american values. it's a very sweeping memorandum. as of 8:30 p.m., it is the law of the land. -- in the united states of america. and it will give the president of the united states many more tools and more leverage to better ensure that countries that are using u.s. military assistance comply with the commitments they now have to make in writing. whether it's ukraine, whether it's israel, whether it's another country. and i spoke a little bit earlier about the fact that despite repeated requests from the biden administration of the netanyahu coalition to reduce the level of civilian casualties, to allow more humanitarian assistance into gaza, that for the most part, with some minor

exceptions, those requests have fallen on deaf ears. and so we hope and believe and are quite confident that the this national security memorandum, which adopts our amendment, will provide the president with the leverage, additional leverage needed to close that gap between our request and reality. and i urge the president and his team to make effective use of these new provisions. and i urge the president's team to do that not just with respect to israel but any country receiving u.s. military assistance because american taxpayers must be assured that the united states government is doing everything in its power to make sure that as we provide assistance to partners around the world, that they are complying with their values and complying with the principles of adherence to international

humanitarian law, international lawmakers that they will help facilitate and not obstruct the delivery of humanitarian assistance to people in desperate need. so, madam president, i want to again thank all of the cosponsors of this amendment, because there were many people who opposed this amendment. but i never understood the opposition to the straightforward principles that u.s. taxpayer dollars and u.s. military assistance should go to countries that commit to us that they will use that help that we are providing in accordance with international humanitarian law and commit that if they're engaged in an armed conflict using u.s. weapons, that they will support u.s. efforts and

other u.s.-backed efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who are caught up in the crossfire through no fault of their own. these seem like very straightforward principles, and it's about time that we took what has previously really been the sentiments of the united states and turn it into substance, to take rhetoric and make it more of a realty. and so i want to thank all my colleagues, including the new presiding officer who helped make that happen. and i want to thank the president of the united states. i want to thank president biden who has said from the beginning that the united states must continue to be a beacon of hope and that we must have a foreign policy based on values, based on the rule of law, based on human rights. if we want to do that, we need to make sure that our laws match

those ambitions. we need to make sure that we have requirements on the books that achieve those aspirations. because aspirations that are not backed up with real leverage sound good, but they are not made real in the world that we live in. so, thank you to all of the cosponsors of this amendment. thank you to the president of the united states. and this is an important new chapter in how the united states provides military assistance around the world and how we conduct our foreign policy. i hope it will lead to a brighter chapter in the years ahead. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: m

a senator: the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso.

national security challenges with serious legislation starts with recognizing some pretty basic realities with how the world works. first, america has global interest in global responsibilities. to the extent the president has neglected them, the senate ignores them, that is that the nation's peril. second, partnerships are essential to our interests.

they ignore the cost of keeping the peace, reduce in reference to america and facilitate the commerce and draws our economy. but this relies on american leadership and american credibility. and, finally, there is a role of adversaries to wish us harm. it is growing evidence that they are working together and there is no doubt that they are emboldened by american weakness. the observable facts out of history. denying does a disservice to the american people. it is impossible to engage productivity on decisions about u.s. national security without acknowledging them.

the right number of our colleagues have worked for aggression against the west. ran back against israel and u.s. forces and the rise in china head on. the product before the senate resolved with shortcomings for the request. thanks to senate republicans in regards to commander-in-chief they were identified in the chapter of the requirements and metrics. $4 million away from direct budget support in kyiv and security investments instead. it funds the special inspector general created by the nda last year. further expanding already unprecedented visibility into

u.s. assistance. the legislation already designates $9 billion of the president's request. $1.2 billion in ongoing operations against iran back terrace. it imposes strict new oversight measures on humanitarian assistance and ensures not a single penny of u.s. taxpayer funds goes to the un agency. the employees and gaza and actually participating in the slaughter of jews in israel. it is an essential provision for historic and urgent investments. it is critical to our national defense. our allies and partners in ukraine are fighting our shared adversaries. grading the military capacity.

they are working to deter yet another one. together, they are facing the wrong end of authoritarianism aggression. and our colleagues have heard me say this before and they are consistent. this is not a rhetorical. it is not referring to lines of efforts of which they expect to receive some trickle down benefit. spending tens of billions of dollars here in america upgrading our capabilities. expanding our defense industrials.

with advanced adversaries. the funds the supplemental designates for ukraine's defense , $19.8 million of it will be sent right here in america on replenishing our own personal another 3.5 billion spent again. expanding our industrial basis to produce artillery, air defense and long-range weapons. 15.4 billion will be spent on more time here in america on weapons for ukraine to continue degrading. they create a capacity that we the united states need for serious competition with our adversaries. of course, this does not even

account for the massive streams of funding our allies and partners around the world are investing in american capabilities. including more than $100 billion from nato allies. overall, even accounting for direct assistance sent to allies like israel with 75% of the legislation is bound for investments right here in america. more than 60% of it goes to the defense industrial base where increasing capacity is the direct investment and long-term strength abroad and prosperity here at home. rebuilding democracy and demonstrating to our allies and adversaries alike that we are serious about exercising america

to terms. i can present these as frequently as necessary. it is what i've been doing quite literally for years. every one of our colleagues are capable of understanding that security assistance appropriated from ukraine. this money right here in america one of our colleagues capable of understanding and expanding production capacity around the rocket motors to submarines or investments in readiness for long-term competition. the competition america cannot avoid to lose spirit every single one of us knows what is at stake here. it is time for every one of us to deal with it.

>> the majority whip is recognized. >> thank you for the words on the floor. in support of the assistance to ukraine. i thank him for being consistent in that message. yesterday after months of delay, 17 republican senators joined in a bipartisan effort to advance critical security and humanitarian aid. i want to thank them for stepping up and urge them to continue moving this bill to final passage and moving it to passage in the house of representatives. all the while during the speech replacing vladimir putin has been sitting back and waiting for the united states to finally walk away from ukrainians as they fight bravely to repel his blood he onslaught the putin is

hoping that donald trump will be reelected. this congress will discontinue aid to ukraine. tucker carlson was in moscow interviewing the former communist agent vladimir putin hoping no doubt to further his cynical strategy. is there anyone here who could remotely imagine that many in the party of ronald reagan and john mccain would be actively to stop russian tierney. the mr. president this photograph captures a moment a few years ago. wrong photograph, captures a

moment 37 years ago at the brandenburg gate between east and west germany where president reagan stood resolutely for freedom and tear down the wall. the second photograph is more personal to me. about 10 years ago when senator john mccain and i were part of delegation, the representative colleagues from arizona, north dakota, rhode island and wyoming , we went to ukraine's my on square in kyiv. to honor those killed in the fight for freedom. asking the same question that was asked yesterday by the polish prime minister. he said, ronald reagan who helped millions went back the freedom of independence must be what is happening now in washington. mr. president, the polish people allies of ukraine and the united

states, they have long memories of soviet tyranny. they know the critical american resolve is part of overcoming that tyranny. we should never forget it. i am proud to represent the city of chicago and state of illinois and there are many polish americans there. great people. i think what they have done during this war is an amazing story. they have literally embraced the reputation of ukraine. officials told me you won't find a refugee camp for ukrainians in poland. the amazing outpouring. asking them what is motivating you. they made a difference.

there is also the realization of vladimir putin conquering ukraine. the next target could easily be poland or the baltic mission spirit they know that this fight is being waged against putin and ukraine. we should realize the same. next week a bipartisan group, an annual conference in germany where you are referring together the european nations and many others to discuss topics of today. the number one topic will be ukraine. god forbid we failed to pass this defense supplemental before the unique conference. what i will say to our friends and allies in nato and in europe who stood by us and by the ukrainian people for so long if we abandon them here in the united states senate. first question we will ask is will we approve the money

necessary to buy ammunition and equipment for the ukrainians? we will answer that question here in the united states senate in just a matter of hours. the secretary-general recently said that if newton is not stopped he will continue his war behind ukraine with greater consequences. make no mistake, it is not only putin watching and savoring our failure to act. it is iran, china, north korea and many others. so let's get this done. let's show putin that they cannot divide and weaken us at home or with our allies abroad. for months, my republican colleagues refused to provide critical aid to ukraine israel gaza and taiwan and to address urgent national security and humanitarian needs until we would consider to pass legislation to secure the american border.

this week we had an opportunity to vote on a bipartisan bill to help us secure the border and provide this essential national security funding. i have some concerns about the language in this, but i realized it was a bipartisan compromise. speaking for the republicans literally four weeks to get the right language that can appeal to both. i want to thank senator murphy and senator gillibrand. i blossom concerned about the proposals i said. support of the national border patrol council. the union that represents border patrol agents. senate republicans offering amendments. a way to offer an amendment is first to pass a motion to proceed to the bill.

they did not have enough republican bills to pass it on the floor. almost immediately after the bill was released members had come out and are now positioned to it. voting why. very bold about it. border security changes should be stopped now so you can use the issue in the campaign. he said, blame it on me if the bill fails. well, we will. trump is a bipartisan effort to secure the border to undermine his campaign rhetoric. the worst refugee crisis in history. it is not up to the challenge. as a result many are stuck in backlogs for years without a

work permit. most people do not know this fact but i want to make it for the record. 36,000 migrants coming into the city of chicago primarily from texas. that was not the case. the governor of texas did not care. did not care about the outcome. 36,000 trying to find shelter from the stations. some slept in churches. catholic charities did an amazing job as well as many others. trying to take care of them. it has been a hardship on the state of chicago in illinois. 36,000 people. mr. president, there's one thing that most people do not realize. 30,000 ukrainian immigrants have

come to ukraine to the city of chicago. now, i hope that you can understand the ukrainian village certainly welcome these people. they would stand by them and they would become part of the society and part of the economy. they will add to america they need. 30,000 ukrainians and chicago without much fanfare. the churches and schools working in restaurants during immigrants and what they are used to doing in america. sitting on a bus load without any warning or any effort for the area before they arrived. the legislation we would

consider would have created quickly. which would have funded immigration officers with $20 billion to ensure they are processed efficiently. the republicans saying publicly for months that we need more resources at the border to stop the onslaught of people that are arriving. they share the belief that we need more surveillance at the border. also bringing it across the border other contraband dangerous to america. providing a $20 billion to ensure they would be processing efficiently at the border and $29 billion at least in re- technology and resources to stop drugs.

so many businesses across the nation. despite my concern, because it left out dreamers, i was prepared to consider and support it. the dream act was some 22 years ago. an effort to give these young people brought to this country and to grew up here and became part of america a chance to finally prove themselves for the land to citizenship. i hope that we can all agree on one thing. a bipartisan way to secure the border after years of congressional failure. partisan requires compromise. campaign photos at the border and cash in this heart thought

agreement donald trump. i remind the urgent need to secure the border and disappointed they would let their fear of one man stop this body from doing their job. we still have a presence -- chance to do the right thing when it comes to security. starting bravely every single day. i cannot imagine how america can explain to the world why it would walk away against vladimir putin. innocent people will suffer. ukrainian soldiers fight bravely i want to thank you for the recognition, mr. president. i do not need to tell the people in this body or the other side of the capital that the public view of washington, d.c. is not very good.

