place now is broken and they don't have an opportunity to weigh in. before i leave the bothered, i want to mention one thing. if there is one thing that could crystallize the lun gentlemansy -- lunacy of this president's policy. it was something called operation talon. what is operation talon? it was an effort to deport previously convicted sex offenders from other countries. there's a lot that divides us, but -- i don't know, i would think that's something we could come together on. maybe we want to deport people who have been previously convicted of -- of sex offenders -- sex offenses. evidently not. that was -- that was too difficult for the biden administration to accept

probably because trump did it. that reflexive desire to undo success, to appease the group clamoring for more compassion at the border has completely backedfire -- backfired. women and children are being raped on their way to the southern border. the cartels are in control. fentanyl is streaming across. human trafficking, that when i went to the board as attorney general of missouri was then at the time, we saw two-thirds of the level of illegal immigration we see now, was valued at $100 million a week. $100 million a week for the human trafficking alone. some of that is the worst stuff you can imagine, but some also was people being trafficked across, placed in employment in

cities across this country, being taken advantage of, and if they ever expressed any concern their frame might -- their family might get killed back home. there's nothing compassionate about what's happening at the border. the media won't cover it. my suspicion is if this was happening under the previous administration, "nbc nightly news" would be camped out for a year at the southern border. that's not what we see. what do we see here? 98 senators, 96 senators locked out. i mean this as a call to any colleagues who are listening, and i've had many of these conversations already, there is a better way. we can strike some real reform in the way that we handle things, regular order is talked about, an open amendment process is talked about.

there are a couple people who don't want to see that happen. senator schumer certainly doesn't. think about the power he gets to yield -- come too me, i'm the one that -- come to me, i get to come down from the mountain and unveil the tab tablets. you'll be cast aside if you dare try to change what's been carved into stone. that is not what our republic is supposed to be like. each one of ups from different states, and madam president, our states share a border along the mississippi river, there's a lot of things we have in common as missourians and illinoisans, my wife is from illinois, has family there, we get to visit. there are a lot of things we agree on, but also things that are different. we have a system of federalism, and the founders had a really unique opportunity at the time 240 some odd years ago to create

a government from whole cloth. they got the unique opportunity to create structural safeguards to protect individual liberty. they were students of human history. they understood the dangers of consolidation of power, of what it meant to have a single person in charge of too many things. they had seen it play out, and it plays out in the world today. so a system of government was created to spread out that power, vertically and horiz horizontally. the states came together and unanimously agreed on the very limited powers they wanted the federal government to have, and the states retained the rest. the states were sovereign. they made this compact. the first one didn't work with

the articles of confederation, but the constitution has stuck, thank god, and in that constitution the article 1 branch is the first one mentioned, of course, because what we do here has enormous impact on people, and we're supposed to be connected to the people, not cloaked away, telling everyone we know better than them. the idea that as a united states senator you cannot come to this floor and say i have an idea, i have a way that i think would improve this bill and offer it and have people vote on it, is totally insane to me. maybe i had not been here long

enough to have that idealism beaten out of me, but i will never lose that. i will never lose that desire, sincere desire, no matter your political party, to have the ability to come out here and try to persuade or your willingness to be persuaded. unique coalitions can be formed from that. all of that's taken out. for me, some diagnosis of why this place is so dysfunctional, there are zero vehicles -- well, there are very limited vehicles. for the folks in the gallery coming here today, or the people list listening, what you think happens here doesn't happen here. i mean, i think back a little over a year ago when i was sworn

in, or before i got sworn in, there was an orientation that we go through, and you meet the people that are going to have this shared experience with you as a freshman member of the united states senate. it is humbling. i speak for myself, i think for all the freshmen members, republicans or democrats, understand what a unique privilege this is to serve in this chamber. when i signed my name in that book, i was number 2,000, which is kind of cool. and you learn a lot. you are given some reading materials. i've always kind of had an interest in particularly this chamber and the unique role it plays in our republic. it's supposed to be -- there's a reason why they take 60 votes to move. it's not supposed to be a place where simple majority rules.

that's for the house of represe representatives, which of course every two years has elections, is supposed to be more rooted in the kind of changes that can happen every couple of years. the senate, it's staggered terms, every six years, supposed to be more deliberative. this body is not deliberative. it's deliberately exclusionary. what have we seen? anyway, you read about how the senate used to operate. i'm not talking about ancient history. i'm talking about a couple decades ago. i mean, in the course of a republic it's certainly not that big of a breech in time. where a senator would have an

amendment, and get voted on. there's something that happens in that process. if a senator's got 80 amendments, the colleagues come up and say you know, senator from nebraska or whoever it would be, you know, we get it you sure all of them are necessary? maybe they are. maybe they're not. there's a social pressure that comes into play, and you start figuring out what are the most important things, you start to see where the body might be if you have similar issues that have come up on amendments. there's a flow to it. right now, there's no flow. we come in here a couple times a week in a 45-minute window to say yes or no to some judicial nominations, because chuck schumer, you better go to his

office, you want anything to happen. if you want some glorious omnibus monstrosity, that's where you head. it's worth pointing out that we've already done a couple of these c.r.s. we're headed to another. get how much time we've dedicated to appropriations bills. in almost 14 months, since i've been here, we have spent a grand total of eight hours on one piece of legislation that combined three appropriation bills. that's it. so, for a government that is bankrupt, borrowing money to spend, that's the kind of respect that the majority leader has given to the american people on perhaps the most important thing we're supposed to do every day -- or every year, which is to kind of sift through our prio

priorities. that's been robbed from this place. it is my sincere hope that in this place a group of us can come together, a bipartisan group together, and demand real reforms. this idea of filling a tree, it's totally abilitiy thet cal. i -- antithetical. i mentioned the founders created a similarity, they were worried of aggregation of power. i can't think of a greater aggregation of power in what's supposed to be a place where power is diffused among the hundred of us, than one person getting to decide that amendments don't get to come on. look, by the way, this is a point made for my republican colleagues and democrat colleagues about onning and withholding -- about objecting and withholding consent. there's a lot of muscle memory that needs to get back into this place, where we're allowed to vote, but you see the

frustration. you don't need to be like a social scientist to figure out where the frustration comes from. there's not that many vehicles. something gets bounced of yours, people, human nature, they maybe want to bounce something from somebody else. i guess my plea here is that we use this, regardless of how you feel about this particular bill, this slow-moving train wreck of how we do business here that everybody privately kind of looks at this and says this is not the way, this can't be the way. and then you have a bubbling up among members, rank-and-file members, to demand something different. but we can't get there if we just go along with this stuff every time, because somebody says this is how you're supposed to vote. you'll get out of here in three

hours. every time that happens, individual senators cede really important autonomy to help shape legislation that will affect people's lives or refuse, in this instance, to get serious about potentially demanding our southern border is secured before we send another 61 billion to another country. the appropriations process, i know that there's been some progress made in that committee, and i commend senator collins and senator murray for the work they put in. it doesn't necessarily mean i agree with, like, all of the work product necessarily, but that process that they went through is very important. and then what's supposed to happen is, it's like the old how

a bill becomes a law, those bills, each of them, is supposed to come out on their own, senators have an idea, amend it or not, they send to the house, or more appropriately for those bills comes over from the house, then we have vehicles to do that on the senate. something happens in that process. there's going to be disagreements. i don't care who is in charge. different parties between the chambers. there's going to be different priorities, different ideas. that's healthy. nen you work it out in a -- then you work it out in a conference committee, then it goes back to each chamber, up or down vote. that's how it's supposed to work. that's not how it works. not even close. we're already sort of creeping towards, again, talk about the embarrassment of riches for chuck schumer. he's got another couple c.r.'s

coming his way. then what you get to is a couple days before, or a day before, or five hours before, here it is. you need to support this, senator schmitt or senator scott or whoever, or you're in favor of shutting down the government. and rhett me -- let me read off the parade of terribles, of the things that will happen that you will be responsible for if you don't vote for this thing that i had came up with in my basement four hours ago. it's crazy. and i know that many of my senator friends agree, that i've had these conversations, if you're in your office and you agree with me, blink twice. we're all being held hostage here. so, i guess in the limited time that i have here, and if we have

more time later, i'll continue to talk about this, but i just think there's real opportunities for reform. i mean that sincerely. i mean that as a gesture of goodwill. and it doesn't need to be the stuff -- adopt even need to be my amendment. i'm prepared to win. i'm prepared to lose. i just think it's healthy for this place to have vehicles where people can offer these sorts of amendments, where they can have regular order. but i want to talk specifically about sort of where we're at with this one. we had a negotiation among a few people that produced the product that a lot of people didn't support. and that's not a personal attack

on anyone. quite the contrary. i appreciate the effort as senator lankford worked very hard. there are a lot of things that were very problematic from my perspective, not to relate gait that -- relitigate that. but only to say i think part of that, the lesson from it is, there's got to be more buy-in. there's got to be more input. and that all shouldn't happen, you know, where nobody with see it or there's broad strokes because i'm a little biassed here as a lawyer. the language actually does matter. and i think from the get-go, by the way, my position on this has been i think consistent. could roll the tape when i was on this floor talking about it. i think these issues should be spread out separately. i don't think ukraine money should be tied to israel money, should be tied to taiwan money. i think it's a mistake.

and again i think it robs the ability of individual senators to say you know, that situation is different. take the difference between ukraine, money, and israel money. there's different levels of support in this place. there's different likelihoods of success. there's different needs. there's different coalitions of allies around the world that can step up or haven't stepped up. but to continually come back to the american people without an articulated plan here or what victory looks like as relates to ukraine, you're denying a reality of the justified skep skepticism, and i'll just speak for my state. missouri is the show-me state.

missouri has always been skeptical. i don't care if it's harry truman or whoever who -- kit balm who stood at this desk -- who were skeptical of a government a thousand miles away or told them how to live their lives or a federal government saying to mozians or the american people, securing the southern border isn't a priority but sending 60-plus-billion to ukraine is today. it's so important, we're here all weekend. i don't care about that. but all business aside, we're going. and you're going to the mat. and you don't get amendments. the american people are smart. they see right through that. and you can try to explain it a away, but that is the reality. and the truth is joe biden could secure the border with the same

law that existed under president trump. refuses to do so. part of what that negotiation was supposed to be about i guess was if you wanted to tie this stuff together was you weren't going to have that unless the southern border was secured. we didn't get that. but here we go immediately confirming the worst fears of the american people that this whole debate, all of it, the center of gravity all along has been about the ukraine money. the rest of it window dressing. maybe to get a couple more votes to make it look like it had a broader bipartisan coalition or not. if people are being honest in this place, that's what it was about. so here we are now with the center of gravity at center stage. but instead of senators having an opportunity to maybe affect that in a particular way. maybe the $8 billion to pay for the government of ukraine might be amended out. i know senator cotton from arkansas has an amendment about that. that's -- we're not going to

have a chance to vote on that, i don't think. i had amendment to separate out aid for israel. we're not going to get to vote on that. and by the way, i don't think it necessarily changes the result too much on the floor if you separate it out ukraine and israel and taiwan. i don't think that it does. but it does certainly harm again people's trust and their faith in the process. and so the two main points i suppose i wanted to bring up in this 30 minutes before i yield back and reserve the remainder of my time is that i think if we have to be honest about the disconnect between what we're doing here and what's happening in real america and what people really feel about all this. and we can keep bulldozing right

through that but i think it's insulting and disrespectful to the american people. and secondly, and more broadly, we have to come together as senators and decide that no matter who's in charge, that people are going to have a say. they get to vote. they get to offer ideas. and all these little tricks and procedural roadblocks that have been set up by both parties over the last 40 years, 20 years probably more specifically, it's not healthy for our republic. and it certainly diminishes our power as individual senators to fight for the people of our states. madam president, i reserve the remainder of my time but yield back. thank you.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: madam president, earlier this week i came to the floor to discuss the horrific terror attacks committed by hamas against israel on october 7, the brutal murder of about 1200 people, and the seizure of 240 hostages. i underscored the fact that israel not only has the right but it has the duty to defend itself against those heinous acts and prevent any future october 7's. never again. i also repeated my calls to prioritize the release of hostages, including american citizens. madam president, i also pointed out that while israel is conducting a justice war, it

must be waged justly, including taking all necessary measures to protect innocent civilians. last week secretary of state blinken made his fifth trip to israel where this time he urged prime minister netanyahu not to launch a major military operation against rafah, a city in southern gaza whose population has increased fivefold since the beginning of the war because palestinian refugees fleeing from northern gaza and other parts of gaza were told by the netanyahu government that rafah was a safe place for them to go. within hours of meeting with secretary blinken, prime minister netanyahu rebuffed that request and announced publicly that he had decided to launch

