Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Jacobs).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, two quick points: The United States Congress shouldn't be making medical decisions, and that is what this amendment is. It is telling the military what medical services they should provide. That, I think, is a huge mistake regardless of the context. Second, trans people have served in the military for a long time, even before it was officially allowed, and, certainly, now they are continuing to serve with the same honor and dignity as everybody else who has served. To imply otherwise is completely wrong. Various people throughout the military need healthcare. We spend money on a lot of different healthcare provisions. There is a favorite stat about how much money the United States spends on Viagra for people who serve in the military. There are different purposes. This amendment is wrong for two reasons: One, it is bigoted and discriminatory against trans people who serve and serve in the military very effectively. Number two, it has Congress making medical decisions that should be left up to medical professionals and their patients. Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume before I yield to Ms. Jacobs. I will say, just on the comment about doctors being like gas station owners, of course, a doctor is going to want to operate whenever you show up, that is not the way the medical profession works. I have been through a number of operations myself. I don't always agree with decisions the doctors make, but I will stand up for the medical profession and say they are not selling a product to the point where the more of it they sell the happier they are. They are not just going to operate on anyone who walks in. It is the purpose of a medical doctor to make a medical determination about what the proper treatment is, not to sell as much of it as is humanly possible. I stand by what I said earlier: Congress should not be telling doctors what medical decisions they should make. Mr. Chair, if you have got a doctor out there who is passing out treatment like he is at a gas station, then please report him, and let's make sure that that license is taken away. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Jacobs).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I want to follow that last train of logic. Basically, if a trans person receives medical care, it is, by definition, taking medical care away from somebody else. I guess, if a cancer patient is receiving medical care, that is taking it away from somebody else. That is simply not true. That is not the choice here. If you need healthcare, you should get healthcare. There will be a robust debate within the medical community about what is appropriate, certainly, but, in this case, we are talking about trans children of people who are serving in the military being denied healthcare that they need. I don't feel that we should be denying healthcare to children whose medical professionals say they need it, and it is not a choice of taking it away from somebody else. It is not the way our healthcare system works. What this amendment would do is clearly take healthcare away from families and spouses of servicemembers that a medical doctor has determined that they need. I come back to this argument that somehow our military is being destroyed by wokeness. This is completely and totally untrue. Number one, as we stand here today on the floor, we have the best military in the world. They are serving ably all across the world. It is incredibly talented and incredibly effective. I am offended that the other side of the aisle seems to want to continue to denigrate our military because of a rightwing agenda to wage a culture war. That is not what is going on in the United States military. Recruitment is a problem primarily because of how good the economy is. Again, for a period of time, they weren't able to recruit because of COVID. Recruitment is also a problem, in small part due to the rightwing bashing on the military 24-7. Are there some people in the military who long for the days when gay people and trans people and women and even people of color weren't in a position to compete with them? I am quite certain that there are. I am also quite certain that it is a relatively small number. All we are trying to do is make sure that we have equal access in the military.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent that the request for a recorded vote on amendment No. 47 be withdrawn to the end that the amendment stand disposed of by the earlier voice vote thereon.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chair, there is so much completely wrong about what the gentleman just said about that amendment that it really needs to be corrected. First of all, just on the last point about what Chairman Milley had to say about this, the United States military is not fighting in Ukraine. We have not sent the United States military to accomplish a mission, and the specificity is an entirely different place. Second, there has been a clear mission from day one that the Biden administration has articulated on two points: Number one, preserve a sovereign, democratic Ukraine; number two, don't get into a war with Russia. They have said that from day one over and over and over again. I have heard people who don't want to support Ukraine continually generate this excuse: Oh, it is not clear. We don't know what we are doing there. We have known what we were doing there from day one. We are trying to stop Russia from destroying Ukraine. We could not possibly be more clear. That is what we are trying to do. The resources that we provided Ukraine have helped make that possible. Ukraine still exists as a sovereign, democratic country. There was also all throughout that speech all kinds of Russian propaganda that is untrue. Neither the United States nor any NATO allies blocked this mythical peace deal that existed in April 2022. Putin never agreed to any such peace deal and neither did Zelenskyy. We didn't block it. Our strategy in Ukraine is crystal clear: stop Russia from destroying it. Now, in an ideal world, we would like Russia completely out of all of Ukraine as it existed post-1991. That is not the stated goal or stated strategy. The stated goal and stated strategy are to preserve a sovereign, democratic Ukraine. I hope everybody on this floor recognizes, number one, that that is a really important goal. It is worth fighting for. To make sure that Russia can't simply destroy a sovereign, democratic nation because if they destroy one, they will be sorely tempted to destroy more, and Ukraine is worth preserving. Number two, for the 2-plus years we have been engaged in this, we have been pushing that strategy effectively against tall odds. We seem to have forgotten now that in the immediate days after the Russian invasion, the assumption of everyone was Ukraine was finished. They were gone. They were done. There was no way they could stand up to Russia. Yet for 2-plus years they have, and they are capable of continuing to do that if we don't back off on our support for them. Now, the amendment that is in the en bloc, I am not thrilled about. It asks for a strategy. My opinion is the strategy already exists, so that has been met. The administration is, once again, going to send up their strategy in the next couple of months, which will meet the requirements and concerns of this amendment and will stop us from cutting off our support for Ukraine. Please don't believe every piece of anti-American, anti-Ukraine, pro- Russian propaganda that gets put out there about what is going on. It is really rather simple.