Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the reason we are here, the reason that the Attorney General of the United States has already been held in contempt, is because Special Counsel Hur interviewed the President of the United States and the Attorney General provided to Congress, at our request, a transcript rather than an audio recording. We believe the audio recording is necessary for us to understand the extent to which the President was able to answer the questions before him and why Special Counsel Hur chose not to pursue charges directly as a result of what he put forward as the likelihood that the President would not be found effectively competent to stand trial. We believe that is central to the question. In terms of legislative purpose, what we are talking about here, by the way, is an impeachment inquiry and the tools of the House through the Judiciary Committee includes our ability to go forward and get the appropriate information, and we have a purpose which is the impeachment inquiry. It is nothing more. It is nothing less. Now, in the Judiciary Committee, the Attorney General of the United States in a question that I asked him, his response was that the evidence was the same. The transcript and the audio were the same. If that is true, then the Attorney General has no real basis, having already waived privilege on the transcript, not claimed privilege on the transcript, has no real basis for not giving the audio to the United States Congress to carry out its duty for an impeachment inquiry.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for his willingness to come to the floor and talk about these important issues that, frankly, all of us should be talking about. He does so with regularity, and it is important. The average American is hurting because they watch the price of goods going up and all the things that are happening as a direct consequence of what we are doing and not doing here--as the gentleman points out, our inability and lack of willingness or fortitude to focus on the issues that matter. Right now, I think something the American people need to understand, as we head into the fall season, is that we are heading into the time of elections. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle come down to give a whole lot of rhetoric about the lack of agenda or lack of things that we are doing. We have legislation on the floor of the House this week to ensure that only citizens vote, something we call the SAVE Act. That legislation is necessary because anybody with eyes knows that we are getting overrun by open borders that are endangering the American people. We have millions of people flooding into the country and have thousands and thousands of people who are on the voter rolls who are not supposed to be. Those are facts. It is true. We know States that are starting to cleanse their voter rolls are finding people who are noncitizens and are registered to vote. We saw it in Virginia. We have seen it in North Carolina. We have seen it in Texas. We have seen it across the country. The truth is, it goes far deeper than that. The question that we have to ask ourselves is: What does it mean to be an American? What does citizenship even mean anymore? We have an administration--Joe Biden, the people who work for him, and our Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle--that is at war with the whole idea of American exceptionalism and what it means to be an American. They are at war with the whole idea of what it means to be an American citizen. They are undermining the whole purpose, the whole intent, behind citizenship. Citizenship is supposed to matter. This week, we are going to be voting on the floor on a bill to require a simple thing: that we know that only American citizens are voting in our American elections. That is what we are voting on this week, tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, you would think that some number of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be willing to work with us on such legislation. They bemoan that they are not getting an amendment offered. Let's be very clear: They offered one amendment--one--in the committee of jurisdiction, the House Administration Committee. Do you know how many Democrats were present? One, the ranking member. The ranking member offered the amendment. It went down 6-1. There was no real debate from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle because the only purpose of the amendment was to gut the bill. That was the only purpose. Then, I heard bemoaning from our Democratic colleagues and the ranking member of the Rules Committee when we were up in the Rules Committee, and he said they should be able to offer this amendment. Why? His Democratic colleagues didn't even show up to the debate in the committee, and the whole purpose of the amendment was to gut the bill. The bill has been strongly supported by the Speaker on down, strongly supported by his staff, strongly supported by the people who have worked on it hard, but none of that matters to the American people. The only thing that matters to the American people is that it is legislation that would protect their constitutional right as a citizen to be the one who has a say in his or her government. What is happening right now is we are undermining the integrity of our elections and undermining our very Republic by allowing noncitizens to vote. Indeed, some jurisdictions--Oakland, San Francisco, New York, and, indeed, our Nation's Capital--are purposely registering noncitizens to vote. They say, wink, wink, nod, nod, don't worry about it. We are only going to do that in State and local elections. We will not, of course, put them over in Federal elections because that is against the law. My Democratic colleagues want to say we don't need this bill because it is already against the law for a noncitizen to vote in Federal elections. True. However, number one, then what are you worried about? Why are you concerned? What is so problematic that you think it is bad that we try to put procedures in place to carry out the law you say is already in place? The truth is you don't like that that law is in place. That is the truth about our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We know this because Democratic jurisdictions across the country, as I said a minute ago, are registering noncitizens to vote in State and local elections. They want them to vote in Federal elections. The problem is, they have this pesky little issue with the American people, 81 to 87 percent of whom believe that only citizens should vote in American elections. We have a bill before us on the floor of the House tomorrow that I believe is going to be opposed by virtually all or all of our Democratic colleagues. We will see. I kind of dare them to vote ``no'' on a bill supported by 81 to 87 percent of the American people. I dare them to vote ``no'' against a bill that says that only American citizens should vote in American elections. I am going to dare them to go ahead and follow a President who has put out a policy against a bill, the purpose of which is to guarantee citizens are the ones who get to vote in American elections. We will see if our Democratic colleagues want to go to the polls in November having rejected what clearly the vast majority of their constituents, even in the most liberal jurisdictions in the country, believe is right. That is what is likely to occur tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, if you believe the news, believe the accounts, look at what the President has done, and look at the posturing of the House Democratic leadership, they are on the precipice of staking out a position of belief that noncitizens should be able to vote in our elections. That, of course, is not too surprising, given the extent to which a number of our Democratic colleagues have repeatedly talked about how it is beneficial for them to have noncitizens--indeed, sometimes illegal aliens--voting in elections. The fact of the matter is, we know what has happened in the Biden administration as the American people have been endangered, as Americans have died, as Laken Riley has died, and as numerous individuals have been killed, raped, murdered, and assaulted across this country by people who have been let into this country illegally. We know that some 8 million illegal aliens have crossed the border under Biden's tenure. We know that some 5.3 million illegal aliens have been released by Joe Biden. We know that we have had massive numbers of criminal gang members, massive numbers of people affiliated with terrorist organizations, and thousands of numbers of Chinese nationals who have come into our country. We know that our domestic crime is increasing. We know that we are being endangered. We know that people are being released. We know that we have criminals coming to our country, yet we want to do one simple thing. We have been fighting them, trying to stop what they are doing by releasing people into the country. We passed H.R. 2. Democrats refused to do anything about it. They refused to move it. Chuck Schumer refuses to do it. Joe Biden doesn't even know what we are talking about. Here, our Democratic colleagues are poised to reject a bill to protect our elections, to ensure that only Americans vote in our elections. That should give everybody in this country pause and give them a glimpse into the soul of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and what they think about citizenship. They don't respect citizenship. Our Democratic colleagues don't believe that citizenship matters. They don't believe that sovereignty matters because if they did, they wouldn't do this. If our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our Democratic colleagues, had some small fix or even significant fix to believe that we could make our system better, we would be all ears. If it was a legitimate exercise to say, yes, of course, we want to not only have it against the law for noncitizens to vote in our elections, as is currently the case, but we also want to make sure that we remove all Federal barriers and, indeed, improve the situation and have requirements in place to guarantee that we can check, know, and ensure that only citizens vote. That is not what they are doing. The legislation that we put forward is pretty simple, the SAVE Act. It will allow you to come forward, prospectively. If you are going to vote this fall, you can go vote. You are in the system. If you move, your address changes, you get married, if something changes at some point over the next few years, we require States to clean their voter rolls. If you want to register to vote, take a passport, take a military ID, take a Real ID, all of which demonstrate your citizenship. If you don't have one of those, take your regular driver's license, get a copy of your birth certificate, get a copy of an adoption certificate or naturalization papers and go down to say that you can register and are a citizen. There are 400,000 tombstones on the other side of the Potomac River. They either gave the last full measure of devotion or risked the last full measure of devotion. I think you can take a few seconds to make sure that you demonstrate your citizenship to vote. More than that, we put in massive safeguards. We give flexibility to States. We say that if they want to come up with a better way to do it, they can balance and check the Federal