Christopher Murphy

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. For the information of the Senate, we expect four rollcall votes beginning at around 8 p.m. Those votes will be cloture on the Medina, Phee, Robinson, and Lewis nominations.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding rule XXII, that upon the use or yielding back of time on the Donfried nomination, the Senate vote on the motions to invoke cloture on the Medina, Phee, Robinson, and Lewis nominations; that if closure is invoked on any of the nominations listed, all postcloture time be considered expired and the vote on confirmation of those nominations occur at a time and in an order to be determined by the majority leader, following consultation with the Republican leader, with 1 hour for debate equally divided prior to each vote, and the Republican debate be controlled by Senator Cruz.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Madam President.

Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, how quickly my colleagues forget that it was President Trump who entered into negotiations with the Taliban. It was President Trump who entered into an agreement with the Taliban that committed the United States to withdraw our forces. It was President Trump who sold out women and girls in that country by refusing to put their interests first at that negotiating table. It was President Trump who elevated the Taliban in the international community by putting them face-to-face with our negotiators. It is important to note, as to the specific request that is being made by the Senator from Arkansas, that right now, the Taliban is already designated as a designated global terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224. So they are already designated as a terrorist entity. There are specific problems with this designation. First, I don't think it is a great idea for us to be designating FTOs by statute. There is a reason why we generally allow the administration to do this. But maybe more importantly, what comes with an FTO is the withdrawal of humanitarian organizations from the country at hand. We know that because we saw it in Yemen. When President Trump designated the Houthis as an FTO for about a week, humanitarian organizations started pulling up their stakes. Right now, there are 18 million Afghans who are in need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. This is not the moment to take a step that will cause Afghans to starve. The second reason not to do this this way is because, whether we like it or not, we are in communication through intermediaries with the Taliban to get our people out, to get our partners out. There are flights leaving on a regular basis. And to designate them as an FTO, in addition to the existing designation that the Taliban has as a specially designated global terrorist entity, is to risk our ability to continue to bring our people out. We should be joined together as a Senate, despite the views we have on whether we should have stayed or left Afghanistan, in our support for the Afghan people by making sure that we do not take steps to cut off humanitarian assistance to people in need and our belief that we should be supporting this administration in their effort to continue to get our partners out. This designation done this way will risk both of those initiatives, and for that reason, I object.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 353, submitted earlier today.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 337, Isobel Coleman, to be a Deputy Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 336, Paloma Adams-Allen, to be a Deputy Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 335, Donald Lu, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, to be Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 334, Jessica Lewis, to be an Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, because China is absolutely celebrating every single day that our Corps of diplomats is dramatically and dangerously understaffed because of these holds on the President's nominees, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 330, Mary Catherine Phee, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service to be a Member of the Board of Directors to the African Development Foundation, for a term expiring September 27, 2021.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am at the final unanimous consent request, and I will make it in a moment. Just to note, as we are wrapping up here, this has taken a while, and this list of pending nominees is going to grow. It is going to get longer and longer. There are going to be more key posts that are going to go unfilled. I understand Senator Cruz's desire to use his power to hold these nominees in order to get a change in policy from this administration. I doubt that the administration, which has already set a clear direction and has executed an agreement with the Germans, is going to abide. My worry, though, is that this won't be the end, that this is not going to be the last foreign policy decision that the Senator from Texas or other Republican Senators will disagree with, nor will it likely be the last decision that any high-profile Cabinet member makes that finds disagreement from my Republican colleagues. And so I end where I began, which is to say that Senator Cruz and I have a difference of opinion with respect to Nord Stream and the gravity of the moment that we find ourselves in. But