Marco Rubio

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Reserving the right to object, let me first begin by saying that this is the first time I had a chance to speak on the floor about the Paycheck Protection Program since it passed. I want to say this unequivocally. Despite everything you read out there, in my mind, I don't think there is any question that by far this has been the most successful part of the CARES Act. To put it in perspective, this was something we worked on in a bipartisan way. In less than a week, it was crafted, and then the agencies had less than 6 days to put together the rules. Until Friday, April 4, no bank in America had ever made a PPP loan; no one had ever applied for one; and the SBA had never approved one. It was a massive program. We looked at the results. They are stunning--the results that we have seen. Does the program have problems? Sure. I think any time that you create something that spends $500 billion, $600 billion that reaches over 50 percent of the U.S. economy and put it together so quickly, there are going to be unintended consequences. I will come back to that point in a moment. I think the biggest problem this program has had from the very beginning, which created some of these tensions that we read about in the press, is that it was underfunded from the very beginning. I mean, the demand was greater than the supply, even potentially right now after the second round. We have heard the reports about publicly traded companies. We all know how we feel about that, and I am glad that is being addressed now. I also want to put it in perspective. They have taken 0.35 percent of the funds that were approved--not 35 percent, not 3.5 percent, 0.35 percent of the money that has been lent. It is not like they took half the money, which is what the perception is that has been created in the coverage. Meanwhile, that means the rest of it went to somebody who is not publicly traded. That is an extraordinary achievement, nonetheless, and I am glad that is being looked at. On transparency, they are all valid points. Myself--Friday, Saturday--I was really upset that we weren't getting those numbers. The reason why I want the numbers is, A, we want to make sure this program that we put our names on and worked hard on--all of us have--is reaching its intended audience and, B, the points that were made here as well, to the extent that changes have to be in any future funding, we want to make sure that future funding is targeted in the right way. The problem is--I was as upset as anybody. I hope that the agencies are watching these proceedings now and understanding why it is so important that our Members have accurate details and regular information about how this program is rolling out. What we do know, when they finally released numbers on Saturday, is that in round 2, the average loan went from $206,000 in round 1 to $76,000 or so in round 2. That is a stunning drop. It tells you it is reaching smaller business. We know that 72 percent of loans made in round 2 were under $50,000, and 85 percent were under $100,000. We do know that 4,400 of the 5,200 lenders in the program--or 5,400 lenders in the program have less than $1 billion in assets. We know it is reaching the regional banks, the smaller banks, the credit unions. The reason why doing what is being proposed now will be problematic is twofold. The first is, some of the demographic data that is being asked is not on the application. It is not even clear that they would be able to produce that for us unless they stopped the process, created a new application, and then began the process as well. We will know the answer to that question in the forgiveness phase. I do believe in the forgiveness phase it is very valid to ask that information on demographics be included in the forgiveness application that people are going to have to file. I think the best path forward is, in my view, not to pass something like this today, although something like this may be necessary if we can't get these numbers. But let's find out, first and foremost, what data points do they have. What data points does the SBA have at their disposal and see if we can get them to do what they should be doing already, which is producing it on a regular--maybe not on a daily basis. What I don't want to see is an already overburdened agency that is small to begin with and struggling to get all these programs running having to pull people off getting people money to fill out this information. We have to understand that in the end, it is not the Administrator or the Treasury Secretary who will have to write these things up and collect it. It is going to be people who, in many cases, are working from home, living in this region under all the restrictions that are there. I think this agency is already struggling to manage this massive program, and to add an additional requirement without thinking it through would have an unintended consequence of potentially slowing the program down. It is my view that we are going to find out all of this information, and we are going to know it in a timely fashion so we can do something about it. I do not believe that passing this today is the right approach, given the fact that we first need to know what data they have at their disposal before we can ask them to produce it. Otherwise, I fear they are going to stop or they are going to slow down, and real businesses, small businesses, and not-for-profits will be delayed. I will object to this request.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I received a call a few hours ago from someone I have known for a long time, a gentleman who I would say is in his early- to mid-nineties. He wanted me to stop saying that what we are facing is an unprecedented challenge. I was taken aback. I mean, none of us have ever lived through anything like this or confronted a situation that is as painful or so traumatic. He challenged me to do something that I had actually done a few years ago, but as it shows, even a few years erodes memory about things that happened long in the past. He challenged me to say: You know, everybody is comparing this to--the last time we had something like this, it required the Nation to react like we did in World War II. So it caused me to go back and look a little bit at the years before that great and bloody conflict. It is interesting. In the years leading up to 1941, President Roosevelt had an effort to pack the Supreme Court. It was incredibly controversial and ended up falling apart in 1937. It ended up falling apart actually because members of his own party turned against him, and it actually weakened him in the tail end of the second deal. President Roosevelt was so upset about what members of his own party had done to him that in 1938, he did something unprecedented at the time. He got involved in Democratic primaries and tried to defeat--take out--members of his own party who had opposed him. Not only did he lose badly in that effort--I think he won only 1 of those seats that he went after--as a result of what he did, his party lost 6 seats in the Senate and 71 seats in the House. Ultimately, in this very Chamber, a Republican, Robert Taft, was able to put together a coalition with conservative Democrats and basically block President Roosevelt's agenda leading in to 1940. Then, in 1940, Roosevelt did something else that was unprecedented and highly controversial. He announced, although it was legal, that he was running for a third term. He was, at that point, defying a long precedent that had been set by the Nation's first President. Then, to make matters even more interesting, his own Vice President, who had turned on him on the Court issue, he had to kick off the ballot. In fact, he told them: If you nominate him as Vice President, I will refuse the nomination. Ultimately, he was reelected on a promise. Ultimately, he was reelected by a pretty big margin, but he had to make a promise: I will keep this country out of war. This sets the stage going into November and December 1940. The President had spent the last 3 years battling his own party. He had seen his own agenda slowed and stifled and then had to kick off his own Vice President. After getting involved in primaries against his own party, he loses a large number of seats in the House and in the Senate and has a coalition form against him to block him. And then has to make a promise--we are not going to war--all the while understanding that what is happening in Europe would eventually reach us, and he was preparing for war. Why he made that promise was pretty fundamental. Going to war was not popular in this country. Millions of Americans, particularly those--at the time, you couldn't really travel abroad--who had no connections to Europe, looked at World War I as a European war and looked at the Second World War as just another trick to get America sucked back into a war that had to do with Europeans and not with them. Prominent voices--chief among them, Charles Lindbergh--traveled the country blasting the President as a warmonger in the strongest possible terms. There was actually a student antiwar movement. Now, not as many people went to college at that time as did in the 1960s, but it was really a precursor to that very movement. Why? Because these young people in college were the ones who were going to be sent to war if there was one, and they wanted no part of it. Then, in the blink of an eye, at 7:48 a.m., on the December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. They sunk four of our battleships. We lost almost 200 airplanes, and 2,300 Americans perished on that very day. Even to the end of the war, it remained the third bloodiest day of that very bloody conflict. America was not ready for war. They had started a draft by a one-vote margin. They were able to vote it into place. They had begun some basic rearmament, but we had lost a significant percentage of our Pacific fleet. Frankly, to this day, there are legitimate questions not about whether the Roosevelt administration knew in advance that this was happening and allowed the attack to happen--no, those are conspiracy theories--but that they should have known. This was a massive intelligence failure. In fact, up to 30 minutes before that attack, the Ambassador to Japan was here negotiating with the United States over an oil embargo. America, by the way, was not a society of peace. This was a nation deeply divided, a segregated nation that discriminated against citizens of color. There were very serious labor disputes going on throughout the country. Many still wore the scars of a deep and painful economic depression. Yet, in the blink of an eye, this Nation was confronted with an enemy and had no choice but to put aside all that had happened to that point--everything, all the problems it had with the President, all the problems they had with each other. Even those Americans who had been discriminated against were willing to do that, which is a tremendous testament to the contribution they made to the effort to win that conflict. In the blink of an eye, literally every aspect of American life was changed overnight. Think about it. One minute you are a student demanding that we stay out of war, and the next you are volunteering for service. One minute you are a housewife, you are a retiree, and the next minute you are back at work or at work for the first time in your life at a factory making munitions or something else needed for the war effort. Schoolkids, children were put to work on farms because so many people had left farming to move and fulfill the industrial jobs because the men who would have otherwise filled those jobs were now wearing a uniform and dying by the hundreds every day and then by the thousands, all over the world. We rationed food. There was food rationing. You could only eat so much. A family only got so much. Gasoline was rationed. I think it was 3 gallons a week, if I am not mistaken. Clothes were rationed. The government stepped in and said: You can't build kitchen appliances--no refrigerators, no ovens, no vacuum cleaners--none of it. We need all of our industrial capacity to fight and win a war. People on the coasts--and you still see old pictures of this to this day--off Miami Beach, off New York, had to turn their lights off at night and close the shades of their windows because there were German U-boats just off our east coast. People were asked to make tremendous sacrifices--not for 3 months, not for 6 weeks, but for over 3 years and longer. The sacrifice that was ultimately, perhaps, the greatest of all was that they sent their sons and fathers off to die in defense of this country and of our freedoms. I do not mean to diminish the challenges that are being asked of us now. There aren't 5 minutes that go by that I don't get a call, a text, or an email from a small business that, just 2 weeks ago, was having its best year ever, talking about hiring new people, and now they are bankrupt. They are done. They are finished, and they may never reopen again. From a young couple I talked about earlier today in the video that I made, 2 weeks ago, they were recently married and planning to start a family. Both had good careers. The next minute, they were both out of a job, not sure if the place they were working will ever exist again, not knowing where to go. One minute you are the father in a family or the mother in a family who has never had a day in your life where you were not employed by someone, and the next you are being told: Go to a website. Call this number. You need to go get unemployment. They don't know how to do it. They have never done it. So I do not mean to diminish the sacrifices that our people are already making. I simply mean to put it in perspective and also to give a little bit of clarity as to what will be required of us to win this war because, in the end, our enemy is not a nation-state. It doesn't wear a uniform. But it has invaded our Nation in a way that has required us to do things we have not been asked to do, or anything close to it, since late 1941. So what are the lessons to be taken by that era in our history, by the call I got today saying: Stop saying this is unprecedented The lesson to be taken is, No. 1, in moments like this, government action matters. It is important that we have a functioning government that can address problems in the space in which government must act. That is what is being asked