systems. They can sign an affidavit as a government official saying that they believe this is a citizen. They checked, and this is a citizen. They provided all the information necessary. Great. There are no barriers, no undue burdens, no restrictions on the ability of an American citizen to vote under our plan. What it will do is give not just increased confidence but a return of belief in our system, a belief that they can actually trust elections, a belief that it is, in fact, their country. Shouldn't we want this to be our country? Shouldn't we want to be proud and say this is our country, these are our rules, and that anyone is welcome to come here under the terms of our invitation only and will follow the rules. Criminals are not going to be allowed here, and they are not going to be allowed to carry out criminal activities. They are not going to be allowed to murder, rape, maim, or steal. However, if someone is coming here and is hardworking and follows our rules, God bless them, come on in, but they are going to vote only if they are a citizen. The fact that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to guarantee that tells us everything we need to know. It gives up the whole game. It gives up the fact that our colleagues don't want sovereignty and security, and that is the truth. There is a reason our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to continue to throw money at international organizations, want to send an endless supply of funds and blank checks to the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and all the NGOs that are funneling people into our country, endangering our own citizens, and putting children into the sex trafficking trade. All of that is being done on purpose. All of that is being done because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want it all to occur. There is no other explanation for it. I am tired. I have been sitting here watching for my entire time in Congress, watching this President--to the extent he even knows where the hell he is--destroy this country and endanger the people who I represent, destroy and endanger Texans. That is what has happened, nothing less. The President of the United States and the people who work for him have endangered our country. The Secretary of Homeland Secretary has endangered our country. Ask the now probably thousands, certainly hundreds of parents who are sitting there having lost loved ones, killed, raped, or maimed, the tens of thousands of parents who have lost their kids to fentanyl poisoning, ask any of them. Ask the cops. Ask the Border Patrol who want to do their job but are being told they can't and being accused of whipping Haitian migrants. That is what is happening. Here we are again. We are not even talking about securing the border in this bill. We are not talking about doing the things we should be doing as a sovereign Nation. We are talking about doing the simplest thing if you are a sovereign Nation, and that is ensure the integrity of your elections and that only citizens can vote. I am proud of the job the Republican Party has done and my Republican colleagues have done, and the Speaker of the House has done in putting forward legislation that will solve the problem, that follows the law, defers where appropriate to States, sets a Federal standard where it is appropriate with respect to Federal elections only, follows the constitutional parameters, and lays it all out in a way to protect our elections. This is what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to protect our country. We are, in fact, the guardians of our country. When we sit in this hallowed Chamber, what on Earth are we supposed to do but do the work of protecting the country, which leads me to another point. Our country is in danger right now because the President of the United States no longer has the mental capacity to carry out the powers and the duties of the office. I get no great joy in saying that. It is true. It is appalling to watch the news media and my Democrat colleagues in this Chamber, in the Senate, and in the administration ignore the reality of the state of the President's mental acuity, endangering the American people, and now suddenly wake up because there is an election in a few months and suddenly go, oh, we need to do something about this. Why? Because there is an election in a few months. Even at that, they are unwilling to call the question. I would posit that they are unwilling to call the question because the Democrats in the White House, indeed, the First Lady and the Vice President of the United States, are all complicit in covering up the lack of mental ability of the President, covering up the health, the mental health, the physical health of the President. By doing this, they are endangering the American people. Indeed, they are unconstitutionally calling for President by committee. I heard the former Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson; I have heard numerous current administration staffers; I have heard numerous Democrat colleagues in the House and the Senate talk about: Don't worry. The President has some good people around him. Don't worry. There are a lot of really good people that are advising him. There are committees of people. First of all, I am not blown away by the quality of the people surrounding the President. Second of all, that is not how it works. The Founders firmly rejected, from memory, I think it is Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 70, the notion of President by committee, that it would endanger us, that you needed an executive, you needed a Commander in Chief to make the decisions. A brief note to my colleagues on this side of the aisle who are saying Chip, shhhh. Don't say anything. Don't bring it up. We are in election season. They are falling on their own sword. They are blowing up. Let them blow up. What I am concerned about blowing up is our country if we are attacked and we have a President in the White House who can't respond. That job is not just from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This matters. It matters that the President of the United States is, at best, questionable to make decisions when it matters. It is why the 25th Amendment exists, which, of course, requires the Vice President to take action, which I do not believe the Vice President will do because the Vice President knows she is complicit in having hid from the American people the mental state of the President of the United States for years. This is not a political statement. As I have just noted, some people on my side of the aisle would rather I not say it. Shhhh. Let's just get to November. I just want our country to get to November. I want our country to get to December. I want our country to get to the next century. When the President of the United States can't carry out the powers and the duties of the office without a committee of staff around him, when the press secretary at the White House today literally answered the question when asked by a reporter what would happen at 11 p.m. if nuclear weapons were fired at the United States, and her answer was: Well, there are some really good people around him that would come and talk to him. That gives me a lot of pause. All of us who are in elected office have advisers, people we trust, seek their advice, seek their counsel, but I can promise you, when you know what hits the fan, if I have to come down here and make a decision, I walk down here and make a decision because that is what we are hired to do. When you have to have a vote, you have to vote. When you have to come down and take action, you have to take action. The President of the United States is uniquely in that position. The fact of the matter is this administration has been propped up, effectively, a Manchurian candidate, being propped up with committees of people around the President, hiding and obfuscating the truth, making decisions. That, frankly, should give all of us pause. It is no wonder that the country is in such bad shape at the moment. Our country is being impoverished by the day. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found over the last year almost a million native-born Americans lost jobs on net. Americans are spending over $12,800 more annually to buy the basics because of the inflation under this administration. Mortgage rates are up to 7 percent. Housing affordability has plummeted to record lows. Gasoline is up 55 percent, eggs up 40 percent, flour up 35 percent, electricity up 29 percent, baby food up 29 percent, breakfast cereal up 25 percent, bread up 25 percent, chicken and poultry up 25 percent, lunch meat up 24 percent, eating out up 23 percent, rent up 21 percent, used cars up 20 percent. Americans have lost over $4,400 paying higher energy costs under the President. The Biden administration announced they paused all non-FTA exports for liquefied natural gas. What do you think that does? It doesn't help us. We are involved in endless conflicts, funding them. Nobody in this Chamber wants Ukraine to lose to Russia, but nobody in this Chamber wants to continue to fund a perpetual war by an administration that is out of touch while the American people are suffering. Biden has sold off more than 40 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and in 2023, the SPR stockpile plunged to 40-year lows. The fact of the matter is this administration is failing the American people. Republicans have for the last 18 months in this Congress for sure, if not the duration of the Biden administration, but certainly the last 18 months been putting forward responsible, strong policies that the President of the United States and my Democrat colleagues are rejecting. We have worked hard to put forward Limit, Save, Grow, which would dramatically turn around the economic situation, dramatically reduce spending, dramatically reduce the size of the bureaucracy, dramatically improve our energy prices and competition around the globe, which, by the way, which would have had an impact in Ukraine, which would have helped us push back on Russia. We passed responsible appropriations bills. We got caps enacted and put in place. The defense bill is funded. The increase in defense spending is funded out of taking cuts to the IRS expansion the Democrats wanted to foist on hardworking Americans and we took money out of remaining COVID funds. Nondefense was then held flat. We passed H.R. 2, a responsible border security bill, which would have ended the release of people into the United States. It would have tightened down on parole and asylum. It would have ended the release of unaccompanied children. It would have treated them responsibly. It would have reduced the power of cartels. It would have reduced sex trafficking, and it would have kept people like Laken Riley alive. We did that. We passed H.R. 2. Our Democrat colleagues opposed it. They opposed it in the Senate, and they opposed it here. This Republican Conference has passed appropriation bill after appropriation bill to be rejected by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We have passed thousands of amendments. We passed seven appropriations bills last year. We passed a number of appropriations bills this year, and we are continuing to pass them. We are doing the work the American people sent us here to do with zero help from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and, frankly, I am proud of the work