is a lethal cocktail to make 9/11 occur again on steroids. As I speak this evening, Israel is in a fight for its literal life. The Ayatollah is engaging America and other allies through proxies, trying to drive us out of the Mideast. If you think the Ayatollah wants a peaceful nuclear program, you should not be allowed to drive. He wants a bomb. And if he ever got the bomb, he would use it. The first thing you have got to understand is who is on the other side of the table. The ``Rocket Man'' in North Korea, he has got nuclear weapons. I think he is a mafia state. I don't want him to have any more, but I don't believe he is going to wake up one day and attack us if we are strong. China wants to dominate the world in a kind of nonlethal way, a combination of force and cheating behavior in the economy. So we have got to deal with China. Russia wants to reconstruct the old Russian Empire, the old Soviet Union. And if you let Putin get away with it in Ukraine, he ain't going to stop, and you are going to have a war with NATO. That is why I want to help Ukraine. But having said all of that, for me to be able to convince people in South Carolina to continue to support conflicts overseas, I have to prove to them that I get it when they tell me: What about our own country? So I am not going to Munich. I am going to the southern border. I am not going to vote for this aid package because I think this body did not seriously entertain trying to strengthen our border. The bill is going nowhere in the House. I am going to try to convince some of my colleagues in the House: Listen to President Trump. Make some of this a loan. It is called the Trump rule, I think. We are willing to help you, but pay us back if you can. I think most Americans would appreciate that change of attitude. Put together something on the new package that is more lethal--lethal aid--minus humanitarian aid, with a loan, not a grant, and some reasonable border security provisions. I think we can do two things. I think we can help our friends, and I think we can help ourselves. It will be a more sustainable position for political leaders to take when the American people understand that others, if they can pay you back, they should. I really believe in helping my neighbor when the barn burns down, but if they can pay me back down the road, great. The bottom line: I thought about this for days. I have been one of the leading voices on our side: You can't pull the plug on Ukraine; we have got to help Israel. I am always in a tug-of-war with President Trump. He did not pull all of our forces out in Afghanistan, I appreciate that. ``America First,'' to me, works. Isolationism doesn't. I know this bill is going nowhere in the House. To my House colleagues: I am voting no against aid that I believe is very much needed--and I have been an advocate for it--to let you know I am listening to you. I am letting my colleagues in my conference know it is time to sort of have other people do more if they can. I am with you. Let's make it a loan, not a grant. Let's make it more lethal. Let's do something on the border that will actually pass. Then we can end this debacle in a pretty good spot. I will close with this. In a few minutes, the Super Bowl is going to kick off. I, like most everybody--most people in the country--am going to watch the ball game. I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan more times than I can count--52 is the last time, but more since--usually with Senator McCain. I have seen the wars go up and go down. I have seen surges. I have seen mistakes. I have made my own fair share of mistakes. But I cannot tell you how worried I am as an American right now that we have lost our vision when it comes to defending America. In 2024, my friend, we have the most porous border I have known since I have been in public service. Fentanyl is coming over killing thousands of Americans. Nine million people have come across. The numbers on the Terrorist Watchlist grow daily. Hamas has generated a jihad. Our help of Israel is going to make an attack on America more likely, with jihadists to pay us back. Putin, if he gets away with it, will set in motion the invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese. So why don't we do this? Why don't we find a way to help our friends in Ukraine that will be politically more sustainable? Why don't we build a bigger Navy so China will be less likely to invade Taiwan? Why don't we stick with our friends in Israel as long as it takes and quit trying to tell them what is the proper response after this carnage? I do want Israel to try to lessen civilian casualties. But to our friends in Israel: I know why this is so hard. Hamas makes it that way. We have got a chance here in the next 30 days or less to come up with a solution to our border and help our allies in a way that the American people will be more supportive of. I think it is now time for us, as a nation, to look to others in the world and say: Do more where you can. To our friends in NATO: Trump is right; you should pay more. To our friends in Ukraine: We want to be there for you, but we are $34 trillion in debt. Let's make it a loan. Pay us back when you can, if