just such an operation against rafah. and yesterday as if to rub it in, prime minister netanyahu appeared on abc sunday television here in the united states to say that despite the requests from the united states, he had decided that israel will launch a military operation against the city of rafah. madam president, this is part of a pattern, a pattern where prime minister netanyahu thanks president biden and the united states for our substantial military assistance but then mostly rejects our request to take measures to protect civilians and to facilitate desperately-needed humanitarian assistance to people in need. president biden has called the bombings in gaza quote, indiscriminate, and the united states has repeatedly called upon the netanyahu government to take steps to end the huge number of civilian deaths from

bombing, artillery, and other weaponry. the death toll now stands at over 28,000 people, over two-thirds of them women and children. and what does prime minister netanyahu say? he says israel is already doing all it can. president biden recently called israel's actions in gaza, quote, over the top, unquote. prime minister netanyahu said he didn't know what president biden was talking about. every major international aid organization that i have spoken to and i've spoken to virtually every one says the humanitarian crisis in gaza is the worst they've seen in the world ever in their decades of experience, as over 400,000 people are on the verge of starvation and the entire population of over 200

million is at crisis levels of food insecurity. meanwhile, israeli authorities in gaza say there is no humanitarian crisis in gaza, unquote. the biden administration has repeatedly urged the netanyahu government to allow for more humanitarian assistance into gaza only to be mostly ignored. the overriding message to the united states from the netanyahu coalition is this. thanks for giving us all the weapons. thanks for your taxpayer support. but don't lecture us about civilian casualties or the need to better facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. for example, on his trip to israel last week, secretary blinken pointed out that, quote, israelis were dehumanized in the

most horrific wake on october 7 and that the hostages have been dehumanized every day since. i agree. secretary blinken then went on to say but that cannot be a license to dehumanize others, unquote. a former israeli ambassador to the united states michael orren responded by essentially saying thank you, secretary blinken, for the ammunition, but don't accuse israel of dehumanization because that delegitimatizes israel and makes it harder for us to use that ammunition or to defend ourselves and exercise our right to self-defense. in other words, former ambassador orren was saying keep sending us the weapons but don't suggest that we are dehumanizing

innocent palestinians. madam president, i would suggest that rather than criticizing secretary blinken for his comments, mikele orren and others should condemn the dehumanizing statements about palestinians that have been made by the netanyahu coalition and other israeli government officials during the war in gaza. here are just some of them. one said, and i quote, there's no such thing as innocence in gaza, unquote. another minister described the campaign in gaza as, quote, rolling out the gaza knockba being a reference to the mass displacement of palestinians back in 1948. and that statement was echoed by other members of netanyahu's party. another member said, and i

quote, there's no place for any humanitarian gestures. we must erase the memory of amalach, referring to members of a biblical tribe that was an enemy of israel, such an enemy that scripture that said the israel lights should -- israelites should put to death every man, woman and child. indeed prime minister netanyahu said himself and i quote, you must remember what amalach has done to you, one that has long used to justify the inhumane treatment of palestinians. even president herzog considered by many to be a more moderate voice painted all palestinians with a broad brush saying, and i quote, it's an entire nation out there that is responsible. it's not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. it's absolutely not true. president herzog.

madam president, these are just a sampling of the many statements made by government officials and netanyahu coalition members. so what should the united states do? what should we do when bombs and artillery that we have provided and paid for are being used to kill large numbers of innocent palestinian civilians? and we are told to go mind our own business. what should the united states do when over 2 million palestinian civilians, who have nothing to do with hamas, are facing a humanitarian catastrophe that the netanyahu government refuses to open the aretz crossing or take the other 25 measures that

president biden asked toil to do. what should the united states do what the netanyahu government refuses to prioritize the release of all the hostages, including american citizens? what should we do when an extremist settler in the west bank, in many cases, with the idf standing by and in some cases with their active participation, attacks palestinians with impunity and pushes them off their land? what should we do? what should we do when we have made clear that the united states opposes the launch of a new military operation in the city of gaza because it will turn into an even bigger humanitarian disaster, but prime minister netanyahu goes on american national tv to say he's going to do it anyway? rafah is a city in southern gaza. before the war started it was a city with a population of about 300,000 people. it's population has now

multiplied in size by five times. at 1.3 million people -- about 1.3 million people are there now, about one million of them having fled death and destruction in other parts of gaza because they were told by prime minister netanyahu and others that they would be safe there. i visited the egyptian side of the rafah gate about five weeks ago along with my colleague, senator merkley, to better understand the humanitarian situation in gaza. we talked to people, we listened to people, we got fully briefed. madam president, the humanitarian situation was a catastrophe then. and by all accounts, the situation in gaza has gone from nightmare to pure hell. even more so in the north than in the south. when asked on national television on sunday where all

of these civilians now seeking refuge would go, prime minister netanyahu breezily stated, you know... the areas that we've cleared north of of rafah. plenty of areas there. that's what the prime minister said. -- on american tv. now, madam president, lest he's talking about areas that have been cleared by bombing and reduced to rubble, it's simply not true. don't believe those who claim that there's an easy path to caring for the 1.3 million people in rafah. it wasn't that long ago that prime minister netanyahu claimed that there was no humanitarian crisis in gaza.

no humanitarian crisis there. in fact, he boasted that he was allowing into gaza the, quote, minimum amount of humanitarian aid to avoid a humanitarian disaster. well, the claim that there's no humanitarian disaster doesn't pass any credible test. and we know that. for weeks the united nations and international aid organizations have warned that palestinian citizens are on the verge of starvation. those warnings have been ignored and dismissed by prime minister netanyahu and his extremist government. just recently the world food programme, together with unicef, which is the u.n. organization to look after the well-being of children around the world, both these organizations by the way currently headed by americans,

they -- the wfp and unicef issued an analysis recently on the deterioration of the nutrition situation in gaza. during the first 120 days of the war. here are some of the things that they concluded. in northern gaza, more than 90% of children aged 6 to 23 months and pregnant and breastfeeding womened and girls -- women and girls faced severe food poverty. the food they do have is of the lowest nutritional value. more than 90% of children aged 6 to 23 months and mored than 95% of pregnant and breast-feeding women and girls are eating two or fewer food groups. he 95% of households are limiting meals and portion sizes, 64% are only eating one

meal a day. they indicated that health screenings show a rapid deterioration of the nutrition situation for children aged 6 to 23 months in northern gaza with global acute malnutrition at over 15%. who, the world health organization, classifies global acute malus frnutrition, 15%, a critical emergency. madam president, yesterday i began to hear reports of people who have actually starved to death in gaza. so earlier today i asked the head of the world food programme, farmer american ambassador cindy mccain, about these reports. i sent her a note, a text

message asking about reports that some children have now crossed the awful threshold from being on the verge of starvation of dying of starvation. she wrote back, and i quote, this is true. we are unable to get in enough food to keep people from the brink. famine is imminent. i wish i had better news, end quote. madam president, i want that to sink in. kids in gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. in addition to the horror of that news, one other anyoning -- one other thing is true -- that is a war crime. it is a textbook war -- war crime. that makes those who arc

straight it -- orchestrate is war criminals 67b8g9 so now the question is what will the united states do? what will we do? what will president biden do? president biden must take action in response to what is happening. first and foremost, the president must demand that the netanyahu government immediately allow more food and water and other lifesaving supplies into gaza and make sure it reaches the children and other people who are starving. including in the north. a few weeks ago 25 senators wrote the president a letter outlining some of those steps. to my knowledge, none of those five steps have been implemented by the netanyahu government. second, in less and until -- unless and until the netanyahu government allows more relief into gaza, president biden needs to invoke section 620-i of the

foreign assistance act. madam president, here's the exact language of that section of the foreign assistance act. quote, no assistance shall be furnished under this chapter of the arms export control act to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of united states humanitarian assistance. now, about three weeks ago i asked senior state department officials to tell me why this law, section 620-i of the

foreign assistance act, has not been applied. tell me how it's not the case that prime minister netanyahu is not restricting directly or indirectly the transport or delivery of united states humanitarian assistance when we have the humanitarian horror show that i just mentioned. well, i haven't gotten an answer to the question i posed about three weeks ago. and the answer, madam president, is there is no good answer to that question. now, i applaud the president of the united states for issuing national security memorandum number 20 a few days ago. national security memorandum number 20, which now has full legal force, is based on an amendment that i and 18 of my

fellow senators filed on this national security bill that we're considering right now. and i want to thank the president and his team for putting the terms of that amendment into action, into law through the national security memorandum, which gives the president of the united states additional tools to require that countries, all countries that receive and use our military assistance do so in accordance with international humanitarian law. in fact, here's the wording of the national security memorandum which is now the law of the land. quote -- the secretary of state shall obtain credible and reliable written assurances from a representative of the recipient country as the secretary of state deems appropriate that in any area of armed conflict where such

recipient country uses such defense articles consistent with applicable law, the recipient country will facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of united states humanitarian assistance and united states government-supported international efforts to provide humanitarian assistance. that is now the law of the land. madam president, the bill before us does is a number of things -- does a number of things. it provides military assistance to ukraine, to israel, to our partners in the indo-pacific. it also contains lifesaving humanitarian aid that if it can actually be delivered to those who need it would save lives in gaza, the west bank, sudan, and other places around the world facing desperate humanitarian situations.

as i've said before on this floor, i am supporting this bill because of the vital military assistance it provides to the people of ukraine. and i will vote for it, because without that assistance, they will not be able to sustain their courageous effort to fight off the onslaught against their democracy and their sovereignty from vladimir putin. and i support the vital humanitarian assistance in this bill, and i fully support the funds to supply israel with the iron dome system and other defensive systems that have been essential to protect the people of israel from hamas rocket attacks and are there to protect them from other incoming missiles. with respect to the lethal offensive portion of that assistance, i am asking president biden to make sure that it is provided in strict adherence to national security

memorandum 20 that he just issued and be used only in accordance with international humanitarian law. that memorandum provides the president with substantial new leverage to make that happen, if he chooses to use it. i hope he will e -- he will. because the united states government has an obligation on behalf of the american people to make sure that our military support aligns with our values and interests. there should be no blank checks for any country. we cannot continue the pattern where prime minister netanyahu says, thank you, mr. president, for america's generous military assistance, and then thumbs his nose at america's legitimate requests.

madam president, this is a hinge moment in history with what's going on right now in ukraine. but it's also a critical question for our country with respect to what's going on in gaza. and i hope and i pray that the president of the united states will make sure that the united states conducts itself in a manner that is consistent with our values and with our interests. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, some of my democratic colleagues will want you to believe that any opposition to their agenda is evil and unjustified. they have claimed for weeks the questions about the $95 billion

bill that is consider a root in some right wing aenlt democracy conspiracy and the liberal press gospel lies -- press lies is gospel. one of the first decisions facing our new republic was whether to engage in the conflict raging between french revolutionaries and alliance of european nations led by great britain. as we all know, president george washington ultimately decided to remain neutral in that conflict. knowing that a new nation was not prepared to assume the grand responsibilities of supporting a cause no matter how noble while properly attending to the pressing matters facing his new government at home. america was cash strapped and war weary. the centuries that passed that moment our great nation einvolvemented the united states has grown to the leader of the free world, the true global super power, representing ideals of liberty, freedom and

democracy and standing staunchly against oppression and tyranny wherever it is found. we no longer must wrestle with these issues, these decisions the way our founders did but we still face tremendous challenges that i'm sure washington, hamilton and jefferson could have never imagined. today we are once again cash strapped and war weary. like never before americans are questioning whether their federal government has lost its way, now fails to represent the people they elected. less than 25% of the country believes we are on the right track. in decades the politicians in washington have been addicted to earmarks and pushing reckless fiscal policy have decimated the financial health of our nation. the united states has more than $34 trillion in debt soon to exceed $35 trillion. and a budget deficit projected

this year of nearly $1.8 trillion. since 2019, the u.s. population increased 1.8% but our federal budget is set to increase by 55%. surprise to many, federal revenues were down over 9% last year. the last three months we have lost nearly 1.6 million full-time jobs. part-time jobs are up more than 85,000 americans -- 850,000 americans as more americans can't find full time work and work multiple jobs to make ends meet. biden's reckless created immense pain for families every day especially poor families like mine growing up. the world's evil regimes does not wait for the united states to be in the top fighting physical shape to launch attacks and the weakness and appeasement of the biden administration

emboldened them to sow chaos into nearly every corner of the world. iran, proxies like hamas, the houthis and hezbollah are waging war against israel and fighting to destroy the jewish state and its people. russia continues its war in ukraine creating instability not seen in europe since world war ii. communist china continues to threaten the united states and prepare for an invasion of taiwan that will upend world trade and destabilize the indo-pacific even further. while chaos continues abroad america's national security is also being threatened. every day by invasion of single adult males at our own borders. one that president biden's lawless actions created and encouraged to maintain. this is the sad reality for our nation under the weak leadership of joe biden. we are forced to deal with world events in a way i'm sure many of us completely dislike. i say all this to put the moment we find ourselves in today into