often times they are in the single digits in there for good reason. they are there because often times people only seek politics here all the time. they see bodies and individuals that work for the parties. what we saw earlier this week just confirms that. we had a bill that came out to address border security. particularly on the southern border, but it does good things for the northern border, too. but it addresses border security in this country. people coming across the border to the southern border in particular. when i go home to montana, i

hear it from everybody. i hear from families to business owners to policeman to mayors, you name it. in montana, i don't think montana is different from any other state, this is a big issue people understand it is broken. they want us, the folks at surf in washington, d.c., their representatives to the government to do something klobu i rise today to urge my colleagues to pass the important national security package that's in front of us. this will reaffirm our nation's commitment to our partners across the globe. now earlier this week, many of us felt very strongly that we should move forward on the combination of bills that

senator lankford and senator murphy, senator sinema had negotiated. i strongly supported that bipartisan compromise, worked with them on a portion of the bill regarding our afghan allies that had served with our troops. and i was really impressed by the thorough nature of their negotiations. we know how important that bill was for our own national security. it would have given the president emergency authority to shut down the border when our border agents are overwhelmed. it would have made changes to our asylum system. it would have addressed processing issues and backlogs. it would have actually expanded legal immigration for things like work permits and visas. i'm grateful that the package we're considering today does include the bipartisan bill that i'm part of to declare fentanyl

trafficking a national emergency and allow us to impose tough sanctions on criminal organizations and fentanyl supply chain hubs. but i will note that this bill, because the other piece of this regarding fentanyl was not actually included yet in this bill, that would be the resources that we need to crack down on fentanyl trafficking at our border and ports of entry. so not only was the bill that our colleague sadly voted down good on giving the emergency authority to the president on the border to protect our own nation's security, something they had been asking for, but it also did a very important thing when it came to fentanyl. why is this such a problem? in one county in the statement of minnesota, the sheriff recently seized enough fentanyl to kill every single person in

that county, the biggest county in my state. and we are seeing similar things to that across our nation. so with this bill -- what this bill would have done, the original bill would have done with the negotiation, is that it would have actually given modern day technology, cutting edge technology to our ports of entry, all ports of entry, including airports and the like, including help we may need on the northern border, the canadian border, when it comes to things like fentanyl. so that is why i hope some day our colleagues will reconsider and join us in advocating for strong border security as well as for the work that needs to be done for the fentanyl epidemic. so the original package as we know is not being considered. but we also know how important it is to go forward when it comes to our leadership around the world. whether that means standing with our allies after the terrorist

attack in israel, whether it means making sure that humanitarian aid gets to innocent people in gaza and across the world, or whether it comes to ukraine. and i did want to spend some time talking about ukraine as i've been there a number of times in the last few years. first time i went was actually with senator m{l1}c{l0}cain and senator graham during the first invasion back in january of 2017. in fact, i spent new year's eve of 2016 on the border with senator graham and senator mccain and the former president of ukraine. it was there that i learned so much about the ukrainian troops. even back then there were snipers killing the troops at unbelievable rates, but they kept going back to protect their own homeland. fast forward, of course, we see

an even more significant invasion by vladimir putin and russia once again. and just as vladimir putin has shown his true colors, the ukrainian people have shown theirs, defending their democracy in brilliant blue and yellow. they have succeeded in taking back a number of lands that the russians had seized, and that is because of their unbreakable resolve, yes, but it is also because america took the lead, joined by dozens and dozens and dozens of allies across the world from japan to south korea to europe. now is not the time to give up. in the words of the nato secretary-general, the war has become a battle for ammunition. russia is firing nearly 10,000 rounds a day while ukraine is only managing 2,000.

our friends need our support more than ever. in my last visit to ukraine, with senator portman in the middle of the war, we visit ed urpin. we saw the bombed out maternity wards, apartment buildings reduced to rubble. we saw the mass graves. those atrocities have been met, of course, with the resilience of the ukrainian people. the chef cooking meals for the troops on the front lines. the nurse who traded in scrubs for camo and now serves as a field medic. the martial arts person leading a recon unit to keep his village safe. those are people that stood up and our country must stand with that democracy. we must never forget president zelenskyy's words on that first

evening in september when everyone had counted them out, when all the pundits thought russia would roll over their country with their tanks and with their planes. what did president zelenskyy do? he went down to the street corner and he said this. he said, we are here. those simple words, we are here. well, that's our job now. we have to say the same thing, that we are here for them. u.s. aid has empowered the ukrainian people to take back the territory that is rightfully theirs. it has saved lives. it has given families hope that there will be a future. but not if we turn our backs on them right now. throughout our nation's history, we have been there for free nations across the globe, and we must be there again.

so that gets to something that's not in the bill right now. it was in the original compromise agreement, and just like ukraine, just like the pacific, just like the help to central command and the help that we must give, given that our own troops have been attacked in the mideast is the kofsh nantz that we make -- kofsh nantz that we make. i'm here talking about the afghan refugees. 80,000 of them approximately in the united states. they served alongside our troops. they served as interpreters. they served as intel gatherers. they put their own lives and their family lives at risk. and they've been here. they've been in the united states. and that's why a bipartisan group of senators have for now sadly years been working on a simple bill to make it clear that they are no longer in

limbo. many conservatives are supporting this bill. i am filing a bipartisan amendment that was just filed with senator moran. i thank him for his leadership as the ranking republican on the veterans committee joining me on this bill along with senator graham who is a long-time lead author of our base bill on the afghan refugees. again, senator graham, ranking member on the judiciary committee, senator wicker, republican of mississippi, ranking lead republican on the armed services committee is filing this amendment with me. senator cassidy, senator mullin, senator tillis, senator murkowski, senator crapo, senator rounds, senator capito, senator coons and blumenthal and many other democrats as well. we have that magic number to get

over what we call our 60-vote threshold. we will win this vote, but we will win more than a vote if we are allowed to advance this amendment by both sides as they negotiate which amendments go forward. we will be more than just getting a vote. we will be standing up for keeping our covenance. i'm thinking about the people i have met, the afghans over the last year. the women i met who served in the afghan army female tactical platt tonight. our troops relied heavily on this platoon during the war. as our soldiers pursued missions, hunting down isis combatants on unforgiving terrain and freeing prisoners from the grips of the taliban, these women had their backs. they worked with our military support team and facilitated discussions between our soldiers and the afghan women that they

crossed path with within the field. after the war they and so many others fled afghanistan to build a safer, brighter future in america. one of the platoon's commanders even said that once she gets her green card, her plan is to join the u.s. army. that's right. even knowing everything she sacrificed for our country, leaving her family behind, putting herself in peril, she would do it all over again if we gave her the chance. i'm in awe of her grit and her patriotism. unfortunately, and this is a big unfortunately, she and countless others like her are living in limbo, and it is our turn to do right by the people who stood with us. when among the vietnamese came to this country -- i know this well because play state has a

very large population, we didn't leave them in limbo and tell them well, you're standing here on ground of the united states of america after helping us out, but there's a trap door under you because every year you have to reapply and we don't know what's really going to happen if you have to go back. are we going to send these people who stood with our troops back to the arms of the taliban? are we going to do what's right? this bill which i have worked on with numerous republican leaders has a heavy duty vetting process, and i remind my colleagues that the vast majority of these people are here already. they're on our soil. we already know what they've been doing. in fact, we know that one of them sadly was murdered, an interpreter who was working as a driver late at night in the state of virginia. i don't know if that's what he would have been doing if he wasn't in limbo, but that happened on our soil. so all we're saying is that they

be vetted and that they be able to get out of this legal limbo and treated with the respect that they deserve. time and time again our nation's history has shown us that people that stand with us in combat don't diminish america. they strengthen america. our effort has earned the support of more than 60 organizations, including with honor action, including no one left behind, including operation recovery, the american legion. i was just with them yesterday as senator moran and i and coons and blumenthal and others discussed this bill. the vfw. this is a major priority for the vfw as well as some of the nation's most revered military leaders that have lended their name. at one point earlier last year, i went through hundreds of names of generals, retired generals

who led our troops in times of war who support this bill. but today i mention mike mullin, admiral mike mullin, william craven, generals richard miers of the air force, joseph dunford from the marine corps, and stanley mccrystal from the army. maybe we should listen to them when we think about how we treat those who save the lives of our troops, how we must keep our covenance, because in the next conflict when we're standing up for democracies or standing up for american interests, what do you think people are going to say if they think they help our country and our troops make literal individual promises to them and then they come back and they don't know what's going to happen to them. some of them are in hiding right now across the world because they know that they or their families will be killed if this

continues. we built such a broad coalition of support because americans from across the political spectrum agree that it is our moral obligation. whether i'm at home, vets come up to me and i know they do to you, madam president. they come up to me about all kinds of things. they always have about their service, about their benefits, about what's happening with health care and burn pits. and we've advanced so many things to help them. but i have never seen anything more emotional for our soldiers that have served in afghanistan than this because they know the people that saved their lives, that stood with them deserve better than this. what we are asking for is a vote on this bipartisan amendment. and we know we can pass this amendment because we have enough sponsors on it to pass this amendment.

this is the perfect bill. why? because it is a national security package. it is about our national security. it is about that, it's about standing with our partners and, most of all, it is about showing the world when the united states of america makes a promise, makes a confirm nance, we keep it. madam president, i yield the floor. thank you. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from vermont. sanders -- mr. sanders: madam president, one of the worst modern disasters in history is now unfolding before our eyes in gaza a today, right now.

when we as the government of the united states are -- and we as the government of the united states are complicit. it has been four months since hamas' terrorist attack started this war, and what we in congress do right now could well determine whether tens of thousands of people live or whether they die. already the human cost of this israel-hamas war has been staggering. 1,200 innocent israelis were killed in the international attack and more than a hundred are still being held hostage. and as i have said many times, israel has the right to defend itself against hamas terrorism, but it does not have the right to go to war against the entire palestinian people.

as of today, israel's response has killed more than 27,000 palestinians and injured more than 67,000, two-thirds of whom are women and children. let me repeat -- two-thirds of whom are women and children. 1.7 million palestinians have been driven from their homes and, unbelievably, some 70% of the housing units in gaza have been damaged or destroyed. this is an unheard of level of destruction. 80% of people driven from their homes and 70% of housing units damaged or destroyed.

and, madam president, while 1.7 million people are displaced from their homes, they have no idea where they will be tomorrow or whether or not they will ever return to their homes. and many of these men, women, and children have been displaced multiple times. they go here, they go here, they go there. madam president, most of the infrastructure in gaza has been destroyed. very few water wells or bakeries are functioning. the electricity has been cut since the beginning of the war. sewage is running into the streets. cell phone service is spotty or nonexistent. most of the health care

facilities in gaza are not operational. bombs falling, people getting hurt. and yet health care facilities not operational. many facilities have been damaged in air strikes, and numerous, numerous health care workers trying to keep children alive have been killed. the facilities that are operational today lack the basic medical supplies that heroic doctors and nurses need in order to save lives and treat their patients. madam president, as horrible as all of this is, let me tell you what is even worse. as a result of israeli bombing and restrictions on aid entering

gaza, only a tiny fraction of the food, water, medicine, and fuel that is needed -- desperately needed -- can get into gaza. even then, very little of that aid can reach beyond the immediate area of rafah near the egyptian border. and let us be very clear and take a deep breath and understand what all of this means. it means that today hundreds of thousands of children are starving and lack clean drinking water. the united nations says the entire population of gaza is at imminent risk of famine and some 378,000 people are starving

right now. according to the u.n., one in ten children under the age of five in gaza is now acutely malnourished. and when malnutrition impacts young children, it often means permanent physical and cognitive damage that will impact them for the rest of their lives. in other words, if food got in tomorrow, health care got in tomorrow, damage has already been severely done to tens of thousands of beautiful, innocent little children. madam president, if nothing changes, we will soon have hundreds of thousands of children literally starving to death before our very eyes.

and, unbelievable -- unbelievably, that situation could even get worse in the immediate future. roughly 1.4 million people, more than half of the population of gaza, are now squeezed into the rafah area. that's right up against the egyptian border. rafah was a town of just 250,000 before the war. it is a very small area, roughly ten miles by four miles. most of the people there are now packed into crowded u.n. shelters or sleeping out in tents it. it is a daily struggle for them to find food or water. yet prime minister netanyahu, the leader of israel's extreme right-wing government says that israel will soon launch a major

ground offensive against rafah, where all of these people currently are. he will soon be forcing hundreds of thousands of desperate people to evacuate once again. in other words, ex-hausted, traumatized, and hungry families will be driven onto the road with no plan as to where they will go, how they will receive essential supplies or protection for their physical safety. madam president, i cannot find words to describe how horrific the situation is and could become. prime minister netanyahu has

repeatedly said that the goal of israel's military efforts is total victory. yet asked recently what total victory would look like, he responded chillingly by saying that it is like smashing a glass, quote, into small pieces and then you continue to smash it into even smaller pieces, and you continue hitting them -- end of quote, prime minister netanyahu. and the question that we, as americans and as the united states congress, must ask is -- how many more children and innocent people will be smashed by netanyahu in this process? madam president, it is quite clear that beyond total destruction of gaza, netanyahu has no plan.