of us here today. What is being asked of us is not to pass a perfect bill or to pass legislation that will cure the virus or to pass a law that has everything we have ever wanted. What is being asked of us is this: Can you function as a government? Can you do the most basic things that a society needs from its elected leaders at a moment of true crisis? Can you do that? So far, for 3 days, the answer, sadly, has been no. I hope the answer at the end of this day will be different. The second thing it teaches us is that you cannot confront a challenge such as this with just government. That war was not just won because of political leaders or our Armed Forces. It was a whole-of- society effort. Every day, Americans were being asked to do things they had never done before, in places they had never been--not just to make sacrifices from what they couldn't have but sacrifices in what they were asked to do affirmatively. It will require the same of us now. I want to tell you, there are people already doing that, as we speak. The examples are too long to mention, but all over this country there are people who are doing extraordinary things--stepping up, doing more than they have ever done--because they have to. They know they must. I have no doubt that if our government leaders do their job and are willing to do their part and provide people transparent, clear, truthful guidelines about what we face and what lies ahead and what is expected of them, they may not be happy and people may not be excited about it, but they will do it. I know they will do it. They are already doing it. The third lesson is the awesome power of our country when a diverse population of go-getters--the most creative people to have ever walked the Earth--put aside their differences to confront a threat they face in common. Again, that is not possible, you can't ask that of a society, you can't ask people to put aside their differences, to put aside the trivial, to put aside the things they don't agree on and to focus on the one thing that threatens us all--you can't ask them to do that if you are not willing to do it yourself. And it appears--at least, up to this moment--that we have failed to do it. I hope today is a difference in that regard. We shall see. But it takes me back to the point I made originally: What is our job in this? Well, let me say that we--when I say ``we,'' those of us in government at every level--are asking of our people to do some very difficult things. We are asking high school seniors, including one who lives in my home, to be the first in I don't know how many generations that will not have a prom, will not have a senior trip, will not have a graduation. Now, I know all those things may seem trivial and may pale in comparison to World War II, but for a 17-year-old, these are rites of passage, and there are many high school seniors in this country who will not get that this year. We are going to ask small businesses and have asked them already: You need to close your doors. You can't open. You can't work. You can't make money. You can't allow customers to come in. We have asked people not to go to work. In fact, we have told them not to leave their homes. Over half this country is on an order: Don't leave your house unless you are going to the doctor, the pharmacy, the gas station, or the grocery store. We are asking nurses and doctors to confront a virus that can infect them and their families and kill them and their families, just like anybody else--to do so, on double shifts, oftentimes without the gear and the equipment to protect them. We are asking truckdrivers to drive all night--also vulnerable to the virus, also worried about all the other things all of us are worried about--to drive all night because tomorrow those shelves need to be stocked with all the things that people are buying because they are afraid it is going to run out. How can we ask that of our society if, for 3\1/2\ days, we can't even vote on a law, we can't even walk to the front of this place and lift our finger up or down and say yes or no? We can't even do that-- spending the taxpayers' money, on behalf of the taxpayers, in a moment of critical crisis? I don't mean to be negative, because, frankly, I hope that today is the day we will get this solved, but there are still other people who have to weigh in here--in the House, outside commentators, people still emailing and texting: Can we change this? Can we change that? I just don't know how we can ask people to do all these things we need to ask them to do and, in return, tell them, by the way, we are going to take our sweet time to do our part. And our part is the easiest one. You can just imagine this. Extrapolate what we are facing now and take it back to 1941. Imagine if, back then, people would have been saying: Boy, this is a great chance. This is a good opportunity to get back at FDR. This is a great opportunity now. He is in war. Let's roll back the New Deal. Let's really stick it to him for what he did 6 years ago with our Court thing. Or there is the reverse. If he would have said: Boy, this is a good opportunity to use the war powers the President has to steamroll my political opponents and put in place whatever I want and run them over. Imagine if we were saying that we need to build a lot of ships, but I am not going to vote to build it unless you are building it in my State. I don't want to go any deeper into that because I don't mean to say that some of the issues that people raise around here are not legitimate issues. They are, but sometimes the legitimacy of the issue--the importance of the issue--has to be weighed on a scale against the gravity of the moment. I would say to you: If we were dealing with permanent policy in the normal course of business or even in a moment of a cyclical economic downturn, we would have some weeks to make some of these decisions. We have already taken too long. People got laid off today. People will be laid off tonight--and tomorrow and the day after and for days to come--even if we pass this bill. Imagine if we don't. What we are facing is the toughest thing this generation has ever faced. There is no doubt about it. There is no doubt about it. Perhaps with the exception of the gentleman that called me this morning, it will be the toughest thing we ever face in our lives. World War II was worse. This virus is terrible, but it will not last as long or kill as many people as that war did, but it will kill far too many people and last far too long. It will last longer and kill more if we don't take action now. That requires everyone to finally wake up and realize this virus does not care whom you voted for in the last election. It doesn't care what you write on Twitter or what snarky remarks you come up with in your commentator moment on cable news. It doesn't care about any of that stuff. It doesn't care whom you plan to vote for in the next election. It will infect you. It will kill you. It will kill people you love. It will kill members of your family. It will disrupt your community and your economy. It doesn't care about any of this other stuff. It really is important for us to realize--not just for this bill but moving forward--that there is no such thing as an outcome here that is good for half of us and bad for the other half. There is no possible political victory here--none. There is no outcome here in which half of us are going to be able to go back and say: Boy, we really looked good, and we made those guys look really bad, and people are going to reward us for it. They are not. I promise you, when someone has lost their job and does not know where they are going to go, is stuck in their home and their life has been turned upside down, and a member of their family is in intensive care, and they wind up at a hospital that has been overwhelmed and can't care for them, the last thing on their mind is going to be partisan politics or preexisting differences. If you don't believe it, we are about to find that out, unfortunately. There is no outcome here which half of us are happy and the other half are upset. It is a cliche. We use it all the time. I can't think of a better example than this one: We are truly all in this together. The carnage, the damage that this will do to our country is extraordinary. It will know no geographic bounds, no political affiliation, no demographic differences. This is a virus that can infect the heir to the Crown in Britain just as easily as it can a 92-year-old retiree in a Florida nursing home. I hope the gravity of the moment finally sinks in and that we take the necessary actions quickly. If there is something in this bill you really don't like--I don't mean to diminish it--if we can fix it, we should. But at this point, I am going to tell you that there is nothing wrong in this bill. There is nothing in this bill that will damage our country more than our inability to act. No matter how bad you think some provision in this bill may be--and I say this to both sides--there is nothing in this bill that will damage us more than doing nothing. By far, the most damaging thing that can happen is not any provision of this legislation. It is our inability to act and to send a message to the American people that their leaders can't function, that their government doesn't work--not just on a day-to-day basis but in a moment of crisis. I hope that whatever differences may still exist at this moment--and I am trying to be fair because I know a lot of people have finally seen the full text of it in the last few hours--and if you have caught something that can be fixed, it should be fixed. But I plead--I don't know what other word to use--that we don't leave here tonight without having passed this bill because I honestly don't know how this Nation and our people can afford one more day of this. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I want to caveat what I am going to say by the reality of anyone who has ever worked on legislation; that when you make a deal with the other side on something or any group of people, they are always contingent on your having to see it in writing. Sometimes what you agreed to and what the legislative language that was written says don't align. Oftentimes, it is not out of ill intent or anything of that nature; it happens. So I want to make that point. I also want to make a point in saying that because we are dealing almost with the whole of the economy, as we discuss what we are going to do to help this country through this crisis, and you deal, for example, as we have been, with small business, it sometimes interacts with what other parts of the same agreement are also dealing with. For example, you might be dealing with a small business sector, but it interacts with what might be happening with the group that is negotiating healthcare spending. And so items like that are things that you are going to continue to work through and have some understanding over. But I think what I feel very confident in saying, as you heard a moment ago from Senator Collins, is that a group of us who were tasked, from both sides of the aisle, to come up with what we could do to help small business has come up with an understanding of purpose and outline of measures that I feel very confident every Member of this body should be able to support when its final version is before us. I am very confident that, if, God forbid, we are not successful in these efforts, it will not be because of what we have produced for this body. In that endeavor, let me first start by saying that I certainly feel both blessed and fortunate to have had as partners in this, obviously, Senator Collins, who has made a tremendous contribution. It began with her own ideas, and we were able to merge some of the ideas that we had been working on: Senator Cardin, who is someone I have worked with on the Small Business Committee but often on issues of foreign policy, and Senator Shaheen, who, likewise, is a member of the committee, but I have also worked with on foreign policy. I would just say that because of the nature of the crisis and the isolation that this building finds itself in, a lot of people weren't able to see it, but I think if the average person were to walk in on the conversations that we had, you would have had trouble distinguishing who the Republican and the Democrat was. I don't mean that from an ideological perspective. I mean that one of the things that I believe has allowed us to reach this point is that everyone has small businesses in their States--small businesses are not a partisan item--and that everyone understood that this was not a moment in which there was a Republican side or a Democratic side. This was a moment in which the entire Nation was imperiled economically, and we needed to act quickly. Senator Collins spoke a moment ago and outlined the key provisions and ideas, but I wanted to reiterate some of them because I have a lot of people calling and asking if they apply. Let me start out with a few things. No. 1, small businesses are defined as either some company that has 500 employees or less or a company that is defined as a small business under the existing SBA criteria. So it is one or the other. Let me say, that covers close to 60 million American jobs and well over 30 million businesses in this country. It is an extraordinary swath. For the first time ever, we have also included most (c)(3)s--(c)(3)s and not-for-profit (c)(3)s--independent contractors--people who work on 1099s--and gig economy workers who consider themselves a business, even though they have one employee and maybe no real estate that they operate from, but, nonetheless, they consider themselves that. What it basically does, in its simplest terms--and I am oversimplifying simply because there are caveats to some of this with formulas and likewise--is, by and large, the best way to understand it is as follows: You have a business. You are a restaurant, a small one- person, one-shop restaurant. You are a dry cleaner. You are a mechanic. You have any small business, and you have less than 500 employees or fit the category of the SBA, as we define it in this bill, and the government has said that people can no longer go to your restaurant or can no longer go out of their homes and use you as their mechanic, so you have had to lay off your employees, so you are not operating, and you can't pay your employees--I am not here to make fun of or criticize the big