this place just becomes unworkable if every single Senator holds up this many nominees over one particular policy disagreement. This tactic will be utilized by Democrats when there is a Republican in the White House. It might not be me, because I find this objectionable, but it will be copied, and you will find the same thing happening to a Republican President and their administration grinding to a halt in whatever Department finds itself the object of this tactic. So I continue to express this deep worry about what it means to not have individuals in place in Somalia overseeing the Western Hemisphere and to not have someone overseeing our counternarcotics operations, but this list will get longer and longer and longer, and the risk to American security will be greater. Again, I will just suggest that the harm being done here to U.S. security is much greater than the benefit that the Senator believes will be gained through negotiation over these posts with the administration. So, at the risk of inspiring another very long speech from the Senator from Texas, I make those remarks. Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar Mr. President, I ask, finally, that it be in order to make the same request, as I have and Senator Menendez has, with respect to Executive Calendar No. 150, Brett Holmgren to be an Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, because every single day that the President doesn't have his team in place to protect this Nation, our Nation is under more serious threat. I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Calendar No. 329, Mary Catherine Phee, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the African Development Foundation, for a term expiring September 27, 2026.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, similarly, because without an ability to have U.S. diplomats on posts, to have our most important leadership positions staffed, we make ourselves intentionally, deliberately unable to be able to manage crises across the world. I would ask that it be in order to make the same requests with respect to Executive Calendar No. 331, Mary Catherine Phee, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service to be Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I would ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 332, Lee Satterfield, to be an Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am going to continue to propound these unanimous consent requests in the same form as the chairman of the Committee, but before I do, just a few brief remarks. I know the hour is late. First of all, it is wonderful to hear this revisionist history about the Trump administration's disposition towards Russia. Everybody knows what was going on. This was an administration that was practically sycophantish towards the Russian regime, refused over and over again to stand up in any meaningful way. That is why the pipeline got so far along. It was the eleventh hour when the Trump administration, at the very last minute, decided to move forward on sanctions. We are not here to paint the merits of the Trump administration's decisionmaking on Russia policy. But suffice it to say, Russia did very well expanding its influence around the region during the 4 years that Donald Trump was in office. Second, the effects of holding up all of these nominees is to kneecap American national security. Never, ever before has a President had so few nominees confirmed to key national security posts than this President. It has never happened before. It is true that there is a history in this body of individual Senators placing a temporary hold on one or maybe two officials relevant to the policy over which they are having a disagreement with the administration. Probably many Members of this body have done that. But at least in the time that I have been here and from what I have heard, never before has an individual Senator held up this many nominees for key national security posts over a disagreement on one specific policy. And if every single Senator did that--because every Senator here has a policy disagreement that they believe is significant with the Secretary of State, with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, with the Secretary of Defense--then the business of nominations and confirmations would grind to an absolute halt in this body. I had deep disagreements with President Trump, but never did I endeavor to hold up every single nominee to State Department posts, because I came to the conclusion that that would do much, much more harm to American national security than whatever concession I might get from the administration would provide a benefit to American national security. So I share this just, really, paralyzing fear that Senator Menendez expressed, that something awful is going to happen without the kind of personnel that every President needs on post to do the job. We could probably get by if this was a hold of one or two or three individuals. We are talking about dozens of key national security posts that are left vacant because of the decision of one Senator. Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar Mr. President, I will continue to propound these requests. I imagine the decision will not be different. I ask that it be in order to make the same request as those Senator Menendez was making with respect to Executive Calendar No. 327, Anne A. Witkowsky, to be Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations.