yesterday president biden acknowledged the severity of this crisis, and i thank him for doing that. he said that israel's response in gaza, quote, has been over the top, end quote, and added that, quote, there are a lot of innocent people who are starving. there are a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it's got to stop, end quote. that's president joe biden. president biden is absolutely right. it does have to stop. it has to stop now. and that is in our hands. president biden and secretary of state blinken have been trying to negotiate an agreement with israel to pause its military operation or hamas releases the remaining hostages. all of us hope that this deal

comes together. we all want the hostages freed and the slaughter ended. but netanyahu is resisting this proposal. in large part, this is because he is politically weak at home. most israelis likely blame him for creating this crisis. and, in my view, my view, he is trying to prolong the war to avoid facing accountability for his actions. madam president, netanyahu didn't even wait for secretary blinken to leave the region this week before he publicly dismissed the hostage deal as delusional and brushed aside u.s. concerns about expanding the ground offensive in southern

gaza. the associated press called this a, quote, virtual slap in the face, end quote, to blinken and the united states. a virtual slap in the face -- and they're right. unbelievably, unbelievably, despite all of this, the u.s. congress is prepared to spend another $14 billion on military aid to netanyahu's right-wing government. $14 billion more, and $10 billion of this money is totally unrestricted and will allow netanyahu to buy more of the bombs he has used to flatten gaza and to kill thousands and thousands of children. this is american complicit at

its -- complicity at its worst, and it is really quite unbelievable. does the united states congress really want to provide more military aid to netanyahu so that he can annihilate thousands and thousands more men, women, and children? do we really want to reward netanyahu even while he ignores virtually everything the president of the united states is asking him to do? do we want to give even more support to the leader of the most right-wing government in israel's history, a man who has dedicated his political career to killing the prospects of a two-state solution? madam president, that is really hard to believe. but that is exactly what this

legislation before us will do. and what is even harder to understand is that in the midst of this horrendous humanitarian crisis, the legislation before us contains a prohibition on funding for unrwa, the largest u.n. agency operating in gaza and the backbone of the humanitarian aid operation. israel's allegations against the agency are serious, and they are being investigated seriously. but you don't starve two million children and people and women. you don't starve two million people because of the alleged actions of 12 unrwa employees.

madam president, the whole world is watching. netanyahu is starving the children of gaza. we cannot be complicit in this atrocity. as long as this bill contains money to fund netanyahu's cruel war, i will do everything i can to oppose it, and i urge my colleagues to do the same. with that, i yield the floor.

thank you for the recognition. our public opinion numbers oftentimes are in the single digits and they are for a good reason. they are there because oftentimes people only see politics here, all the time. they see bodies and individuals who work for the parties for the good of america. yet what we sought earlier this week just confirms that. where we had a bill that came

out to address border security, particularly on the southern border but it does some things for the northern border two. addresses border security in this country. we are seeing people coming across the border, the southern border in particular, and we don't know who they are. and it's just flat a national security issue. when i go home to montana i hear it from everyone. i hear it from families, from business owners, from policemen, to mayors you name it, in montana and i don't think montana is different from any other state, this is a big issue. people understand the border is broken and they want us, the folks at serbon washington d.c., their representative to the government, to do something.

now over the last many years multiple administrations have seen people go to the border and talk about how things were really bad down there and they are bad because we have undocumented folks coming across the border in record numbers in their bed because we happen to know coming into this country that's killing people and ruining families and then they come back and they go around the country talking about how miserably bad it's on the southern border and how it needs to be fixed. they are right. unfortunately they shouldn't be about press releases and e-mails and newsletters and interviews at night. they should be about getting something done to fix the problem. so what transpired about four months ago is, we had a bill on

the floor then funding for ukraine. i believe there was funding for israel and they believe they are responding for the indo pacific. and there were some in this body that said this bill is going nowhere until we get something that addresses the problems that the southern border. i was standing right over there. one of the senator said if we get the southern border for republicans and democrats get -- he was wrong. the truth is the united states gets the southern border protection in the united states citizens get to help ukraine and support democracy and make sure putin's and successful in taking over ukraine and ultimately the rest of europe. nonetheless there are three people that went out gave them a

blessing to negotiate a bipartisan, which is the way things should be done around here and are done around here, i bipartisan southern border bill. the two people republican and democrat or democrat and republican however you want to place it happened to be chairman and ranking member of the homeland appropriations subcommittee. the other was a member who is independent that lives in a state that borders southern border arizona. so these folks went down and they worked and worked and worked. i have been part of these negotiations and quite frankly they are never easy. nobody gets everything they want. there is compromise, there are negotiations and in the end you thread the needle and you come up with a bill that actually

secures the southern border and by the way any one of those three negotiators would say they were written by themselves. through the negotiating process they came up with a bill on i'm going to tell you was a pretty darned good bill. they put it out for all of the seeing some 300 plus pages. i got to read that bill but the interesting thing is before the bill was even rolled out, some of the folks that serve in this body said, before they even had a chance to look at it they said i opposed it. because they were told to opposed the bill. we are all elected by our citizens and their states. i would hope we all have a mind and i would hope we all can think and discern fact from fiction but when somebody says vote against it and you just

vote against it after you have been in your state stating you have heard what a big issue this is and you have considered what can happen if we do nothing versus what can happen if we do something and yet for political purposes, not because it's a bad policy that for political purposes the person says don't fix it fix it. and almost like a cult people here said we are voting no. it's unbelievable to me and i've seen a lot of hypocrisy in this place but it's unbelievable to me the hypocrisy with that vote. as a condition of national security and folks in this body turn their back on fixing the

problem. why? because they want to keep it a political issue which is exactly what's going on. people look at washington d.c. and say you know why? those folks don't represent us. they are in it for themselves. they just want everything to be in a people. a confirms that thought. so what does the bill due? what does this compromise bill due for america? it funds $20 billion in security for the southern border, for manpower, for technology and to attack the fentanyl crisis which is a scourge on this country. it includes the fend off the fentanyl act which puts serious harm to china's wallet for the

precursor elements of fentanyl into mexico. changes the asylum laws. he raises the bar exponentially and stops folks who come to the border illegally from gaming the system. it requires, it requires the president to shut down the border. don't take my word for it, the national border patrol council sought 18,000 border patrol agents endorse this bill. these are the folks that are charged by the way with keeping our borders safe. the acting director of customs and border protection endorse this bill and said it would provide the strongest set of tools that we have had in decades. the chief of the u.s. border patrol said on "fox news," and i

quote this bill that would have added additional hundreds of border patrol agents to our rank-and-file that would have given us more technology, would have given us more equipment infrastructure, of course i'm going to be supportive of that. one of the senators that negotiated this bill which is conservative i might add, republican senator james lankford from oklahoma said this would have stopped 800,000 entries in the past four months if it did already been signed over. the hypocrisy is stunning. senators and house members who went back to their home states and talk about how bad the southern border was how we needed to act now have flip-flopped. these are politicians who claim

to work by partisanly but they don't enforce bipartisan solutions and they are the ones who cried loudly that we need policy, policy changes at the border and they reveal in plain sight it's not about policy issues, it's about politics. in the disinformation campaign that has come along with this is rich. he claims 5000 migrants would be allowed into this state into this country every day is patently false and if they read the bill they would have known it. it says congressional action isn't needed. that also is false. we control the pursestrings and we control the policy language. and only congress can fix our asylum laws and only congress can make sure we are giving the border patrol to resources that

they need to secure the border. i wish this place works. i really do. this is the greatest country in the world not by accident because our forefathers acted responsibly. and we didn't have campaign seasons that never and. we actually could sit down and negotiate not as democrats and republicans but as americans. and to do is right for this country. if we don't start acting like adults in this place, start thinking and acting reasonably in listening to our constituents

and listen to the folks who sent you here. even if you disagree with them you should be listening to them. to try to fix the problems i fear for this country's future. and i don't say that lightly. there is plenty of evidence out there that shows china would love to replace us in an economy and military in this world. that's not something we should take lightly. that is something we should take very very seriously. and when congress doesn't do their job, when congress doesn't even debate a bill to deal with the serious problems in this country, it does not sit well with us. it only empowers us. the countries that want to

places at war. i don't know what will transpire with this negotiated border agreement but i do hope we get another opportunity to vote on it and on the policy that was negotiated by lankford, sinema and -- they worked hard. at a minimum they deserve but more importantly the american people deserve debate on this bill to find out not what facebook or twitter what the internet says about this bill but find out exactly what's in this bill. because i can tell you we are tired of d.c. political games and so am i. i yield the floor.

the senate will be in session this weekend. to deal with this bill about ukraine in funding for ukraine and funding for israel and taiwan. i will dispense with the israel and taiwan funding because it's straightforward that has strong support here. i'm also for helping ukraine. i do believe we have a national interest in helping ukraine against russia. i would just summarize it this way. if you look at china which most would agree is an adversary at this point the chinese are hoping one of two things are going to happen. first they hope we will get stuck in ukraine along with what's happening in the middle east and will be able to focus

on the indo pacific. if we do get engaged they hope and if we become disengaged their hope is people would say we told you america's and is in decline. i believe our goal when it comes ukraine is to be helpful to ukraine in a way that doesn't harm our alliances around the world. i have my own personal views on this and i've shared it in the past. we have had further covers -- i don't believe the russian's can achieve their initial objectives no matter what happens which is to take all of ukraine and kia. i also think it's going to be difficult for countries to matter how much help the kids to completely destroy the russian federation and no matter how bob that they have been militarily with size advantage. i do believe at some point both of these countries will try to figure a way out in the question

is which one will have the most leverage in the best of possible and you will ukraine be able to emerge as a democracy and as a nation that's not under the thumb of vladimir putin and other as an example. i think we have a national interests. it's not an unlimited national interest that doesn't mean however much they need and however long it takes takes but their senators. i want to say that at the outset that i would say and i said that because i'm torn by my work on the intelligence committee and the foreign relation committee images and form policy because our job here we get a lot involved in the lot of things that not her business the form policy and national security is a key part of the federal government and what we are supposed to be doing here and i do believe in the short and long-term and their things i don't need to convince anyone about israel and taiwan that involve national security the united states and what it will look like in five or 10 years. that said i would imagine not

that i imagine, i know that there are people if you walk in many places in the country right now and you told them i'll be happening they be puzzled and people say how do you feel about ukraine for most americans is not a priority not because they like putin and russia. because we have a lot of problems that people are dealing with in their every day lives. most people would say is okay. if we are going to do that ukraine and help ukraine deal with their invasion shouldn't we first heard the same time deal with our invasion with what's happening to our country. you guys are going to meet all weekend fight and call each other names and you're going to drag this thing out and have this big thing that we never do read we never stand sunday's but we never do all of this but when we do it it's always for somebody else or something that's important to us something that has to do with america, our

country. how an essence how can you be helping ukraine with their invasion but not the helping america with its invasion? and it is an invasion what's happening at our southern border. these are very conservative numbers but they are incredibly acrid and they come from public and nonpublic and they are classified that nonpublic information. so let's just say from january 20 to 20,213.3 million people have entered the united states illegally and then released into the country. of those 3.3 million people that have entered the country illegally 99.7% of them have not been deported or removed end of the 3.3 million that have been released into this country over 617,000 these are numbers from last month, of the 3.3 million people that entered the country illegally and were released 617,000 of them either have criminal convictions or pending

criminal charges so we have at least 600,000 convicted criminals and suspected criminals entering the country illegally roaming around the country now. people ask well how did this happen? that's the clear it's never been zero and there've never been zero illegal people getting into the country but how did this happen? let's start with our laws because people talk about immigration rent here they pretend immigration is unregulated and we need new laws to fix fix it because the laws e and we don't regulate them. immigration laws in america can be summarized. at its core quite simple. here's what immigration law in america is. these are the people that are allowed to be in the united states of america and to someone who's not allowed to be in the united states of america enters illegally you are to detain them through removal meaning you are today and then -- detain them in