corporations because I hear a lot of them saying: Well, we only have 30 days of credit available or we have a credit line we can draw down on over the next 15 or 20 days. I am not saying that is not an urgent thing that needs to be addressed, but the people we have been focused on in this part of the bill is people who have no line of credit; that if they go 2 days without revenue, they are in a lot of trouble. That is the overwhelming majority of small businesses in America, and, more importantly, in my mind, the jobs that they represent and support. So the program will work this way: You will go to a financial institution--be it at a bank or some other lender or credit union-- frankly, anyone the Treasury says is OK and wants to participate in this--and you will fill out very simple forms that prove you are a business, that prove you had payroll on a date certain, and you will receive the equivalent of 8 weeks of your payroll that you can prove you had, and you will receive this money very quickly. Hopefully, this system can set up and run. And as long as you use that money on payroll and/or rent or lease for the business, it is forgivable. You don't have to pay it back. If you decide to spend it or any portion of it outside of that use, then a year from now, it becomes a loan, and you will have to pay it back at approximately 4-percent interest. The Treasury might have a different program that works a little differently. I mention Treasury because we have also given them the flexibility, in addition to using the existing stable or small business lenders in America today, they will also be able to attract additional lenders to participate under terms that might be different than the current terms, just because we need capacity. One of our biggest concerns about this bill is that we are going to have tremendous demand and not enough lender supply, not enough places willing to stand up and operate to quickly process the paperwork and the like. The other important thing to understand is that this is not a program where you are going to the SBA. You are not going to a tent somewhere in a disaster area or some government office or some government website. You are going to a bank, to a financial institution, to a credit union, to a fintech, to someone who will set up a process and an agreement, either with the existing 7a program or Treasury, to move this paper. The intent here is not to create some financial instrument that we can collect loans on. The intent here is what is the fastest way to get this cash into the hands of small business so they can keep the people who work for them employed; so they can rehire, maybe, some of the people they had to furlough or lay off, and they can keep them on payroll as opposed to going on the unemployment rolls. The other reason why this is important, No. 1, is the jobs. No. 2 is, for a small business, if you lose your employees, if your employees go away because you laid them off, some of them may move away, depending on the industry you are in and so forth. Then, if you are told, ``OK, all clear,'' and you have to go out and rehire them or find people to take their place, by the time you get going, it is too late. Many of them will never restart. We all want this economy to recover, but you can't have the economy recover if you have no economy. And when you are talking about 58 to 60 million jobs and over 30 million potential employers that are impacted by this, it is going to be hard to restart an economy if any significant portion of them can't get going. We are dealing with some great unknowns. No. 1, we have never done this before. We did the very best we could under a tight timeframe and difficult circumstances. I am confident that, as with any piece of legislation, there are things in it that maybe we have to go back and revisit at some point--nothing catastrophic. But I just want to say that up front. We have never done it before, but we believe this will work. What we do know is that, if we don't try to do this and we do nothing, it is catastrophic. The second point I would make is there have been a lot of people who have worked very hard on this. The staff director on Senator Cardin's part has been sick. Some members of my staff this morning did not come in, as well, potentially just to be protective and be cautious. We are talking about a very small group of people who worked, basically, the last 72 hours straight on the SBA staff, Senator Collins' staff, Senator Shaheen's staff, and my staff--just a handful of people who worked long hours on the legislative draft. I know that, last night, they were here until 3:45 or 4 in the morning, as they were the night before and the night before that. So there has been a tremendous amount of hard work done on this, and we are grateful for it. And I have a product that we are proud of. Let me just say it is a product I wish we never had had to do, not because we don't want to help small businesses but because, by and large, every one of these businesses that we are trying to help were doing just fine until 2 weeks ago. That, to me, is the most important point. These are not businesses that were failing or making a mistake, and so government is stepping in to prop them up. These were people who were literally doing fine until they woke up one day and were told by the mayor or the Governor or somebody else: You can't open anymore. You can't operate anymore. People can't come to your store anymore, to your restaurant anymore. It doesn't just impact the owner. It impacts the people who work for them. I will close with this. One of the unique things about small business is that, in a small business, the owner of the small business is the President and the CEO, but they are oftentimes also the cashier, the stock clerk, the janitor, the driver, the accountant. They are an employee. In an enormous percentage of these small businesses, that small business is not just the place that makes money. It is the life dream and the life work of an individual or a family. In many of these cases, the people who work for them are not the names and the numbers on a ledger. In many cases, these are human beings who have worked for them for 30 years, whose kids have grown up with them and watching their kids grow up, who are like family to them. I have talked to some of these small business owners who have had to inform their employees, tearfully, that, for the first time in 30 or 40 years, they will not be opening and they will not be able to pay an employee--people whose businesses have survived slowdowns, recessions, financial crisis, 9/11. In Florida, they have survived hurricanes--multiple hurricanes--and all sorts of natural disasters. Many have been open virtually every day, even the day after these storms, in many cases--until now. The trauma is extraordinary for them. Now, imagine the people I know--close friends, people I have known for a long time--who informed me that, over a 72-hour period last week, the husband and the wife were laid off, their two adult kids were laid off, and the spouses of the two adult kids were laid off--six people, one family, laid off in a 72-hour period So they are sitting at home. Everything is closed. They cannot go anywhere, and they don't have a job and have no idea when this will end and, when it does, if they even have a job to go back to. That is the story of millions and millions of people who are living through it right now. It isn't what the articles are about. It isn't what the arguing is about. It isn't what all the stories on cable television are about. It isn't what the snarky people on Twitter write about. But it is happening to millions and millions and millions of people, and they are scared and they are worried. And they are going to get more scared and more worried as the days go by. I will say this. I hope the Senate can act as fast as possible on something beyond just what I have described in our part of this, because tomorrow morning, all across this country, business owners, small and large, are going to make decisions. People who a week ago were talking about pay freezes and hiring freezes are now talking about layoffs, and maybe a few of them are holding on to see what we do or fail to do. But I caution everyone that, if we do not get something done, if we think that we have the luxury and the benefit of time to play games and for gamesmanship and bargaining and trying to get a little bit more out of the deal, in a few hours some important businesses and a lot of small ones are going to make decisions about whether or not they are going to lay off and fire and let go of a bunch of people. We don't know what that number looks like tomorrow morning and in the week to come. Keep that in mind as we decide not just how we are going to vote in a few minutes but what we are going to do here over the next few hours. We do not have time on our side. We do not have the luxury of time to negotiate. I think this is a process in which there has been a tremendous amount of input. I haven't been involved in all of the other sectors, but I can tell you that in ours I am very proud of the work of all these Senators with whom we have worked. Obviously, there is always a little bit of tightening you have to do as the language is written, but I believe that, when it is all said and done, we will put before the Senate a product that will help millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American workers to be able to continue to draw a paycheck during this very difficult time. I hope that will earn the support--as it should--of every Member of the Senate and, then, every Member of the House. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, we, in this profession, have a tendency to hyperbole, meaning a tendency to stand sometimes and talk about how dramatic a decision we are about to make is or how important something is to the country because that is what we do, and it is sort of one of the tools of this trade. I think this is not a time in which it is possible to exaggerate the impact of what we are confronting. I start by saying I think it is a moment that should instill in all of us extraordinary humility and a reminder that we are still mortal beings who cannot and do not control all that happens in our lives or in the world. We are facing a threat that emerges not from a human decision or behavior but a threat that emerges from the scientific world, the biological world, and one that I think we are blessed to live in a modern time, in which technology allows us to solve problems faster, but oftentimes our advances cannot prevent these things. I think of the time when there will be plenty to look back at--the decisions that were made by governments, by foreign governments, and by officials. Like all things, there will come a moment of accounting when we can decide what was done wrong and what was done right so we can learn from what was done wrong and replicate what was done right. We can learn from the past, but we cannot change it. The one thing we can influence is the future. You can't entirely control it, but we can influence it. We can influence what we do from this moment forward. And when it comes to this pandemic, we can influence not that it is here but how long it lasts and how impactful it will be. One of the real-world impacts of the crisis that now confronts us is the impact it is having on jobs. We use that term loosely in politics all the time: ``Jobs.'' We want to create jobs. We value jobs. It is about having more jobs. I think sometimes we overlook the strong, emotional, and psychological impact of jobs, of the fact that someone wakes up in the morning and has somewhere to go, where they are productive, and they are rewarded fairly for their productivity. It gives purpose to your days. It gives meaning. It gives value. It is why the absence of jobs is so toxic and damaging not just to the spirit but ultimately to the community and then to the country. It is a situation we have learned in ordinary times, and these are not ordinary times. We are watching a pace of job loss at this very moment that is unprecedented, even in some of the deepest economic downturns that modern man has ever confronted. There is not a single person who serves in the Senate, works in this building, or, I would argue, in our entire society who does not know someone who in the last 4 or 5 days has been told that they no longer have a job. Think about that for a moment. People who 10 days ago had a job in an economy that by all traditional standards was doing very well and now have been told that they do not have a job. The people they used to work for may no longer exist, and there is no certainty about outcomes even when this ends. It is impossible to exaggerate that. What we are learning through this crisis is what we all have said we know but are now realizing how much it is true, and that is, how many of the jobs in this country are the result of a small business and not of the companies whose stories are featured in a magazine or a newspaper article. It is the ones we drive by every single day--the laundromat, the dry cleaners, the coin cleaners, the bakeries, the coffee shops, and everything in between--hundreds of thousands of jobs in every community that depend on their very existence, and they are disappearing right before our eyes. It is not because they did anything wrong but because government has had to tell them, for the reasons of public health that I agree with, not only that we cannot go there but that their workers can't go there, and in many jurisdictions, they cannot even show up. So the urgency to address this, I believe, needs no convincing. We have, as a starting point, developed a plan that I think will help, that will do what we can, and I want to briefly describe it. The plan is basically this: We need to get money into the hands of small business across this country as quickly as possible so they can keep the workers they have on payroll for as long as possible. We aim for at least 4, 5, or 6 weeks. This is important because if you have already been told you can't leave your home, and you have already been told you can't go anywhere, and then to also be told: And by the way, you have no job, and there is no guarantee that there is a job for you to go back to when this all ends, the trauma is extraordinary. That is what millions of people are facing by the second. These are not job losses that are happening by