that we have been putting forward that has been rejected by our Democrat colleagues. I haven't always agreed. I have been very clear on this floor. You have to deliver results. You have to get some things across the finish line. You have to be willing to hold the line and fight and use the power of the purse. There is more that we can do but make no mistake about it. We have been putting forward good bills to make our economy stronger. If our legislation had been adopted by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the President, inflation would be down. The border would be secure. People would be enjoying much more affordable energy. Job creation would be up. People's lives and quality of life would be better. More Americans would be secure on the streets. This week, we have on the floor a bill that would protect voting and ensure that only citizens vote. Again, if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would work with us, we could do that. We could restore belief in our system. These are all the things that we have been working on, working to try to do. Right now, our Democrat colleagues are wrapped around the axle trying to figure out what to do about their President because with all due respect, they are not putting America first. The President of the United States right now is not putting America first. The Vice President of the United States is not putting America first. The Cabinet is not putting America first. If you were going to put America first, if you were going to put Americans first, then you would call it like you see it. You would act. You would lead. You would do what everyone in America knows needs to be done. Everyone with eyes who has been watching the President--and again, I take no joy in saying it. He is our President. I disagree with him a lot, but he is our President, and the President of the United States needs to be strong and coherent and capable and able to lead in an increasingly dangerous world. Notwithstanding the horrible policies that have been promoted and pushed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, can we not just agree that the President of the United States should be mentally aware and competent to carry out the powers and duties of the office? Will our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and in the administration not look at this the way every American is seeing this right now? Even the most politically biased people in the media and around the country are looking at this and throwing their hands up and saying what is going on? Admittedly, it is because they are panicking about the election in November when what it should be is that they are panicked about the state of our country and whether or not we can be safe and secure. In the Book of Acts, it is noted that Paul was a Roman citizen. The Roman authorities put him in chains and were about to flog him without a trial, but when he said that he was born a citizen, they let him go even though he was spreading the message of hate and distrust of a religious minority, but citizenship meant a great deal. One of the things that eventually led to the downfall of the Roman Empire was the fact that over the next few centuries after that, citizenship meant less and less and less until it meant almost nothing. Its people no longer knew how to preserve the civilization their ancestors had built. We cannot let the same thing happen here. Citizenship matters. Being a citizen of this country matters. It matters in observing the White House. It matters in citizens voting in elections. It matters in the policies we put forward to put the American people first. Citizenship has to matter again. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, we were all saddened to learn today of the passing of the spouse of one of our Members, Thomas Massie, the gentleman from Kentucky. His wife, Rhonda, of many years--they were childhood sweethearts--suddenly passed away yesterday. Mr. Massie had to drive home to Kentucky and be home with his family, which is where he is today. I ask everybody in the Chamber and everybody around the complex to please rise and observe a moment of silence and offer your prayers and thoughts and condolences for our good friend from Kentucky.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, as we will be recessing tomorrow for the week, next week many of us will be celebrating America's Independence Day back home in our districts and throughout the country. Very few of us will be here. A few may, but we are rarely, if ever, on the floor of the U.S. House on Independence Day. It is obviously a day not just worth celebrating but that the Founders intended specifically for us to celebrate. I recall now 4 years ago in the summer of 2020 in the midst of some of the protests and riots and burning of buildings, tossing of statues and damaging of statues throughout the country in the summer of 2020, there was a lot of effort to tear down monuments and memorials. I took my staff, and I drove to Philadelphia on July 2. We were here late right up through that day. I think we finished voting on July 1. On July 2, I drove with my staff, I went to Philadelphia, and I went to Independence Hall and visited with the National Park Service there who were caring for Independence Hall. Fortunately, there was nobody at that point threatening to damage Independence Hall. There were some rumors and concerns. I recorded a video there and talked about the importance of Independence Hall. In that speech or in that video, when I recorded that, I pointed out that it wasn't the bricks and the mortar. It wasn't the building itself. It wasn't the structure. That is all interesting to go see from a historic standpoint, but it was what those men did inside of Independence Hall that changed the course of history forever. The National Park Service was very gracious. They allowed me and my staff, the three staff members with me, to go into Independence Hall on July 2. We were alone. It was just us because it was closed down for public tours because you will remember, this was during the time of COVID. We were able to be in Independence Hall on July 2. Now, why is that interesting? Because students of history will know that that was the actual monumental day. That was the day that our leaders of the colonies, but the Founders of this country, the leaders broke away from the crown. That was the day that they voted. On July 3, the next day, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, back home in Massachusetts. Remember, of course, he couldn't call her. He couldn't text her. He couldn't send her an email. He wrote Abigail a letter that would get to her saying, ``Yesterday, the greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men. ``A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, `that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, and as such they have, and of right ought to have, full power to make war, conclude peace, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which other States may rightfully do.'' ``The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. ``It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore. ``You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and the blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. ``Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.'' Again, that was July 3, 1776, the day after those men voted in Independence Hall to separate from the crown. They had not yet adopted the Declaration of Independence. That would occur the following day on July 4, 1776. Obviously, Mr. Adams thought July 2 would be the day that would be celebrated. Of course, as it turns out, because the Declaration was signed and dated July 4, that became the day on which we celebrate our independence and all that flows from it. It might seem trivial, and in some respects, it is, so long as we are celebrating. In the midst of the parades and the fireworks and the hot dogs and the fun of next week, we should remember why. We should remember what Mr. Adams wrote to Abigail. We should remember what they sacrificed. Much is made in this town often of the palace intrigue of what one Member says to another or who is endorsed by another. Much is made of relationships and who has angst with whom. Shall we not remember that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were literally at each other's throats, fighting because they disagreed so vehemently about the power of government, Federal versus State? Shall we not forget the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton? Shall we not forget the massive disputes our country has wrestled with? I will just say this: Gladly. It is one of the great things about this country that we, with passion, shall engage on behalf of the people that we represent to come here and fight for them, to stand up and do something that we said we would do when we came to this town to change the trajectory, to preserve the Republic that these gentlemen met and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to defend. They meant that, and they knew what it meant. I think it merits a debate here among our colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both Chambers, in the executive branch, in the judiciary. What is it that we are doing? What are we doing on behalf of the people who sent us to this town? What animates us? Is it to get reelected? Is it to raise money? Is it to chair a committee? Is it to have a certain amount of power, or is it to fundamentally preserve and protect this great experiment for our children and our grandchildren? Is it to put all on the line? Many great patriots in this Chamber wear the battle scars of lost eyes and lost legs, both sides of the aisle, for fighting and standing to defend this country and defend the flag that sits behind the Speaker's chair. What are we doing? What are we doing as elected Members of Congress? I hear often now from people that I represent. I am tired of another sternly worded letter, and I am tired of yet another hearing when they see the country that they love being attacked, being attacked not by necessarily by enemies abroad but by our own people and in many cases our own leaders. The people whom I represent who reach out to me, who pull me aside in an airport or pull me aside at home or pull me aside in the supermarket or at school when I drop my kids off, they don't come to me asking about some endorsement or some conversation had among Members of the floor. They come to me, and they ask: Why am I not living free? What is happening? What is wrong with our country? In this week in which we are going to celebrate freedom and celebrate independence, 248 years removed from what I just described in the letter from Mr. Adams to Mrs. Adams, are we free? It is a legitimate question. Are we a free people? Some people might superficially just say well, sure, of course, you are free. You can walk out of the Chamber, Mr. Roy. You can walk out and say what you want, do what you want. Superficially speaking, compared to certain other places and times in history or other parts of the world, you could argue that we are free. But are we free? Can we say what we want? Can we speak freely without the power of government being used against us? Can we pray at an abortion clinic without being put in jail for 2 years if you are 75 years old, as the Department of Justice just did? Can you speak your mind and say that you