the honest context it deserves and purposely manipulated by democrats and allies in the mainstream media. the united states cannot ignore the massive threats we face to our national security that i have outlined. i hope, on that, i hope we can all agree. but as this body so often does especially under the control of our democratic colleagues this is about to again fail to meet this moment with responsible and appropriate legislation. rather than negotiate a bill for border security in the public we are kept in dark for months and ultimately mail to negotiate a -- fail to negotiate a deal that could get republican support and pass because it did not require biden to secure the border. this bill completely fails to deliver most of our conference supported in tying the disbursment of ukraine aid to reductions at the southern

border. those in florida want a secure border today, inflation to cease and better paying full-time jobs. our conference demanded a full bored only because we thought it was the only way to get joe biden to do his job and secure the southern border. our conference supports tying disbursement of foreign aid to reduction at the r southern border. i remain interested in negotiating a bill that secures our border now, stops the flow of drugs across our border and stops criminals, terrorists and human traffickers from coming into our when i was in business i closed a lot of deals. i knew if i couldn't walk away from the table i would never get a good deal. i would never get a good deal if the people sitting across from me didn't want the same outcome that i did. we have to walk away from the table until we walk away from people who want a secure border

today. a wildly unaccountable foreign aid package that does nothing to secure the u.s. southern border. billions in borrowed money to amass terrorists. this bill claims to address the invasion of ukraine while ignoring the invasion we face here in the united states. this bill could send billions in borrowed money into gaza which is still documented by the iran -- dominated by the terrorists who are still holding americans hostages. i am unapologetically pro-israel. i've had the honor of visiting israel five times as florida governor and u.s. senator. what happened on october 7 horrified the world and struck me personally. in 2019 my wife and i visited one of the kibbutz that was a site to a complete massacre.

as earlier reports came out i was worried about the kibbutz because of its proximity to gaza. when i heard the news it was the site of some of the most horrific activities my heart sank. we spent an afternoon there. it was the most peaceful place. we kept thinking about the moms and kids playing outside enjoying the warm summer weather. it is gut-wrenching to think of the fate of the families we met that day. i spoke with the lady who led our tour of the kibbutz who before she was traveling outside of israel that day and survived. i was able to talk with her and she had not yet been able to go home. she said it is unclear if she will ever be allowed to go back to her home. i can't imagine. so many of us in this chamber are deeply connected to israel, and i bet many of you have a story like mine. we have friend all over israel who have spent days in bomb

shelters as rockets have been launched by terrorists and wiping israel and jews off the face of the earth. i met with survivors and hostage families. i placed a poefrt outside of my office that features the hostages held by hamas. i'm not going to take it down until they're home. we cannot see a cease-fire until every hamas is dead. i want every single one of them dead. these monsters beheaded children and babies. they raped girls and burned innocent civilians alive. they dragged innocent people through the streets and are now holding them as hostages in gaza which these terrorists absolutely control. it is unimaginable that the united states would ever consider sending money to a place where we know it would be used to help terrorists who are holding american hostages, and that's exactly what this bill does. i hear a lot of my democratic colleagues talking about what's

happening in gaza and your heart goes out to anybody impacted by war. i wish everybody would start talking more about the hostages. we still have american hostages. madam president, i want to make sure everyone understands exactly what i'm saying here, which is a fact. every dollar that goes to gaza directly benefits hamas. i spent every day since october 7 telling the stories of those being held hostage in gaza. i have a poster outside my office that features the faces of hostages being held by hamas. unfortunately president biden has not done the same. i can't imagine why the president of the united states isn't speaking every single day about americans, americans being held hostages by hamas terrorists and what he is doing to get them out. the idf rescued two american hostages in a mission that the biden administration urged them not to do. what has biden done to rescue any hostages?

many of my colleagues will recall nine-year-old emily hand. emily and her father lived in a small kibbutz which was ruthlessly targeted and destroyed by hamas during the attacks. in the days following the attacks emily's dad -- was told her daughter spent the night at a friend's house a few doors down was killed. madam president, i'm the father of two daughters and grandfather of seven grandchildren. watching this father speak about the murder of his daughter is heart wrenching. he said to cnn at the time, quote, they just said we found emily and she's dead. and i went, yes. and i smiled because that is the best news possible that i knew. she was either dead or in gaza. if you know anything about what they do to people in gaza, that is worse than death. those are the words of emily's

father. soon to his relief and horror, thompson learned that emily was in fact alive and being held hostage by hamas. his beautiful, innocent little girl spent 50 days as a hostage in gaza. while i'm sure that thomas shanks god to have his child back in his arms he knows his daughter before then is now gone. it's been more than 120 days since the attacks and some parents are still waiting for their children to come home. a little baby whose first birthday was spent as a hostage in gaza. his 4-year-old brother is also being held hostage. i've got a picture of ariel on a

milk carton, a beautiful little boy. his parents have been waiting for more than four months to hold their babies again. can you imagine? now we have heard horrible reports that these innocent children may no longer be alive. why is biden giving money to gazaans for holding american hostages? why would we allow biden to give more money to gazaans who are holding americans hostages? they are holding americans hostage. when will this stop? why the heck are we allowing biden to send more money to gaza in this bill when we know that every dollar that goes to gz funds the terrorism in hamas. what are we doing to get american hostages released? i'm not going to stop talking about this fact. every dollar that goes into gaza directly benefits hamas. that is the undeniable truth. that's why i've been fighting for years to pass my stop taxpayer funding to hamas act

which prevents u.s. tax dollars from going to gaza unless the biden administration can certify that not a single cent will go to hamas. any of my colleagues, if they're interested in having money going to take care of the children in gaza should want this bill to pass. they shouldn't want any money to go to hamas. they should want it to go to these children. this isn't a solution in search of a problem. it addresses a very real threat of taxpayer money funding iran-backed terrorism that seeks to destroy israel. we cannot allow an american family with a family member being held hostage in gaza to see their tax dollars go to the same people who are holding their family member hostage. we have seen reports that the palestinian authority has been paying over $300 million each and every year in monthly salaries to terrorist prisoners and allowances to families of dead terrorists. the palestinian authority pays terrorists and their families

should not receive u.s. tax dollars. and this bill will allow more of that. that's insane. in 2021 president biden's state department said, quote, we're going to be working in partnership with the united nations and the palestinian authority to, quote, kind of channel aid there in a manner that does its best to go to the people of gaza. end quote. the official went on to say, quote, as we've seen in life, as we all know in life there are no guarantees. but we're going to do everything we can to ensure that this assistance reaches everyone in need. they believe the risk is okay because, quote, in life there are no guarantees, unquote. i completely reject that. i will not leave anything to chance when it comes to preventing u.s. taxpayer money from being sent to the brutal terrorists that have slaughtered

so many israelis and americans. that's why i wasn't surprised in august 2021 when the senate voted 990- -- 99-that would have made the stop taxpayer funding the law of the land. the democrats only voted for it because they knew that in the final text of the bill, written by democrats, my language would be mysteriously missing. i tried twice more since then to pass this legislation, the democrats have blocked it twice. i know the left has a big issue on its hands -- you would think my democratic colleagues would be eager to show that democrats don't support hamas. instead they blocked my bill. proving that there's no interest in the democratic party to stand up to these people who hate

israel. that's why i'll be asking today to make my amendment to add stop taxpayer funding to hamas act. i hope that they don't -- i hope that we get a vote and it passes. we've also tried twice to pass a stand alone israel aid bill that would send -- not send money to gaza, but democrats blocked that too. each and every democrat voted against aid to israel. so don't tell me or my colleagues who oppose this bill that we don't stand with israel when democrats twice blkd our bill and then all voted against it, which has already passed in the house to immediately send money to israel. madam president, let me be clear about one more thing. since the day that vladimir putin launched russia's unlawful invasion of ukraine, i stood strongly on the side of the ukrainian people, but there are clearly numerous unanswered

questions. what has happened to the more than $100 billion of aid that has gone to ukraine? what is our plan to win? why are we paying the salaries of ukraine politicians? will biden give ukraine the weapons they need? why is the ukraine border more important than the u.s. border? ukraine must win and russia must lose, there's no question that is what is in the best interest of america's national security. that's why i've said we should continue to provide lethal aid to ukraine paid for with seized russian assets so it can win its war and have a clear plan for how ukraine will win. we need to answer these confesses and be strategic about how we protect our interest, especially as we add to america's $34 trillion in debt. the american people will not tolerate borrowing billions of dollars to pay the government expenses and salaries of

ukrainian politicians, nor will they tolerate this government having no plan for how ukraine will win, how american resources will help it win and how we're making sure that every dollar spent with one mission in mind, defeating russia. as concern grows, when we see that ukraine has fired another top military official and seems to be struggling to show a clear path to victory, without more information, we're left to assume the worse, that this bill has no clear mission other than to accomplish the appearance of unity so that we can fly over with a giant check and deliver hollow speeches about moral righteousness. the majority whip said that we need to pass the bill now so we can go to munich and pontificate that the speaker of the house has specifically stated will never become law. that accomplishes nothing. if my colleagues are serious

about -- they would work in good faith to pass a bill that could pass here and in the house. as i said, i want ukraine to win and i want russia to lose, but that does not mean i -- i am or should be willing to simply be willing to accept any offer by the democrats that they claim but will not prove will help that cause. i will not accept anything that ignores the more urgent threat to u.s. national security, joe biden's wide-open border. this should not need to be said here on the floor of the united states senate, but securing americans' border is more important than securing the border of any other country. we should be able to do both. in fact -- and frankly, the faly -- the fact that we are not using revenue from seized russia

assets for ukraine is ridiculous. that's how things work here. your fernl cannot continue to -- federal government cannot continue to write massive checks for more money while zero accountability really to the american people. i know the people of florida are sick of it. we're all sick of it. and i think just about every american is sick of it. the deal has always been ukraine aid for border security, not immigration policy, but real border security now. americans are feeling the impact of this every single day as deadly fentanyl and terrorists pour across biden's open borders. 1,145 children between 14 and 18 who died from fentanyl in 2021. what is the plan to stop that? that's a classroom of students

dying every week. in 2022, i heard from a mom in kiss -- in florida, whose son was in the air force. he visited an old friend who he didn't know was dealing drugs, he convinced the man to take an xanax, which was unknowingly laced with fentanyl and her mom -- his mom found her son dead. it was heartbreaking and there are more stories like this. 100,000 americans died from drug overdoses in 2021 and 72% of those from opioids like fentanyl. families across the country are being torn apart by deadly drugs coming across the border. what is joe biden's plan to stop these drugs from coming across

the border? my democratic colleagues seem to be acknowledging this crisis on tv, but unfortunately they're unwilling to stand it up to their president and force him to do what's right. we all know what's right. secure the border. i can't imagine why. it's obvious to everyone that the invasion of our southern border is what biden wants. just take a look at the numbers. on january 20, 2021, joe biden took office. and inherited the most secure southern border in modern history. in some of his first acts as president, he dismannedled the policies that -- dismantled policies that president trump used to secure the border. the surge of illegal immigration started almost immediately. in february 2021, right after biden was inaugurated, there

were more than 1001 -- 101,000, illegal immigrants. you will see on the mexicoian -- mexicoian said, you will see i.d.'s everywhere. if you still had a background, would you still be doing that? no. that february was a massive increase of what we vau in the prior month -- of what we saw in the prior month. march 2021 saw 173 thousands incounters with illegal -- encounters with illegal aliens and it skyrocketed to more than 2 # 13,000. -- 213,000, that's more than 213,000 people attempting to illegally enter the united states in just one month.