the week or by the month; they are by the second. Right now, somewhere in America, someone is being told: We are closing, and you have no job. And tomorrow will be the last time you will get a paycheck for the foreseeable future. So our plan, ideally, would involve the following: Small businesses will be able to go to a bank in their community. Ideally, in a perfect world, it would be the bank they normally use, the bank they bank with. Then they will very quickly--and I am not talking about in a matter of weeks; I am talking about in a matter of hours and days--receive an infusion of cash, equivalent to about roughly four times their monthly expenses on payroll and on rent and things of that nature. And then a year from now, those businesses, if they can show that they used that money to keep everyone on staff and hired that was working for them before this all started and paid them what they were paying them, that money will be forgiven. It will not be a loan. The important point to make about this is--I am not talking about an SBA loan. I am not talking about going to a government building somewhere or a tent in a disaster zone and filling out a bunch of paperwork. I am talking about going to a financial institution, preferably the one that you normally use, filling out a few quick documents to prove that you are a business, and receiving a cash infusion directly into your account that you can use to meet payroll for the next 3, 4, 5, or 6 weeks, and we have a plan that does it. Now, on this matter, we are blessed to have partners in this endeavor like Senator Cardin and others on the Small Business Committee who are not only some of the hardest working and easiest people to work with on these matters, but whom we have been working with on these matters, along with our House counterparts, for a couple of weeks. Except for a couple of weeks ago, we could never have envisioned how widespread and how serious this dilemma would become. We don't have an agreement at this very moment, but I do believe that on the general concepts--I speak for no one but myself, but it is my impression that on the general outlines of what we are trying to achieve, there is substantial agreement. So we have some work to do. I will be in the Senate and here in Washington, DC, around the clock until we get this done because, as I said at the outset, millions upon millions of families and their immediate and long-term futures are being determined by what we do or fail to do. Rarely, if ever, do we truly confront issues in the Senate of that importance. I will close with this: It is hard to remove politics from politics. It is hard to ask politicians not to be political. It is tempting to use even situations such as these for the snide remark and the potshot, and I imagine you can never fully remove it. I would only say this: If we don't address these issues that are before us and do so rapidly, those potshots will appear trivial in comparison. If we don't address the challenges that are before this country now, no one can tell you what the future looks like because no one alive today has ever been there, ever. Anyone who believes that what I am saying is an exaggeration, what was life like in America a week ago today? What does it look like now? If this pace continues, what will it look like 5 days from now or 10 days from now? We don't know, but it will be traumatic and potentially catastrophic, so we must act. We will have plenty of other issues and plenty of days and weeks and months ahead to bicker about the political issue of the day and to take shots at our opponents. Now is no time for games. We are facing the abyss. We are facing circumstances for which there is no playbook, for which there is no precedent, and for which there is no way to predict what happens to a society when you tell millions of people they can't work, they cannot leave their homes, and we cannot tell you how you will make a living now or for the immediate future. This is no time for games. This is a time for those of us who are here to be here and to work through this as quickly as possible, or we will all pay the price, and we will all face those consequences. They are so grave, so unspeakable, and so unimaginable that I cannot believe that we will not be able to do so and act quickly, swiftly, and effectively. I look forward to making strong progress. Our people need some hope. Our people need to believe that their institutions in a moment of crisis can still work. We have a chance to do our part to instill at least that little bit of confidence at a time of extraordinary uncertainty. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, as chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, each week I recognize a small business that exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit, which drives our economy. This week, it is my pleasure to honor Prestige Ameritech of North Richland Hills, TX, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. When Kimberly-Clark Corporation closed its medical protective gear manufacturing facilities in the United States, Dan Reese and Mike Bowen sought to revitalize this critical industry. Since 2006, Dan and Mike have led Prestige Ameritech, which specializes in manufacturing high- quality medical protective gear. During the HlNl swine flu epidemic in 2009, Prestige Ameritech worked around the clock to produce critical protective equipment, including N95 respirators, medical face shields, and medical goggles. As the epidemic subsided, Prestige Ameritech struggled as its clients returned to foreign products instead of continuing to support this vital industry. Dozens of workers were laid off as the company fought to survive. Now, 14 years later, Prestige Ameritech is the largest domestic surgical mask manufacturer, employing about 100 workers. They are certified as an FDA Registered Facility, HUBZone, and a certified Native American Owned Business. As a leading advocate of medical supply chain security, Prestige Ameritech supports development of the medical industrial sector in the United States. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 90 percent of surgical masks sold in the United States are manufactured overseas. If a public health emergency arose, Dan and Mike have warned, disruptions in mask supply could endanger millions of Americans. For over a decade, since the HlNl swine flu epidemic, Prestige Ameritech has strengthened industry partnerships and warned government officials of the dangers of exporting our medical industrial capacity. As part of the Secure Mask Supply Association--SMSA--Prestige Ameritech works with domestically owned and operated surgical and respirator mask manufacturers to raise awareness regarding the importance of prevention and readiness by creating and maintaining an infrastructure for an American-made mask supply. For years, Prestige Ameritech and SMSA sounded the alarm about the vulnerability of American medical supply chains. In response to the growing coronavirus outbreak, Prestige Ameritech has ramped up their daily production to 600,000 masks. Their work provides protection for millions worldwide, from healthcare workers to American citizens abroad. Due to increased demand, they have prioritized supplying hospitals and medical installations with personal protective equipment. The disruption of American medical supply chains has catapulted Prestige Ameritech into the spotlight, highlighting the vital importance of their work. They have been profiled in national news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, and CNN. Through this surge in interest, Prestige Ameritech has remained committed to their mission, driving home the need for a resurgence of domestic industrial medial suppliers. Recognizing their foresight, knowledge, and courage, I am proud to congratulate Dan, Mike, and the entire Prestige Ameritech team for being named as the Senate Small Business of the Week. I look forward to watching your continued growth, advocacy, and leadership in this critical segment of our industrial sector.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, today pay tribute to the memory of retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Charles Pitman, a leader who served in our Nation's Armed Forces for nearly 40 years, earning the Silver Star, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, and a Purple Heart. Chuck Pitman was born in Chicago in 1935 and enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1952 and the U.S. Marine Corps in 1953. A pilot by the age of 14, Chuck logged more than 12,000 flight hours during his career, flying jets and attack and reconnaissance helicopters. He flew three combat tours in Vietnam, where his aircraft were shot down seven times by enemy fire. On January 7, 1973, Chuck was commanding officer of the Marine Air Reserve Training Detachment in New Orleans when he saw a sniper firing at civilians from a hotel on the news. Without approval from his supervisors and at the risk of his career with the Marines, he and his crew flew a Marine helicopter loaded with police officers to the hotel and helped to end the carnage. Many of the police officers and survivors credited his actions with saving countless lives. Chuck served as special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Iranian hostage crisis. By 1990, Chuck was a three- star general and retired from the Marine Corps. His commands included the Marine Aviation Training Support Group in Pensacola, a role as assistant wing commander for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing in California, and the command of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing in Japan. Chuck spent much of the rest of his life in Florida's Pensacola Beach. He volunteered his time with organizations including the Marine Corps League of Pensacola and participated in numerous veteran's events throughout the city, becoming a fixture in the community. I express my sincere condolences to his wife, two sons, and two daughters on the loss of an American hero and patriot. May God bless his family during this time of sorrow.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, each week I recognize a small business that exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit at the heart of our country. It is my privilege to recognize a Florida small business that not only creates a delicious product, but dedicates time, effort, and money to serving its community. This week, it is my pleasure to honor Tally Mac Shack of Tallahassee, FL, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. Despite having a graduate degree in criminology from Florida State University and a job with a State agency, when the opportunity arose, Justo Cruz jumped at the chance to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. After attending a mac-and-cheese fest in 2017, Justo was inspired to create comfort food with a gourmet twist. Creating social media accounts and a logo, Justo started Tally Mac Shack that same day. He traded in his 2006 Nissan Armada for an old Frito-Lay delivery truck, converting it into the original Tally Mac Shack food truck, where he experimented with his mac-and-cheese creations. On October 1, 2017, Tally Mac Shack debuted at a food-tasting event and sold out within 2 hours. Two-and-a-half years later, Tally Mac Shack is 30 employees strong, boasts two food trucks, two brick-and- mortar locations, and has established a strong catering presence in the Tallahassee area. Partnering with his alma mater, Justo established a brick-and-mortar location on FSU's campus and a concession stand in its football stadium. Since its inception, Tally Mac Shack has emphasized the importance of community service. The business has partnered with local agencies and organizations to support a variety of causes, including Hurricane Michael disaster relief and the Down Syndrome Association of Florida. They have also supported the Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare Cancer Center, the Kearney Center for the Homeless, and Fort Braden Middle School. During its summer nonprofit program, Tally Mac Shack donates a portion of its profit and a free visit from one of its food trucks to a local organization. Participating groups include Big Bend Hospice, Alzheimer's Project, Inc., Habitat for Humanity, and the local Humane Society. Additionally, Justo recently announced that Tally Mac Shack is an official On the Job Training partner with Leon High School's culinary program, providing mentorship and job training to local students. Combined with community involvement, Tally Mac Shack's modern take on a culinary classic was a recipe for success and business continues to boom. Excelling on all fronts, Tally Mac Shack was recognized for its community service as an inaugural winner of the 2019 All in Tally Award for going ``above and beyond to make our community a better place to live.'' Within its first 18 months, Tally Mac Shack was also honored five times as Tallahassee's best food truck. Tally Mac Shack is a great example of the pivotal role community- oriented small businesses play in the U.S. economy. I commend their efforts to provide a quality product, while simultaneously prioritizing local involvement and training to support local jobs. Congratulations to the entire team at Tally Mac Shack. I look forward to watching your continued growth and success.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, this amendment is a statement of three facts: No. 1, that we are not engaged at this moment in hostilities with Iran--we are not at war with Iran; No. 2, that the actions that were taken against Soleimani were, frankly, lesser in scope, nature, and duration than what the previous administration did and the way they behaved in their exercise of war powers, also a statement of fact; and No. 3, that the maximum pressure of strategy against Iran has reduced Iran's resources that they can use to sponsor terrorism and proxy groups, also a statement of fact. Whether you agree with maximum pressure or not, it is a fact that this year, and last year, Iran has billions of dollars less than they otherwise would have, had it not been for the maximum pressure campaign. Those three things are statements of fact, and I think if we are going to have a resolution like this, it should accurately describe the situation, and that is why I urge your support and a negative vote against any effort to table.