believe in the institution of marriage without being threatened with losing your job or potentially punished with hate speech? Can you? Can you speak freely about a man and a woman, the definition thereof, and that a man not be able to swim against a woman in a meet? You kind of can, but can you? Can you send your kids to a school where your kids can pray to the God under which this Nation was founded? Can you, in that school, trust that your children are going to be taught the values of Western civilization and the founding principles that gave us this great country that indeed, ultimately, led to the abolition of slavery and freedom for people around the world? Will you be taught about the bravery and courage of the men at Lexington and Concord, in Independence Hall, or in all the battlefields during the Civil War, World War I, or World War II and storming the beaches? Will you be taught about that great history, or will your kids be taught to apologize for being American? Are you free if you are sending your kids to school with tax dollars for your children to be indoctrinated and taught that your Nation is not great or that your God does not exist? Are you free or are you slave to a tyranny of government that tells you that you must pay taxes to something that will save the secular world, itself its own religion, that that is something you must subsidize and you must bow down to? Are you free if your military is more focused, as many reports have been showing, on advancing nonbinary, transgender, lesbian, gay issues than on a military focused on defending the United States of America? Are you free if we are continuing to advance our military into war or fund wars abroad without actual declarations of war, with 20-something- year-old Authorizations for Use of Military Force without ever having a real, thorough, and full debate on the floor of the House? Are you free if you are continually funding war to the detriment of your own financial well-being and the death and destruction of many of your own colleagues? Are you free if your daughter can be registered to be drafted, as the United States Senate just voted to require out of the Senate Armed Services Committee and sent down to the floor, and many Republicans voted for? Are you free if your daughter can be forced to register for Selective Service and be drafted? Are you free if you have $35 trillion of debt and have $1.1 trillion of interest, if you are racking up $1 trillion of debt every 2 to 3 months? Are you free if the U.S. dollar is getting destroyed and you can't afford the groceries, the necessities of life, and the car to go take your family to their job or their school or to carry out your business if you are a plumber or an electrician or any other job? Are you free? Are you free if your leaders are spending your Nation into oblivion and undermining your economic freedom and well-being? Are you free if your borders are so wide open that your own people are getting killed and murdered by those being let onto the streets out of the jail cells and the criminals from other parts of the world? Are you free? Do you think Laken Riley's parents feel free? Do you think the little 12-year-old girl who was just raped in Iowa by two illegal immigrants let into the United States and paroled by this administration, do you think they feel free? Do you think that the parents of the 13-year-old girl who was raped and murdered and the families of the Maryland women, Rachel Morin and Kayla Hamilton, these families who lost their loved ones, do you think they feel free? Without security, how are you free? Do you think all the parents who have lost their loved ones to fentanyl poisoning, with fentanyl pouring into their communities, are free? Are we truly free? Are you free to comment about Presidential elections without being targeted by the Department of Justice? Are you free to talk about schools without being targeted by the Department of Justice? Are you free to go forward and protest in favor of life without being targeted by the Department of Justice, as Mark Houck had happen to him? Are you free to speak freely about the abuses of transgender surgeries in a hospital in Texas and Texas Children's Hospital and not have the Department of Justice come in and prosecute you, as just happened in Texas? Are you free? Are you free if the Department of Justice wants to make you a criminal because you sell a single gun to another person in Texas and wants to create a national registry to be able to track those weapons? Are you free? Are you free if you can't go buy the automobile of your choice because a bunch of people in Washington have said, no, we have to regulate it, make it more expensive. We have to mandate electric vehicles, which are piling up on lots, and you can't afford the internal combustion engine that you used to be able to go get. Now, you are wondering how you are even going to replace the car you have that you need to get around to do your job and carry out your life. Are you free? I would suggest to you that, in supposedly the freest and greatest country in the history of mankind, we are no longer free. I would suggest to you that, as we are heading into this week to celebrate the great birth of liberty that this country provided for the world, that we have been stripped of that liberty and that we have been trading it away, that we have been trading it away right here from the floor upon which I stand, and that we have done so even this year. These are the questions with which we should wrestle. These are the great debates we should have. I am exceptionally proud to be an American. I am exceptionally proud to be in Congress. I believe that this country can and must be free again, but a country that has no borders, a country that is $35 trillion in debt, a country whose government is weaponized against its own people, a country that doesn't even know how to define ``man'' and ``woman'' or pay honor to the God upon which this Nation was founded is not a free country. If we are going to do anything in this body as Republicans or Democrats, if we are going to do anything in this election cycle, if we are going to do anything at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, it should be to restore our fundamental, God-given rights and to reduce the size, scope, and power of a government that is operating completely in opposition to those liberties. The people who struggle today in this country struggle primarily because of the government that is operating against them, not because the government is protecting or helping them. The people who struggle in this country today, it is because of a burdensome, large, indebted government that has lost sight of the reason it exists and the fact that it is through the consent of the governed that it has its power. The other thing that happened on July Fourth, somewhat miraculously, was that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams passed away 50 years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document in which both had significant hands in writing, Jefferson obviously being the primary author. On June 24, 1826, about 10 days before Jefferson died at his home in Monticello, he wrote the following to the Mayor of Washington upon having to decline the invitation to the 50th anniversary celebration due to his health, which obviously failed him 10 days later. He wrote, may our independence ``be to the world what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights and an undiminished devotion to them.'' As we go out as Representatives of the people in this great Republic over the next week and go home to our districts, I hope we will remember those words, but that ultimately doesn't mean much. I hope that when we come back to this Chamber, we will remember those words. I hope that as we form our plans for the coming years that we will embrace with the seriousness and resolve of all those we celebrate and to whom we give lip service of our great admiration for their sacrifice and their courage, whether they have worn the uniform and stormed the beaches at Normandy or they fought for our freedoms at our founding, or whether they were these men in that room, or whether they are those who came before us representing the people in this Chamber. It has to be more than just simple words of recognition. It can't be a fancy celebration at an 80th anniversary of D-Day. We have to actually carry out those words of affection by being willing to sacrifice our own well-being and good for the next generation because that is what we have lost. We have lost the willingness to sacrifice at all so that the next generation might live free to give up the comforts of promises from a Federal Government, of continued checks, continued welfare, to give up the trappings of, frankly, a heavily falsified world of comfort in suburban America, propped up by profligate government spending, waiting, waiting to teeter off the edge. This is not about personalities in this Chamber. This is not about someone being too caustic or mean to one of their colleagues. Grow up. Wake up. Understand your duty. Understand that when you come here and you swear an oath and you sit before that flag and you sit in this Chamber and all the speeches that come before it, that we owe it to all of those 400,000 at Arlington National Cemetery and the thousands of cemeteries across this country in which those who gave or were willing to give the last full measure of devotion, we owe it to them and those who risked it all to risk it all ourselves. What good is an election certificate that we are unwilling to use in fullness? This next week, I will look forward to riding in a parade in central Texas and celebrating with my 14-year-old, my 13-year-old, my wife, and my friends and family, just like everybody else, and I will have a good time doing it. When we come back here on July 8, let us set out to do the hard work that is actually required; not the pointing of fingers, not the recriminations, but actually set out to do the things we said we would do to cut the profligate spending; to secure the border of the United States; to make our military the strongest military they can be, sparingly used, giving them care when they get home, the tools to carry out their jobs; giving you healthcare freedom, going to the doctor of your choice; and giving you energy freedom, being able to get reliable energy and the cars of your choice without dictates from the bureaucrats in this town that are crushing the American Dream. America is going to turn 250 years old in 2 years. As a birthday present for America turning 250 years old, are we going to give our kids and our grandkids their birthright or are we going to take it away from them? I hope it is the former. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I unfortunately missed a vote today. Had I been present, I would have voted Aye on Roll Call No. 285. Stated against:

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I would just note that it is critically important that we adopt these amendments to restrict the executive branch from carrying out these executive orders. They are undermining our efficiency and effectiveness. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment will prohibit Homeland Security appropriations from being used to carry out President Biden's climate executive orders. People might wonder why this is important. President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have been doing a massive amount of damage to this country with wide-open borders. Not only do they endanger the American people, but they have literally lied and been caught lying about their own Border Patrol agents, who they accused of whipping Haitian migrants when they knew full well it wasn't true. They have been targeting, undermining, and attacking their own personnel, their own law enforcement community, going after CBP and Border Patrol simply because Border Patrol wants to do their job. That endangers the American people. That is not it. That is not all they are doing. The President's executive orders are undermining our national security and making us beholden to China in other ways, making us beholden to the rest of the world by undermining our ability to produce reliable energy--all in pursuit of radical, progressive Democrats' vision of unicorn energy policy, which is unreliable and will not produce the energy needed to be able to carry out and be competitive in the world. EVs are piling up on lots as we speak. Dealers can't unload them. They literally can't. They can't sell them. Why? Because if I want to get in my car in Austin, Texas, and drive to Midland, I have to stop three times along the way and can't even find charging stations. Put aside the fact that the cars are more expensive, more unreliable, and more difficult to repair. That is the reality. Meanwhile, unreliable energy is dotting our grids across the entire country, including Texas. Why? Because instead of pursuing logical policies like nuclear, if you care about CO2 production, or clean-burning natural gas, which has been driving down CO2 production around the world, we instead are choosing to litter the landscape with windmills and solar panels, which, by the way, are made out of what? Materials from China, which, by the way, come from what? They come from forced child labor, which is going out and forcing children to have to go out and be in work camps, to go mine the cobalt necessary for batteries, mine the minerals that are necessary for all the solar panels, the solar panels and the windmills that all have to be buried and filled in the ground, all of which, by the way, produces unreliable energy and puts us behind the rest of the world in energy production when 3 billion people on this planet don't even have reliable energy. We are literally shooting ourselves in the economic foot. That is what we are doing. We are doing it all because, I don't know, the feels. I don't know, put a sticker on your Tesla while you drive around and feel good about yourself. Pat yourself on the back when you are not denting CO2 production. You could actually get rid of every internal combustion engine car in America and you wouldn't reduce CO2 around the world by less than about 1\1/2\ percent, if at all. The radical climate change executive orders by the President are undermining our national security, forcing the DOD, DHS, all these executive branch agencies to weaken their ability to be productive and get their job done. Can you imagine the Border Patrol can't even talk right now on radios? They can't even communicate when they move along the border, if they are even allowed to go man the border. Instead, they are changing diapers in some room in one of the ports of entry because we have been dumping people in through parole policies. Now they are going to be stuck down there trying to charge their batteries, hoping they can even go find the people crossing the river. You can't even make this crap up. If you set out to destroy a country, if you set out to literally destroy a country, I don't know how you could come up with policies better than those of the radical, progressive Democrats, who want to remake this country in their radical, leftist image. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I rise as the designee of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger), and I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, my simple question, although the gentlewoman has yielded her time back, would simply be: What is the problem? What is the harm of putting the language in the bill if it is a policy that is not being implemented? I would tell you that it is a $13 billion rumor. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, I do have an amendment at the desk, and I do want to make clear that this is on behalf of August Pfluger, my colleague from Texas, who has been a champion of this issue since he has been in Congress. The issue that is before us as we take up the Department of Homeland Security appropriations is the policy that the administration has put forward and, indeed, some Members of this Chamber, even some on this side of the aisle, have put forward. The policy would limit the ability to transport people who have come here illegally and that have been released into the United States by the administration into Texas. It would limit the ability to transport these individuals to other places in the country. We have referred to this as the remain in Texas policy, which we Texans take significant issue with. The impact on the State of Texas cannot be overstated. Texas, more than any other State in the Union, has been bearing the brunt of the wide-open border policies that have endangered the American people now for 3\1/2\ years, something that we hope to end soon. We, in Congress, have a duty under Article I to do something about it. That is why we put forward, I believe, a good DHS appropriations bill. We made clear that we need to secure the border in the process, but what we are not going to do is allow funds to be used to limit the ability of Texans to alleviate the damage being done to our State. We have spent now, I think, $13 billion, with a b, to carry out the duties that the Federal Government are supposed to carry out under the Constitution of the United States. That is what Texas has had to do. We have now been able to defray some of the traffic. We have now been able to decrease and force some of that traffic to other States, but we shouldn't be having to do that. We shouldn't be having to put up razor wire. We shouldn't be having to move our DPS troopers down to the border instead of allowing them to do their job to patrol the rest of the State, particularly because in the rest of the State, there are massive amounts of fentanyl pouring into our communities and our schools, killing our kids and killing the people in our community. Our position is that under no circumstances should any of the funds in this bill be used to limit the ability of the Governor of Texas or any of the other leaders of the State of Texas, or, frankly, leaders in other States from transporting people out of Texas so that other States have to bear the burden equally or at least partially. It is not even close to equally, by the way, partially, as much as Texas. In particular, take Kinney County, Texas. We had testimony in the Judiciary Committee from the leadership, the county attorney from Kinney County, Texas. Prior to the Biden administration's policies being implemented, in 2021, they had about 150 arrests. Do you know how many they have had in the subsequent 3 years? Mr. Chair, there have been 7,000 arrests in a county of 3,000 people. We have documented evidence of individuals who have been unable to go get 911 services in Kinney County because the sole ambulance in Kinney County, population 3,000, was out dealing with issues involving illegal aliens. Meanwhile, the people who live there and pay taxes, a person died because they weren't able to get a 911 response because it is being consumed and those activities are being used to deal with the issue that the Federal Government not only refuses to deal with but, in fact, is purposely putting gas on the fire. I am here to advocate for the amendment being offered by Mr. Pfluger to say that no funds shall be able to be used to implement such a policy. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, in the wake of 3\1/2\ years of abject failure, but worse than that, purposeful action by the executive branch of the Federal Government to undermine the security of the American people, empower cartels, empower China, and allow little children, little girls to get sold into the sex trafficking trade for political expediency for the radical progressive Democrat left, in the wake of all of that with dead Americans, with Laken Riley, with Lizbeth Medina, with Kayla Hamilton, with all of the horrific stories, the stories of a 12-year- old little girl getting raped, a 13-year-old little girl getting raped, in the wake of all of that, now the administration wants to continue its lawlessness by the use and abuse of executive power to grant amnesty. That is the goal. That is the aim. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our radical, progressive Democratic colleagues, view this as political opportunism--nothing more, nothing less. This is not about the huddled masses being invited into the United States. This is not about anything of the sort. This is about political power. That is what this is about. As a result, 53 human beings roasted in the Texas heat in a tractor- trailer in San Antonio, Texas, which I represent, because my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues and the radical, progressive Democratic regime in the White House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue care more about political expediency than these human beings. That is the truth. They care more about political expediency than the individual Americans dying from fentanyl poisoning or any of the individuals that I just described who were murdered or raped or killed because we are allowing criminals to be released into the United States illegally, unlawfully, using and abusing parole authority. Now, the administration wants to grant amnesty. Why? Trust us, it is out of the goodness of our hearts, we are told. No, it is for the political expediency of setting up future voters. Importantly, and more presciently, this is all about creating more incentive for more people to flood the zone, to flood the border, to come into this country. That is what it is about. It doesn't matter whether it empowers cartels. It doesn't matter whether it empowers our enemies. It doesn't matter what it means for the security of the people of Texas or anybody else in this country. It is all about flooding the zone with more numbers. The legislation that we have before us, the amendment that we are putting forward, would prohibit the use of funds from promoting such a foolish amnesty plan by this radical administration that refuses to follow the law. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Self), my good friend.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague from Texas. I agree with him, and I associate myself with his remarks. The unilateral action by this executive branch is nothing new. They have been doing it with student loans. They have been doing it with all sorts of laws, where they ignore the law--parole authority, abuse of law, endangering the American people. This would give permanent residence and a path to citizenship to hundreds of thousands of illegal alien spouses of U.S. citizens and their noncitizen minor children. That is being done through unilateral action by the executive branch. This is not how we are supposed to make policy or law. It is important for us to use the power of the purse to push back. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable what this administration is doing. It is unconscionable what they are doing to the Department of Defense. It is unconscionable that they turned it into a woke social engineering experiment that is more concerned about transgender surgeries and pushing a radical agenda than ensuring that we have the military that is necessary to defend the United States of America. There is no wonder that recruiting levels are down. There is no wonder that we have a morale problem at the Pentagon. This legislation is designed specifically to refocus our military on doing its job, which is exactly what the American people want us to do: secure the United States, secure our border, and secure us without giving money to organizations all around the world. I am proud that we restrict funding of the ICC, of the ICJ, and of UNRWA. UNRWA, by the way, which my Democratic colleagues want to continue to support, was, in fact, funding and putting people on the ground, literally. They were killing our friends in Israel. This bill is a responsible effort to restrain an administration that is endangering the American people, and I am proud to support it.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I would point out and agree with the gentleman from Georgia that in all that spending that is being bemoaned by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle by the previous administration, show me the opposition from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I will wait. The truth is that was a bipartisan spendathon. Some of us opposed a good chunk of it, but it was bipartisan. The reality here is we have legislation before us that is designed to constrain spending in a world in which we are $35 trillion in debt and in which we have $1.1 trillion in interest, more on interest than we are spending on the entire spending of the national defense. It is a world in which we are racking up another trillion dollars in debt every 2 or 3 months. This is an unsustainable course that we are taking, and this is what is definitively occurring with the rampant support of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. What we have also done is put forward legislation to enact policy changes, because the power of the purse, Article I, is supposed to be used by Congress in order to do what is necessary to constrain an out- of-control executive branch. The truth is that on June 13, 2024, an illegal alien from El Salvador raped a 13-year-old girl at machete point while recording it in Queens, New York. The illegal alien was released from the border in June of 2021. On June 14, 2024, an illegal alien from El Salvador was charged with the rape and murder of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five. He illegally crossed the southern border in February of 2023 as a got- away. That is not the first instance in Maryland. Kayla Hamilton was raped and murdered in 2022 by an illegal alien. Her mom is begging for this Congress to stand up against the Biden administration to stop doing what is unconscionable with open borders that are endangering the American people. On June 17, 2024, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was murdered by two illegal aliens from Venezuela in my home State in Houston, Texas. On May 14, 2024, an illegal alien from Honduras who was released from the border in April of 2022, under this administration, pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl in Waterloo, Iowa. I could go on and on. I have pages and pages. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to hide behind legislation which even the current President couldn't stand behind when he said he could. You know how we know that? Because he went to the microphone saying that he now magically has the power for an executive order, saying that when we have 2,500, we will set in effect the stop at the border. When the bill was 5,000, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle knew it was all a sham. They know it is all a cover vote. That is the truth. Mr. Speaker, we have legislation here that would have Congress step in front of an out-of-control executive branch to secure the border of the United States. It is not unprecedented to hold a bill at the desk. We have done it before, and we should do it because we should use the power of the purse to stop an administration that is endangering the American people and the United States.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen who were just speaking on the floor, my friend, Mr. Wenstrup, and my friend, Mr. Palmer, for what they were doing in reminding the American people what happened 7 years ago. It too easily gets glossed over for the politically motivated attack on Members of Congress that it was. A lot of statements are made about January 6, about things that have occurred, but not enough is made about what happened that day when someone was targeting our friends, our colleagues, for political reasons. It gets, frankly, ignored, with all due respect, by some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Steve Scalise and everybody who was a part of it stand as, I think, a stark reminder of what is great and good about those who serve here who are willing to move forward for the good of the country. The country shouldn't forget about what happened and forget what those gentlemen on that field went through and why that is so critically important. I thank them for that, and I certainly thank them for their continued service. I do think it is really important that we remember, as a body, in that vein, why we are here. Why do we convene as a Congress? Why do we come here and engage from all over the country, from 50 States, and fly in here each week and conduct business? Too often, it turns into a clock-punching exercise where people come in, fly in, do their votes, go to some meeting, go to some fundraiser, go to some event, go to a quick hearing, do their thing, go back, vote, and go home. Yet, what we have to remember when we come here is that we are supposed to be stopping for a moment and remembering that we are representing 750,000-odd Americans each and that we have an obligation to fight for them and do what we said we would do when we ran for office to represent them in the first place. When I go all over the country, doing campaign events or even a bunch of personal business, I am reminded that a lot of American people do watch what we say here. A lot of people do watch videos that get circulated around on social media. From time to time, frankly, quite often, people bring up to me a speech that I gave about 6 months ago in which I asked rhetorically, but importantly and emphatically, to name one thing that we have done, name one thing that we accomplished. I was talking to Republican colleagues, in particular. I stand behind that question. It is an important question to ask. Of course, it is often clipped to leave out the important part, which was to name one thing we have accomplished besides doing something that is equivalent to Democrat-lite or something that is the soft version of what our Democratic colleagues want to do. I will remind people, because it is important, what we have been able to accomplish as a united Republican Party, under now the leadership of two Speakers over the last 18 months. A little over a year ago, we passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act in which we had Republicans unite across the body to pass an increase in the debt ceiling that was relatively modest, $1.5 trillion is, sadly, relatively modest, in exchange for very significant policy changes to get our country on the right track. We repealed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act subsidies that are subsidizing and empowering multibillion-dollar corporations, empowering China, and undermining our ability to produce energy effectively. We implemented spending caps and put them in place to reduce the size and scope of government and to limit the size of discretionary spending and to cut back on the weaponized government at the Department of Justice and at the FBI and at the Department of Education and in so many other different agencies across the bureaucracy. We passed the REINS Act to rein in the regulatory state and to say that if regulations are going to have a certain impact, they must be approved by Congress. We implemented work requirements on things like SNAP and Medicaid. We worked together to try to transform this country as we told the American people we would do. We did that together. We united to do it. Again, we modestly increased the debt ceiling, modestly relatively speaking, in exchange for actual policy changes to take our country back and put it on the right path. We did that. We passed a strong border security bill that effectively said you will be detained, as our current law contemplates, or you will be turned away. It is that simple. Most Americans support that. You will be detained if you have some sort of a claim, asylum claim or something else or some humanitarian exception, but you will be detained for the full time until we adjudicate it, or you will be turned away. That is effectively what we passed in what we call H.R. 2, our second big bill number. H.R. 2, is our border security plan that we, Republicans, united to pass. Again, for the first time in decades, if not ever, this body came together and we passed a bill that would legitimately secure the border of the United States and force the hand of an administration that is refusing to secure the border while our country is being undermined and endangered. Even as we speak, I am seeing reporting pop up on my phone about the number of foreign nationals, the number of Chinese foreign nationals, 24,000 last year, the amount of fentanyl pouring in, and the dangerous individuals that are being encountered. I am seeing reporting on a daily basis about this administration leaving our country wide open and refusing to do anything about it, so this Republican Congress voted last year to pass H.R. 2. We passed it, we sent it to the Senate, and Chuck Schumer did nothing with it. The National Defense Authorization Act, we are in the middle of working on that bill, as we speak, for fiscal year 2025. We passed the FY24 NDAA and this year we are working on a bill that is similar, that is worthy of support by Republicans, by conservatives. I don't agree with everything in it, to be clear, but it is a bill that is taking a giant step forward to refocus our military on being a military. Our military should be focused on killing people and blowing things up, on doing the hard work of defending a country when called upon to do it, hopefully, sparingly. We have a military that has now, currently, gone off track. It has been turned into a social engineering experiment. Recruiting is low. We have individuals in our military who are tired of being told that they have got to be a part of abortion tourism or transgender training or whatever DEI planning and training that is being pressed upon them rather than just learning how to jump out of a helicopter or fire a gun. Today, we passed amendments to the NDAA that will move it in the right direction. It will pull back on the DEI, pull back on all the transgender woke policies, pull back on the climate executive order by the President of the United States that is undermining the readiness of our military. We passed that amendment today. We