i put that out to make something clear. the border was secure and then joe biden took office. and the cartels got his message loud and clear. the invasion hasn't stopped since. in fiscal year 2022, the first full fiscal year under the biden administration, there were more than 2.3 million encounters with illegal aliens tweern ports of entries -- between ports of entries. these are mostly single adults. of the 2.3 million encounters of illegal aliens at the southern border, more than 6 -- most were single adults, most -- 70% of autumn people trying to enter the united states illegally, even more terrifying, 98 of the people caught trying to sneak into our country in 2022, were on the terrorist watch list many

here's another terrible stat are from that period. cbc seized more than 14,000 pounds of fentanyl along the southern border. just two milligrams of fentanyl can be a lethal dose and they seized more than 14 thousand that's enough fentanyl to kill three billion people. this is how much fentanyl has crossed -- think about how much fentanyl has crossed the border without being seized. fiscal year 2023, things got worse, more than 2.4 million encounters with illegal aliens within ports of entries. these are not families searching for a better life. they are mostly single adults. of these 2.4 million encounters of illegal aliens at the southern border, 6.5 million are single adults and 169 people on the terrorist watch list tried to legally sneak into oush

country in fiscal year -- sneak into our country in 2023 and we don't know where they are. last year cbc seized nearly 27,000 pounds of fentanyl along the southern border. that's enough fentanyl to kill six billion people. last september more than 600,000 illegal aliens were unlawfully trying to enter the united states. this is an invasion and a clear and present danger to the safety of every american. even al sharpton called it an invasion on his show last week. senate democrats and joe biden still won't do what is needed to fix it. let me say it again. biden's open bothered is a clear and present danger to every single american, in a hearing at the government affairs committee, i questioned christopher wray about the threats we are facing because of

joe biden's open border. in my response to me, director wray said we went through a period where the in -- some in favor of this inspired -- isis-inspired attack, to be clear that threat has not gone away. what has now increased is director wray, is there a greater possibility of one of these terrorist organizations directing an attack in the united states? in the united states? he went on to say it is time to be concerned. we are in a dangerous period, unquote. since joe biden took office, this is director wray, the terror threats have elevated, unquote. i refuse to ignore this threat or pretend that it is okay to take care of the bothered in ukraine while doing absolutely nothing to stop the invasion that we have right here in the united states. madam president, i want to get

something done, and i always believe in the ability of our great nation to answer the call and to defend freedom and democracy where ever it is threatened by tyranny. i care deeply about protecting the national security of the united states. at 18 years old, i enlisted in the faef to defend my -- in the navy to defend my country. my adopted father was one of the soldiers that fought in the battle of the bulge. i know there's evil in the world. and america must be the leader of the free world. there's noes one -- no one else to rely on, but we have to take care of the families that we represent first. we have to secure our border today. this bill does not secure our border and has too many failures to do what is needed to protect america and our interest. this bill allows biden to send billions to gaza which could go

straight to hamas terrorists and billions to pay the salaries of ukrainian politicians. that is wrong. we all know that no bill is perfect. it is nearly impossible to write something that all 100 of us love and have no concerns about. but this isn't a situation where we can ignore some parts we don't like. because the truth is that the things i've just outlined not only fund threats to u.s. nam security, by giving billions to gaza that could go to hamas, but also recklessly force american taxpayers to borrow billions to pay for the salaries of foreign politicians while u.s. debt skyrockets to more than $34 trillion, while doing nothing to secure our border. nothing to secure our border. nothing to secure the border of the united states, where we have drugs, terrorists, criminals, human traffickers flowing across. that could impact every one of our families.

that is unacceptable. we can and must do better. so today i am once again going to ask that the senate be given the opportunity to vote on my amendment to add the stop taxpayer funding hamas act to this bill. amdment.ng for a vote on my now, we've heard from colleagues that they're rightly concerned about the citizens of gaza. if they were concerned about the citizens of gaza, they should want this bill. she -- she shouldn't -- they shouldn't want a dime to go to hamas, they shouldn't want a penny to go to hamas. they should want every dime to go to the children that don't have the food they need. in the meantime, shouldn't we spend more time thinking about the american hostages?

where is the conversation about the hostages? where is the conversation about what are we doing to get the hostages home? what have we heard from biden? what have we heard from my democratic colleagues? nothing. i've said before in this chamber, august 2021, the senate voted 99-0 to ensure american taxpayers do not benefit terrorist objections such as hamas. it's a no-brainer. the vote was 99 of had 0. everyone in this body -- the vote was 99-0. everyone agrees we shouldn't fund hamas terrorists, but they don't want to do anything about it. they want to say it, but do nothing about it. the final bill text written by democrats does not include my language. we all know hamas controls gaza. every dollar that goes to gaza comes under the control of hamas, who decides what to do with it.

we must make sure american tax dollars aren't funding terrorists. so my stop taxpayer funding hamas act makes it so no funds are authorized for the territory of gaza until the president certifies to congress these funds can be submitted without benefiting terrorist organizations. it will also ensure u.s. funds are not authorized for expenditure in the territory of gaza through any united nations entity or office unless the president can -- the president will have to certify it is not ensuring or teaching anti-israel or anti-semitic propaganda. this mandates the president certify no hostages are held in gaza by any terrorist ogs -- terrorist organization. senate democrats have both overwhelming support of this and blocked it in the past. can anybody explain that? it will be today. i sincerely hope democrats stand against taxpayer money flowing to terrorists that want to

destroy israel and still holding gaza hostage. let me read the language that some people say prevents the money going to gaza. tell me if you come to the conclusion that this doesn't. the secretary of state shall certify and report to the appropriate congressional committee not later than march 1, 2024. just a report. it doesn't mean they have to stop, just after the fact report. oversight policies, processes and procedures have been established by the department of state, united states agency for international development as appropriate and used to prevent diversion, misuse or assistance to international objections for hamas or other terrorist or extremist agencies in gaza. it doesn't stop it but says we'll have policies and report on them. such policies, processes and procedures have been developed in coordination with other bilateral and holty lateral -- mu multilateral organizations as

appropriate. none. the only policy it should have is no money. don't give a report that you had a policy and it wasn't enforsed. tell me it never happened. it says, the secretary of state and usaid administrator shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees, con country with the certification required in subsection a, a written description of the oversight policies, process and procedures. we don't sign off on them, just giving a written description of them. we don't get to sign off on question them or change them. we don't get to vote on them. all it is is a written description of procedures for funds appropriated by this title made available for assistance for gaza, including specific actions to be taken should such assistance be diverted, misused or destroyed and the role of israel in the oversight or assistance. israel doesn't have to sign off on it. what role did israel play? the answer could be no role. there's nothing in this, there

will be nothing in this bill that is going to stop money from going to hamas. there will be absolutely nothing. anybody that says they are worried about the children of g gaza, there will be nothing to prevent money from going to hamas instead. the first thing we ought to talk about is how to get our hostages home. madam president, i ask unanimous consent to seth aside all pending -- to set aside all pending motions and make my amendment, i further ask that there will be two minutes of debate equally divided between the proponents and opponents, and following the use of or yielding back of time, the senate vote on the adoption of the amendment with a 90 -- or 60-vote threshold for adoption. the presiding officer: is there objection? ms. hassan:madam president. re -- ms. hassan: reserving the right to object. ms. hassan: we all share the

grief and horror we saw when hamas committed atrocities against the people of israel. we all continue to work as the president and his team have been doing to find a way to get the hostages released while also addressing the humanitarian crisis in gaza. but to cut off all humanitarian aid at this point in time would mean innocent civilians and children in gaza would be irrevocably harmed. so we need to continue, as the administration is doing, to develop this framework, to get the hostages out, and to get a pause in fighting while we do, but we also need to address the humanitarian crisis. i would also note if my colleague from florida is interested in securing the border, there was a bipartisan agreement to secure the border that republicans turned and walked away from last week, because they would rather keep this as a problem and a political issue than actually

work to pass a solution, and they could have, of course, after we had gone to the bill that included a border security package supported by the national border patrol council, representing 18,000 border patrol agents, because they knew it would make our border secure. they walked away from it. last thing i will just say, if we are interested in standing up to authoritarians and standing for freedom, as my father did in the battle of the bulge in world war ii, as i just heard my colleague speak of his father did the same, then we need to make sure that we make clear to iran and to champion and to -- and to china and to north korea and vladimir putin that the united states of america stands for freedom. and if my colleagues are serious about that, they will be supporting this bill. with that, madam president, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. scott: madam president.

the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: we just witnessed on the senate floor what i think is disgusting. by blocking all i asked for is a vote. i'm blocked from voting on my amendment to stop the funding of hamas act, the democrats have done the work of hamas. they're so terrified of losing the vote of radical hamas loving leftists they cannot bring themselves to vote on an amendment, all i want is is a vote, if i can't win it, my problem, that simply states we're not going to send money to thugs that brutally murdered 1200 innocent people, including more than 30 americans and they're still holding american hostages. we're giving money to gazans, money that can help hamas, and they're holding american hostages and we're going to give money. i can't imagine this is where we are and this bill is going to do nothing to address this while

approving millions in aid. we've got open southern border, we've got hostages in gaza and we're going to give gazans aid we know is going straight to hamas. if you look at the text that i read, nothing prevents this money from going there. all my bill says, all the president has to do is certify the money is not going to hamas and the money can go to gaza. madam president, i'm disappointed, and i want to -- i wish to retain the balance of my time.

mr. moran: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: madam president, thank you very much. i come to the floor today as we debate really difficult, challenging, and serious issues. i'm reminded that i didn't seek to be a united states senator to do what we have been doing month after month, mostly spending each day dealing with confirmations and nominations. these issues that we are debating and will ultimately vote on this week have consequences well beyond the things we have been normally dealing with in the united states senate.

secretary gates, a fellow kansan, warned of government's dysfunction at a moment in history in which he argues our nation, quote, confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. i agree with this assessment. we live in a dangerous time and a very dangerous world. i underscore to my colleagues the importance of doing the work we were elected to do. americans will be directly impacted by our decisions. buto will our adversaries and our allies. the united states must be a steadfast and reliable partner in the midst of so many dangers that threaten our nation's peace and prosperity. the dangers are certainly to the other people, other people within the world and other nations, but what we are dealing with are threats to our own

national peace and prosperity. the national security crisis -- crises abroad are challenging and ever increasing. china is rapidly weaponizing its military with the goal of being representedy to invade taiwan -- ready to invade taiwan by 2027. putin puts strain on european allies and food supplies around the world. iran is providing support for terrorism attacking our shims and base -- our ships and bases and killed three servicemembers last month. hamas stated its intent to wipe israel off the map. even saying the terrorist attack on october 7 was just the beginning. north korea's expansion of its nuclear arsenal places risk to us here in our homeland. in a joint fox news op ed that i penned with former secretary mike pompeo, we stated this, the

preservation of freedom requires enormous efforts, indeed liberty demands the marshaling of every resources in in its defense against those who would see it destroyed. putin has chosen to pursue the reconstitution of the russian empire, according to his own warped vision of russian history. and he's made it clear that he has aspirations beyond ukraine and that he views nato as russia's enemy. under putin's leadership, russia has increasingly collaborated with other nations who oppose us -- iran, syria, our most powerful adversary communist china. allowing the war in ukraine to phelpser will only prolong -- to fester puts at greater risk 100,000 u.s. servicemembers

defending nato's borders, including those from fort riley, kansas. it is in america's national interest to assist ukraine in repelling russia's invasion. i thought about wearing a tie the color of ukraine's flag. we see those every beguns in a while -- every once in a while. i thought, that's a mistake. while this has something to do with ukraine, this is really about america, about the united states of america. we are doing what is necessary for our own well-being and our own preservation. ending the war on terms favorable to ukraine will leave ukraine and nato's front a stronger -- in a stronger and better position to deter further russian aggression. by treaty, by nato agreement we have no choice that should putin take the next step and invade a

nato member country, we will not just be supplying aid but we will be supplying military young men and women. allowing the war to continue is damaging. allowing the war -- allowing ukraine to not be successful is damaging our own security and well-being. we must project strength. failure to do so undermines our credibility and that resonates around the globe. a large majority ever the funding provided in this legislation to ukraine, this legislation that says it's to ukraine, has really been directly injected back into the united states economy. this bill provides $35 billion to replenish american stockpiles and develop and produce and purchase american-made weapons.

this is not a blank check for ukraine. it's not a blank check for israel. it's not a blank check for taiwan. there's nothing free about this. we're spending a lot of money. it is hugely expensive. however, in the absence of spending this money, we're going to be spending more later as the world continues to crumble. there is no path forward for ukraine. there is no path forward for for a brighter future if the ing united states is disengaged from the world. i wish it wasn't true. i remember the first graduation speech i gave as a new member of congress was to a small town in west central kansas. and i said growing up all we paid attention to was the price of grain at the grain elevator.