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. Mr. Chair, Putin wants Ukraine. He has said over and over again that Ukraine should not exist as a country, that it should be part of Russia. We are helping Ukraine stop him from doing that. At the end of the day, that is what is happening. It is not complicated, and we ought to support that effort. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself an additional 1 minute. Mr. Chair, I forgot to mention one thing about the Ukraine amendment. The gentleman referenced a number of different people, including Senator Lindsey Graham and what he thought the strategy was. I will make sure that people understand that that is the thing about a democracy. We know what Russia's strategy is because Vladimir Putin doesn't let anybody else have an opinion. In the United States of America, we have got 535 Members of Congress. If you ask all 535 Members of Congress, I don't doubt that you would get a wide variety of different answers as to what our strategy is in Ukraine. Again, that is living in a democracy, where people are free to have their own opinions. If you ask the administration what our policy is, it has been consistent and clear: A sovereign, democratic Ukraine must be preserved and don't stumble into a war with Russia. It is not an easy policy to implement, but they have successfully done it for 2-plus years now. That is clear. Don't be confused by a whole bunch of other opinions from independent contractors who absolutely have a right to their opinion about what the strategy ought to be, but that is different than what the strategy is. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Porter).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendments en bloc, and I, too, yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I, too, urge Members to adopt the en bloc package and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, I thank the chairman, as well as the staff both on the Republican and the Democratic side and our bipartisan staff in the process to date. As the chairman noted, we produced a very strong bipartisan bill out of committee. It passed by a vote of 57-1 and addressed a number of key concerns to our national security. A lot of work went into that. I always lose track of the exact numbers, but well north of a thousand amendments were considered in committee and in the Rules Committee. The staff sifted through all of those and really helped produce that product. That is not an easy job. We are blessed on both sides of the aisle, both on the Armed Services Committee and on the Rules Committee, with an outstanding staff. I thank them for their work in producing this product. The number one highlight of the product, as the chairman mentioned, is the focus of the quality of life for our servicemembers and their families. We impaneled a group, a task force, to examine quality-of- life issues, led by Don Bacon on the Republican side and Chrissy Houlahan on our side. The task force really did a remarkable job of doing outreach to servicemembers, their families, and veterans and listening to them about what they need and what is most important to ensure that they have everything they need to take care of their families. Certainly, one of the biggest issues was pay for junior enlisted. We upped that pay by 19.5 percent, which is a pretty dramatic number, but it reflects the need that those servicemembers face in the current environment. We also focus on childcare, which is a crucial need, building more childcare centers and eliminating the backlog of people waiting to get access to childcare because we all know that what makes our military the best in the world is not any of the equipment, but the people who serve. We need to take care of the people who serve, and we need to take care of their families, as well. That is the crucial part of the military. That is what this bill does better than any bill that we have ever done before in this committee and one of the many reasons why this bill is so important. It is also crucial, as the chairman pointed out, to modernize and update our military. We are in a rapidly changing environment. We have seen that in the war in Ukraine. We saw that in the war in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Drones, counterdrones, and the ability to protect your information systems and make vulnerable the information systems of your adversaries are now absolutely crucial to fighting. We have to be able to upgrade that. I compliment the chairman. We have worked in a bipartisan way to make sure that we can upgrade our technology more quickly, to work with those companies who are developing the most innovative technologies so that we can field them quickly and get our warfighters what they need in a timely manner. Then there is the matter of production. We have seen this in the war in Ukraine. We and our allies need to be able to produce more of the critical ammunition and weapons systems that we need to fight, and we are making progress. I think the Biden administration and, particularly, under Secretary Austin, the coalition that was pulled together in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is remarkable. North of 50 countries are now working together to help defend Ukraine, but, also, crucially, to build up the partnerships and alliances and to make sure we have enough weapons to be an adequate deterrent to our adversaries. That process is going well. More needs to be done. This bill helps move us forward in that direction. This bill also focuses on oversight, as the chairman mentioned. We want to free up the military to buy the systems they need by making sure that we don't continue to spend money on systems that they don't need and that we exercise proper oversight. I particularly highlight the F-35 program. It has been a vexing and difficult program that has been over budget and underperforming for far too long. In this year's bill, we pare back on the number of F-35s purchased and put that money instead into making sure that we can get the F-35s that we are paying for, that they can reach the block 4 that has been so elusive for so many years. That is the crucial part of the job we do. I think we have put together an excellent product. I am deeply concerned about the amendment process that will play out over the course of the next couple of days, but we will see how that plays out. The one point I do make on this, an area of contention, has always been diversity. The other side has been critical of what the Department of Defense has done to try to recruit the most diverse people possible. I will say much more on this throughout the amendment process. Mr. Chairman, we need to be able to access all the talent in this country, not just White men. We need to recruit women. We need to recruit from communities of color. We need to recruit from the LGBT community. That is crucial to making sure we have the talent we need. I hope that this bill doesn't undercut those efforts as we go forward. As passed out of committee, as it stands right now, this is an outstanding piece of legislation, and I strongly urge everybody to support it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Norcross), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Kim), the ranking member of the HAS Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.