passed an amendment to end abortion tourism, so you don't have taxpayer dollars funding abortion because the Department of Defense should not be a social engineering experiment. Republicans today united to do that, just as last year we united to do that. Just last week, we passed a bill to actually sanction, with teeth, the International Criminal Court because it is wishing to and seeking to issue warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel for simply defending his country. We passed that. We passed that bill with unanimous Republican support. I think there were two present votes, 42 Democrats. We did that by uniting as Republicans to send a message to the world that we believe that not only is the International Criminal Court illegitimate, not only is the International Criminal Court wrong, not only is it undermining our ally Israel, but that we should sanction it with actual sanctions. Not watered down exceptions for the United Nations, exceptions for all manner of these international organizations so it doesn't have teeth, we passed sanctions with teeth. It is sitting over in the Senate. Chuck Schumer refuses to stand with Israel. Chuck Schumer refuses to do the work that we are supposed to do as our country and allies are being targeted. More importantly, the International Criminal Court is carrying out activities that will be turned around and focused on us, that will be used against our own military. Again, a united Republican Party over the last 18 months, when we have united, we have passed limits to spending, modest debt ceiling increases for legitimate policy changes that would put us on the right path, a border security bill that would actually secure the border, a National Defense Authorization Act--now maybe twice, come tomorrow-- that would repurpose our military on the military end or limit/reduce the social engineering and the woke policies. We passed an International Criminal Court sanctions bill with real teeth. Last year, we passed a significant number of appropriations bills with significant policy changes, and we had 1,100 amendments processed. We were moving things in the right direction, but here is the trick. There are a lot of pieces to this, but here is the trick: How do you get that turned into law? Here is the dirty little secret in this town, most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would tell you, you must win elections in order to get that done. They are not wrong. You cannot have the majority without elections. You cannot get the votes you need without the elections going the way you want; to get the votes you need to pass the law. I agree. Here is the secret: You are never going to get stuff passed when you always have an excuse for not passing it. I will say that again. You will never get something signed into law when you start with the excuse for why you won't get it signed into law. All of the good things I just mentioned, all of the good things that I say that this united Republican Party has done in the face of absolute abject failure by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we have done these great things, but they have stopped. They have sat in the Senate because you have to be willing to sacrifice something to fight to achieve and force these things to a conclusion. Now, my colleagues will say: Well, you got to win more votes and you can't ask for too much. There are times where you can ask for too much and there are times where you can say, we simply don't have the votes. However, when you have current Members of our own body saying: Well, Chip, we are not going to have 60 votes in the Senate in January, so you have to go ahead and factor that in to why we are not going to get appropriations bills that we would prefer, why we should only have a continuing resolution going into December, into a lameduck. Why? So we can then have the powers that be use the pressure of Christmas to pass an omnibus spending bill in December? I don't agree with that. We are already being told that we don't have 60 votes in the Senate. We won't get 60 votes in the Senate, so you must accept it. The reason why I am focusing on this for a second is, the people that I represent always ask me why. Why don't you get these things done? The people I represent, frankly, people all across the country that I run into, they ask me why. Why can't you secure the border? It is a pretty simple question. Why can you not secure the border? I then have to tell them, I am 1/435th of one-half of one-third of the Federal Government. So we have got to go build the votes. When you have the votes to pass something like H.R. 2 and you send it over to the Senate, then the only question that is going to matter is whether it is this year, right now, or whether it is next year. If you hope to go out into the election season and get a bigger majority by a handful of seats, get the majority in the Senate by a couple of seats, and hope to get the White House, then you say, don't worry, we will do it then. Some will say, oh, we can't even do it then because we are not going to have 60 in the Senate. The point is, you have to pick something and fight for it. You have to pick some number of things and fight for them. You have to take the message to the American people. You have to be willing to risk that ``precious,'' to quote ``Lord of the Rings,'' that election certificate that you hold on to so tight that you don't actually use it. I would rather serve one more term and jam through as much freedom legislation as I possibly could than to serve 5 more terms or 10 terms and not get passed what we need to get passed. The average American family today is hurting. The average American family today, the average young person in America today, can't afford their healthcare because this government has destroyed the healthcare market and made it impossible to afford. They can't afford a vehicle because this government has regulated vehicles and made the price of gasoline and the vehicles that they want to buy cost prohibitive. They don't think they can afford houses, and as often is the case can't, because this government has been blowing money, driving up interest, and creating an environment in which housing costs are now astronomically expensive. They don't think that they can, frankly, bring a family into this world and have children because of the things I just talked about as they don't believe they can afford them. We have a responsibility as leaders of this country, in this Chamber and the other Chamber, in the executive branch, to actually deliver for the American people, to preserve and protect the way of life that we cherish. We sit here on the floor and regale the men who walked into the wall of bullets at Normandy or regale them on July Fourth or regale our Founding Fathers or the Declaration of Independence. We have an actual responsibility to preserve and protect the pursuit of happiness. The ability to carry out and live your unalienable rights given to you by God, but we are not doing that. I just want to be blunt. We are not doing that. I would say of late that I believe that the Republican Conference has been doing some good work to make very clear to the American people what we can and will do if entrusted with the majority, and a majority in the Senate, and a Republican in the White House. I believe we have been doing that. I believe in the National Defense Authorization Act with amendments and policies that reduce the woke social engineering and increase the focus on military. I believe in the H.R. 2 bill; the border security provisions. I believe that the appropriations bills are moving in the right direction and changing the process. They are not perfect. I believe in last year's Limit, Save, Grow effort and a lot of the policies we are trying to advance. I believe in the International Criminal Court bill. I believe in the bill that I hope to bring to the floor in a couple of weeks, the SAVE Act, to make sure that only citizens can vote in Federal elections. I believe these bills demonstrate very clearly the difference between Republicans and Democrats and demonstrate very clearly what Republicans can do when we unite for a purpose to defend the American people against the very swamp that we campaign against. However, you will never, never achieve those results if you come here and you capitulate on day one out of fear, whether fear of government shutdown, fear of failure, fear of the slim majority, fear of the possibility the President might veto it, fear of getting crosswise to some politician who might say something about you on Twitter. Instead, we should take this great work and take it to the American people, take it through the elections, and then set up the fight. We should set up the fight in 2025 to take our country back because this country turns 250 years old in 2 years. On July 2, 2026, we will be celebrating our 250th birthday of separating from England, and then 2 days later we came to an agreement on the language of the Declaration. What are we going to do for the people on our 250th birthday? What are we going to be able to say to our kids and our grandkids on our 250th birthday? Next year, what are we going to do to set the stage? If Republicans go out and get elected, take the White House, take the House, take the Senate, will we be able to take the policies that we came together to pass but failed to force through the Senate and failed to force the President of the United States to even move frankly halfway to our demands? Will we use our power then? Will we use our power in January to get any of them signed into law? It doesn't matter if you keep getting elected, it doesn't matter if you go out and win elections if you don't do anything with it. Will we finally take H.R. 2 in its form now, tweaked as necessary next January, hopefully made better and stronger, will we finally pass legislation to secure the border of the United States that will force the President and transcend time, not just in President Trump's tenure, but once and for all, will we do that as Republicans? We better. Will we ensure that our tax policy is geared toward working class, hardworking middle-class families, small businesses that are struggling to make ends meet around this country as opposed to the massive corporations and K Street lobbyists? Will we do that? We better. Will we actually cut spending? Will we address the $35 trillion in debt that we currently have that will be no doubt $38 trillion or so by the time we start the next Congress? Will we try to alleviate inflation by ending the reckless spending without any limit or will we just shrug and continue to borrow into oblivion such that if you look at the interest that we just spent in May, it is 79 percent of all of the personal income taxes collected into the revenue, into the Treasury. Eighty percent of that which we collected from the American people through their hard work, we took their money, 80 percent of that is just used to pay interest expense in May. Think about that. Imagine if you were sitting at home, 80 percent of your income from your job, imagine that, you have got 80 percent of your income from your job in May was used to pay the interest on your mortgage. What have you got left? What do you have left for electricity, for water, for gasoline, for food, for your kids, for your clothing? We don't. Will we actually fundamentally finally deal with spending in the next