what we had to know and what affected us in our lives in rural kansas was something very local. i wish it was still that way, but we have no, no alternative. we must engage in the world to protect our own selves. it isn't free and it's spending a lot of money, but it is less expensive than the alternative. the price tag is overwhelming. the debt is damning to the future of our nature, but in the absence of taking a stand now, we have to take a stand tomorrow, and that stand will be even more costly. the disastrous, chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan, one of the saddest days or few days of my life, certainly in my life

as an elected official, was watching the way things unfolded there. certainly it was damaging to people who were there, but it's also been damaging to our country in huge and significant ways. the whole world watched as a void in leadership resulted in the death of american servicemembers and stranded thousands of our afghan allies, those who helped our service men and women stranded them behind enemy lines, perhaps to their certain death. i was critical and remain critical of the biden administration for the manner in which we came out of afghanistan, and many of my colleagues, especially republican colleagues, joined me in that criticism. but our failure to support our allies and partners around the world is a replication of what

happened and what we did, what we didn't do when we departed from afghanistan in such an unthoughtful and haphazard way. we have an opportunity to partially remedy the situation by passing legislation to protect those afghan citizens who helped save the lives and promote the success of american servic servicemembers. as we debate how to proceed in this national security supplemental, i'd take this moment to remind my colleagues of the importance of a bill, the afghan adjustment act, as we seek to attain a vote on an amendment to this bill to assure that those afghan allies are not forgotten. as kabul fell to the taliban, while i can see the importance of this to those afghans, this

issue comes to me as a member of this body who spends and devotes time to our veterans, to our military men and women, and our veterans extended the creed leave no man behind as they helped their afghan partners flee to the united states for safety. i don't have the ability to undo what the biden administration didn't do or what it did. i don't have the ability to change the outcome of their inept ability to lead on a global stage and defend the country. but we as members of congress, we can rein them in or push them in a certain direction. the reality is the decisions made by the administration in afghanistan have come back to haunt us. we sent a message to the world.

in my view it's the same message we would send if we fail to pass the emergency supplemental hopefully as amended. the administration continued its inac inaction about the border and it's terribly frustrating. this administration has many tools it needs to improve the situation at our borders, and particularly our southern border. i'm disappointed we couldn't move forward on border policies as part of this package and to mandate the president to enforce the law. but it turned out there was no path forward on the border deal that would get the necessary votes in the senate, and we wanted to succeed in having a border provision that not only worked, addressed seriously the problems on our border, but we also wanted to send a message to

the house of representatives that it's a piece of legislation that they could support. and unfortunately we never got there. senator lankford demonstrated leadership. he did what he was asked to do. i'm in those meetings in which we talked about having a border provision of serious and significant magnitude before we move forward with help to any other country. i continue to believe that that is the right course of action, but now it doesn't seem to be a course that we are able to succeed and put into effect. it will take a different congress and a different administration. kansans are right to be upset when their government does not enforce the laws. they're right to be upset when we spend too much money.

i'm reluctant as many of my constituents are to spend more or to engage further in the world. but while i and many kansans are angry and frustrated, our enemies abroad are on the march. there's no at day goes by but what i don't worry about what is happening elsewhere and not so much about what's happening elsewhere to people who are there but what happens in our own country if we don't deal with those circumstances today. it's always easier, i suppose, to look the other way, but often when we do that, the end result suggests that we should have looked right in the face of the problem and taken it on.

our enemies are on the march. i try never to use my membership of the senate committee on intelligence to say i know something that nobody else know s. certainly never want to suggest to kansans that i know something that they don't know. i trust their judgment and believe in them. but china, russia, iran, iran and its proxies, north korea are collaborating to weaken, to harm, and to attempt to make -- make the united states ban dan its -- abandon its leadership role. there's some morality to the decisions we make here. and i suppose there's an argument that can be made about the morality both ways, regardless of what we do.

morality, there actually is a right and wrong. i think we forget that in our country. some things are right. some things are wrong. and we try to finesse so we never have to make the decision about which ones are which. i suppose right and wrong comes from really your soul, who you are as a person, how you grew up, what your parents taught you, what you learned in church or synagogue. i care about how my constituents f feel. i indicated to my colleagues recently that we spend so much time doing next to nothing here, why do you take me away from my family and why you take me away from kansans where i love to be? i'd always prefer to be in kansas. but ever so often there are

issues that come before us that seem to be ones that explain why we are here. this is one of those moments in which we're finally escaping the drudgery and dissatisfaction of doing little. when i came to the united states senate, i was welcomed here by then-majority leader harry reid. senator reid was polite and pleasant to me and always was, but on that day, on the first meeting as a new senator here on the senate floor in that well, he said, jerry, welcome. how do you like being here? my response was to senator reid,

i was really honored that kansans gave me the chance to do this job. but, sir, it doesn't seem like we're ever going to do anything. there's nothing about my life that would suggest i'd be a member of the united states senate, nothing in my background, nothing in my family. i wanted to come to the senate to do something, to do something right and to do it well. senator reid's response to me was, jerry, you just need to understand we're not going to do anything. you just need to know that. here i had just worked my way to the united states senate only to discover that the job description was let's not do anything. so i've tried from that day to take what senator reid said and use the opportunity that i'd

been given by kansans to do some something, to do something right, to do something in cooperation of my colleagues, and to provide meaning for all those days away that me and my colleagues are away from home and family. whether this is all -- when this is all over, i think we all want to actually do something that matters. today i tell my colleagues, my constituents, americans that the challenge we face will not resolve themselves, and the preservation of freedom requires an enormous effort. it's a special place we live in, a special place we call home, and the freedom and position that we enjoy we too often take

for granted. it's been a while since, in fact many in this body, many in congress no longer have served in the military. we have begun to forget what that burden of serving means. we owe something to those who served. we owe something to a generation of hardworking men and women who have come before us. in my view, we owe them to live up to our responsibilities to preserve what they have defended and protected and made available to me, to americans today, and to our generation -- our children and grandchildren and americans that we will never know.

i believe in america first, but, unfortunately, america first means we have to engage in the world. taking a sober view of history, there should be no doubt of the importance of the outcome in ukraine, the middle east, in china, in the south pacific, and what it means to the united states. i go back to what secretary pompeo said with me in that fox news opinion piece. the preservation of freedom requires enormous effort, indeed liberty demands the marshalling of every resource necessary in its defense against those who would see it destroyed. i'm not the articulate

individual that president reagan was, but he said it well, perhaps better, than what i and secretary pompeo said. president reagan said in his first inaugural address, his first inaugural address to become president, he said -- the crisis we're facing today does not require us the kind of sacrifice that so many thousands of others have been called upon to make. it does require, however, our best efforts and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with god's help, with god's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. i'm tired of telling people when they ask me how i am, well, i'm fine. my family's fine, but the world is a mess. you can't difference shea the

two -- you can't differentiate the two. your family, you, can't be fine if the world is crumbling. that's me, not reagan. president reagan concluded had together with god's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us, and after all, why shouldn't we believe that? we're americans. mr. president, i yield -- i reserve my time. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, madam president. i want to thank my friend and colleague for -- from kansas for the speech that he just gave. i would like to associate myself with every single word. madam president, last thursday i came to the floor to explain to the pages who were on duty then -- i think they're different now -- and to a few people in the gallery what was about to happen.

when i told them what was about to happen was that a lot of people were going to file a lot of amendments, there were going to be some people who wouldn't do time agreements and then we would come to the floor and we would hem and haw about how either leader schumer, the majority leader, or mitch mcconnell, the minority leader, somehow blocked them. well, that is fiction. i'm not -- i'm not a fortune teller. i've seen this play before, and what played out over this weekend is exactly what happened in the past where people are making objections without any good-faith offer to negotiate time, et cetera. so what happens? great amendments like those that are being offered by senator lee, likely not going to get a vote. great amendments by tom cotton, rick scott, other members like lay not going to get a vote. i hope maybe that changes. but unless we decide to negotiate in good faith -- i

don't know why anybody thinks that they will. so it's disappointing, but it is not surprising. and it is exactly what i was thinking on thursday. and now here we are on monday. i, without question -- oh, i have one other thing. i had some of my colleagues come to the floor. they referred to the fact that i made a statement that says i feel like it's on me to vote the way i think i need to vote and then go back hometown and explain it. why? well because a lot of people when they hear senators speak, they believe that it's the truth. they've heard somebody say that if we pass this bill that ware all going to go right to kyiv with buckets full of money and let oligarchs buy yachts. i wonder how the soldier in a trench right now in russia and ukraine defending russians feels about that? i wonder how the spouses of the

esti estimated,000 soldiers -- 25,000 soldiers in ukraine feel about that? really, guys, sending billions of dollars to yucca so that d. to ukraine so ukrainian oligarchs can buy yachts? is that the best you got? what we're talking about is funding for the next ten months and then we have other folks say, a forever war. a forever war. the last time i checked, this appropriation runs out at the end of this calendar year. then next year we'll have to fate g.e., either under a biden administration or a trump administration to continue to do the right thing. a lot of people say we're sending $70 billion, $80 billion to ukraine. reallloy? well, the last time i checked, about half of it is is going to the military industrial base here to replace the inventories that we're sent to them, it replace -- to replace and to aid our modernization of our arsenal. we have billions of dollars in

this bill to actually build up our defense industrial base that we now know, thank goodness, this is not against the neigh a lie because we would be -- nato ally because we would be desperate trying to actually t, thank you, vladimir putin, we know how weak your military is. of i feel bad for every one of those russian families who lost somebody in this war that they didn't want to be a part of. 87% of their ready forces when putin started this war, putin is losing this war, folks. this is not a stalemate u this guy is on life support. he will not survive if the 50 nations who have come together in the ramstein process to support ukraine stick together. he will not survive if nato becomes stronger. nato has already got one and about to have a second ally that is only here because of vladimir

putin. he's made nato stronger. he's demonstrated that he is weak. he's demonstrated that he is losing. we all heard the classified reports that are now public that we thought that russia was going to have air superiority within a couple of days. and control all of the ukraine that they wanted to control within a couple of weeks. well, folks, that was two years ago. ukraine is winning. and ukraine is winning because the western world -- the nato allies and 25 -- some two dozen other countries have come together and made it very clear that putin's desire to reestablish the russian empire is inconsistent with the democratic world order. putin is losing. this is not a stalemate. a 10-1 kill differential between ukrainians and russians is indisputable. the platforms that he's leaving

on the battlefield are indisputable. the fact that we need to modernize and build up our industrial base is indisputable. thank you, vladimir putin, for bringing that to our aattention, and guess what is else? china is watching. i'm less concerned about vladimir putin than i am about china and our retreat from leading the western world. guess what? we're an exceptional nation. and we are the beacon of hope for democracy. when we step away, who fills the void? you'd be hard-pressed to find any nation that has the scale and ability to do it but the united states, with all due respect to my friends in nato. china is watching. why am i so focused on this vote? because i don't want to be on the pages of history that we will regret if we walk away. you will see the alliance that

is supporting ukraine crumble. you will ultimately see china become emboldened. and i am not going to be on that page of history. i believe that we have to vote today, and we have to respect some of the priorities, maybe the concerns of the house as they move this through, but let's let this chamber be the chamber that stands with the free world. that's what we can do today. that's what we must do today. and what i must do is go to my great state of north carolina and if i have friends who think otherwise, i owe it to them to share every bit of knowledge that i have to have them understand that i don't love where we are today, but i hate where we'll be if we don't move forward with this vote. thank you, madam president. i reserve the remainder of my time.

the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. marshall: thank you it madam president. i rice today to discuss the supplemental bill that's before us. what should be appropriately called the ukraine funding bill. you know, it's only in america where we try to fund other nations' problems to fight other people's wars for them before we fix our own budget. you know, we're just weeks away from our own government funding end being. we -- ending. we had a president's budget that was due several weeks ago. we don't have that budget. we've not done the funding for this year yet. and yet we're moving on to a supplemental bill of course on the background of debt. there's no border security in

this bill. f nothing to secure this border. we're about to spend almost $100 billion overseas without addressing our most imminent threat our nation faces, our open southern border. i want to say -- start also by saying this. i am unapologetic about being a patriot. a patriot is a person who puts america first. look, many he'll always going to -- i'm always going to root for my home team panthers. i'm always going to root for the kansas city chiefs. i don't wish the other teams ill will. but i'm always going to be an american first. when the american team is playing the russian hockey team, i'm going to root for the americans. if the american soccer team is playing the german soccer team,i'm going to root for the american team. i don't have any ill will toward those others, but i'm always going ton an american first and

set american priorities first. i think the next thing waevendz to point out about this bill is that two-thirds of republican senators voted against it. two-thirds of republican senators have voted against proceeding with this legislation. in a republican-controlled house, i don't see how you're going to find more than 50% of those republicans to pass this bill. it just isn't going to happen. as i take a look at these last four months up here, i realize that the white house is negotiating on securing the border was actually a charade. they were never serious about it. and of course it never made sense to the folks back home. why would we have to beg the president of the united states to secure our own border? why would we have to negotiate over that? why would we have to give them ukraine funding in return for a

secure border? it made sense to nobody. i want to take a second and talk about why this is important, why this issue is important, why are so many of us standing up and fighting against this $95 billion to never-ending wars? i think, as i even consider the 300 people that die from fentanyl every day in this country, this is important. the fact that we don't secure our border is going to allow more of that fentanyl into this country. we're seeing just upshots and upshows of human trafficking, sex trafficking going on o. a cross our nation -- across our nation. as fbi director wray said, he sees warning blinking lights everywhere he looks for the first time in his career. why wouldn't we when we have more than 10 million people who have crossed our borders illegal lay in the last three years?