you can, and come up with a sustainable way of doing business, given a nation so in debt. And before we do any of that, convince the American people we have the ability and the desire to protect our own backyard. ``America First,'' to me, means that America leads from the front, not from behind; that America shapes history. It is not overwhelmed by it. But America has to insist on others doing their part. I would say this. There is more others could do, and they should. Europe has been pretty good, quite frankly, on Ukraine. There is more others could do, and they should. We should go back to trying to secure our border. The House has sent a bill that had no chance of passing. The Senate took up a bipartisan bill in a way that could really not be debated. So both bodies, for different reasons, have got us in a spot where we are not going to do anything meaningful on the border. So I won't be going to Munich; I will be going to the border. To the people in Munich who wonder why I am going to the border: If you want me to help you, I have got to convince people back home I have helped them. And I ain't going back to Munich any time soon until we fix our own border. I will gladly vote yes on this package when it is rearranged. The House will take up this bill that will pass, and it is going to get stuck. So I am going to try to unstick it, if I can. I am going to urge the House to listen to the Trump rule. See if we can pay for some of this--not pay for it, make it a loan; pay for it if you can--and get this right before it is too late. All these years after 9/11, I am absolutely dumbfounded, as a nation, how we could be where we are today, and I am going to do my part to try to fix it--a stronger military budget, not a weaker one; fix the border; help others, but insist they help themselves. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, we heard you loud and clear. Is it my turn? I am not jumping ahead of anybody.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you. So let's have an overview of where we are at here. Everything my colleagues on the Democratic side said about helping Ukraine makes perfect sense to me. I think we need to help Ukraine. I thought it was a really bad idea to get out of Iraq in 2011, and I issued a statement about our withdrawal in 2011. I said: I respectfully disagree with President Obama. I feel all we have worked for, fought for, sacrificed for is very much in jeopardy by today's announcement. I hope I am wrong and the President is right, but I fear this decision has set in motion events that will come back to haunt our country. The ISIS was not the JV team. A lot of people were slaughtered throughout the planet because of that ill-advised decision. So we got out of Afghanistan. President Biden chose to do that. I have a statement here I will put in the record. I was very clear that if we get out of Afghanistan, pull all the troops, that there will be a reemergence of al-Qaida and ISIS and there will be a great major upheaval, as this decision by President Biden is a disaster in the making. So a lot of Republicans agree with those two things. To my Republican colleagues, if we pull the plug on Ukraine, it is going to be worse than Afghanistan. The idea of pulling the plug on Ukraine and it will not affect our national security is a fantasy. It was clear to me that getting out of Iraq in 2011 was too soon and would lead to the rise of radical Islamic terrorists. They literally took over half the country, killed people in Paris and here and everywhere else. Now we are back in Iraq. We should never have got out in the first place. The bottom line about Afghanistan--I know it was a long slog and people wanted out, but the Taliban took over within weeks. And the Taliban being in charge of Afghanistan led to other people in the world thinking, hey, America is weak, now is the time to pounce. So in 2021, we withdraw from Afghanistan. The Taliban take over. In 2022, Russia invades Ukraine. That has been a complete disaster. In 2023, Hamas attacks Israel, killing more Jewish people than at any time since the holocaust. In 2024, Iranian proxies are killing American soldiers and they are running wild throughout the world. Other than that, everything is pretty good. Now having said all that, my point is, I want to help Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. I really do. I think it is in our national security interests to do all of the above. But I have also said from, like, day one: I want to help other countries, but we got to help our country first. Now what do I mean by that? I mean that the border is not just broken, it is a complete nightmare. It is a national security disaster in the making; 7 million people have come across the border illegally-- a lot of people on the Terrorist Watchlist. So it has been a nightmare. And we tried to sit down in a bipartisan way--Senators Murphy, Sinema, Lankford, and others sat down to come up with a bipartisan proposal that I thought did a pretty good job in many ways. However, having said that, I didn't think it was enough. I was hoping that they would build on what they did. But here's where we are at: The House declared it insufficient.