immigration until they are resolved or removed from a the country. that's the law of the united states. and that's been the love united states for quite some time. with that detention requirement that you hold them until they are removed we have always had exceptions. narrow exceptions over example the dalai lama shows up at the board of united satan says i'm hearing the chinese are trying to kill me, exception. there have always been exceptions. they are supposed to be narrow exceptions and apply to individuals case-by-case. humanitarian things of this nature but for the first time in american history the current president of united states decided to make the exception to the rule, the rule. it became the rule that when you arrived here you would not be detained. the exception became those who were detained and they gave me the numbers for the people who were released. so the exceptions ate up the

rules. and that's how this happened. and why it happened is not hard to understand. i assure you guys, i live in an immigrant community when it comes to immigration i've been in the game for 10 years. making these things. i live it. but i live it. my entire family are immigrants. my wife's entire family are immigrants and all my neighbors are immigrants but i can't drive two blocks and go anywhere. i live in miami florida surrounded by immigrants from all over the hemisphere and all over the world so when i talk to about these things in a guided read about in magazines and i didn't ask her briefing i talk to people who have shown me they say look this is about a cache cash payment that is sent to some guide to bring in my sister and her husband. this is venmo to help my family get from cuba to nicaragua

nicaragua to guide states and they don't know what immigration laws. they don't know about exceptions but here's what they know. they know that they know people who have come here, turn themselves in and said i'm here and they were released. they know people that did this and people tell other people and the traffickers advertise it. so what happens is when people figured out in the figure out quickly humans are -- that's where we pass laws to punish crime and tax of people smokeless and then people know that you can make it inside of the united states and turn yourself and your chances of being released are 85 or 90% or something like that. the numbers don't lie. i don't have them with me. i tried but couldn't find them on my but there's a graph that shows it looks like one of those

things an echocardiogram but bu. basically said here the numbers in december 2019 january of 2020 february of 2021 and the spikes ride. why did it spiked? because we told people by the way if you're a single adults that changes everything if you're single adults and come to america illegally and you turn yourself in me will interview you and maybe not even interview and we will release you. into the country. people figure it out. the way you solve it is to reverse that. the law didn't change for the immigration law today looks the same as it did in 2019. what changed is this policy by executive order. we pass laws that the executed so look what's happening with -- it's illegal in every jurisdiction in america at the

places where you see a spike in shoplifting are the places where the prosecutors have decided we are going going to prosecute those people on when you tell people it's illegal to do something and were not going to prosecutor go after them forget it. how do you solve this? is sold at the same way you created it. arresting the people who created it. a lot of the say look if we are going to do all this for ukraine, and this is something you really want that's important we also at least explain to people how would don't understand how it can spend all this time and energy not helping ourselves before we help other countries can we at least deal with the border so they said okay were going to do something with the border. and they three, eight weeks whatever negotiating a deal and then they it.

i didn't have anything to do with it. i've done immigration negotiations in the past that it's difficult and this is even more difficult in the midst of a mass migration crisis but they negotiated deal. i didn't even know was in it until sunday. i read it twice actually in winter it and a negotiated deal that most of us to be fair had nothing to do with negotiating the end i realized pretty quickly this is not going to reverse. you can call it whatever you want call up border security, you can label it anything you want but but this is not going o solve our problems. immediately the republicans are a bunch of. these republicans they wanted to border deal and we gave them aborted deal and now they want to think the whole thing and they have changed their minds. we gave them exactly what they asked for and they have changed their minds.

i asked for measures and steps that would solve the migration problem. this bill doesn't do that. in fact i never asked for a bill. i'm not against some of the language that's in it. if want to change asylum it's long overdue but that alone isn't going to solve the migration process -- problem. that's what i asked for. i didn't negotiate it and i didn't even know was in it like i told you on sunday. so the solution that i want to see and did want to see and continue to want to see the solution that we can go back to people and say guys who did something wrong the border. we actually did something real and results are going to happen with our bill. that was not this bill despite what people may say about it. we rejected the toughest porter deal imaginable. somehow they figured out a way to sprinkle water on the.

i can spell out a bunch of problems with this bill and i don't have time and amount going to spend the time going through every detail. emergency thing an emergency power to shut down the border. the president and suspended at any time but all the present is to say if it's not in our national interest and we need to suspend the emergency. by the way an emergency stop to process 1400 people a day, illegal immigrants a day in the midst of an emergency. let me focus on what i think what i believe to be the most blatant pieces put in place in this bill and it's something that some don't necessarily spot right away if you don't understand immigration law. a lot of things that people use about immigration is it takes too long. it's true and it's one of the incentives by the way because

people know few released pending a hearing 10 years from now you won't even know where i am. much less show up at a hearing. so they come back and say we are there to solve that. how did they solve that? they create what i call the asylum. they'll go out and hire thousands of department of homeland security agents, bureaucrats, not judges to process these claims. potentially right at the border so right at the border these agents will be able to interact with an illegal immigrant, interview them ask them questions and they will have the power, they will have the power right there at the border to do three things. the first is they could say you don't qualify your out of here. they can do that. it's not in the history of what's happening now. and i'm going to tell you from

what ate in i mr. president, i want to talk about some of the important issues we're debating here on the senate floor, and actually they're quite important and we're having a good debate. and i want to just talk about some of the votes that we've taken in the last couple days. we voted on what i think was materialed really focused on the senate's border bill. a lot of people worked hard on that. i know the presiding officer did. senator lankford. i did not vote to proceed to consider that bill. it was a whole host of reasons. i think the most important from my perspective was this administration,ed biden administration came in, said we're going to have a policy of full open borders which they have. there's no doubt about that. every american knows it, sees it. it impacts people in alaska negatively. 300,000, over 300,000 illegal

immigrants in december, all-time record, on track for 10 million. my view, the border bill did not go far enough and it's hard to trust the administration, even on provisions they would want them to enforce given their disastrous record for the last three years. so i was a no on that. then we turned to the national security supplemental. mr. president, i want to talk -- want to talk a lot about that this afternoon because it's very important. and i voted actually to proceed to the debate to start debating, hopefully amending, this important bill. it's being called many things. some are calling it the ukraine aid bill, some the israel bill. having read it, having worked hard over the last four to five months to actually shape it, i

think it should have a different name. maybe this name. the fighting authoritarian aggression national security bill. but, mr. president, probably the best title for this piece of legislation that we are now debating should be the national security industrial-based renaissance bill. i hope my colleagues take a look at it, hope they read it. i'm going to explain why it should be called that and we're obviously going to have a good debate on this bill. and i'm hoping that this bill -- and i mentioned this to my republican colleagues in particular -- when people look at it and we debate it and try to make it better here on the floor, that it will unify the republican conference and at the end, hopefully get more support

because i think it's an important reason. there are a lot of reasons why, mr. president, i think this can unify members of the senate, members of the republican conf conference. first, let me go into one of the most obvious which i think almost everybody agrees with it. if you don't, maybe you're not reading the news. but we're in a real dangerous period, mr. president, led by this guy, this new era of authoritarian aggression as i call it where you have dictatorships on the march, very aggressive. that's xi jingping, the dictator of china. they're going through the biggest peacetime buildup in world history of their military. biggest peacetime buildup ever of any country, ever. i keep close tabs on what the chinese are doing. this guy likes to dress up in fatigues. he is an aggressive authoritarian dictator. working very closely with putin,

working very closely with the ayatollahs, the terrorists in tehran, working very closely with kim jong-un. these dictatorships are all working together. you go to armed services hearings, intel hearings, they're working closely together. and they are also to use military force, particularly against their democratic neighbors, either directly or through proxies like hamas when they invaded israel, to try to undermine american interests and those of our allies. that is happening. we're in one of the most dangerous periods since world war ii right now. so that's one reason that a bill like this should unify us. another, mr. president, is our industrial base in the united states has dramatically withered, particularly in its

ability to protect us. what do i mean by protect us? to produce weapons systems, to produce ammunition. again, this is a fact. if you don't believe that, well, maybe you should did a little more research. our industrial base is withering. it is a shadow of its former self during the cold war, certainly during previous wars. and, mr. president, let me just give you an example. you know a lot about submarines. we have -- we're supposed to be building 1.2 virginia class subs a year. that's our goal. we can barely build one a year. this is making our sub fleet which is one of our greatest asymmetric advantages over this guy shrink. even worse, mr. president, 37% of our attack submarine fleet --

that's about 18 subs -- are in maintenance or idle or awaiting maintenance, just sitting there because we don't have the industrial capacity to maintain our submarine base. anyone who studies this knows this is a giant, giant problem. and, mr. president, we all know this. if the bullets start flying, if a dictator like this launches a war against one of our allies or putin does or iran does, they're trying to sink u.s. ships in the red sea right now anyways, literally troops under attack, when the bullets are flying, that's not the time you need to build up your industrial base. so if we're in a real dangerous period, which we are, and the american ability in terms of our industrial base to protect our own country has withered, which

is has, that's another reason we should be thinking let's do something about it. mr. president, a third reason that people on my side of the aisle should be taking this legislation seriously is that it's an opportunity to make up for what has been an incredibly weak biden administration approach to national security. now, mr. president, i talk about this a lot, but this administration is not serious about national security. the president has put forward three times in his budget each year department of defense cuts, inflation-adjusted cuts of the he'll crank up the epa and department of interior 20%, 25%, 30%. every year joe biden cuts it. the current budget shrinks the army, the navy, and the marine corps. you think he's impressed by that?

he's not. next year's budget, the biden budget will bring the united states below 3% of gdp on military spending. it's probably, mr. president, the fourth or fifth time we've been below 3% in 80 years. you think he's impressed with that? he's not. and we have an administration led by civilians at the pentagon who are not focused on lethality, who are not focused on war fighting, have been distracted by some of these far-left social issues which in my view have no business being in the pentagon with our war fighters, so this bill that we're debating right now is a chance to start a course correction in the dangerous world we're facing, because of dictators like this, and the very weak response of the biden administration's approach to national security and defense, which they have always -- go look at the budgets -- always

prioritized dead last of any federal agency. so what does it do? well, let's take a look. this is from an article from "the washington post" based on a study by the american enterprise institute on what this supplemental -- this is actually where it was in november -- what this does. and i think, mr. president, the most important point that i want to emphasize here is that this bill is primarily focused on rebuilding our military industrial base in this new era of authoritarian aggression. that is the principle focus. over half of the dollars that are in this bill, over half, over $50 billion go directly to

america's capacity, our capacity in states all across this great nation, mostly in the midwest and on the east coast, some out in california, to build weapons, to build ammo, and to be ready for war if it comes. over $50 billion. there will are thousands and thousands of jobs created by these direct investments in america. mr. president, this is a generational investment in our ability to defend ourselves. what do i mean by generational? some of these investments we will see 15 or 20 years from now, hopefully still producing weapons, submarines. so let me just give you a few

examples. let's start with submarines. our greatest comparative advantage relative to china. they're catching up in a whole host of areas but not in terms of subs. this has $3 billion go directly into the american submarine industrial capacity which will unlock another $3 billion from our aukus agreement with australia. that is $6 billion to our industrial base for submarines. $5 billion for 155 artillery shells, over half a billion for counter uas systems, the other weapon systems directly invested in america, vafsh lynns, harpoons, tomahawks, harms, toe missiles built by americans by our defense. you get the picture, mr. president. over $50 billion of this bill

will be directly into our industrial base to defend ourselves. working class americans, america's national security will benefit. this is replenishing our weapons stocks, our ammunition stocks for the u.s. military and, yes, for our allies to purchase, some of whom are at war today. ukraine of course and israel. now, mr. president, there's been a lot of focus on ukraine. and a lot of arguments about whether to provide continued lethal aid. i strongly support that. but, mr. president, this bill also focuses on other allies, which like i said in the republican conference i believe unifies us. ukraine has been a debate. but let me start with israel.