Mr. RUBIO

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

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, in a few minutes, we are going to vote on this resolution to begin debate on it, and what most people would think by reading it is this is a resolution to diminish the chances of war with Iran. I actually think that if this resolution were to ever pass and actually become law--or I would argue that even this debate we are having now, to some extent--potentially increases the chances of war, and I will explain why in a moment. First, let me start out by saying I don't question the motives of the sponsors and proponents, the people who are in support of this. These are people with a long history of wanting to assert congressional oversight over the conduct of armed warfare, and it is certainly something I respect. The problem is that their intentions and how this will be perceived by the audience that I believe it matters the most to right now, and that is the leadership of Iran, perception and the reality are two different things, and the perception is very serious. What is the perception? I can tell you, just moments ago, I went online before coming here just to see if anything has been written about it, and here is what I found. It was just one headline. That is all I needed because I think this broadly captures the way it is going to be talked about in the press and all over the world. Here is the headline from POLITICO: ``Senate to rein in Trump war powers after Iran strike.'' The first paragraph goes on to say: ``The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution . . . to limit President Donald Trump's authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.'' That is the opening paragraph of that story. That is basically the way it is going to be reported, and I am going to explain to you why that is a problem. One of Iran's objectives in the Middle East is to push the United States out of the region. They don't want us in Iraq to help the Iraqis fight ISIS. They don't want us in Syria. They don't want us to have military bases anywhere in the region, including Bahrain, as an example, where one of our major naval fleets is headquartered. They do not want us in the Middle East. Their strategy to drive us out is attacks conducted primarily by surrogates, meaning other groups--groups they have created, groups they sponsor, groups they arm. Their strategy is to use those groups to kill Americans. Their reasoning is, No. 1, if they use these groups, it gives them deniability so the world can't condemn them. They will go on and say: It wasn't us. It was some Shia militia or some other group that did it. So they think it gives them some level of plausible deniability. The second reason why they do it is they calculate that if Americans start to die in the Middle East, the American people will demand that we withdraw from the Middle East. So it is a pressure tactic that they are trying to institute. They do direct attacks. As an example, I remind you that just a few months ago they were out in the ocean putting limpet mines on commercial vessels, and there were people in the city arguing: We have seen no evidence that it was the Iranians. Well, it wasn't Luxembourg. It wasn't the Belgians. They are the only people in the region that had the ability to do it, but that is the kind of deniable attack that they seek to conduct and to kill Americans. By the way, the person who ran that program was General Soleimani. When I say ``general,'' he really wasn't a general. He was a terrorist with a uniform on, but the point being is, that is the campaign Iran is trying to carry out. When they decide what kind of attacks to conduct against Americans, they weigh a couple things. The first is how many Americans can we kill before America retaliates because they don't want a war with America. They do not want an open conflict with the United States. It is a war they can't and will not win. So they are trying to see how many Americans they can kill, how much they can get away with before triggering a direct response from the United States, and part of the calculus they use to determine that is our domestic political environment. I believe there is strong evidence that indicates--and I say this just from everything you see--that Iran already miscalculated once. They thought Soleimani could travel the region with impunity and plan attacks to kill Americans and nothing would happen, and they were wrong and they miscalculated. It was evident they miscalculated. It was evident by their own body language and the things they did in the days after that they truly were shocked that the President took the steps he took. Hopefully, it reset their deterrence level. We are in a period of time right now where it seems, from all indications, that Iran, at least in the short term, has decided to stand down on some of these attacks, but it is not because they have suddenly found peace in their hearts. It is because they are hoping the political process inside of Iraq will force us to leave there. Eventually, if that doesn't happen, they are going back to these attacks. They continue to plan them on a regular basis. They continue to prepare for those attacks to happen. What is going to happen when that moment comes and they determine: We believe that the threshold of attack, meaning the number of Americans we kill, the number of attacks we conduct--how brazen they are--we think we can get away with a certain level because in America--in America, the President, Members of both parties, do not want him to attack us. In fact, they would calculate: If we can even make it deniable, if we can even create some doubt that we were behind it and it wasn't just some other group that was going to attack us anyway, it is going to make it even harder for him to respond. Now, that is not the reality. The reality of this administration is the reality of what I hope anyone who would ever occupy that position would be, and that is, if they know and they believe that American lives are at risk and they have a chance to disrupt it, they will do so. I believe--and I know this President would--if Americans are attacked and harmed, there would be a strong response in retaliation. The President has the constitutional power--and I would argue the duty--to do both of those things. The problem is, the Iranians may not believe it. They may say to themselves: It is an election year. The President doesn't want to start a war. There are Members of both parties who have, as POLITICO's headline says, reined in his war powers and decide that they can strike or conduct multiple strikes and terrorist attacks and miscalculate and elicit a response--a strong response--to which they would have to respond, to which we would have to respond. That is how a war starts. That is the danger embedded in this resolution, not the intention of its sponsors, whom I truly do believe--I know they are standing for a constitutional principle they believe in. They are not the problem. The problem is how this is going to be portrayed and how the Iranians are going to take it and what it will lead them to conclude they can get away with. That is why I say that passing this, having this go into effect, even if the President vetoes it, sends a message, whether you like it or not--and with all due respect I say this--whether you like it or not, the message that this sends is that, in America, Members of both parties do not want the President to respond militarily to an attack and do not want the President to act proactively to prevent one. That may not be the intention of the sponsors--I don't believe it is--but that will be how it is portrayed, and that is a chance we cannot take. We are playing with fire. An Iranian miscalculation, an attack that goes beyond our redlines on what we would tolerate, is going to lead to a strong American response, to which they would have to respond, to which we would respond in kind. Suddenly, that is how you find yourself in an escalating conflict and even a war. So I hope those who are thinking about supporting this will rethink their position because while your positions might be pure in terms of your constitutional views, the foreign policy impact--the real foreign policy impact that even this debate is going to have is to instill, in the minds of some in Iran, that there are certain kinds of attacks they can get away with, and the President's hands are tied by politics in Washington. That is a dangerous proposition and a fire with which we should not play. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I commend youth team sports in general, and the sponsors of my youth football team in particular. For those that may not know, I love football. I played it, coached it, and now watch my sons learn the same valuable lessons I did many years ago. Youth sports teach important life lessons and help build pride and a sense of community within schools, neighborhoods, and even cities. I learned those lifelong lessons growing up in Las Vegas, where I played for a youth football team called the Cavaliers. My dad even volunteered as the team's equipment manager. As a former member of the Cavaliers youth football team, I am honored to recognize a special milestone of the sponsor of my team, the Young Electric Sign Company--YESCO. In 2020, YESCO celebrates its 100th year; a centennial event is scheduled February 20, 2020, in Salt Lake City, UT, the company's home base. In many ways, the story of YESCO is the story of America: innovation, invention, a restlessness to move beyond the status quo, and commitment to others. The history of YESCO resonates with me, the son of an immigrant. YESCO was founded in 1920 by an immigrant from Liverpool named Tom Young, who borrowed $300. By the end of that decade, he had 27 fulltime employees. By 1932, YESCO was building signs in Las Vegas, which is now a showcase of YESCO signage. Today, YESCO is creating hundreds of signs for the new football stadium in Las Vegas, the Raiders' $2 billion Allegiant Stadium. The largest video board will be 180 feet on the front of the stadium, facing Interstate 15 and Dean Martin Drive, not far from where my team the Cavaliers played youth football. As a Floridian, I note that YESCO contracted with Disney World in the 1980s to create sophisticated, high-tech signs at EPCOT Center. The 2028 Summer Olympics will be hosted by Los Angeles. Men and women's soccer matches will be played at the new, state-of-the-art Banc of California Stadium, which will feature a high-tech LED digital sign built by a U.S. company called YESCO. Many of those athletes got their start because of volunteer coaches, dedicated parents, and corporate sponsors that understood the meaning of community. As a parent and as a former football player, I salute the men and women who volunteer to coach youth sports and the corporate sponsors who help put kids on the field. Congratulations, YESCO, on 100 years of growth and leadership. Thank you for your community involvement and for putting a football jersey on a skinny kid in Las Vegas who someday would be elected to the U.S. Senate.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I was presiding over the Committee on Foreign Relations while the chairman was voting. The vote ended before I was able to return and cast my vote in favor of the confirmation of John Fitzgerald Kness to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, as chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, each week I recognize a small business that exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit, which drives our economy. This week, it is my pleasure to honor Oakes Custom Meats & Catering of Chumuckla, FL, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. For more than 25 years, Oakes Custom Meats & Catering has served Chumuckla as a neighborhood butcher shop that cuts and processes livestock and wild game. Having lived and worked in Chumuckla for generations, the Oakes family is uniquely positioned to serve their community in this capacity, as they deeply appreciate their local farmers and understand their needs. The Oakes' knowledge of and friendships with the people in their community allows them to serve their community well, providing exceptional personalized service to every customer. Oakes Custom Meats & Catering offers personalized services in a number of ways, including full-service catering for parties, celebrations, and corporate events. They also have a food truck that serves lunch several days a week at various locations inhabited by local small businesses around Chumuckla, helping to promote those businesses in the community. The food truck lunches have a large following on social media, are extremely popular, and often sell out within a few hours. Oakes Custom Meats & Catering's rave reviews reflect not only their delicious food, but their high-quality customer service as well. Oakes Custom Meats & Catering is also present in their community in a charitable capacity. They sponsor a weekly event hosted by a local fitness company, provide meals for fundraising volunteers, and position their food truck at different charity events. They also bring joy to those in their community by giving away free lunches and meals. As one of the long-serving businesses in the small community of Chumuckla, FL, Oakes Custom Meats & Catering has cemented itself as a staple in the area for its high-quality meat processing service, delicious catered food, and dedication to serving its farming community. Congratulations to the entire Oakes Custom Meats & Catering team for being named Senate Small Business of the Week. I look forward to watching your continued growth and success.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, voting to find the President guilty in the Senate is not simply a finding of wrongdoing; it is a vote to remove a President from office for the first time in the 243-year history of our Republic. When they decided to include impeachment in the Constitution, the Framers understood how disruptive and traumatic it would be. As Alexander Hamilton warned, impeachment will ``agitate the passions of the whole community.'' This is why they decided to require the support of two-thirds of the Senate to remove a President we serve as a guardrail against partisan impeachment and against removal of a President without broad public support. Leaders in both parties previously recognized that impeachment must be bipartisan and must enjoy broad public support. In fact, as recently as March of last year, Manager Adam Schiff said there would be ``little to be gained by putting the country through'' the ``wrenching experience'' of a partisan impeachment. Yet, only a few months later, a partisan impeachment is exactly what the House produced. This meant two Articles of Impeachment whose true purpose was not to protect the Nation but, rather, to, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, stain the President's record because ``he has been impeached forever'' and ``they can never erase that.'' It now falls upon this Senate to take up what the House produced and faithfully execute our duties under the Constitution of the United States. Why does impeachment exist? As manager Jerry Nadler reminded us last week, removal is not a punishment for a crime, nor is removal supposed to be a way to hold Presidents accountable; that is what elections are for. The sole purpose of this extraordinary power to remove the one person entrusted with all of the powers of an entire branch of government is to provide a last-resort remedy to protect the country. That is why Hamilton wrote that in these trials our decisions should be pursuing ``the public good.'' Even before the trial, I announced that, for me, the question would not just be whether the President's actions were wrong but ultimately whether what he did was removable. The two are not the same. It is possible for an offense to meet a standard of impeachment and yet not be in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office. To answer this question, the first step was to ask whether it would serve the public good to remove the President, even if the managers had proven every allegation they made. It was not difficult to answer that question on the charge of obstruction of congress. The President availed himself of legal defenses and constitutional privileges on the advice of his legal counsel. He has taken a position identical to that of every other administration in the last 50 years. That is not an impeachable offense, much less a removable one. Negotiations with Congress and enforcement in the courts, not impeachment, should be the front-line recourse when Congress and the President disagree on the separation of powers. But here, the House failed to go to court because, as Manager Schiff admitted, they did not want to go through a yearlong exercise to get the information they wanted. Ironically, they now demand that the Senate go through this very long exercise they themselves decided to avoid. On the first Article of Impeachment, I reject the argument that abuse of power can never constitute grounds for removal unless a crime or a crime-like action is alleged. However, even if the House managers had been able to prove every allegation made in article I, would it be in the interest of the Nation to remove the President? Answering this question requires a political judgment--one that takes into account both the severity of the wrongdoing they allege and the impact removal would have on the Nation. I disagree with the House Managers' argument that, if we find the allegations they have made are true, failing to remove the President leaves us with no remedy to constrain this or future Presidents. Congress and the courts have multiple ways by which to constrain the power of the Executive. And ultimately, voters themselves can hold the President accountable in an election, including the one just 9 months from now. I also considered removal in the context of the bitter divisions and deep polarization our country currently faces. The removal of the President--especially one based on a narrowly voted impeachment, supported by one political party and opposed by another and without broad public support--would, as Manager Nadler warned over two decades ago, ``produce divisiveness and bitterness'' that will threaten our Nation for decades. Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country would view his removal as illegitimate--as nothing short of a coup d'etat? It is difficult to conceive of any scheme Putin could undertake that would undermine confidence in our democracy more than removal would. I also reject the argument that unless we call new witnesses, this is not a fair trial. First, they cannot argue that fairness demands we seek witnesses they did little to pursue. Second, even if new witnesses would testify to the truth of the allegations made, these allegations, even if they had been able to prove them, would not warrant the President's removal. This high bar I have set is not new for me. In 2014, I rejected calls to pursue impeachment of President Obama, noting that he ``has two years left in his term,'' and, instead of pursuing impeachment, we should use existing tools at our disposal to ``limit the amount of damage he's doing to our economy and our national security.'' Senator Patrick Leahy, the President pro tempore emeritus, once warned, ``[A] partisan impeachment cannot command the respect of the American people. It is no more valid than a stolen election.'' His words are more true today than when he said them two decades ago. We should heed his advice. I will not vote to remove the President because doing so would inflict extraordinary and potentially irreparable damage to our already divided Nation.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, each week I honor a small business that demonstrates America's unique entrepreneurial spirit. I am pleased to recognize a business that has been a notable member of their local community for nearly 30 years. Today, it is my pleasure to name Sun Harvest Citrus of Fort Myers, FL, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. Founded in 1990 by Sandy McKenzie Nicely, Sun Harvest Citrus is known for their high-quality citrus products, which makes them a premiere Fort Myers destination. Their produce is sourced from citrus groves originally purchased by Sandy's grandfather Robert Edsall, Sr., in 1940. The grove, located along the east coast of Florida and consisting of approximately 800 acres of land, has passed through her family for three generations and is now managed by her brother, David McKenzie. Sandy became inspired to open the Sun Harvest Citrus store in 1990 when the Florida citrus industry dealt with overproduction. The store became a great way to sell the surplus citrus from the groves, while offering a location for customers to gather. Since 1990, they have expanded their products to offer several different types of citrus produce, juices, candies, and sweets, as well as serve as a tourist attraction for the Fort Myers area. Today, Sun Harvest Citrus employs more than 25 Floridians and produces a diverse variety of orange and grapefruit products. The store sells seasonal citrus baskets and produces up to 2,500 gallons of juice a day. One of their most popular products is the Orange Vanilla mix soft-serve ice cream that has become a well-known tourist stop for people traveling down the west coast of Florida. Many of their products are seasonal, such as Valencia oranges or Honeybell tangelos, with Sun Harvest Citrus providing each seasonal fruit and juice during the months they are produced. In addition to their store and citrus groves, Sun Harvest Citrus has become a centerpiece in the Fort Myers community. USA Today listed Sun Harvest Citrus as one of the 10 best places to shop in the Fort Myers area. Sun Harvest Citrus also distributes their juice to local businesses and community events. For example, in an effort to spread Christmas cheer, Sun Harvest Citrus provided their fresh orange juice to patients and families at a holiday event hosted by the local Fort Myers Kiwanis at the John Hopkins All Children's Outpatient Care center. Sun Harvest Citrus is an excellent example of a family run business that is making a positive impact in their community. I commend this Florida business for its dedication to providing great products to the community and creating a gathering place where all local residents and visitors are welcomed. I am proud to recognize everyone at Sun Harvest Citrus, and I look forward to seeing their continued success.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Capito and Scott of South Carolina--with all due respect.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. Chief Justice.