so i think it is important from a national security standpoint. this is important to secure our nation and to make our families safe again. i want to talk a moment about who we're fighting for. this is no longer just a border -- our own border issue. but i'm fighting for families back home. every state is now a border state. fentanyl poisoning kills a person most every day in the state of kansas. so i'm fighting for all those people that died. i just read this week a young lady in kansas who lost -- has lost four members of her family from fentanyl poisoning and most recently over the past several weeks lost a child to fentanyl poisoning. so i'm fighting for all those who have lost a loved one to fentanyl poisoning and for all those people who are being human trafficked as we speak or sex strafkd as we speak as well, so i'm fighting for those people. i think it's important to take a second to talk about how we got

here, how we got to these open borders. this president likes to create a crisis and then he tries to solve it. in this situation, the president of the united states created this open border crisis. this president penned over 90 executive orders that opened that southern border. these were executive orders. it was policies that were changed. the president created this crisis. even today the president would end that crisis. the president could shut down the border. he has the legal authority today to shut down the border to secure the border. how do we get to the ukraine war, another crisis created by our current president. i would go back to afghanistan when america ran with their tail between their legs out of afghanistan, we lost our

reputation. this president lost his reputation. and as i've been taught by so many physicians in my own practice that once a professional loses their reputation, you can never get it back. and then you fast forward and you see this president will not respond to iran's attack on americans through their puppets without any type of significant response. i think it just basically allows our enemies to push us around and to shove us. how do we get to the israel situation where hamas came to be, where hamas had the courage to cross the borders, to brutally attack and murder thousands of israelis? i think, again, it's this lack of respect. it was a lack of respect. it was this president's policies that allowed iran to increase their sales of oil, to allow their economy to grow, to allow them to fund and to ship weapons

to these puppets of theirs, these terrorists. i think an even bigger picture of how we got here, just the lawlessness in america today, the lawlessness, it started with an open southern border, cashless bail, turning our heads away from riots, smash and grabs, turning our heads away from these to see the lawlessness grow. then to see the fentanyl grow. and as my dad the police officer taught me, wherever there's illegal drugs crime is going to certainly follow it as well. so i think in this backdrop of a lawless america where our constitutional rights are being attacked and on the world stage a president that lost his reputation, it allowed russia to have the courage to attack ukraine. it allowed hamas the courage to attack the people of israel.

as i look at the big picture of this legislation, $60 billion for ukraine, i think what else we could do with that. do you realize that the entire annual budget of the marines is only $53 billion? how much more national security could we have if we invested the money in our marines as opposed to sending this money abroad? we could have built three walls on the southern border easily with this amount of money, maybe much more. as leaders, we need to focus on priorities, and i think that's what america is seeing right now. i think they're seeing these two-thirds of republicans that have voted against proceeding with this supplemental bill. we were folks who put national, our own national security first, put securing the border first. but up here in d.c., my friends across the aisle, the white house, they continue to put ukraine funding as their

priority. and of course add to that the complexity of the situation. each one of these issues even by themselves have merits. there's reasons to push them and there's reasons that you wouldn't do it certain ways. but when you throw them all together, it's next to impossible to solve this rubik's cube, if you will. just seemingly next to impossible. one of the things the national media especially likes to do up here is declare within hours of a vote who was right and who was wrong. and i think it's important to realize that oftentimes we don't know who's right or wrong of the for years, for decades after. and even sometimes they write the history books and they don't get it right. and i certainly have empathy for those who support ukraine funding right now. and i could be wrong, i could be wrong that this is not the

proper time to do it. but what i'm not wrong on is securing the border, that that should be the top priority. and once we secure our own border, then let's look abroad and see what we can do to help with ukraine as well. as i think about the border and the significance of the problem, i think about the number of people that have died from fentanyl poisoning, and i know i keep bringing up this fentanyl poisoning but it's so significant. 300 people, 300 young americans dying every day from fentanyl poisoning. and you try to put that into historical perspective. pearl harbor, a day that lives in infamy, 2,400 american soldiers died. 2,400. so that would be eight days in february, the same number of people died from fentanyl. every eight days we lose the same number of americans that we

lost in pearl harbor, a horrible tragedy. of course 9/11, some 3,000 people died there. in ten days. just this month of february alone we've lost more americans to fentanyl poisoning than we lost at 9/11. d day, 2,500 americans died. again, in just the month of february we've lost more americans to fentanyl poisoning than we did to d day. so i think for that, if nothing else, is what we should be focused on. we should be securing our border to stop the flow of fentanyl into this country, to stop the human trafficking to stop the sex trafficking for all those reasons. i want to talk a little bit more what border security looks like. many of us have been to the border multiple times. the border patrol officers i

think would be one group of credible people. on my last visit what they focused on is they need policy changes. i think americans realize that we would have preceded with this bill if there was meaningful border security in the original legislation. all the border security has been stripped out of this bill but it's important for americans to know what was missing. the border patrol officers themselves said that this bill, to make america truly secure, we needed more work on asylum, more work on the parole issue, and then this magic number of 5,000 when the border shuts down -- not that it really ever did under this legislation, of course the border never really shut down. but that 5,000 was way too high. and to codify that into law would almost make that the norm. again, the border patrol would say we really can't deal with more than 1,000 people crossing the border a day, and even 1,000 is a huge stress. and they recommended whenever we hit 1,000 that we would

literally shut the border down. again, if this bill would have been negotiated in broad daylight, if it would have went through the judiciary committee, went through some type of process where we could have addressed that particular number on the parole situation, i think this is so important that americans understand that under obama, he was paroling 5,000 people a year. barack obama, president obama was paroling 5,000 people per year. president trump 5,000 people per year. joe biden, 700,000 people per year. so this president is illegally paroling over 700,000 people per year. now what's the magic number that that should be? is it 5,000? is it 10,000? i think we in the republican caucus were willing to negotiate that number. and if there were extenuating circumstances the president

could come to this body and say we need more than that number. but to say as long as they're flowing in and by the way the vast number of of those parolees are flowing in on the american taxpayers dollars. two million people have been paroled under president biden. two million people flown into this country for the most part on american taxpayer dollars. given work visa. i wonder how that makes my union people feel. two million people willing to work for minimum wage or less. so this bill did not correct the parole situation, that they could continue to come into this country as long as they were flown in. then the asylum issue. what this legislation did again was basically codify catch and release. some of the people were being caught and retained, but a significant number were still being caught and released for who knows how long. that is the bare minimum that needed to occur on this bill to

make it palatable, because we wanted meaningful border security. we wanted to address asylum, address parole and this magic number of 5,000 when people cross the border, those numbers of encounters that would change it that would shut down the border. i hope that dispels questions about what we would like to do with border security. i want to talk about ukraine for a second, a little bit more as well. as i assess ukraine, i certainly feel for the folks there. this has been battled for thousands of years over the borders of ukraine. but where we're at today, i think is very disingenuous to say that this war is anything but a stalemate. look, the front, the war front

has not moved in over a year's time. it's a quagmire. but meanwhile 200,000 ukrainians have died, maybe twice that number of russians have died. probably a million casualties with no end in sight. this is a never ending war. just like the afghan war, i'm not sure how long russia was there, but for years and years. and then america was there for years and years. but just due to the, due to all the circumstances there, there appears to me to be no end in sight. and anyone who says otherwise, i think, is just not being intellectually honest with themselves or with americans. i think the focus should be on some type of peace talks right now, not on fueling this fire, not on throwing more gasoline on this fire, not sending them more and more weapons. i think so if there's a will there's a way, and that if america was leading on some type

of peace talks, i think we could have already been there by now. but one of the challenges we have that with a president who's lost his reputation is trying to slow putin down. so he's in this for the long haul. he's not going to step down. he's not going to step back when he sees a weak president that we have, who is even afraid of iran. so for all those reasons, i cannot support funding to ukraine at this point in time. i think we have to secure our border first, and then i'm willing to talk about funding for ukraine. but i need to know what's the path to victory. what's our goal here? what is some type of a realistic schedule look like for that coming to a conclusion. this legislation before us even promises money for future years,

misinformation being passed around by some of my colleagues. and, by the way, there's a lot of americans back home, they don't think that this is a good idea at all. i grew up in the vietnam era. i remember what it was like. on my way to my grandparents to drive by the cemetery and see coffins draped with the american flag and the bugler playing taps on a regular basis too often. a person that i saw playing high school football last season, and here their life had ended. i don't want more wars. i want less wars. but right now we're projecting weakness. joe biden has given us war through weakness instead of peace through strength. let's turn our attention to

israel and iran, hamas as well. just for a moment. first of all, i want to remind everybody four times we came to this floor and asked unanimous consent for a stand-alone funding for israel. and i would do that again tonight if i thought it would be of any benefit, if i thought that it had a chance. i support funding israel. israel has been one of america's, if not their best ally, certainly one of all time. they have stopped so many foreign attacks on this land that many americans owe their life to the work that the people of israel have done. and just in general, they're being attacked by a terrorist group that not only wants to destroy israel, but destroy america. why wouldn't we support israel? but, of course, the issue of israel now tears the democrat

party apart. it divides them. you know, it looks like to me many of them are very concerned about supporting israel, that they've become this pro-palestinian caucus rather than a pro-israel caucus, they support iran, but not israel. in the world of the middle east, you cannot do both. i don't see how you can support both israel and iran, i don't see how you can support israel and hamas. i don't think it's possible. i think sometimes you have to choose and support who your friends and allies are and i believe we should stand firmly beside israel and eliminating hamas. again, hamas wants to destroy americans. that is their goal. that is their stated purpose. so we would have, almost to a person, would have supported some type of stand alone funding for israel if given that chance. we talk israel, we talk about

hamas, we have to talk about iran. there's so much more that this president could be doing right now besides just funding israel. look, hamas is the head of the snake. they're the ones that fund, train, support, plan these attacks by these -- these puppets of theirs, these terrorist organizations in so many ways. what can the president do besides funding more wars and more battles? i think there's a military approach, there's an economic approach, and there's a diplomatic approach. let's talk a minute about the diplomatic approach. the abraham accords are making great progress in the middle east, and perhaps one of the most -- the most precipitating factor of hamas attacking israel is the abraham accords, is that israel was close to working on an agreement with our friends

from saudi arabia. if they would have done that, it would have put so much pressure on iran. well, basically hamas attacked october 7, and now those talks have been cut off. if somehow, some way those negotiations, those talks could be rekindled, that would put a huge amount of pressure on iran. so there's huge opportunities for a diplomatic approach. economically let's talk about what we could be doing. recall when joe biden was sworn in, iran had about $6 billion of currency left, 6 billion dollars in their treasury. well, today they've got over $60 billion. why? because the sanctions that we had on under the trump administration were lifted and now iran is easily selling all of this oil. and, among other things, they have a fleet of 500 ghost ships. so they take these ships that are owned by foreign countries, they use that foreign flag then to smuggle either russian oil or

iran oil to people ignoring the sanctions. we should be punishing not just iran, but we should also be punishing those countries that lend them their flag so to speak. what else could we do economically? i think that we could be putting double down on all the -- the previous economic sanctions that we placed on them, including bank sanctions, and, again, anyone who is doing business with iran, we could be shutting them down as well. militarily, what could we do? i think back to what president reagan did in 1988 when an american warship was attacked. i believe it hit a mine. and i think what president reagan did was order an attack on iranian oil platforms and sunk their battleships as well. we sent a loud and clear message to iran.

and guess what, it worked. instead what the biden administration has chosen to do or these fairly innocuous attacks on empty sheds and maybe sometimes there's some old ammunition there, but something more than that needs to be beefed up. we need to shut down iran ships as they are crossing through the seas as well. iran launched three military satellites recently, we could take out those military satellites. so there's a lot we could do, but idea of pass civility and -- pass civility and just watch, anyone who faced a bully in third grade in recess knows that being passive is not enough, eventually you have to smack the bully in the nose otherwise he will keep pestering you. it's that clear. that's what we should be doing in the middle east right now is military action on iran,

economic, and diplomacy as well. you can't look at that in just a little silo. we should be supporting israel, but all those other things would help israel significantly as well. there's funding in this legislation for taiwan. and, again, i think if that was stand alone, i could support it. i think back to pre-invasion of ukraine by russia. we begged the white house to make ukraine -- to make ukraine some type of a porcupine so to speak. that would have been our goal that we should get all the military aid in there before all of this happened, not after. we could have got.they a-10 -- got them a-10's that we were monthball -- moth balling. i don't know what's going on, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order.