mr. president, i've been out to israel twice in the last year, including about ten days after the october 7 attacks with a bipartisan group of senators. it's obviously our most important ally in the middle east, one of our most important allies in the world. here's what i think a lot of people miss. right now if you go there, you'll see it it you'll feel it, you'll understand it. israel is under an existential threat to the very existence of their state and their people. it's clear as day. iran, all the proxies, hamas, hezbollah, the houthis. this is not an exaggeration. this defense bill has close to $17 billion for israel and u.s. forces -- in u.s. central command that right now are being

attacked. right now. iron dome, interceptors, about $ 2.5 billion for centcom operations who are literally taking missiles from the houthis in the red sea. i think everybody agrees -- you've got to fund our troops. let meet give you another area that i think unifies us, mr. president, should unify all senators. i this i it unifies a lot of republicans -- i think it unifies a lot of republicans. and that's taiwan and indopacom. mr. president, taiwan has been sort of -- not kind of, a big focus of mine throughout my career. i just retired from the u.s. marine corps, last week, after 30 years of service. my first deployment was to the taiwan strait. two carrier strike groups and an marine amphibious group that i was a young infantry officer on. we were there as a u.s. commitment when the l.a. was

threatening to -- when the pla was threatening to invade taiwan. it was their first presidential election. american commitment was there. i finished out my marine corps time as the chief of staff with the marine force's pacific command which is a whole focus on taiwan. the first time i ever visited taiwan, mr. president, as a u.s. senator, i'll never forget. a number of senators were there. we got on the bus. the head of our ait embassy essentially -- not really an embassy, unofficial embassy. he welcomed us, welcome to taiwan. one of the most dynamic economies, one of the most vibrant democracies on the planet. the only reason it exists today is because of the commitment of the u.s. military and america. eight decades we've kept tie wang free. -- taiwan free. the initial supplemental that was put -- that came up to the senate, didn't have a lot for taiwan or indopacom.

a number of us knew why. president biden was getting ready to meet with pipping pink. they didn't want -- president biden was getting ready to meet with xi jinping. they didn't want to ruin the mood of that meeting. a number of us worked together, senator collins in particular, my office. this bill has about $16.4 billion for indopacom-relevant munitions security assistance, capacity expansion to deter china in the taiwan strait and throughout the indopacom theater. i'd like to submit the list for the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: so, mr. president, these are areas i think can unify us. the industrial base, workers, taiwan, israel. like any bill, there are things in here i don't like, mr. president. too much direct support to ukraine, direct budget supporter. i think the uneuropean union

should be doing that, not us. susan collins did a good job of limiting that. still has too much. if we have an amendment process, i have an amendment that would strip that. there's also amendments out here to enhance what we give our allies. president biden's team recently said we're not going to send anymore lng through asia and europe. i just spoke with a very senior european official who thinks that's a very bad idea. we got to send energy to our allies. so there's a lot more we can do to improve this bill. mr. president, i'll end with this -- you know, one of the arguments against this bill is saying, well, you know what? we don't have to do anything in ukraine. we'll let putin roll. but we'll be real strong in taiwan. we'll be real strong around the rest of the world.

we'll do teller these thor -- we'll do teller these -- we'll do deter these authoritarians there. that's not how the world works. deterrence is not visible. american credibility is not divisible. you can't say we're going to be real strong in the taiwan strait but, you know, no problem in ukraine or with israel. these authoritarians are working together and we need a strategic response through this very dangerous period. and how do we know deterrence is not divisible? i think the biden administration demonstrated it with their botched withdrawal from afghanistan. when that happened, a number of us -- myself included -- said, watch. watch. the authoritarian regimes around the world are going to test, they're going to prone, they're going -- they're going to probe, they're going to go into different areas and press. and of course that happened. i don't think you'd have the

ukraine invasion by russia without the botched afghanistan withdrawal. but again, mr. president, what which i'm trying to do here -- my colleagues, democrats, republicans -- is say its not a perfect bill. i want to amend it. i certainly hope we get to an amendment process. i know a lot of people want to get to that. but there is a lot in this bill, more than half dedicated to the american industrial base, billions dedicated to taiwan, billions dedicated to israel that i think should unite us. i'm hopeful that's going to happen. i yield the floor.

mr. lee: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, there have been a lot of discussions over the last few days about a bill, a bill many months in the making, a bill that's been discussed, debated, and drafted largely in secret that we saw for the first time sunday evening at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. the bill has a lot of material in it. as it was released to us sunday night, it spent somewhere just shy of $120 billion. since then it's gone through some changes. it now spends just a little

under $100 billion, about $95 billion. and it's been modified. its scope has been narrowed. i want to talk first, just for a few minutes, about how we got here, where we are in that process, and then about some concerns that i have with the bill as it now stands. last fall, in the fall of 2023, there was a push spearheaded primarily by the white house but a push that included most senate democrats and some senate republicans, a push to get more aid to ukraine. now remember that total aid -- the united states has spent on ukraine throughout the duration of this conflict somewhere in the neighborhood of $113 billion, $114 billion.

it's an enormous amount of money. the military component of that itself, at least until fairly recently, was more than the military aid provided by any other country or any other group of countries. it is an enormous sum of money. all of this is going on at the same time that the american people are enduring some challenges, challenges that relate to the an economy in which the dollar can purchase less and less every day. this is the inevitable, foreseeable, and in fact foreseen and widely warned consequence of a government, this government based here in washington, d.c., that has been spending too much money for years, that's been spending money to the tune of trillion-dollar and then multitrillion-dollar deficits year after year after year. this has happened, by the way,

not during an economic depression, but really during the top of an economic cycle in which most of the last few years unemployment has been really low. these are not things that the government has borrowed to spend more money on because of the fact that the economy has been severely sluggish and, therefore, unable to produce as much output as we would normally hope to have. no, this is just regular government spending run amok at the peak of the economic cycle. and as a result of this spending, this spending that has involved multitrillion-dollar deficits for the last few years, including and especially during this presidential administration, that many years of adding that much debt to our already gargantuan national debt, which now stands above

$m-trillion -- $34 trillion. these things have a consequence. when we add that much debt, especially that much debt that quickly, because of the way in which the acquisition of new debt works in the united states, it has the same basic effect on the economy as just printing more money. essentially what's happening here is that we're contributing to the money supply. we've turned up the pace at by we're -- at which we're contributing to the money supply. and as a result every dollar buys less. how much less? well, depending on which study you point to, a very conservative estimate is that the average american household has to spend about a thousand dollars a month every single month to buy the same basket of goods and services of basic necessities from housing to health care, from gas to groceries. a thousand dollars a month more every single month to buy just

the same basic necessities that they were buying prior to the day president biden took office. that's not very long. that does produce an effect, and it produces a type of misery that looks something like the follow 0ing -- now, people are on a salary, one way or another it is at that relatively fixed budget that most households operate on and usually a relatively fixed sum of money that they have to live on, whether that's through a salary or through a combination of sources, if they're independent contractors or if they're retired and live on a pension or something like that. that sum of money now has to take into account that everything costs about a thousand dollars a month more for the basic necessities every single montah, working out to about $12,000 a year. for some families this may be more. for some it may be a little less. everyone is feeling the pinch.

iturts everyone. but it hurts the poor and middle-class americans more than i believe else. rich people, interestingly enough, can find a way to get even richer even faster during times of great inflation. so it's one of many reasons why we ought to be concerned any time we're going spend a -- going to spend a significant sum of money, a sick sum of money that's in addition to the ordinary operations of this government. the federal government. the government based right near in washington, d.c. that's why it's important to think about what we're spending, how we're spending it, why we're spending it, and what consequences that spending might have. for many of these same reasons, when this latest push to provide tens of billions of additional dollars over to ukraine a few months ago, a number of reasons -- a number of members,

mostly republicans, including republicans in the senate and republicans in the house of representatives, expressed concern over doing that. there was a wide range of concerns expressed, and i won't attempt to enumerate all of them, but i will just say that most of they will followed along a few things. number one, the one that i just mentioned -- inflation. the fact that we're spending a lot more money than we have. that causes inflation to become worse. the more we add to that dumpster fire, the more misery inflation is likely to create. number two, this money is going to a war that we're a half a world away, to which we've already contributed substantially. we have european allies who are much closer to the action, european allies who have

provided some aid, provided far less military aid than we have, who have not been as quick to defend their own backyard turf as we would like, and not nearly as quick to defend their turf as we have been as a country. this matters. it matters in a number of ways. remember, many of these allies of which i speak were much closer neighbors to this conflict, much closer to what's happening there, much more likely to be affected by the conflict in a direct way, are countries that belong to nato. remember, through nato, for decades the united states has been providing a significant portion of the european security umbrella, an umbrella that has benefited not only nato allies but also their neighbors for many years. an understanding has evolved

over time, there should be a certain percentage of gdp that nato allies should be contributing to nato. a certain percentage of their gdp should be devoted to security, to defense. a lot of those nations have not kept up with this, missed it chronically and by a significant margin. we continued to provide our portion of the security umbrella to nato, which is huge. it's enormous. it allows it to operate. it allows these nations to rely to a significant gree on our security umbrella. and year after year, when many of those nations failed to fulfill their duties, their part of the expectation of what it means to be a nato member, in time they get trained. they get acclimated to the fact that this is okay, this is a

pretty good deal. as a result they can spend money on whatever else they want. they can spend more money on their social welfare programs or whatever it is that they spend more on in europe. maybe it's more wine, cheese, i don't know, whatever the government is spending money on that is not defense when they fail to meet their nato obligation. so as a result of that, they grow more and more dependent on what we spend. then when there's a bad guy, vladimir putin, with a country, russia, that goes in and without provocation attacks ukraine again, for the second time in a decade, then they look to us. it's understandable why they do that. they've looked to us for a long time. we have shouldered a lot of burden around the world. in many respects we have a lot to be proud of for that. but this is a conversation that needs to happen because at what

point should they have to ma match -- no, at what point should they have to exceed as a percentage of gdp? perhaps collectively those european nations in real dollars, what we have spent before we consider putting more on the line. that's a significant concern. some have also expressed the concern that we're devoting all this time, attention, and, yes, an enormous sum of money to securing ukraine's borders when our own borders are insecure, when we've been flooded with what some estimate to be about ten million people who have come into into this country without documentation since january 20, 2021, the day joe biden took office. they wonder why we're doing so much to secure the borders of another country half a world away while doing little or nothing to secure our own.

some have also noted whenever we get involved in a proxy war, spending a lot of money through another country to fight yet another country, that's very often how we get involved in a much larger conflict. it wouldn't be the first time that that has happened or the second time. it's happened a number of times. the most familiar one that people think of is vietnam. we start out for proxies. we build, we get drawn in, and we're eventually direct combatants. it is worth considering, worth taking into account, not necessarily dispositive of whether we get involved in any war, but this is a war we've been fighting through a proxy, ukraine, against an adversary, russia, with a very large nuclear arsenal, one that's large enough to destroy the united states many, many times over. that has to be taken into account. that question becomes more meaningful every time we invest more money, every time we

increase the lethality, the quantity, the type of weapons assistance that we're providing to them. those all need to be be taken into account. sometimes we don't have those conversations. for those and other reasons, a number of people, mostly republicans, republicans in the house and republicans in the senate have is expressed some concern about providing additional ukraine funding. last fall when this push started in earnest, the republican leadership in the senate suggested, look, maybe what we should do, given that most or all democrats in the senate really want this funding to ukraine and we've got some republicans who want to be supportive but not as many, maybe we should offer up something else to achieve a compromise, to achieve something else that is important to most, nearly all, i would hope all

republicans in the senate, and that's u.s. border security. so for the last few months we've anticipated what would come of some negotiations which, unfortunately, became a lot more clandestine than i would have preferred. i speak not critically of our negotiator, james lankford, who is a dear friend and a good man. i think he was doing the best he knew how to do with the cards he was dealt. but those negotiations, to my great dismay and disappointment, and that have many of my colleagues, occurred without our day-to-day awareness of what was happening. we were not kept informed of exactly what was in there. we were given very few details, and those details emerged mostly in the last few weeks before this document was made public