Mr. MURPHY. Because American national security is gravely compromised by the inability of a President to have his national security team in place at a time of crisis, I would ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 328, Anne A. Witkowsky, to be Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I would ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 333, Karen Erika Donfried, to be an Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and Eurasian Affairs.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I understand the Senator believes he has such a serious objection to administration policy that it merits this exceptional tactic. I would submit, as I move into closing business, that it is not the biggest disagreement that a Senator has had with an administration. It is not the biggest disagreement that a group of Senators has had with an administration. To believe that would be to elevate this dispute beyond its merits. That is not to suggest it isn't significant, but it is not the most significant disagreement that an individual Senator has ever had with an administration. What is exceptional is his tactic. Never before has a U.S. Senator used their power in this way to hold up this many nominees at such a critical moment. That is what is exceptional. That is what makes this moment so dangerous. That is why Senator Menendez and I came down to the floor to try to unlock some of these nominees toward confirmation, because it is the tactic, not the disagreement, that is the exception.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to then convene for pro forma sessions only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times, and that following each pro forma session, the Senate adjourn until the next pro forma session: Friday, August 13, at 9:30 a.m.; Tuesday, August 17, at 9:30 a.m.; Friday, August 20, at 9 a.m.; Tuesday, August 24, at 8:30 a.m.; Friday, August 27, at 9 a.m.; Tuesday, August 31, at 10:30 a.m.; Friday, September 3, at 1:30 p.m.; Tuesday, September 7, at 1 p.m.; and Thursday, September 9, at noon. I further ask that when the Senate adjourns on Thursday, September 9, it next convene at 3 p.m., Monday, September 13; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Kvaal nomination; finally, that the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, September 13.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 354, submitted earlier today.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 268, 321, 189, 247, 267, 270, 344, 301, 295, 296, 297, 298, and 299; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, first, to talk about the Build Back Better Budget. This is an opportunity for this country to get it right. For far too long, millionaires and billionaires, corporations in this country have accrued more and more wealth, have paid less and less taxes, while average Americans have seen the cost of living rise, their lives get more difficult, and Washington do virtually nothing about it. We are going to make a huge downpayment in fixing that imbalance. The Build Back Better Budget, which we will begin considering tomorrow, is going to lower costs for Americans. We are talking about the cost of Medicare, making sure that seniors get a benefit for things like vision and dental; lower the costs for families, like childcare costs. The Presiding Officer and I are amongst the few parents of relatively young school-age children. We know the cost of childcare today can bankrupt families that don't have the incomes that we do. It is going to cut taxes for American families but the right American families. People who are making $30,000, $60,000 a year, that is who needs a tax break, not the millionaires and billionaires. It is going to create millions of jobs while tackling the climate crisis. Come to Connecticut. We have renewable energy companies building jobs all over our country, but they are having to compete with other nations that are making big investments in climate, which are creating their own renewable energy economies. If somebody is going to capture millions and millions of jobs in wind and solar and geothermal and electric cars, it should be the United States. Lastly, we are going to pay for this by asking the wealthy to pay their fair share, not more as a percentage of income than anybody else but their fair share. We have corporations, some of the biggest in America, that are paying virtually no taxes today. All of the wealth that is being accumulated by the CEOs of these massive internet companies, virtually untaxed. That has to change. That has to change. I am excited to be a part of this process. As I said, we have the chance to tackle the climate crisis and create millions of new jobs. We can and have to do both. You saw the new report challenging us, right? The facts are dire with respect to what has already happened as this planet has warmed. But what that report says is that the next 8 years are critical. The decisions we make in this decade will determine whether there is a livable planet for our children. That is our obligation. But here is our opportunity: create millions of new jobs. In Connecticut, we have solar companies, advance battery companies, fuel cell companies, that are just waiting for the U.S. Government to create a market for their technologies in the way that so many other countries around the world are doing. We have the chance to invest in community violence intervention programs and save lives. This is part of the Build Back Better agenda. President Biden has made it clear that if you want to tackle the epidemic of gun violence in this country, then you have to invest in communities in need. If you take a look at what drives violence and exposure to violence in this country, the No. 1-correlated factor is income. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to be the victim of violence. By investing in communities that have high rates of violence--and not, coincidentally, high rates of poverty--you are reducing violence in this Nation. We have so many examples of programs, like Project Longevity in New Haven and Bridgeport, CT, for example, that show, when you wrap services around a small subset of at-risk families and at-risk young people, you can dramatically lower the rates of violence in this country. And, by the way, that puts people to work, too, creating these investments in anti-violence programming. Then we have a chance to transform our rail system and create jobs, speed up our commutes, and address the climate crisis. And we are making a big downpayment in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, $66 billion for rail. And I hope to see an additional downpayment in the budget reconciliation process. But investing in rail, it is kind of the Holy Grail because it creates short-term jobs as we rebuild our decrepit rail lines. It speeds up commutes for people. That just makes their lives better, more time with family. But it also creates a lot of economic development potential. Companies want to locate here when they can get their people faster from point A to point B. Boston to DC is about half the distance as Beijing and Shanghai, but it takes twice the amount of time to get from those two spots in the United States as it does in Asia. We are way behind the curve in investment in high-speed rail, and that is hurting us economically. But, of course, an investment in rail is also about addressing the climate crisis because the only way to make a dent in transportation emissions is to move people out of cars, especially during the period of time in which we are ramping up the deployment of electric vehicles, and get those individuals into trains, get people out of planes and into trains, especially in a corridor like the Northeast, where the trains are electrified, right, where these are cleaner trains than in other parts of the country. We have a real opportunity, if we get more people onto trains by investing in them to address the climate crisis. So I want to just spend a moment, really, telling my colleagues both the responsibility and opportunity that we have. Millionaires, billionaires, and corporations are doing better than ever before in this country. Regular people are hurting. They want a government that is responsive to that. We need to address the huge costs people are having to pay today. We need to cut taxes for regular people. We need to create jobs, solve the climate crisis, and ask those who are doing very well, the top 0.1 percent, to pay their fair share Afghanistan Mr. President, as the Taliban continues this rapid advance into territory that had been controlled by the Kabul-based Afghan Government, there is going to be a lot of hand-wringing in Washington, especially amongst those who cheered our open-ended occupation of Afghanistan for the last 20 years. Those who opposed President Biden's plan to leave are going to engage in a battery of ``I told you so's'' and blame the President for the Taliban's march on Kabul. But the Taliban's surge isn't a reason for the United States to reverse course and put massive troop presence back into the country. No. The Taliban surge is actually a reason to stick to the withdrawal plan, because the complete, utter failure of the Afghan National Army, absent our hand-holding, to defend their country is a blistering indictment of a failed 20-year strategy predicated on the belief that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars could create an effective, democratic central government in a nation that has never had one and a Western- modeled army structure populated by troops who are willing to die to preserve a government. Staying 1 more year in Afghanistan means we stay forever because, if 20 years of laborious training and equipping of the Afghan security forces had this little impact on their ability to fight, then another 50 years wouldn't change anything. If we choose to keep spending trillions of dollars in Afghanistan until that nation is a fully functioning democracy and their security forces can, by themselves, repel extremist attacks, then we are never ever leaving. Now, I went to Afghanistan four times in 6 years, from 2007 to 2013. And each time, what struck me most was the heroism, the patriotism, the capability of our soldiers. Too many of them never came home. Too many others came home with injuries that changed their lives. Many of them were from my home State. But also, each time I went to Afghanistan, I also met with a new, impressive American general who had just recently arrived in country for his short 12-month tour. Each walked me through a PowerPoint presentation detailing how the previous general hadn't made that much progress in training the Afghan security forces and how this general would change course and finally get it right. This cycle of failure, readjustment, and continued failure must have played out over a dozen times in Afghanistan between our arrival there and the beginning of the Biden administration, and the Taliban took full advantage. Now, President Trump made a little-noticed decision to stop publicizing the estimates of how much territory the Taliban controlled in Afghanistan, no doubt because the news, especially in the last 5 years, got worse and worse. Yes, the Taliban is moving quickly toward regional capitals right now, but they have been gaining territory for nearly a decade. That trend is just accelerating now. One repeating mistake was our belief that we could create the Afghan National Army from our own mold. Now, our country's sense of nationalist patriotism, which inspires Americans to put