would the person in the gallery please sit. mr. marshall: thank you, mr. president. i didn't know what type of security situation there was there so we thought we should pause as well. so, if we're talking about taiwan, i think we can compare taiwan to where ukraine was a couple of years ago. we begged this administration to arm ukraine so they could protect themselves. if we could have got in the warthogs, think about how ukraine would have changed if they had the a-10 warthogs. there's so much more that we could have done. it seems like this white house has slow walked the entire response. yes, i think many of us agree that we should help arm taiwan to make them an porcupine. they've been a great business

partner, seem to be a good player, a country that we greatly respect and want to help protect, but at the end of the day when you bundle this funding without giving us our own border security doesn't make much sense to us. there's funding in here for humanitarian aid as well. i think to the tune of -- ity it's close to $10 billion to humanitarian aid. this is in addition to what we're typically doing. us-aid has a budget of over $60 billion a year. we are doing much of this humanitarian work already, and of course our fear, and i don't know how to answer kansans thoughts on this. how do we make sure that the humanitarian aid gets to the women and children as opposed to will hamas intercept it. i have made several trips to the middle east, i've seen corruption, and i've seen them

get to the humanitarian aid and it doesn't get to the people we want to there. i'm not -- i don't think that this humanitarian aid should be going to support hamas. i'm all for helping those that need it, but very concerned about where it actually ends up being. i want to go back to the budget process just for a second as well. never been part of an organization that functions quite like this. most of us have ran businesses before or have been on a church board or a school board, you know, typically, the -- the end of the fiscal end of the year, four or five months before that we want a budget outline. we want to present those budget to the board at least six weeks before that new year kicks in

and certainly ready to go before the new year starts. this body seldom does a budget. they seem to just fly by the seat of their pants. they do a cost-plus system. whatever we spent this year, you know, we're immediately talking about adding 5% or 10% to that budget, regardless, i think we should go back to a zero-based budgeting process, i think we should go back to the budget law that the law of 1974 says we should doing, and if the president doesn't get his budget here on time, there's some time of -- issue, within the realm of the constitution and i really think the responsible president could have that budget to us before you -- you know months before the fiscal year ends as well. and then i think we should hold the senate budget committee to the test and make sure they get a budget out in time and then we communicate that with the house

and they work on be a budget and we go back to this regular order that we all talked about. and my compliments to the appropriations committee here in the senate. i think they've done an incredible job, especially with the time presented to them to at least giving us something. it's been through subcommittees, it's been through committees, for the most part, large bipartisan support, would have loved to have had them out here by now, would have loved to have taken those packages, there's 12 buckets, taken them one at a time and gone through them and shine a light on the bridges to nowhere, maybe there's places we need to accent weight -- accentuate, things that we need to cut back, in a budget of $7 trillion a year, you would think there would be programs that we could shut down again as to opposed the cost-plus system, whatever last year's budget, let's add 5%, let's add 10% as well. and it still amazes me that,

again, a 900 billion }dollar military -- 900 billion }dollar military budget, we will have to go back to spend more. i do think that we need to pay attention to what is going on with the budget process. i have some folks back home send me some questions. and i thought i would try to answer them. some of them i've covered already, but i think it's a good opportunity to talk about some of their questions as well. the first question. were the democrats ever serious about border security? listen, i think there are folks in the democrat party that want border security. i don't know if it's as much of a priority as it is to me. i would like to assume that they do. on the other hand, it feels like the white house, that that's not their priority. i think i never heard from the white house that border security is a priority. they talked about an immigration

system wanting to grease an immigration system, but i never really heard that commitment from the white house that they wanted border security. next question. why is it so urgent to send ukraine this largest lump sum of money right now when the war started over two years on-line? -- two years ago? i think that's a great question. again, i would point out the situation there is a quagmire, i know that ukraine is starting to launch offensive weapons into russia, which concerns me. it concerns me about escalating a war as well. i think we need to realize that will -- that in this stalemate situation, i'm not sure why we need to be sending them more and more weapons. again, the focus, i believe, should be on some type of peace talks. next question. has israel been used as a pawn in these negotiations and what message does this send to our

allies like israel? well, israel has been used as a pawn, as i pointed out before, israel divides my friends across the aisle that much of their base no longer supports israel, so when their base sees them about funding israel, it creates division, it creates havoc, it hurts the president's poll numbers, so i think that israel has felt like a pawn. again, what some would say is that the president is using the ukraine funding as an excuse to include the israel funding. next question. again, these are questions from folks back home that wanted to make sure that i, you know, answered this. how does funding ukraine address our number one national security concern, the border crisis and the long-term concern of our national debt crisis? i couldn't agree more, the biggest threat to our national security is an open border and

the long-term danger is our debt. we will he spend more this year on the military. when any business is spending that much of their budget, probably 1/7 of our budget will be spent on interest, i think whenever that happens, it threatsens our education program and our roads and bridges, any kind of long-term infrastructure, if we're going to spend $900 billion or a trillion dollars on interest, that is a tough road to who he, when you spend that much on interest soon, ends up in some type of a bankruptcy, this bill worsens our long-term national security crisis with the national debt. certainly does not address the border in any way. next question, when will the president realize that deterrence doesn't work after

the fact? well, i think again that's a difference in philosophies here. i've always believed, president eisenhower said it first, peace through strengths. eisenhower said he hated war as only a soldier could, as a soldier who lived it and seen its brutality and futility as well. as a veteran myself, and brother and son of a veteran and uncles who were soldiers, a child now in the active duty military, i certainly understand the importance of peace through strength and hope we can regain some of that strength. we hope that the military begins to focus once again on military strength and readiness, as opposed to some of the other diversity issues. next question, why is putting america's safety and security first so controversial? i can't answer that question. to me, it's not controversial. of all my tasks up here, again,

back to this making priorities, i think my number one priority is always to make americans safe and secure. i think physically safe with secure borders, then financially secure would be right behind that as well. next question, who within the american government is responsible for overseeing how this money is spent in ukraine? whose job has it been to this point? look, i think many of us have been concerned that there wasn't an individual person, inspector general focussed on this $113 billion we've already spent. we know when you send large amounts of money at one time, the opportunity for fraud and abuse is there. many european countries, leaders over there, concerned about the fraud in ukraine as well. i cannot look kansans in the eye and say, hey, we know where all this money is going. for heaven's sakes, the

department of defense doesn't know where most of its assets are, either. it's gotten so big, they can't track of what they have or where they have it. next question, why don't we bring russia and ukraine to the negotiating table for peace instead of funding death and destruction indefinitely? i couldn't agree with you more. we have the leverage. we have the economic leverage, even just our trade with these foreign countries alone, gives us a leverage most people don't have to bring them to the nego negotiating table. next question, how can we be sure humanitarian aid for the gaza strip will be used to help civilians and not fall into the hands of hamas terrorists? i can't. i cannot be sure of that. we no, he if history repeats itself, that significant payments of past aid have fallen into the hands of the terrorists. what is the end goal in ukraine? that's a great question. it wasn't too long ago ukrainian

leadership was here saying they wanted to go back to pre-crimea, they basically want crimea back as well as the other territory that russia has invaded and controls as well. i don't know that that is feasible or not, to think they're going to get crimea back. crimea is so important to putin. folks don't realize the challenges russia has on getting their oil, their crops and commodities out to a warm-water port. crimea is vitally important to their economy and militarily as well. another great point and another great question. what is the end goal in ukraine? i don't think america has been given the answer to that. i think back to vietnam, being a young child, listening to walter cronkite and the nightly news. my parents asking that same question, what's the goal? what are we trying to do in vietnam? where are we going with this? as we saw, my goodness, the

agent orange and all the atrocities coming out of vietnam, our soldiers were vil vilified. americans didn't welcome them back home. it was a horrible time in america. i think there was never a clear purpose of what the end game was in vietnam. let's don't repeat that same mistake. next, what are we doing to ensure europe is doing their part as well? listen, it's almost impossible for me to understand exactly how much europe has committed, then actually followed through. in my humble opinion, they've made some very bravado claims that they're going to do, and i don't think they have adequately followed up on it yet. i'm still waiting for a report that i can trust to say and verify europe is doing their part. i think they should be more motivated than we are to secure the situation there. they're willing to help, but

again, it's about priorities to me, let's secure our own borders first. next question, is there corruption happening in ukraine? i think there is, unfortunately. i think that there is corruption in ukraine. the largest telecom company in ukraine is being threatened to be nationalized by zelenskyy. zelenskyy is threatening to nationalize the largest telecom company in ukraine. this particular company is on nasdaq, american ownership, many americans have ownership in this stock as well. it's sitting on a fair amount of cash. of course, the plan was when this war is settled, they'd reinvest that cash, invest that money into the telecom to help ukraine's economy recover. it appears to me that president zelenskyy wants that cash. then just think what he could do from a political standpoint. it would be like if the white house could control two or three

of the largest telecom companies in america. what an unfair advantage that is to other political parties as well. there's political issues with it, as well as i think economic issues. for zelenskyy to threaten americans, to threaten our leadership that if we don't give him this $60 billion he's going to nationalize this american company i think is hitting at the low the belt. it's not right. it's not fair. i don't like to be threatened. americans don't like to be threatened. those are some of the questions that folks back home in kansas have asked us. i hope we've adequately addressed them. what time have i got left, mr. president? i think i would talk about being a patriot. what it means to be a patriot. let me just ask the folks in the room, are you a patriot, and

when did you become a patriot? maybe if i could, i'd like to share my moment, my aha moment when i became a patriot. my wife and i got married about two weeks before medical school started. year and a later later -- year hand a half later, we had our first born. brought her home to a little studio apartment. took my desk and made a little spot for a crib for her. my wife was going to give up her job to take care of the baby, which was my goal, so grateful for the sacrifices that moms make. and already, we were having a rough time making ends meet. i knew i needed to do something economically. i said this is no way to take care of the family. it was one of those moments i was considering what i needed to do, i thought about my

forefathers, and my dad had served in the military, my brother had served. as a matter of fact, going back to the civil war, every generation from my family had somebody that served in the military. four grandfathers of my grandparents served the union army, three gave their lives, made the ultimate sacrifice preserving the union. my wife had an uncle who served in world war i. he suffered from nerve gas exposure in the argonne forest. two of my dad's uncles were part of the d-day invasion. my dad served. my brother served. i served. and my son served. anyway, in that moment i said i need to join the military. rather than borrow money, i always wanted to check that box as well. my wife and i signed up, and officers basic training was in

fort belvoir, virginia, just i suppose 30 minutes from where we're standing today. most people don't take their wife and newborn with them to basic training, but we decided to do that. even though my wife stayed in a different place than i did, we were so glad she got to come. every spare moment that we had, though, we enriched ourselves and the -- in the many cultural opportunities that the nation's capital gives us. we spent a day at monticello. we spent a day at mount vernon. we spent a day going through the national history museum. spending days on end at all the different smithsonians, on the nation's mall, sucking up the nectar of life from in great country, reading, learning, going on tours about the sacrifices that our forefathers,

our founding fathers had done for all of us. as a premed student, biochemistry, nuclear engineering, i didn't get to spend much time in history. it was truly a great awakening for me. sometime in that process of that summer, between taking an oath to defend the constitution and learning all this information about nation's history, i became a real prarpt -- a real patriot, dedicating myself to make sure i leave this country better for the next generation. as i look at legislation like this, complicated legislation, my goodness, it's trying to do something in ukraine, something in israel, in taiwan and humanitarian efforts, and to think we've left behind this opportunity to secure our border, it's very troubling to me. horribly troubling to me that

we've squandered this once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix this problem. that's why i was unwilling to go forward. i wanted to go back and look, let's work on this border security issue until we get it right. then we can move on to this. but that opportunity was not afforded us, and here we are today. as a patriot, i stand before you, i stand before the people of america saying the right thing to do would be to secure our border first. there's going to be those who today and tomorrow judge us and say i'm in the wrong. but it will take decades for history to figure out who was right here and who was wrong here. as i've said before, i may be wrong on ukraine, but i'm darn secure, darn confident that securing the border should be our top priority right now. ity our number one -- it's our number one, most immediate

threat to our national security. as this debate concludes, it's with an ill heart that i'll go home having lost this battle, and americans are not going to understand that. but they are going to hold people accountable. americans are going to hold people accountable that chose to move on from border security and fund foreign nations before we took care of our own homes. mr. president, i can promise you that i'm going to always be a patriot first. mr. president, i reserve the remainder of my time. thank you.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, i'm here tonight to talk about the foreign supplemental, the foreign aid supplemental that is the pending business on this floor. but before i do that, i have to take a moment of personal privilege if my colleagues will allow me in light of recent events. just to say a word about the kansas city chiefs who last night in dramatic fashion won their third super-bowl in the last five years. as a lifelong kansas city fan, it's an incredible privilege to congratulate the chiefs again on this floor just as i did last year. for those who missed the game,