sunday night at 7:00 p.m. eastern standard time. when we finally saw that measure, the reason why we shouldn't have months of secret negotiations, in which most senate republicans are kept out of the loop became more apparent. the objectives of the negotiating team had drifted pretty far from the original stated concerns of many, if not most senate republicans when we embarked on this process. the idea was to use the fact that we have a lot of enthusiasm on our side of the aisle to secure america's border and to pass legislation that would force that, that would virtually guarantee that, that would make it very difficult, very difficult to the point of being impossible that we would continue to set all of the wrong records, as we did during the month of december and as we have so many times during this administration, on the number of

people coming across the border, the number of people trafficked into the united states by international drug cartels, who, by the way, are earning many billions of probably tens of billions of dollars every year smuggling human traffic into the united states. and with that human traffic, bringing in a whole host of other problems carried by them and inextricably intertwined with the human traffic they brought into the country, including enough fentanyl, that in the last couple of years has killed over 100,000 per year. nuch fentanyl that if distributed widely enough could kill every american living in this country, every single man, woman, and child. i was told by the border patrol during a recent visit i made to the border in the rio grande valley that for the first time since the 1860's, since the

adoption in fact of the 1th amendment prohibiting slaveryy, we now have significant numbers of people living in indentured servitude, many of them in the form of sex slavery, bang off the debts incurred while being smuggled into this country by the drug cartels. there's a lot of enthusiasm for that reason to stop that, to make it more difficult for that to continue. and that was the whole point of merging those efforts. when the legislation came out sunday night and we saw that while there were some changes in law that might have been helpful over time, there was nothing in there requiring the border to be materially more secure. there were enough loopholes in there, as i read it, enough loopholes in there where not only did it not guarantee a significantly better result on

border security, but in some respects it could actually make some problems worse. it could at least prolong the problem. when those concerns were expressed on a dime, it seems, senate republican leadership turned on that very legislation they had been touting for months as under development, wait until you see it. instead of trying to fix that, instead of saying let's go back to the drawing board and see where the problems areas are, what we can fix, what we can't fix, they said let's not do it at all. they started quoting republican senators, senators like me, who had said the president of the united states can use existing law, and with that existing law, he can make material steps towards securing the border to the same degree as was achieved in the last administration using the exact same laws, that the border security crisis as we see

it now is not itself something that exists for want of adequate legislative authority in the hand of the president. no. it is a willful choice on the part of the president and the secretary of homeland security not to enforce those laws aggressively, in some cases openly flout the law as he has by admitting a couple million people under something called immigration parole authority, parole authority supposed to be used on a case by case basis and never a categorical basis as it has been recently by this administration to admit millions of people into this country. the president still could enforce the border. republican leadership then made the unfortunate choice to say you republicans who care about border security have been saying it's not for lack of adequate legislative authority that the border is not being enforced. therefore, you guys shouldn't be

pushing for any border security language at all so we'll jettison that part. that was never the point. the point was if we're going to achieve a compromise, a true compromise between the parties should entail getting one thing that one party likes and another thing that another party likes if you're trying to get enough steam for both of them to pass when neither can pass. and so they missed the point. by missing that point, they also missed a real opportunity perhaps to get something done there. that's unfortunate. we still had a chance. i made the case over the last few days we could still offer up something. but in order to do that, republicans would have to come together and they'd have to defeat both of the cloture motions that we've had over the last 48 hours, and after defeating both of those say we're working on a proposal that could actually get us there, one that could include material reforms like h.r. 2, which has been passed by the house of representatives. i know it's something that

senate democrats don't necessarily dream about passing, not necessarily wild about it, but it's something that would materially advance the cause of border security. and it would materially change circumstances on the border, even though the president doesn't have to have new legislative authority, this would force that and we could force that by harnessing the enthusiasm for ukraine aid. but alas, was it 17 or 18 senate republicans chose last night to move forward, or yesterday afternoon rather, to move forward and vote for cloture on the motion to proceed, notwithstanding the fact that by then they had cut off anything having to do with border security. this was unfortunate. we've waited for months for this language, this language didn't do the job. we could have come up with other language, but we had to stick together as a team.

so much for team work. that didn't pan out. that really is tragic. we now find ourselves faced with a bill that focuses on this supplemental aid package, aid package shifts $95 billion, the vast majority of which, close to two-thirds goes to ukraine. some of it goes elsewhere, and we'll talk more about that in a moment. let's talk about the ukraine aid for a moment . there's a lot in here, a lot to cover. let's start with the fact that in addition to the aid sent to ukraine, or sent to the pepping to re -- to the pentagon to replenish existing, stockpiles of weapons that have been released to ukraine under pres presidential drawdown authority or otherwise, in addition to all that, it provides some $238 million roughly a quarter of a billion dollars to cover

deployment of u.s. troops to europe. that's significant. it begs all kinds of questions -- why is that happening? where are they going exactly? if we're doing that, does that mean we're getting ready to be involved directly, more kinetically in this war? what does that mean? why are we doing this, by the way, wow a -- without a plan, a comprehensive strategy for ukraine? what do we want to achieve? how far are we willing to go to get there? are we going to be directly involved? at what point will we be adopting or must we consider an authorization for the use of military force or declaration of war? all those questions left unaddressed by this, as we spent roughly a quarter of a billion dollars on additional troop deployments to europe. it allows for an additional $7.8 billion worth of weapons to leave our stockpiles, u.s.

stockpiles, immediately. this is a pretty big sum of money. now, keep in mind that for many of these weapons, especially many of the weapons that seem to be most talked about, most useful here, a lot of them, including the weapons systems known as himars, javelins, atacms, those are things being depleted very rapidly from our stockpiles, as we've been sending them to ukraine. they also happen to be many of the same weapons that may become very valuable, very much in demand and very much are now in short supply, should additional need for them break out in, for example, taiwan. or israel. so as the planet is becoming more dangerous, and we're

depleting those sums, yes, we're authorizing an additional $7.8 billion of weapons to leave our stockpiles immediately. now, why is this significant? ordinarily, there's a default rule set into law that says you can't have more than $100 million in weapons leave our stockpiles through presidential action alone without a new law being passed by congress to allow that. $100 million. a tenth of a billion dollars. this is many times that. and understand, that's a deliberate choice. congress can do that. after all, it's a statute that impoacheses the cap -- imposes the cap. congress can increase or decrease that cap anytime it wants to. let's think about why, let's think about how much this makes sense, let's think about whether, to what extent, it's in

our interest, $7.8 billion. in is almost 80 times, about 78 times the ordinary drawdown authority that we would allow absent some extraordinary action. now, when those weapons are released, as many of them already have been under previous authorities, we're still looking at years before many of them could be replenished. this is not stuff we can just produce tomorrow. you can't just turn on a switch or place an order. this is not like ordering a new set of double-a batteries from amazon. no, it takes a fair amount of time. for some of these weapons systems, many, in fact, i'm told it may well be impossible to replenish them prior to 2030. who knows where we'll be then. who knows what conflicts might require their use by then. and will we find ourselves under prepared? one can easily imagine scenarios in which we could.

so if we have to engage, for example, in the indo-pacific, in the near future, let's say beijing fulfills the fears of many for years and decides to make a move on taiwan. what happens then if our shelves are barren, left barren because of this conflict? i think that needs to be discussed more than it has been. it's one of the most unfortunate offshoots, and there are many, of the way this bill has been handled over the last few months. we put it on a back burner while negotiated. negotiated, we thought, believed initially under terms that would vouch our being apprised -- rev about regularly. that didn't happen. we saw text and that text didn't contain what most of the senate republican conference asked for at the outset. now, because of concerns with that part of the bill, that part

of the bill was just jettisoned and we're back to just the foreign aid stuff, to be spent mostly in the same three areas we had talked about at the very beginning. as a result of all of that, it's as though there's been a distraction, one could use this tore distract people from conversations like this one. so we shouldn't be rushing this one. we should have conversations about that to figure out whether it makes sense and what we're going to do in order to protect ours ourselves, in current and such future conflicts as may arise, as to which we have no ability to predict right now. the legislation also allows for the department of defense to enter into new contracts, contracts for a total of $13.7 billion in new equipment, new equipment specifically for ukraine through the ukraine

security assistance initiative, with no requirement whatsoever for the biden administration to prioritize contracts for our own readiness, for america's defense. why should we be worried about that? well, as we're worried about replenishing the stockpiles of the weapons i just referred to a moment ago, replacing new orders, new contracts, new money, $13.7 billion for additional weapons, and if those are all going out without any obligation on the part ever the biden administration to negotiate in a preference for, a priority basis for weapons to be used by the united states, to be placed back into the u.s. stockpile, where does that leave us? i think it leaves us where i described a moment ago. look, our military is the most feared force in the world with

good reason. we've got the best and the brightest men and women in the whole world ready to fight for us at a moment's notice. we also have the best weapons systems in the world. but when you get to be king of the hill, as our military currently is, and i hope will be for the entirety of the time i'm on this planet, and i hope in perpetuity, you don't get to that point and then consider yourself immune to the risk of being thrown off that hill. and the minute we deplete our weapons stockpiles, it is a moment we should be concerned. the legislation also funds the ukrainian national police.

it funds the ukrainian national police and state border guard in ukraine, with $300 million. that's great. i'm glad that ukrainians are concerned about ukraine's borders, enough that they've apparently asked us for this assistance. but this bill contains nothing to secure our border. last i checked, mr. president, ukraine is not being besieged by immigrants from all over the world, including a lot of people on the terrorist watch list, including people from countries as far from ukraine as the united states is from afghanistan and syria and china and all kinds of countries that are not in or connected to latin

america. you see, that's another thing i learned on my most recent trip to mcallen, texas, from the border patrol. they told me that this is not what we've seen in the past, no the what we normally expect to see coming across the borders. you've got people from all over the world, including parts of the planet where there are a lot of people who don't like us very much, and are known to plant people to come into our country without, let's say, gestures of good will on their mind. yet another reason why this bill should give the american people pause, it should give us pause. we're willing to spend that on ukraine's border security, why not ours? yes, i know they're at war, and that's significant, that's tragic, yeah, vladimir putin is bad guy, and we don't want him

to be able to pursue his ambitions. our job first and foremost is to protect this country. and we can protect other countries half a world away, we ought to have that discussion, and in a way that makes very clear to the american people how that benefits them directly, how that makes them safer. i don't mean to suggest any of these questions are easily answered, but i do mean to say emphatically that american border security, which is at risk in ways it never has been, not just in my lifetime but the entire existence of this country, at least since the end of the war of 1812, but in other ways since it came to be. we're in deep trouble with our border security. people are pouring across who do not mean us well, and we've got

to be concerned about there. this bill turns a blind eye to that, even while fetishizing border security in another nation half a world away. i don't think the american people will take enormous comfort web they hear -- when they hear these and other concerns when they learn that 7 about the 8 -- $7.8 billion to be sent to ukraine through this legislation will go to ensure that ukrainian bureaucrats don't miss a paycheck. we send this thing over as part of the economic support fund for ukraine, and it's there as i understand it to make sure every government employee in ukraine doesn't miss a paycheck, gets paid for an entire year. billions of dollars to subsidize all kinds of things.

it's in addition to paying their government workforce. my understanding is that it's also going out in various grants to subsidize everything from clothing stores to people who sell concert tickets for ukra ukrainians, all while making sure their budget is fully funded for an entire year. all this is happening while americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and where that paycheck doesn't last very long, like it used to, because they've got to shell out an additional thousand dollars a month, every single month, and this trend has been ongoing ever since january 20, 2021, when joe biden took office, and not coincidentally this inflationary cycle steadily became worse and worse. the bill also begins ukrainian reconstruction. now, this one's interesting. most parts -- it sends

$25 million for the transition initiatives account of usaid, and it sends this out, quote, for frontline and newly liberated communities, communities reclaimed from previous russian occupation. there are a couple things about this that concern me. number one, not aware of a lot of communities that have been reclaimed. i'm sure there are some, i'm told there are a few, but they're few and far between. sending $25 million. i suppose the only reason it's that small a number, most americans think of $25 million, they say that's an enormous sum of money, and it is. it certainly is. that's been hard-earned by the people who have paid it. but compared to the rest of this bill, it's a tiny drop in a very large bucket.