Mr. GRAHAM. The Republican--

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.

Mr. GRAHAM. I will be glad to. I voted no because I didn't see a process in place or willingness by my Democratic colleagues to allow me to express how I think it could be better. See, at the end of the day--you weren't here, but Senator McCain was--we worked really hard--Senator Bennet has been involved in all this stuff in 2013--and we let the bill come to the floor, people amend it, and we spent days and weeks. So that is why I voted no.

Mr. GRAHAM. So here is what I am saying. This has been a half-ass effort to deal with border security. To the people in the House--

Mr. GRAHAM. No, I am speaking. You will speak later. To the people in the House, we have not really tried hard to secure the border. We took a well-meaning product. People worked really hard. I applaud you and others for coming out with a product that I thought had a lot of good things in it, but not enough for me. So now I can't even vote. We have closed out the border debate, and you may give me a few amendments on Ukraine about the border. That is not the way it works around here.

Mr. GRAHAM. No. To my House colleagues: You can do better than this. Don't send us back H.R. 2. It is not going anywhere. You couldn't get all Republicans for H.R. 2. We lost one Republican and no Democrats. So this idea we have done enough on the border is BS. I am not done. I am not going to help Ukraine until we first do a better job helping ourselves. I have given people involved credit for working hard to get a product. But the system in place now--take it or leave it. The reason I voted no is because I didn't see any willingness by anybody to allow an amendment process where we could deal with the border issue. I'm giving an amendment on the Ukraine bill about the border.

Mr. GRAHAM. No. That is ass-backwards. We don't do it that way. During the Gang of 8 and other attempts, we had a robust amendment process. And let me tell you, I think there are things we can do to make it better.

Mr. GRAHAM. They want the 5,000-a-day encounter that kicks in an emergency authority to shut down the border. Here is what the border council said: 5,000 encounters a day is a catastrophe; 1,000 encounters a day would be a substantial improvement. It is truly an emergency. I was hoping we could talk about that. Now, we may get a vote on that on the Ukraine bill. We have closed out a debate on the border.

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.

Mr. GRAHAM. Yes.

Mr. GRAHAM. I will be glad to. Yes, because I think the fix is in. I think people on our side and your side wanted to do the border thing as quick as they could so we could get to Ukraine. And I don't trust the system here to be able to allow us to have the debate that we had for the Gang of 8 bill. That is why I voted no, because I didn't see any willingness in--and it proved to be correct--because now the Republican leadership has joined with the Democratic leadership to shut down debate on the border bill, throwing a few amendments on the Ukraine bill and saying: Aren't you happy now? No, I am not happy. I am not happy. I admit it that I wanted to secure the border before I help Ukraine. Everything you say about Ukraine is right. I was not kidding, to our colleagues in the House. We have done a half-ass job here trying to secure the border. We shut this thing down unlike any other time I have been involved in immigration. I have taken a lot of hard votes. You have taken a lot of hard--you know, you have been kicked around. I understand it. Senator Lankford, I admire the hell out of him. I thought you all produced a pretty good product--a really good product in some areas. But it wasn't enough. I want a cap on parole. Let me tell you why I want a cap on parole. During the Trump-Obama years, the average people paroled in the country was 5,600. In the last 2 years, President Biden has paroled over 800,000 people. So the parole was better, but we need a cap to stop the abuse. I would like to have an amendment on whether or not we should cap parole at 10,000 per year, but I am getting that on the Ukraine bill. So, to my colleague from Arizona, no, no, no. This has not been a real effort to find border security in a bipartisan way. We took your product. Take it or leave it. The reason I voted no to proceed has exactly been reaffirmed here. We stopped the process. We are jumping to Ukraine. We are going to do it this weekend, and it is going nowhere in the House. To those of you who want to help Ukraine, you have made it harder. We are going to lose a handful of Republican votes over here because they felt they were shut out in the debate about how to secure the border. We are going to lose votes--

Mr. GRAHAM. No, please. We are going to lose votes over here. You don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting it through the House, because we took the border issue, and we didn't address it the way it should have been. We closed it out. I could see the game being fixed. I am here as a proud supporter of Ukraine, telling you that you have hurt the cause of Ukraine by trying to shortchange a debate on the border. Your product was good, but I want to make it better. I have got a National Border Patrol Council letter about three things that would make it better. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am going to close this thing out. Here is what is going to happen. You may get this bill passed without any border, but it is going nowhere in the House. The House has made it crystal clear: To get money for Ukraine and other foreign countries, we have got to help our own. Our border is on fire. I will give you credit, the Senator from Arizona. You have been trying to fix it. I appreciate what you have tried to do, but the system we have employed--to my colleague from Arizona--is unlike any I have ever seen, in that we are going to take a consequential moment in American history of trying to secure a broken border and not even bring it to the floor for a real debate. The reason I voted no to proceed is because I saw what was happening. Our people on this side have been obsessed with Ukraine to the point of ignoring our border. There are people who are going to vote no to Ukraine who have always believed that the border was an excuse to try to get Ukraine. I never believed that. So the bottom line is this idea that, because 41 of us vote no, you close out the border. How about sitting down, reopening the border debate, and having a robust debate like we did with the Gang of 8? The reason I voted no is I could see where this thing was going. The bill you produced, while I liked parts of it, was dead in the House. I am trying to find a way to make it better, if that is possible. As to President Trump, who said he just doesn't want to deal with this until next year, I want to deal with it now. We could be attacked tomorrow. I want to let the people in South Carolina know I consider this a direct threat to the United States. I want to do something. I want to do it now. I don't want to wait until November.

Mr. GRAHAM. Sure.