their lives on the line for the flag and what it represents, does not have a corollary in Afghanistan. But we didn't get that. We had no sense of how competing tribal and ethnic affiliations made creating this common military purpose difficult. And each time our military leaders and our on-the-ground trainers started to learn about these local nuances and started adapting their methods, they were sent home because their deployment was done, and a new deployment of Americans arrived to start from scratch and start making the same mistakes again. Our military leaders are incredibly capable, but we gave them an impossible task. Our presence in Afghanistan also created a deadly feedback loop where Taliban and terrorist recruiters easily and eagerly scooped up trainees champing at the bit to fight the Americans. For instance, research suggests that in the northwest of Pakistan, where the Taliban and allied groups organized, our drone attacks actually led to increased, not decreased, numbers of Taliban fighters. Bombs falling from pilotless flying machines more often killed innocent civilians instead of enemy combatants, and this simply caused more anger against the United States and our Afghan Government allies and more interest in locals to join the fight against us. Now, as the Taliban begins to quicken the pace of their assault on Afghan forces, hawks in the United States are going to lead the charge for Biden to reverse course and continue these failed policies of the last 20 years. But to what end? If the Afghan National Army was so willing to stand aside after 20 years of U.S. investment, why would anything change if we stuck around longer? Of course, the answer is nothing would change. I know that that is hard to hear and to accept. Staying longer would just be to admit that American taxpayers have got to foot the bill for a permanent occupation of Afghanistan, to shore up a corrupt government and keep the Taliban at bay. Now, this isn't wise, mostly because my constituents, understandably, have little interest in putting that much money in Afghanistan when they can't afford groceries or college for their kids or their monthly rent. The Taliban are bad guys, but so are the leaders who rule Turkmenistan or Equatorial Guinea or Kazakhstan or North Korea, amongst others. But we can't afford, as a country, to invade and displace every brutal regime in the world. Now, what my constituents do care about is preventing another attack on American soil, which is why thousands of our brave men and women in uniform made the ultimate sacrifice fighting in Afghanistan. That is why we went there in the first place. So if spending trillions to fight the Taliban was vitally necessary to this project, then the American public would probably back the investment, but right now it isn't necessary. U.S. officials believe al-Qaida in Afghanistan is no longer capable of carrying out attacks against the United States. We are talking about 200 to 400 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan today. Now, this is likely because the Taliban is seeking a less contentious relationship with the United States and, therefore, has promised to deny al-Qaida a safe haven. Now, I get it. Assurances from the Taliban are of very limited value, but our intelligence collection on al-Qaida is good enough to be able to monitor the Taliban's compliance and adjust accordingly. Now, I understand how difficult it is to watch the Afghan National Army refuse to defend its territory, to watch the Taliban move so quickly into provincial capitals. I understand how infuriating it must be for families who lost loved ones in Afghanistan to see these gains be eliminated so quickly. But let's understand, finally, what would have happened if President Biden had chosen to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Twenty-five hundred troops is not a sufficient number to repel this offensive. Our military leaders have been crystal clear that a minimum of 8,500 troops are required to provide any modicum of support necessary to keep the Taliban's gains to a crawl. That is how many troops were there at the beginning of Trump's term, but as part of his agreement with the Taliban, he drew down the numbers to 2,500, a force size completely inadequate to stop any Taliban advance. And the only reason why those 2,500 soldiers didn't get overrun by the Taliban is because, as part of the Trump-Taliban agreement, the Taliban promised to hold off on attacks until the United States had withdrawn. So if President Biden decided to keep our open-ended mission to support the Afghan military against the Taliban, he would have had to surge troop levels back to 8,500. Every single troop in Afghanistan costs over $1 million a year. Now, never mind the complete unwillingness of the American public to support yet another Afghanistan troop surge; the cost of this escalation would have just been indefensible. The Afghan military, on paper, is far superior a fighting force to the Taliban. The Afghan National Army has approximately three times the number of soldiers. The Afghan National Army has an air force. The Taliban doesn't. The Afghan National Army's equipment and weapons-- thanks to the United States--are much more sophisticated and deadly. The United States trains that force. We pay their salaries. We support them. But despite this advantage, despite 20 years and trillions of dollars of investment, they are losing to the ragtag Taliban badly. This isn't a reason for the United States to reescalate. This is evidence of the wisdom and courage of President Biden's decision to withdraw. Our counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan is going to remain, but we should refuse, as a nation, to remain in forever wars that don't make our Nation safer I yield the floor.