Mr. RUBIO. I send a question to the desk on behalf of myself, Senators Sasse, Braun, Risch, McSally, Roberts, and Hoeven.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, each week I honor a small business that demonstrates America's unique entrepreneurial spirit. I am pleased to recognize a business for its participation in Florida's integral economy and its involvement in the community. Today, it is my pleasure to name Hull's Seafood of Ormond Beach, FL, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. Jimmy Hull, owner of Hull's Seafood, spent his childhood exploring and catching fresh fish at Ponce Inlet. At 20 years old, he obtained his captain's license, began running fishing charters, and selling the day's catch to local markets. Eventually, Hull's Seafood opened its doors in 1984. This restaurant and market makes a conscious effort to support sustainability by only selling fresh-caught, local seafood. They guarantee each of their customer's seafood is of the highest quality. Over the years, Jimmy and his team have continued to expand the business. Led by Jimmy's strategic vision, Hull's Seafood has evolved from a small take-out kitchen into a full-service restaurant and market. In 2018, Hull's Seafood received support from the city of Ormond Beach, which provided a building improvement grant designed to assist local small businesses. Jimmy was able to more than triple the size of the restaurant and double the number of employees, adding an additional forty workers. Today, Hull's Seafood Market and Restaurant continues to supply customers and other local restaurants with the freshest seafood available. After operating in Ormond Beach for nearly 40 years, the restaurant has become a landmark within the community and a gathering place for local residents. Located on Ormond Beach's downtown Main Street, Hull's Seafood is active within its community, participating in many city events and supporting local artists by hosting concerts and displaying art in the restaurant dining room. Additionally, Hull's Seafood makes a point of showcasing other local businesses on their social media pages. Jimmy stays true to his passion and is a commercial fisherman who also operates the restaurant's charter boat to take passengers on fishing trips. In 2018, Jimmy was awarded the Governor's Business Ambassador Award for the restaurant's continuous effort to create local jobs. Jimmy and his team was commended for his advocacy for fisheries and helping to maintain their sustainability in Florida. Hull's Seafood is an excellent example of a community and family oriented small business. The entire team's efforts toward sustainability and providing high quality seafood do not go unnoticed. I am proud to recognize Jimmy and everyone at Hull's Seafood for their hard work, and I look forward to seeing their future successes. Congratulations again on being named the Senate Small Business of the Week.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, it is my privilege to recognize a unique Florida small business for its valuable contributions to the local economy and its dedicated efforts to sustainability and dignified work. Today, I am pleased to honor Two Sisters New Beginnings, LLC of Monticello, FL, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. Founded in 2013 by sisters Sandra Hood and Pat Marchman, Two Sisters New Beginnings is an eclectic antique and repurposed furniture shop. After purchasing and refinishing a chest, Pat and Sandra discovered a passion for repurposing vintage furniture and decided to create a place for local artists to sell their unique items. Today, Two Sisters New Beginnings has become an asset to the Monticello community, supplying locally sourced repurposed furniture, antiques, collectibles, and more to both residents and visitors. Since its establishment, the business's customer base has grown steadily, as has the number of local artists and craftsmen who seek to showcase their products in the store. The storefront has become such a popular destination that Two Sisters New Beginnings expanded into additional retail space next-door. Two Sisters New Beginnings has been a long supporter of the Monticello community, participating in local events such as the Mainstreet Monticello Christmas Kickoff and Jefferson County Historical Association Home and Heritage Tour. It is a member of Monticello Main Street, a business development and nonprofit organization that promotes local businesses, historic preservation, and tourism within the community. Two Sisters New Beginnings consistently donates to numerous charitable events in the local community, including the Big Bend Hospice Joyful Noise Concert and the David Hobbs Memorial Barrel Race. They have served as a silver sponsor of the Teal Magnolias Ladies Golf Tournament, an event that raises awareness for ovarian cancer each year. Additionally, the vendors of Two Sisters New Beginnings share in this charitable mindset, often donating a portion of their sales to local charities like Refuge House. Two Sisters New Beginnings is an unparalleled example of how small businesses can strengthen and support a community by giving back and creating dignified jobs. Two Sisters New Beginnings is a prime example of the integral role small businesses play in our local communities. Its community first mindset and dedication to dignified work make it a notable and integral member of the city of Monticello. Congratulations again on being named the Senate Small Business of the Week. I look forward to watching your continued growth and success.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, whether it is tomorrow, later today, or sometime next week, I know there will be an effort here to restrict the President's ability to engage the Armed Forces of the United States in a conflict with Iran. I think, any time you have something like that come up, there are two most important questions that need to be answered: No. 1, Why? Why do we need this law that you are pursuing? No. 2, What would that law do? Let me try to answer the ``why.'' I can deduce two separate arguments. The first is the argument that somehow the actions of the United States, for example, of pursuing a maximum pressure campaign against Iran and leaving the Iran deal--according to at least the language of the version I saw, which I know is going to be amended--have included economic, diplomatic, and military pressure and that this is raising the risk of retaliation against U.S. troops and personnel, which will lead to a cycle of escalating back-and-forth violence between Iran and its proxies and the United States, and that these warnings have been proven to be correct. I guess the first argument is that we left the Iran deal and that this is the reason we are now on the verge of what some view to be an all-out war against Iran. The second argument is rooted in the constitutional views that some of my colleagues hold that Congress has a role to play and that no extended military engagement should be allowed without there being congressional approval. These are two separate motivations, and I think it is possible to hold that second position and also be motivated by the first. I think, for many of my colleagues, it is solely a constitutional question, which I respect. So let's analyze the ``why'' for a second. First of all, I think it is just not true that the reason Iran and its proxies are trying to kill Americans is that we pulled out of the Obama deal with Iran. Iran has most certainly responded with violence to our decision, but that is not what motivated Iran. For example, before there was even an Iran deal from which to pull out, it was already equipping and supplying Shia militias in Iraq with weapons that killed and maimed Americans in the hundreds. In fact, Iran's antagonism toward us predates any discussion about an Iran deal. It predates our presence in the region and the numbers that we currently have there. I think it is also flawed because, during the Iran deal--even when the Iran deal was in place--Iran was still sponsoring all of the same proxy groups with all of the same weapons and was undertaking all of the same targeting. One of the flaws of the Iran deal and one of the reasons the Iran deal was not a good one was that it actually didn't deal with this activity. The only thing it dealt with was enrichment. It did nothing to limit Iran's missile program, and it did nothing to limit Iran's sponsorship of terrorism. In fact, the only impact it had on its missile program and on its sponsorship of terrorism was that it provided economic activity that generated revenue to fund those things. Despite the denial and the repeated and bold-faced lies of some who have gone on TV and have said: Oh, there was never any cash transfer, there absolutely was. There was over $1 billion delivered to the Iranians. They say these were funds that had been frozen. They say this was their money and that this is why it was released to them as part of this deal. The Iranians don't tell you that there is close to $50 billion in unpaid claims that have been adjudicated in U.S. courts on behalf of Americans who have suffered at the hands of Iranian terror and who have not been paid. Suffice it to say that the Iran deal was flawed. One of the reasons it was flawed is that it did nothing to prohibit the sponsorship of terrorism, and it actually generated economic activity and the delivery of over $1 billion in cash. I assure you this was not used to build bridges, roads, and schools but was used to fund these nefarious activities that Iran undertook before the Iran deal, during the Iran deal, and after the Iran deal. So the fact that Iran is responding with violence to economic sanctions, which by itself is unacceptable, tells us the nature of this regime is to respond to economic sanctions--not to military action-- with violence and efforts to kill Americans. It doesn't mean this is the reason Iran was doing that. Iran was already doing that. It has just been part of its response. This leads me to the second point. Iran has already been doing it because Iran's goal is not simply to get us back into the Iran deal; its goal is to drive us from the region. Iran does not want an American presence there, and it does not want American influence in the region. Iran does not want it in Iraq, which it has been against from the very beginning, and it doesn't want it in Syria. Yet it is not just limited to Iraq and Syria. Iran doesn't want our presence in Jordan, in Kuwait, or in Bahrain. It doesn't want any American presence in Afghanistan. It doesn't want us anywhere in the region because Iran views it as an impediment to its desire to be a dominant regional power, and Iran views it as an impediment to its ultimate design of destroying the Jewish State. Iran decided not last week, not last year, and not at the beginning of the Trump Presidency but well over a decade and a half ago that the way it was going to get us to leave the region was by inflicting costs--i.e., with the deaths and the injuries of American service men and women--and that Iran would make it so painful for us to be there and so painful for these countries to host us that we would ultimately leave. That is the reason Iran is undertaking these attacks. Now, why are we there? It is a good question and a valid one to answer, and I will answer it in the cases of both Syria and Iraq. We are not there on an anti-Iran campaign the way in which some describe. There is an element of prohibiting Iran from capturing Iraq and turning it into a puppet state. By the way, many Shia politicians in Iraq share that view. They may not want us to be the protector, at least openly, but they are nationalists just like they are Shia. The fundamental and the principal reason we are in Iraq is as part of NATO's anti-ISIS mission and as a train-and-equip mission. We are there to train and equip Iraqis to fight against ISIS. It has been an effort that has been successful. It has worked. It is interesting that for a time, when Iran shared the same fears of ISIS, you saw Iran sort of stand down a little bit. Even after we pulled out of the Iran deal, Iran pulled back a little bit because it, too, wanted ISIS defeated. Now it argues that, in its mind, ISIS has been diminished and that it is time for the Americans to go. If you will not leave on your own, then we are going to start killing people until you decide the price of being here is too high. Here is the bottom line. The reason there are American troops in large parts of this region is for an anti-terror campaign. Iran has decided to use proxies and these deniable attacks--by ``deniable,'' I mean getting some other group to use the weapons you gave them to attack Americans--so Iran can say: It was not us, even though everyone knows it is Iran. That way, you can sort of try to avoid a direct war with the United States and international condemnation, but everyone knows it is you. That is why Iran is attacking us. Now, I ask you: What is supposed to be the U.S. response? First of all, it is in the law. It is a constitutional requirement, and the power resides in the Presidency--the right to defend U.S. service men and women when they come under attack. No. 1, there is a constitutional power and, in my mind, an obligation to defend, to prevent, to repel, and to respond to attacks against American troops who are deployed abroad. No. 2, it is embedded in congressional authorization for that anti- terror mission to begin with. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we are present at the authorization given by Congress over a decade and a half ago, and imbedded in that authorization is the right to self-defense. The third point I would make is that if you look at this argument about AUMF, you would think what we are seeing here looks something like the run-up to the Iraq war or the run-up to the Afghanistan war. This is complete fiction. The Afghanistan war was one in which the Bush White House came to the Congress back then and said: Look, the Taliban is allowing al-Qaida to act with impunity from its territory, and we are going to go take them out. It was an offensive operation--an invasion. With Iraq, we all know the justification, which turned out not to be the case, about weapons of mass destruction and the like-- again, an offensive military operation. No one in American politics whom I see--certainly no one in the Trump administration--has talked about ramping up and sending 150,000 or 200,000 troops marching into Tehran. No one is contemplating that. The only thing the Trump administration has talked about is that if you attack our troops or if we think you are getting ready to attack our troops, we are going to prevent it if we can. We are going to repel that attack if it happens, and we are going to respond proportionately in return as a deterrent. You don't need congressional authorization to do that. Imagine the practical implications if that were the case. The President of the United States would have to come to Congress on December 30 because we are under attack and ask us to reconvene; everybody fly in, take a vote, debate for a week and a half, and then decide. By that time we would have 300 dead Americans. It is ridiculous. It is not a requirement. It is not even practical. So I don't understand the purpose of this AUMF. What war are you trying to prevent? Unless you believe that we brought this upon ourselves because we pulled out of the Iran deal--even if you believe that one of the reasons we stayed in the Iran deal was to prevent these sorts of attacks, which I don't think is justified--it is not a justified argument by the very fact that even during the Iran deal they were already doing some of these things and have a long history of doing that. If you argue it and believe it, you can't argue that attacking and killing Americans--violence--is an appropriate response to economic sanctions. You most certainly cannot argue that we cannot have a military response to protect our men and women and our interests in the region. Yet that seems to be the argument embedded in the AUMF. Some will state that all it does is restate law, and it doesn't have any practical impact in the end. If the House doesn't pass the same thing, what is this really going to mean? That is true in a legal perspective. Let me state what the headlines already say and are going to say. Here is what they are going to say: ``Congress votes to limit President's military options'' or ``Congress votes to limit Trump's ability to respond militarily to Iran.'' I want to be clear because I have heard this from others--the fact that they were being told not to debate this issue. Debate all you want, but those headlines and how they are read in places like Iran are very different than the debate we are having here. How they would read it is that the President has political domestic constraints about how much he can respond to what they do. We already have a fundamental problem with Iran, and that is, unlike many countries in the world, they don't view or respond to things in the same way. For example, it is pretty clear that their view of what they can get away with is much higher than the reality of what they can get away with, as evidenced by the increasing scale and increasing magnitude of the attacks that their proxies were taking against the United States and the region. So the threat of miscalculation on their part is very, very high. Let's not forget that just a week ago they launched over a dozen rockets at a U.S. military installation where, by the grace of God, no one was killed. But they could have been. You don't launch that many rockets at a U.S. military installation and not expect that some Americans are going to die. So their internal calculus about what they can get away with is already twisted. Imagine adding to that the perception that somehow the President's hands are tied: No matter what we do, we can kill 100 Americans because he is really not going to be able to do very much because the Congress took away his power. You can take the chance that these guys are somehow legal scholars in schools in the American legal system. You can take the chance that they read Congressional Quarterly or whatever publication or that they have read the latest issue of whatever the congressional research office has produced for the practical implications or you can worry that they will misinterpret this vote and its impact for what it means to what they can get away with. If you want to have a debate, have it. I don't know what you are going to have a debate about. There is no one planning an all-out war against Iran. The administration's strategy is pretty straightforward: If they attack us or are getting ready to attack us, we will respond. If they don't, we won't. The question of whether there is going to be armed conflict between the United States and Iran is not in the hands of the White House; it is in the hands of the Ayatollah. I assure you, no matter what we vote on here, it is not going to impact their decision over there. No one--no one I know of--wants a war with Iran. That is not the goal. The goal, hopefully, is to have an Iran that doesn't sponsor terrorism, that doesn't want nuclear weapons, and that acts like a normal country. I bet that is the goal of millions of Iranians themselves. In the interim, until that day comes, we have an obligation to protect our interests. We have an obligation to protect our men and women whom we have sent into harm's way. For the life of me, I just don't understand what this AUMF seeks to prevent--a war that no one is calling for. I don't want to imply that we can't have these debates in America, because we can and we should. We are a free society. But I want everybody to be clear about how these debates can be misinterpreted and how these headlines can be misinterpreted by the people who actually have these rockets and control these proxy groups. The bottom line is that Iran's goal is not just to get us back into the nuclear deal; their goal is to drive us from the region. They want us out, and they have concluded that the way to do that is to use other groups whom they are arming and equipping with increasingly more and more capabilities, meaning bigger and deadlier ammunitions and rockets and the like to kill Americans, and the more Americans who die--even if they are there on an anti-terror mission--the likelier it is that we are going to have to pull them out of there. That is what they want. They want us to leave Iraq so that they can turn it into a puppet State. They want all NATO and allied presence out of Syria so that they can control Syria entirely. They want to fracture our relationship with Lebanon so that Hezbollah can control that country. They want to destroy our presence in Bahrain, where the Fifth Fleet is located. You can go on and on. In the end, I think the question becomes, Are we prepared to retreat from that region entirely? You cannot come here and criticize the President for removing troops from the Syrian-Turkish border and abandoning the Kurds and at the same time argue: But you don't have the power unless we authorize you to defend those very troops if they come under attack by some Iranian proxy group. Yet that seems to be the argument. You cannot argue: We cannot just pick up and leave the Iraqis at the mercy of the Iranian regime. I assure you that if the President announced tomorrow ``I am pulling out of Iraq'' or if he said before the Soleimani strike ``I am pulling out of Iraq,'' the floor would be filled with people saying that we have abandoned our allies; we have abandoned the Kurds in Northern Iraq; we have abandoned the Sunnis, who are scared of the Iranians. You cannot argue that and argue at the same time that you think we need to be present and continue to work toward the functionality of that State and at the same time say: But you need congressional approval to act in defense of the people we send there who wear the uniform--or our diplomats, for that matter. Yet that seems to be the argument behind this AUMF. The vote is going to be what it is. We are going to have this debate. I remember about a year and a half ago, when tensions were high with North Korea, they wanted an AUMF for that. You can disagree with this White House all you want. I don't think we have had a more anti-war President in my lifetime than the one we have right now. If you think about it for a moment, almost any other predecessor may have responded with a lot less restraint to some of the provocations and attacks we have seen from Iran and its proxies. He acted in a way that I think history will fully justify and in defense of American lives in taking out Soleimani and disrupting a near-term plot that could have very easily have killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Americans in the near term. I chuckle when I hear people saying: Well, how do we know what Soleimani was doing? Well, that was his full-time job. He wasn't a stockbroker or realtor or diplomat. His full-time job was to travel the world to set up groups and equip groups so that when he told them to go, they could go kill Americans. That was his full-time job. That is what he was doing there. I believe when all is said and done, history will fully vindicate the decision that was made. We will have this debate at some point. I imagine that at some point it will move to the floor. It is a privileged resolution. I just think it is shortsighted, and I hope that some of my colleagues who have signed on to it thinking that somehow we were exerting Congress's constitutional authority--I have no problem with asserting Congress's constitutional authority when it is actually being challenged, but there is no congressional constitutional authority that can prevent a President or should prevent a President from acting in defense of our men and women in uniform when we deploy them abroad. In my view, that is what this bill, which will shortly be before us, does. That is the practical implication of it, so I hope those who chose to be for it will reconsider. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, today I honor the life of Paul ``Pete'' Dye, Jr., who was a legend in the sport of golf and the most iconic golf course architect in the modern era. Just one of five architects to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, his death on January 9, 2020, marks an end to an illustrious career of dedication and contribution to the sport. Born on December 29, 1925, in Urbana, OH, Dye was first introduced to golf by his father, who built Urbana Country Club, a nine-hole course on their family's land in Champaign County. As a high schooler, Dye won the State championship and went on to medal in the State amateur golf championship. While many know Dye as an iconic course designer, he was also deeply committed to our great Nation. In 1944 at the age of 18, Dye enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II. Dye leaves behind an extraordinary legacy, including the world- renowned ``Island Green,'' the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass in my home State of Florida, where Dye lived for many years. Florida was a special place for Dye, and it was also where he met his wife, Alice Holliday O'Neal, while he was enrolled at Rollins College. They went on to have two sons, P.B. and Perry, who to this day have continued their father's work, honoring him by designing courses under the Dye Designs banner. With immense gratitude for his work and service, I am honored to pay tribute to Pete's life.