so why should that be concerned? well, if we're setting the predicate now for the fact that it's going to be the united states on the line, u.s. taxpayers on the line most notably, in order to fund these transition initiatives, does that mean we're going to be responsible for rebuilding ukraine as, if, when this war is won? is that our job? do we have to rebuild these buildings? is it a hardworking mechanic from denver, a plummer from boston -- a plumber from boston, a police officer from provo? why exactly are their paychecks and their dollars and their bank accounts of their hard earned money being tapped for that? and more to the point, if they're going to be on the hook not just for these isolated

marshal communities and does that mean if, when this war it finally won we'll be doing all of that? they'll be concerned with that and they'll have every reason to be. now, the legislation does ask for a multiyear strategy for ukraine. and it's a good thing to have a strategy. i wish we had a strategy for how this war is going to be won and how our role in it helps bring an end to that. and how to prioritize different actions that we might undertake and what they might cost, what they might entail. but this strategy of which i speak places the united states at its helm. as i understand it it doesn't do the things that i just described that need to happen but it does put the u.s. at the helm of , sort of in a pull position as the people in charge of this

outside of ukraine. i'm not sure that's a great idea. it seems like yet another gift to woke and complacent european allies already not meeting their nato obligations, refuse to own up to the responsibility of protecting and securing their own continent in their own backyard. now, it takes us to another area of concern, to a different part of the world. the nearly $10 billion of humanitarian aid in this bill, somewhere between $9 billion and $10 billion when you add up a couple of accounts, that by the terms of the legislation may be used in and around ukraine and

in and around israel. some of that money one has to assume in theory all of that money could end up going to gaza, humanitarian relief in gaza. of course, our dire humanitarian condi conditions in gaza and that is heartbreaking of the but there's nothing in this bill that as i view it prevents that money or such money as goes to gaza from ending up in the hands of hamas and benefiting hamas. as i look at -- i'm not sure there is a way to do it, and that's one of the reasons why i'm concerned that there isn't a restriction on aid to gaza here. because gaza itself is under the thumb not of a state, not of a government as we would conceive of it. it's unlike anything we've ever

known here and hopefully anything we ever will know on this continent, certainly in this country. but to say we're going to give aid to gaza but without it benefiting hamas, it's almost impossible to conceive of. let's remember what has happened in the past with other conflicts, where we've set humanitarian -- sent humanitarian aid to other entities in places like after began stan, for example. -- afghanistan, for example. don't worry. it's humanitarian aid. it's not growing to get in the hands of al qaeda and its affiliates. it's the bad people who rule over afghanistan with an iron fist. and it did. it empowered them, emboldened them and ultimately helped arped them. we're -- armed them. we're fooling ourselves if we think this is going to be any different. it troubles me we didn't draw a hard line there acknowledging that almost any aid that we make

available for gaza is going to end up helping hamas. and when you help hamas, you're helping iran and its proxies wage a war of terror not only against israel but against the united states, against western civilization. this should concern all of us, democrat, republican, independent, i don't care. it should be worrisome. we saw the devastation that rained down on israelis who themselves had done nothing, nothing to deserve this on october 7. we saw the inhumanity unfolding there. it's a tip of the iceberg compared to what they want to do, what they have promised to do, what we may well unwittingly equip them to do if we're not careful and we have not been careful here. shame on us.

it's also perpetuates the cycle of endless unconditional wars in the middle east, wars bought and paid for by the united states. it encourages escalating conflicts in the region to the tune of $2.4 billion going to central command. risking direct engagement with i iran. whenever we do this, we risk that. there's so much in this bill that risks up incident conflict -- risks imminent conflict with iran. i don't think we've been talkingabout when -- talking about that when we talk about the palace intrigue associated with these phantom border provisions that we didn't get to see for months and when we saw them, we had concerns about them. when we voiced those concerns to republican leadership, we were told too bad, too late, we're

going to characterize you as the reason this failed and we're not going to consider anything else. we're going to join up with the democrats to support cloture on the motion to proceed to legislation that unites the democrats, all but one in yesterday's vote, sharply divides republicans. what were there? 17 republicans who voted to support that. uniting democrats, sharply dividing republicans while advancing democratic policy interests. this is deeply concerning. i want to get back to gaza for a moment. i think a lot of americans would be absolutely shocked and horrified to learn that congress has almost no visibility into how our funds are used within the united nations and other

multilateral globalist organizations. with ukraine alone, our own government admits, quote, routing u.s. assistance funds to ukraine through multilateral institutions where u.s. donations will merge with funding streams from other international donors and that that has the potential to reduce transparency and oversight. so i use this here in the context of gaza by comparison. we know what we're doing. this is not a surprise. when we put money out there into the stream of international commerce, into the stream of international government-to-government business dealings, we know full well that that's going to end up in the hands of others, will be placed in turn in the hands of others and before we know it, we have lost any opportunity to have transparency or to achieve any degree of oversight. so why would we expect that

routing our assistance for gaza through the united nations will be any different, will be one degree different? we shouldn't. we're foolish to think that. in fact, think about it. decades of united states bankrolling the entire united nations system. we're by far the united nations' largest benefactor, much to my dismay. we have been for some time. but decades of the united states bank rolling that whole system in the united nations have made taxpayers complicit in all sorts of things that americans don't like, don't want, and have every reason to oppose. but somehow we and the united nations end up being shielded from this because of how many times those dollars change hands. well, it's not on us anymore. it's on this person.

it's on the united nations. the united nations says we give -- gave it to this entity and to that entity. before you know it, nobody is in charge. nobody is accountable for where the money went, how it was spent, and whether it harmed those who worked many hard hours to pay their taxes in the united states to fund those things. and in doing that, we've made taxpayers complicit in all kinds of things. in terrorism, in blatant, virulent forms of anti-semitism and the indoctrination of generations of children living in gaza. it's one of the reasons why once we're past this phase, once we're past the motion to proceed phase, assuming we pass it, which appears far too likely for my comfort, i'll be introducing an amendment, an amendment to

clarify that not only will our dollars stop funding un-rwa which mercifully says one of this can go to unwra, violent rhetoric advocating for acts of violence against jewish people and other hateful rhetoric. not only will our dollars stop funding unrwa but they will no longer fund any u.n. organization operating in gaza. we've been down this road before, mr. president, funneling our aid dollars through multilateral institutions. we know exactly how this ends. without my amendment, i've got others, lots of others in fact, but without this particular amendment of which i now speak, there's nothing in this bill to prevent the administration from taking funds that would otherwise have gone to unrwa and

redirecting them to any of the -- any combination of the nearly two dozen other u.n. entities that happen to operate in gaza where we lose all visibility into where our dollars end up and how they're used. look, enough is enough. like most multilateral institutions, supported by the united states as the principle benefactor or not, the u.n. is a bloated, corrupt system far past its prime, and it's proven adversarial to u.s. interests, interests of the united states as a whole and of its people. the truly just outcome would be for us to stop funding the united nations overall. i've been advocating for that. that's a discussion point for a different day.

but the point here that i have to make is that we can't trust this administration not to fund u.n. programs in gaza. and we can't trust the u.n. not to fund terrorists which is exactly why my amendment is urgently needed. before i close, i also want to talk about another amendment that i will be introducing. again, this is a nonexhaustive list but another one that needs to be mentioned here. it is one that imposes restrictions on the economic support fund in the legislation, the economic support fund relative to ukraine. every dollar in economic aid in this bill for ukraine really is, as written it's a slap in the face to every hardworking american. battling the cost of living crisis cited by bidenomics here at home. now, economic aid isn't going to

win the war for ukraine. on the contrary. economic aid may at best prove to be a waste of money. may at worst may prolong the problems and agony from it by masking the true cost to ukrainians and to europeans more broadly of this conflict. americans would be furious to learn that billions of dollars out of their paychecks are subsidizing clothing stores, concert tickets for ukrainians while families here live paycheck to paycheck. now, some of my colleagues called the billions of dollars in economic assistance provided to ukraine a small amount. really? economic assistance makes up 34% of the $113 billion in assistance the u.s. has already provided to ukraine. calling that a small portion is an insult to every struggling american, every american family struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

the leaders of both parties will tell you that this bill cut economic aid to ukraine. well, that's a lie. one doesn't cut aid by adding to it. let's be clear. providing $7.8 billion instead of biden's initial boondoggle request of roughly $11 billion, that's not a cut. that's simply starting with a larger number only to reduce it. it's not a cut. the bill as written mercifully prohibits pension payments out of that economic assistance fund. but it allows american tax dollars to keep paying the salaries of zelenskyy and his bureaucrats. now, my colleagues have also said that cutting economic aid to ukraine in this bill sends a message to our european nato allies to step up and do more. but make no mistake. this is a laughable attempt at a burden sharing.

look, my time is expiring. i'll be back a i'll be back to speak more of concerns that i have with legislation and ways that i've come up with that, if passed by this body prior to passage of this whole bill, could make some things better, could make some things less bad. i think at this point that may be the best we can do. we're going to do everything we can to do it. make no mistakes, this bill is a mistake. it has been written in the wrong way. it serves the wrong people. our job, first and foremost, is to do no harm to the american people. and on that front, this bill fails miserably. thank you, mr. president. to 15.

ms. collins: i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes prayer to the roll call vote. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise to urge strong support for the national security supplemental appropriations bill before us. earlier this week, general can a reconcile la, the -- corilla, the commander of u.s. central command, told me that this is the most dangerous time in 50 years. the threats the united states faces from an aggressive iran and its proxies, an imperialist

russia, and a hegemonic china are interconnected, and they require our immediate attention. that is why this bill focuses not only on strengthening our allies but also on fortifying our military and rebuilding our own defense industrial base. since october, there have been more than 170 attacks on u.s. servicemembers throughout the middle east. we have seen unprovoked attacks on our naval ships and the loss of two navy seals at sea and three brave servicemembers in jordan.

merchant ships have been attacked in the red sea. they have been protected by our navy ships, including, i am proud to say, the uss carney, a destroyer built at bath iron works in maine, which has shot down numerous houthi uav's. mr. president, despite the perilous times that we live in, i heard a colleague suggest on the senate floor that we are not ready to consider this bill. i would contend that we cannot wait any longer. he also implied that it had been shroudeded in secrecy. mr. president, that is simply inconsistent with the facts. the package before us is the

result of months of deliberations, starting on october 20 when the president submitted his national security supplemental request to congress, available for all to read and review. on october 31, the senate appropriations committee held a three and a half hour hearing on the request. virtually every member of the committee attended. secretary of state blinken and secretary of defense austin testified. the presiding officer: the senator will suspend. senators are asked to take their conversations off the floor. the senator from maine. ms. collins: prior to this hearing, this public hearing, mr. president, the last time the committee held a hearing on a supplemental budget request was

march 25, 2010, more than 13 years earlier. so under the leadership of chair murray and myself, we have been transparent. we have held countless public hearings, including on the supplemental before us. the following week our committee held a second hearing. this -- at this hearing, the secretaries of homeland security and health and human services testified on the supplemental request. in the time that followed, there were numerous discussions on the content of the supplemental funding bill, information was gathered on emerging needs, particularly with regard to u.s. military operations in the middle east, and the bill's language was refined and improved. on february 4, the text of the

national security and border supplemental was released along with a section-by-section analysis to make it easier for members. after it was clear that there was not sufficient support to advance the border security provisions, revised text was included that excluded the border security sections, and that is the package before us today, a package that has taken us months to get to this point and that began in october with the submission of the budget request and was subjected to extensive public hearings. further delay or, worse, an outright refusal to address these challenges cannot be the answer. there is simply too much at

risk. mr. president, the package before us would bolster u.s. military readiness, help ukraine counter russian aggression, assist israel in its fight against terrorists, and deter a rising china. now, met me briefly describe the major components of this legislation. first, $35 billion would go to responsoring u.s. military readiness. this includes $26 billion to replenish defense department stockpiles with new and in many cases upgraded weapons and equipment. 'd 35.4 billion to increase -- $5.4 billion to increase production capacity for ar reconcile if i, air defense, and long-range precision missiles, $3.3 billion to enhance the u.s.