Congress? Will we fully restore energy freedom, repealing the subsidies or subsidizing massive corporations, undermining the ability of Americans to afford energy, driving up the prices of automobiles, piling up EVs on lots? Will we repeal the disastrous Inflation Reduction Act, so-called, $1.2 trillion in subsidies, will we repeal it? Will we end the so-called tailpipe rule that is crushing American families? Will we take back our country and provide the energy freedom that allows for human flourishing as it is doing around the globe? There are still 3 billion people around the planet who don't have access to reliable energy. Why would we move backward instead of forward? Will we end, as we are starting to try to do in the NDAA, a toe in the water, will we end the social experimentation at the Pentagon and, instead, bolster our military with the confidence and the pride of defending a country without being told you must follow a woke social agenda or no longer be in the military, you must take a shot or you will lose your job? Will we make our military stronger but more sparingly used? Will we end endless wars but use the power and the strength of our military for peace through strength and use our diplomacy through the State Department and our energy policies to stop wars before they start? Will we use our spending power to end the weaponization of government that right now has a 75-year-old woman facing 2 years in prison in Washington, D.C., right here, 2 years in prison because she prayed at an abortion clinic, because she dared to go to an abortion clinic at 75 years old saying, how much do I have left to give on this Earth? I am going to give a little of my life to try to stand up for the unborn, and even if you disagree with me, and even if she was carrying out a misdemeanor or doing something that was stopping the flow and the law enforcement needed to move them, 2 years in prison under the FACE Act? Are we going to end the weaponization of government against its people, against its politicians, to end turning this country into a banana republic? Again, I ask of my Republican colleagues: We have united in purpose and produced these great results, whether it is Limit Save Grow, or H.R. 2 and border security or the National Defense Authorization Act, or the appropriations bills, sanctioning the International Criminal Court, hopefully passing the SAVE Act, will we take those things and turn those to victories that force them through the Senate so that the President can sign them? Will we finally take our country back and restore it to the American people and give them energy freedom so they can afford the energy that allows them to power their lives and afford the automobiles to go about their work? Will we drive interest rates down so they can afford a home again? Will we make education affordable and useful again instead of subsidizing it and then paying off the loans of those who haven't paid their loans off and ignoring those who never took out a loan in the first place? Will we restore order on our streets and put criminals back in jail? Will we secure our borders and stop the lawless from coming across the Rio Grande? Will we end the reckless spending that is indebting our kids and our grandkids to a future in which the dollar is worthless, and their country is destroyed because we didn't do our job here? Will we pass tax reform that is good for families and small businesses, not the K Street lobbyists and big corporations? These are the questions the American people want us to answer. They are tired of the excuses. They are tired of sternly worded letters. They are tired of hearings. They are tired of speeches. I will look in the mirror. I am giving another speech. They want to see us do it. My call to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but particularly my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, we owe it, we owe it to the 400,000 tombstones sitting on the other side of the Potomac, we owe it to all those who fought and died and bled for that flag and for everything it represents. We owe it to our kids and our grandkids; we owe it to the world so that America can continue to be the beacon of hope. We owe it to restore American independence, restore liberty and freedom, restore a faith and a confidence in a government that is doing its actual constitutional job. We owe them that, not excuses. We owe them to deliver, not to come back and say: Well, we tried. We owe them every ounce of our being when we are here in this town to work and get our job done; not to play politics, not to campaign, not to go to another political event, but to be here and do our job. It is an honor to serve in Congress, but there is no point in being here if we are not actually going to deliver for the American people who sent us here to deliver for them. We will win the arguments if we will make them. We will lose the arguments if we are too afraid to fight. I am tired of the celebrations of all the people who have fought, bled, and died for this country with an absence of a conviction politically, with all due respect to the many veterans in this Chamber who wore the uniform and fought and bled for this country, politically are you willing to fight and bleed and politically die for your country? Until you are, until you are willing to risk that, until you are willing to take that election certificate and nail it up on the wall and say: I am going to take this thing for a spin, I am going to actually do what I said I was going to do, and then let the American people decide. Until we are willing to do that, then we are going to be relegated to, in Reagan's phrasing, ``the ash heap of history.'' I happen to believe that we can take this country back, but I happen to believe that if we don't, if we don't take the steps right now to rescue her, then we are going to lose her. We are going to be that generation that Reagan talked about when Reagan said we are only ``one generation away from extinction.'' The question for us is, what will we do? Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. Mr. Speaker, listening to my colleagues discussing the rule of law, I find it shocking because the average American is looking across their country wondering what happened to the rule of law. I watch my fellow Texans getting destroyed by dangerous cartels and individuals being allowed into the United States who are terrorists and people moving fentanyl into the communities that killed six kids in the school district in which I live. That is happening every single day. I watched a 75-year-old woman being put in prison by a politically motivated judge in the District of Columbia because she protested in front of an abortion clinic. I want to say that again: This Department of Justice is putting a 75- year-old woman in jail for 2 years who is dealing with physical infirmities because she was praying and protesting in front of an abortion clinic. That is astounding. That is what has happened to the rule of law. The American people are watching while statues are being defaced in the name of being pro-Palestinian, and people who are exercising their so- called free speech rights are advancing the cause of terrorism against our friends in Israel. All this is happening right here, mere feet from the White House, and the American people are wondering how this world got turned upside down. Here we sit, and we are debating the issue of the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, coming before the House Judiciary Committee just a little over 1 week ago. In that hearing, a number of questions were asked. I engaged with the Attorney General. I asked the Attorney General if he did or did not claim privilege with respect to the transcripts of the audio recording in question when we were talking about Special Counsel Hur looking into the allegations of the abuse of classified materials by the President of the United States before he was President. I asked him, and he said: No, no. We did not claim executive privilege with respect to the transcripts. In a separate exchange involving the best evidence rule, the Attorney General was engaging with another colleague, a friend on the Judiciary Committee, about the best evidence rule and, in doing so, articulated and explained how the transcript was admissible under the best evidence rule, which is correct, but in doing so, he kind of gave up the game in which he described and said: They are the same. He said to the committee: They are the same. Now, he had just told me that they did not claim executive privilege with respect to the transcript. Then he said to all of us: They are the same. The audio recording and the transcript are the same. Then he proceeds to say that he must, in defending the rule of law, claim executive privilege on the actual audio, and then he denied the Members of Congress the ability in the middle of an impeachment inquiry, duly constituted and voted on by this body on the House floor, an impeachment inquiry, to then deny us the ability to listen to the audio. The fact of the matter is there is only one reason why the Attorney General would do that. He doesn't want us to hear it. That is why. There are really only two reasons why that would be the case. Either the transcript doesn't match the audio, or the audio is so bad that he doesn't want us to hear it because Special Counsel Hur put the entirety of his decision not to prosecute, not to pursue, and not to go after the President of the United States for abuse of classified materials entirely on the basis of what we perceive as the demeanor of the President. Only the audio can allow Congress the ability to determine the validity of that determination by the special counsel.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I rise as the designee of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), and I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the Department of Defense's climate adaptation plan includes proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the plan, DOD has identified climate change as a critical national security issue. The plan contains mandates on environmental justice. The DOD says it will transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity, meaning our entire war machine is going to be dependent on advancing this agenda. Meanwhile, as I said, China has 1,100 coal-fired plants, building one and a half to two a week. The DOD has mandated all nontactical vehicles to be EVs by 2035. It is only a matter of time before it is going to be tactical vehicles. The fact of the matter is, there is a reason the Department of Defense comes forward and says these things that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say. It is, frankly, because they are being told to from the top for political reasons. Everybody you talk to in the line, everybody you talk to at Defense is so sick and tired of having their life's dream of being able to serve this country, wear the uniform to defend it, be turned into a social engineering experiment. That is what is happening. There is no evidence backing up that we are even denting CO2 with the radical policy we are talking about today. Do you know what has? Clean-burning natural gas and nuclear power have. These fanciful, unicorn policies are doing garbage. They are doing nothing but destroying the military and destroying our economic competition. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.