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, a President of the United States is summoned by his or her national security team and informed that he or she has a limited window of opportunity in which to potentially prevent an attack that could cost the lives of dozens, if not hundreds, of Americans or U.S. troops. They are advised this by their national security team--the entire team--in unanimity. What would you do? That is the most fundamental and difficult question that should be asked of anyone who seeks the Office of the Presidency. It is one of the most important things we need to know about those who seek the office and those who occupy it. It is the proverbial ``3 a.m. call.'' It also happens to describe the choice before President Trump a few days ago. You wouldn't know that from listening to some of the rhetoric I see on television. The Speaker of the House just held a press conference in which the messaging implies that the strike on the terrorist, Soleimani, was the act of a reckless madman--a reckless and irresponsible escalation. The alternative argument is that, by the way, he should have consulted with us before doing it. I reiterate: The entire national security team of the President, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Milley, has been unequivocal, both privately and publicly, that he agreed with the assessment and he believed that this strike was necessary in order to protect the lives of Americans from a near-term attack. I want to be frank. Anyone who left a briefing or goes around saying: Well, I don't think that that was true, frankly, is not questioning the President. They are questioning the 40 years of military service that General Milley has rendered this Nation and, frankly, questioning the judgment of the entire national security apparatus--all of the leadership of the national apparatus--of the United States of America. That question has been clearly answered by them. It is interesting, too, that had the President not acted and, God forbid, American lives had been lost, we could very easily have been here this week talking about how the President should be removed. There would be a third article of impeachment for refusing to listen to the experts, for refusing to listen to his military advisers. Ironically enough, just yesterday, before this entire Senate had the opportunity to be briefed by the national security team, I had a colleague of mine from across the aisle say: Everything is going to be fine if the President will just listen to General Milley and the military experts. But he did. Isn't that, ironically, at the crux of a lot of these arguments about Ukraine, that all of the experts--the career experts, the uniformed experts--disagreed with what the President was doing? Yet when he listens to what they say, somehow it is the act of a reckless madman. I think that speaks more to the hysteria that has overcome our politics and has now reached into the realm of national security. It is also important to note when people say these things, that those who walk around talking about intelligence sometimes are not consumers of it on a regular basis or don't understand how it works. It is never about one piece. It is about patterns and trends and known capabilities and known intentions and about windows of opportunity. That is an important point to make. As far as consulting with congressional leadership before taking this action, that is not how things like this develop. Very rarely do you have the luxury of time. No. 1, I would start out by saying that there is no legal requirement. The President of the United States has no legal requirement, and, in fact, I believe has an imperative, inherent in the Office, to act swiftly and appropriately to the threat against the lives of Americans, especially American troops that he or she has sent abroad to defend this country's interests. No. 2, it is unrealistic and not possible. Oftentimes, these windows of opportunity do not allow you the luxury of reaching some congressional leader in the middle of their ski trip or Christmas break, and even if you could, there is always the risk that the information would be disseminated and the window would close. So I am not sure if what they are asking for is even possible. The other thing that is troubling is, if you listen to some of the rhetoric out there, you would think that the only two options with Iran are a full-scale diplomacy and capitulation to what they are doing or an all-out war. That is absurd, a false choice. It is a false choice. The President has argued--he said it again clearly yesterday--that he is ready for serious--serious--and real talks toward how Iran becomes a normal nation and its clerical nation behaves in a normal and civilized way. In the meantime, he has an obligation--this President, a future President, and past Presidents--to protect America's interests and, more importantly, American lives and to do so through a concept of active deterrence. What does that mean? Active deterrence means that the people who want to harm you decide not to because the cost of harming you is higher than the benefit of harming you. That is an important point here. The strike on Soleimani was not just about preventing an imminent attack. That, in and of itself, alone was reason to act, but the second thing that was important was reestablishing active deterrence. For whatever reason, the Iranians have concluded that they could go further than they have ever gone before in directly attacking Americans or using their proxies to attack Americans. So much so that they tried--they failed, but they tried--and could have breached our Embassy compound in Baghdad and killed Americans, civilians, and diplomats, and our military personnel stationed there. They tried to. And they could have and want to launch lethal attacks to kill as many Americans as they possibly can because, for whatever reason, they concluded they could get away with it, that we would tolerate it. It was critical to the defense of this country, to our national interests, and to the lives of our men and women in uniform deployed abroad that we restore active deterrence. Now, time will tell how much was restored, but, clearly, I believe some of it was restored. Even the comments today of an Iranian commander--``Well, we shot missiles, but we didn't try to kill anybody''--are indicative of a desire to deescalate, at least for the time being. The other thing I hear is this: Well, the President has no strategy. That is the problem. There is no strategy. I think you could argue that they haven't done a good-enough job of outlining a strategy, but I don't think it is fair to say they have no strategy. The strategy begins with a goal. The goal is pretty straightforward: a prosperous Iran that lives in harmony with its neighbors and does not have nuclear weapons or continues to support terrorism and terrorist groups. That is the goal. How do you achieve it? By Iran's abandoning its desire for nuclear weapons and by no longer standing up these terrorist groups that, for over a decade or longer, have been killing Americans and trying to harm Americans, Israelis, and other allies. How else do you achieve it? By imposing crushing economic sanctions, while leaving open the door for real--not fake, not talk for the sake of talk--diplomacy, but, at the same time, making it abundantly clear that you will deter, repel, and act against any effort to harm Americans. All this talk about military conflict and U.S. actions overlooks the fundamental fact that what is happening here is that Iran has decided to respond to economic sanctions with violence. Their response to economic sanctions has been this: Can we get one of these terrorist groups using weapons that we give them to kill Americans? Can we put limpet mines on merchant ships? Can we attack the Saudis? That has been their response to economic sanctions: violence. Presidents don't have the luxury of bluffing. You can't go around saying ``If you kill Americans, there will be consequences,'' and then they try to kill Americans--or, in the case of Iran, did--and do nothing about it because now what you have done is you have invited a committed adversary to do more of it--not just to tragically kill one brave American contractor but to kill dozens or hundreds of Americans in various spots throughout the world. The last point I want to make is all this talk about an authorization for use of force. I want to begin by sharing my personal view. I believe the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional. I think the power of Congress resides in the opportunity to declare war and to fund it. Every Presidential administration, Republican and Democrat alike, has taken the same position. That doesn't mean we should never have an AUMF. I think our actions are stronger when it is clear that they have strong bipartisan support from both Houses of Congress. I also think all this talk about AUMFs is completely and utterly irrelevant to the case in point. No. 1, under the Constitution of the United States--and the War Powers Resolution, by the way--the President of the United States not only has the authority to act in self-defense but an obligation to do so. An obligation to do so. That is No. 1. No. 2, it is especially true in this case, where the lives and the troops he sought to protect were deployed to Iraq on an anti-ISIS, anti-terrorism mission approved by Congress through an AUMF, an AUMF that states very clearly that one of the reasons we are allowed to use military force, as authorized by Congress, is to defend against attacks. I don't believe there is a single Member of Congress who has the willingness to stand before the American people and say: I think, when we deploy troops abroad, they should not be allowed to defend themselves. Not only do you not need an AUMF or congressional authority to act in self-defense, but the troops who were defending themselves here--and the troops we were defending in the Soleimani strike and preventing an attack against--are deployed pursuant to a congressional authorization. Honestly, what I see here, in addition to the arguments I have already discussed about how ridiculous it is to portray this as the actions of a reckless madman who is escalating things, is an argument about when might you need an AUMF. Give us some theoretical, hypothetical scenario in which you might need an AUMF. The hypotheticals they are posturing are ones that this administration has never, never proposed and, frankly, haven't even contemplated. No one is talking about an all-out invasion of Iran. If you were telling me the President is putting together plans to invade Iran, to go in and capture territory, to remove the Ayatollah and install a new government, I would say: All right, that is something that there should be a debate about. Who is talking about that? I haven't heard anybody propose that. Yet, somehow, the House today is going to spend time on this. People have filed bills on this. Look, we can debate anything we want. People can file any bill they want. That is a privileged motion. It comes to the floor. Great. By the way, no one said: Don't go around talking about this; just be quiet. Perhaps it should have been stated more artfully, but the point that was being made, which is a valid point, is that, when the Iranians analyze responses to the United States, one of the things they look at is this: Do domestic politics and differences of opinion and divisions among American officials restrain what the President can do against us? You may not like it, but I want to be frank with you. They believe that our political differences in this country and that our disagreements constrain the President's ability to respond to attacks. They believe it limits his ability to deter. Now, hopefully the strike on Soleimani may have reset that a little bit. That doesn't mean we shouldn't debate it, and I don't think you should ever tell Congress not to discuss these things. We have a right to. Frankly, everybody here has been elected by a constituency, so people can choose to raise whichever issue they want. I also don't think it is invalid to point out that these internal debates we have in this country do have an impact on what our adversaries think they can get away with. It doesn't make anyone an appeaser or a traitor, but it is a factor I think people should recognize. That is all. In closing, I would say, look, there was a time--I am not one of these people who pine for the golden era. It is funny. I hear people talking about the Clinton impeachment trial. Oftentimes people come to me and say: In the good old days, back in the nineties, when everybody got together and Congressmen were all friends--and I don't know what it was like then because I wasn't here, but I remind them that, in the golden days about which they often talk, we were impeaching Bill Clinton around here. They didn't do it on social media and Twitter and 24-hour cable news at the time, but there has always been friction in American politics. One thing I can say that is evident is that there was a time in American politics that I hope we can return to, and that is a time which, when it came to issues of national security, there was some level of restraint because we understood, when it came to that, the people who would ultimately pay the price for overpoliticizing any issue, for reckless talk, and for unnecessary accusations were not the political figures. Presidents and Ayatollahs don't die in conflicts like these. Do you know who dies? The young men and women we send abroad, the innocent civilians caught in the middle, and the refugees who are forced to leave their homes as a result. There are real-world, life-and-death implications. That is why it has long been American tradition that, when it comes to issues of foreign policy and national security, they were always treated just a little bit differently, with some deference. Even if you disagreed, you sort of tailored it in a way that you thought would not harm those interests. I think that has been lost, probably, on both sides. I still make it a habit when I travel abroad not to discuss or criticize U.S. leaders at home, but I understand times have changed. I would just say, in this particular case, I know that this Nation remains conflicted about the conflicts that led us into Iran and Afghanistan and that keep us in the region to this day. That is a valid, valid debate. I just don't think this looks anything like it. This is about a strike that every single member of the President's national security team, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, believes was necessary in order to prevent a near-term attack against Americans that could be lethal and catastrophic. This is about restoring active deterrents, effective deterrents, against future strikes, and I hope that we can bring that debate back to where it belongs so that, on matters of such importance, we can figure out solutions and not simple rhetoric. I yield the floor.