submarine industrial base in support of our trilateral security partnership with the united kingdom and australia, known as aukus. this funding directly supports our military defense and defense industrial base. one of the ways that we support ukraine, israel, and taiwan is through the transfer of weapons and equipment from our stockpiles. the replenishment funding that i just mentioned allows us to replace those articles with new and often more modern, more effective munitions and equipment, defending both our military and theirs -- benefitting both our military and theirs. by modernizing our arsenal of democracy and improving the readiness of the u.s. military

to deter any adversary, this funding makes america stronger. second, the bill provides resources to assist ukraine as it defends its territory following the second russian invasion. and let us keep in mind -- putin has made no secret of his plan. his plan is to re-create the former soviet union. if he is allowed to be successful in ukraine, i believe he will then seize moldova, invade georgia, menace the baltic states and threaten poland, and then our troops will be involved in a european war. today we are not the one, our troops are not dying on the ukrainian battlefield.

we include $15.4 billion to help ukraine purchase weapons from the u.s. industry so that it can defend itself. it includes $11.3 billion to support our servicemembers in europe, principally in poland and germany, who are helping our allies equip and train ukrainian forces. it also provides $9.4 billion for economic assistance to help ukraine rebuild its economy. now, let me spend a moment on this point. the president's request for direct budget support was $11.8 billion. we rejected that amount as too much. we reduced it to $7.8 billion,

and we further stipulated that no funds could be used to reimburse pensions. tonight i heard on the floor that the europeans were not doing their part. madam president, that's simply not true. many of our european partners -- i think of the baltics states, for example, with whom chair murray and i met with representatives of recently -- are contributing a greater percentage of their gdp by far than we are. why are we joining our european allies and providing economic assistance to ukraine? as part of his plan to try to force ukraine to surrender, putin has sought to destroy ukraine's economy, tax base, and exports, including grain exports. this funding seeks to help ukraine rebuild so that

ultimately it will be able to provide for itself economically once again. but we're not just giving blank checks. we've included $23 million for inspectors general for continued oversight of ukraine assistance, including funding for the special i.g. that was established in this year's national defense authorization act. earlier in this debate, one of our colleagues suggested that our country had no strategy for ukraine. but once again the language of this bill has been ignored. it requires a strategy with achievable objectives with respect to u.s. assistance to ukraine. and the appropriations committee did not draft this language alone. we did so in consultation with the senate foreign relations and armed services committees.

third, this bill fully funds the budget request to support israel in the war against hamas. it includes $5.2 billion for israel's missile defense programs, including iron dome, david sling, and iron beam. the first two of those are co-produced with the united states. it also will -- also includes funding for foreign military financing for israel and funding for u.s. embassy support oversight and other assistance. this next part is really important. the bill includes, it adds to the supplemental $2.4 billion to support our u.s. forces as they face ongoing attacks in the region and to sustain u.s. military operations in central

command against the houthis and other iranian-backed proxies. general kurilla stressed to me how critical this funding is. this bill includes resources aimed at deterring a rising china. it includes $2 billion in foreign military financing for the indo-pacific region, which includes obviously taiwan, but also the philippines and vietnam. it provides funding for missile defense for guam, for new technologies to detect undersea threats and for training and exercises. funding is also included to address a choke point in the supply chain for motors that affect multiple long-range cruise missiles, including harpoons and the tomahawk.

the submarine industrial base, previously mentioned, will also benefit our regional partners as they help the united states meet its commitment under aukus while protecting the size of our own submarine fleet. finally, i want to note that this bill includes $9 billion for global humanitarian assistance. this funding would help the state department and usaid respond to critical humanitarian needs around the world from ukraine and eastern europe to the middle east and africa. more than 108 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced today. madam president, i want to emphasize that only 15% of that assistance, 1.4 billion, is for

gaza. and of that amount, 400 million that had been targeted by the administration to flow through the united nations relief and works agency will not go through unrwa. despite allegations highlighted in the "wall street journal" last month and numerous publications that at least 12 unrwa employees had been directly involved in the october 7 terrorist attack on israel and in taking hostages and around 10% of all of its gaza staff have ties to islamic militant groups, incredibly the biden administration continued to push for unrwa funding.

i want my colleagues to know that this bill includes an outright prohibition on funding in this supplemental and prior appropriations from being used for any grants, contributions, or other u.s. payments to unrwa. we can distribute that humanitarian assistance through other organizations. the bill also includes stringent guardrails on humanitarian assistance to gaza. by march 1, the secretary of state must certify that policies, processes, and guidelines have been established and are in use to prevent the diversion of aid by hamas or other terrorist groups. this includes consultations with the government of israel, which has made clear the importance of

humanitarian assistance to its objectives in gaza. third-party monitoring and intelligence assessments provide additional layers of oversight. and we finally include a total of $10 million for the state department and usaid inspectors general, funding that the administration did not request but that should accompany any assistance for gaza. madam president, i encourage my colleagues at this time, this perilous time, to support this bill that includes the funding desperately needed to strengthen america's military readiness, to help ukraine counter brutal russian aggression, to assist our closest ally in the middle

east, israel, in its fight against terrorism, and to deter a rising china. the stakes are high, and we must meet the moment. thank you, madam president. mrs. murray: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. let's be clear. the stakes of this moment could not be higher. the question before us is nothing short of what kind of future do we want for our kid. our role as the leader of the free world is on the line. if we tell dictators like putin they can trample sovereign democracies with impunity, if we tell our allies that they are on their own, if we tell suffering civilians help is not on the way, if we tell the world the era of american leadership and resolve is over, we will be

inviting chaos, emboldening dictators, and leaving the world a much more dangerous place for our kids. is that is exactly why this package is so important. that is why we have insisted for months on a serious comprehensive national security supplemental that actually meets this moment and doesn't leave any of our allies behind. it has been a long frustrating road, but democrats have been glued to the negotiating table because failure is not an option here. listen, i hope we move forward quickly on this package now. and i, like many others, want a fair and reasonable bipartisan amendment process, but recognize that those of us who understand the stakes of this moment are ready to stay here as long as it takes to get this done. i hope all of our colleagues will continue to work with me,

the senator from maine to get this over the finish line because right now soldiers in ukraine are counting their bullets wondering how long they can hold out. dictators are watching closely to see if this is their time to move a move. civilians, including kids, are caught in the crossfire and in desperate need of food and water and medical care. we do not have a second to lose. so let's get this done and show the world american leadership is still strong. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: majority leader. mr. schumer: so in a few moments the senate is going to take the next step towards passing the supplemental. tonight's vote keeps the process of passing this emergency national security package moving forward on the senate floor. as i said, i hope our republican colleagues can work with us to

reach an agreement on amendments so we can move this bill more quickly. democrats are willing to consider reasonable and fair amendments here on the floor. as we've shown on many occasions in the past three years. nevertheless, the senate will keep working on this bill until the job is done. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: all postcloture time is expired. the question occurs on the motion to proceed. is there a sufficient second? there is a sufficient second. the clerk will call the roll. the clerk: ms. baldwin.

the clerk: mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. mr. booker. mr. boozman. mr. braun.

the clerk: mrs. britt. mr. brown. mr. budd. ms. butler.

ms. cantwell. mrs. capito. mr. cardin. mr. carper. mr. casey. mr. cassidy. ms. collins. mr. coons. mr. cornyn. ms. cortez masto. mr. cotton. the clerk: mr. cramer mr. crapo. mr. cruz. mr. daines. ms. duckworth. mr. durbin.

ms. ernst. mr. fetterman. mrs. fischer. mrs. gillibrand. mr. graham. mr. grassley. mr. hagerty. ms. hassan. mr. hawley. mr. heinrich. mr. hickenlooper. ms. hirono. mr. hoeven. mrs. hyde-smith. mr. johnson. mr. kaine. mr. kelly. mr. kennedy.

mr. king. ms. klobuchar. mr. lankford. mr. lee. mr. lujan. ms. lummis. mr. manchin. mr. markey. mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. menendez. mr. merkley. mr. moran. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. mr. romney. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. rubio. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina.

mrs. shaheen. ms. sinema. ms. smith. ms. stabenow. mr. sullivan. mr. tester. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. vance. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. vote:

the clerk: senators voting in the affirmative, baldwin, blumenthal, brown, butler, capito, cardin, collins, cortez-masto, duckworth, gillibrand, grassley, hassan, heinrich, king, lujan, mcconnell, menendez, merkley, mullin, murphy, murray, padilla, peters, reed, rosen, rounds, schumer, sinema, smith, tester, tillis, warner, whitehouse, wicker, wyden, young. senators voting in the negative, blackburn, britt, crapo, fischer, graham, hawley, hoeven,

paul, ricketts, rubio, sanders, schmitt, tuberville. ms. stabenow, aye. mr. thune, aye. mr. fetterman, aye. the clerk: mr. ossoff, aye. mr. warnock, aye.

the clerk: mr. manchin, aye. mr. cotton, no. mr. van hollen, aye. mr. schatz, aye. mr. cassidy, aye. the clerk: mr. markey, aye.

the clerk: mr. booker, aye. the clerk: mr. hickenlooper, aye.

ms. warren, aye.

the clerk: mr. cramer, no.

the clerk: ms. murkowski, aye. the clerk: mr. casey, aye.

the clerk: mr. romney, aye. mr. welch, aye. mr. durbin, aye. the clerk: ms. klobuchar, aye.

the clerk: mr. kaine, aye.

the clerk: mr. coons, aye. mrs. shaheen the clerk: mrs. shaheen, aye.

the clerk: ms. hirono, aye. vote: the clerk: mr. bennet, aye.

mr. carper, aye. the clerk: ms. cantwell, aye.

the clerk: mr. boozman, no. the clerk: mr. lee, no.

the clerk: mr. kelly, aye.

the clerk: mr. sullivan, aye.

the clerk: mr. scott of south carolina, no.

vote: the clerk: mr. vance, no.

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 64, the nays are 19. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the bill u. the clerk: calendar number 30, h.r. 815, an act to amend title 38, united states code, and so forth and for other purposes. mr. schumer: mr. president. madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i call up substitute amendment 1388. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. mr. schumer: i ask to -- the clerk: mr. schumer for mrs. murray proposes an amendment numbered 1388. mr. schumer: i ask to deception with further read -- dispense with further reading of the amendment. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. schumer schumer i consider not -- mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i a i have a cloture motion for the substitute amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: complorment. the clerk:

we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the murray substitute, amendment number 1388, to calendar number 30, h.r. 815, an act to amendment title 38, united states code, and so forth and for other purposes. signed by 18 senators as follows -- mr. schumer: i ask further reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: i have an amendment at the-esque did. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from from new york, mr. schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 1577 to amendment number 1388. at the appropriate place, added following -- mr. schumer: wake waive. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have a second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york, mr. schumer, proposes an

amendment numbered 1578 to amendment number 1577. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with further reading. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: i have an amendment to the text proposed to be stricken at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york, mr. schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 1579 to the language proposed to be stricken by amendment number 1388. at the appropriate place -- insert -- the presiding officer: i ask to dispense with the reading. the presiding officer:? 0? without objection. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. officer is there a sufficient second? appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have a second-degree amendment to the text proposed to be stricken at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york, mr. schumer, appropriate an amendment numbered 15 80 to amendment 1579. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with further reading. the presiding officer: is there

objection? without objection. mr. schumer: i move to commit h.r. 815 to the committee on veterans' affairs with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. mr. schumer: la schumer moves to commit the bill to the committee an veterans airrelevance with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment number 1581. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with further reading. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: subsidy for the yeas and nays u. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have an amendment to the instructions at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york mr. schumer proposes an enemy numbered 1582 to the instructions of the motion to commit h.r. 815. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with further reading of the amendment. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered.

mr. schumer: i have a second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. schumer proposes an amendment numbered 1583 to 1582. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with further reading. the presiding officer: is there 0? without objection. mr. schumer: i have a cloture motion for the underlying bill at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on calendar number 30, h.r. 815, an act to amendment title 38, united states code, and so forth and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. schumer: i i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.