the chiefs beat the 49ers in a terrific, terrific game. final score of 25-22, an overtime thriller. only the second time in super bowl history that a super bowl has someone into overtime. the chiefs came back from a double-digit deficit. we were down one point in the first half coming back to win the game again by a score of 25-22. this is the first time in 19 years now that a team has won back-to-back super bowls. already we in the kansas city area and chiefs kingdom are ready for a three-peat as we gear up for next season. i want to call out a few folks who had outstanding performances. i have to start by highlighting harrison buckler, best kicker in the league. harrison last night set a new super bowl record with a 57-yard field goal at the end of the

first half. he scored more than half of the team's total points being 4-4 in field goal attempts and 1-1 in his point-after attempts. made a crucial field goal at the end of the fourth quarter that tied the score and sent the game into overtime. this super bowl performance of his underscores a phenomenal season in which he was perfect in the post-season and missed only two field goals the entire regular season. i'll just say, mr. president, what happened last night was typical of harrison's performance the entire season in terms of scoring points for this team. he has truly been an outstanding, outstanding, outstanding player this season, absolutely key to this team and of course what can you say about patrick mahomes, the best quarterback in the league, all time. andy reed, another phenomenal coaching game, end-game adjustments absolutely

unbelievable. terrific defensive play from the unit and everybody involved. travis kelce led the time in receiving, 90 receptions, 93 yards. rushed 18 yards for 59 yards, six reception fors 33 yards. mahomes 333 yards, rushed nine times for 66 yards and of course was named the super bowl's most valuable player. that makes him only the third player to have won that honor three times. joining tom brady and the great joe montana. this is a terrific, terrific game and i hope that we'll soon pass a resolution here on the floor to honor the chiefs, terrific victory, and to prepare for what i think will be a terrific season next season. let me just say two more things on this score, just personally. first to clark and tavia and to their three kids. thank you for your leadership. thank you for putting your faith

at the center of all that you do. you've made your faith the center of your family. you've made your faith the center of your organization. and it shows. the excellence that you have brought and continued with this program in kansas city with the organization that your family has built, that you've carried on the legacy that you have passed along is truly incredible. so thank you, clark and tavia. thank you for your friendship. thank you for your leadership. thank you for what you've done for this organization. and on a personal note, to harrison and buckner, isabel, congratulations. thank you for your bold witness, for your faith. thank you for the way that you lead your lives. thank you for being a terrific ambassador, harrison, and terrific ambassadors comes a couple for the kansas city chiefs, for kansas city, for the region, but most of all for your faith, for the faith that we have in common. it is -- it's an honor to get to call you a friend. it's an honor to get to see you play. this was such a terrific,

terrific game last night. fantastic game. congratulations to all the chiefs. senator marshall and i and others have offered a resolution honoring the team which i hope will pass the senate with unanimous consent. we look forward to sharing that with all of the team members, andy reed, clark, and tavia as well as the entire state of missouri. and since my good friend senator marshall is on the floor, i'll just say that we in kansas city, missouri, now the chiefs and missouri football team were so proud to have the chiefs in missouri. hey, we welcome fans from kansas and all around the country. so it's a great day for missouri but also for chiefs fans everywhere. you're sure welcome to -- the great state of kansas as well. thank you for that and thank you for indulging me, mr. president, and making those remarks and honoring this terrific football team. i'll just say as a guy who grew up as a young guy watching the

chiefs play, i still remember exactly where i was, maybe senator marshall can relate to this, exactly where i was when joe montana took the chiefs to the afc championship game. montana played for the chiefs, of course, for three years toward the end of his career. and i still remember right where i was watching montana in that first -- that first season at the afc championship games, by the far the chiefs had ever gotten in my lifetime. we lost that game unfortunately. but i was sitting in lexington, missouri, where i grew up, watching them on a little tv in the corner there and i thought to myself, man, it doesn't get better than this. but as we found out, it does get better than that. it gets better than just going to the championship game. it gets better when you win the afc championship game and win the super bowl year after year after year. congratulations to the chiefs and the dynasty they have created in the national football league and i think they're just getting started.

on a more serious note, mr. president, and turning now to the topic of conversation that is before us on the floor tonight, we are considering the national security supplemental, and it is absolutely true that america faces no shortage of threats to our national sk security, our own boarders to begin with are as we speak and sit here tonight wide open. the number of border crossings continues at all-time highs. there are in fiscal year or -- fiscal year 2023, 860,000 illegal got-aways, 302,000 encounters with illegal aliens in december of this last year alone. that's an all-time high for a single month. the number of chinese migrants at the southwest border jumped more than 10fold from 2,176 in fiscal year 2022 to 24,314 in

fiscal year 2023. cbs news reports today that migrants in mexico have made 64 million requests, 64 million requests to enter the united states using the cbp1 app. that's an app that the federal government developed with your tax dollars for the phone that illegal immigrants can now use to get concierge service to cross the border. 64 million illegal immigrants have asked to set up appointments to enter the united states using the this app. i laugh but it's not funny. it's not funny at all. it's deadly serious. the threat across our southern border is deadly serious. the threats that we face on all sides across the world are deadly serious. in china, imperial china is now twice as powerful relative to the united states as the soviet union was at its peak.

and china explicitly seeks to dominate the world's largest economic area and to displace this country as a global power. they would have monumental, unprecedented implications -- that would have, monumental, unprecedented implications. we cannot allow that to happen. right now we're considering a so-called security supplemental that puts those pressing concerns last, not first. it does not do anything for our border at all. in fact, we were first served up a so-called border bill that would have made the problem worse, not better, a border bill that i think as the full employment act for illegal aliens, the border bill so-called that was before this chamber a week ago, that border bill, its central feature from my point of view was to give ill illegal -- illegal aliens already in the country expedited work permits, now such that

millions of illegals, almost none of whom will ultimately qualify to remain here permanently in the country, including for asylum claims, over 08% of asylum -- 80% of asylum claims fail statistically yet that bill would have given those illegal aliens here expedited work permits to go into our work force right now. we are looking at the flatlining of wages in this country for working people, blue collar workers, a, are having trouble finding a job, b, haven't seen a real rise in their wages in years, over the last 30 years blue collar wages have declined and yet the solution of this body would be to create even more cheap labor in this country. we know why the u.s. chamber of commerce and wall street love that bill. it's a cheap labor bill. they love cheap labor. their first preference would be overseas -- overseas cheap labor but if you can't get that action why not subject americans and

those here illegally to more cheap labor. it makes absolutely no sense at all, none at all which is why i voted against it. yet that's what we were offered as a solution to the border. as to a solution to china, this body has drug its feet and neglected its responsibilities toward china for years. one is tempted to say decades. the current security supplemental does nothing meaningful in that regard. in fact, the focus is entirely almost, certainly heavily on ukraine. more money for ukraine. we spent $115 billion almost in ukraine so far. this bill would commit tens of billions more and to what end? let me just -- let me just offer a contrast, mr. president. not long ago i was on this floor discussing the need, discussing the cries for justice from americans in my state, in

arizona, idaho, new mexico, texas, wyoming, tennessee, kentucky, alaska, americans who have been exposed to nuclear radiation or radioactive waste by their own government going back decades. in my state, the city of st. louis was used as a uranium processing facility at the very beginning of the oppenheimer project. we all learned about this in greater detail thanks to that movie but have we yet learned about the brave men and women in this country who gave their health and in many instances, yes, their lives to see that project come to fruition. well, we haven't whether it comes to the brave men and women of ms., i could -- of missouri, i could tell you that. st. louis was a secret uranium processing site for years. when the federal government shut

down its uranium processing work in st. louis, what did it do? did it clean up the uranium? did it clean up the nuclear waste? no, it didn't. here's what it did. it put the waste into canisters, metal canisters unsecured, set them out in open parking lots and other facilities exposed to the elements, exposed to the wind and the rain and the weather for years on end, and then watched, watched as those metal drums leaked nuclear waste right out of the drum, right down into the soil and right into the water, right into a creek. cold water creek is its name that runs through the greater st. louis area. from the center of the city out into the suburbs. and just as this was happening in the 1950's into the 1960's, what was happening to those suburbs? well, people were moving out of

city centers. they were moving to the suburbs. they were building homes. where were they building their homes? along this beautiful picturesque creek that just so happens, mr. president, to have been contaminated from the 50's forward with nuclear waste. where did the waste come from? from the federal government. but that wasn't the only place in st. louis that was contaminated. the federal government also then decided that you know what? maybe a way to get rid of this, we'll just dump all of the waste in a public landfill. so that's what they did. mr. president, they took the waste, some of it to a public landfill without any controls, without any appropriate cleanup and by the way, without informing the public, and they dumped it into the landfill along with everything else that was there, taking no precautions, exercising no appropriate cleanup. they dumped it in another

location called laddie avenue. and there was yet another location called weldon spring. since then there are multiple locations all of these years later in the city of st. louis. we're talking about one metropolitan area in this country. multiple locations where nuclear waste has been dumped into the soil, dumped into the water, exposing people into the air and for 50-plus years it has been going on. it continues as i stand tonight on this floor. because how much of it has been cleaned up, mr. president? none of it. has the creek been cleaned up? no. has the landfill been cleaned up? no. has the second landfill been cleaned up? no. has the avenue been cleaned up? no. but what has happened is generations of residents did of my state in st. louis and then in st. charles have played in that creek. they have gone to those schools.

they have been exposed repeatedly to this nuclear radiation and waste. and they have developed cancers of many and various kinds. we lead the nation now in st. louis county in breast cancer, in various childhood cancers. it's not natural, mr. president. there's nothing normal about it. it is because of what the federal government has done and done for decades. why do i mention it? well, because the program that this government set up some years ago to compensate those american peoples who have been exposed by their government to nuclear radiation is about to expire. and just a few months ago, i secured the approval of this body to renew it. we passed here on the floor of this body with a strong bipartisan vote a renewal measure to make good on our promise to those americans who've been exposed to nuclear radiation by their government, who've grown ill because of

nuclear radiation by their government, who have died because of nuclear radiation by their government, to make good on our promise to help them. we passed it. we also included in that legislation relief for the people of st. louis and st. charles and others in missouri, relief for the people of new mexico and arizona and utah and others who were downwind of these tests that we saw so vividly portrayed in the "-oppenheimer" movie and elimination where. and then what happened, mr. president? well, i'll tell you what happened. the national defense authorization act, the defense bill, went to conference, and there, despite the strong bipartisan vote on this floor, there it was removed in a backroom deal. senator mcconnell and others led the charge to remove this provision, and what was the rationale? what were we told? why was it that nuclear

radiation victims from missouri to kentucky to tennessee to be compensated? according to so-called leadership? i remember it vividly. it rings in my days every day. the rationale is, we don't have the money. the rationale is, it's too expensive to do right by the american people who have suffered and died because of their government's nuclear radiation program. the rationale was, we can't possibly afford it. that was the rationale. and now, lo and behold, i turn, mr. president, to this bill before us and i find we seem to have unlimited sums of money when it comes to foreign wars. good lord, when it comes to funding the machinery of war, we have money, we have money, we have money that we couldn't possibly dream of.

we can run the presses indefinitely if tits -- if tits he'll going to go upseas. we've got enough money apparently to send $8 billion direct to the treasury of ukraine. my goodness, we have enough money to make hundreds of millions of dollars of our taxpayer funds available to the private sector in ukraine. we are now literally funding their businesses, their banks, lord knows what! we've got money without end. we've got enough money to pay for bureaucrats'al is ricks we've got enough money to pay for ukrainian government officials' pensions. we've got enough money for so-called humanitarian aid that gets funneled away from, siphoned off into any manner of corrupt uses. we well-knowns know because -- we won't know because we don't have an inspector general to oversea this money, but that's a different story. oh, no, we've got plenty of

money. and i have listened carefully, carefully to colleague after colleague of mine come to this floor and stand where i am now and say, it's so important that we spend this money on these over-ssess wars. we must -- overseas wars. we must spend the money. if we don't spend this money now, why it might cost us more in the future? no, it's imperative that we spend this money. meanwhile, these same people turn to the citizens of missouri and say, you're not worth a dime. they say, you cans have a penny. they turn to the residents of kentucky and tennessee and alaska and new mexico and arizona and utah and texas and they say, we don't care that you were poisoned. we don't have a dime for you. we have unlimited money for ukraine. we're going to rebuild the borders of ukraine. that'sness this bill. -- that's in this bill.

we are probably paying for radiation exposure for ukrainians in this bill. we very well could be, mr. president. we'll never know because there'll never be an accounting. but the contrast strikes me as not only stark. it strikes me as absurd. it strikes me as absurd. it's worse than that. it strikes me as grossly unjust. listen, if you want to give money to overseas military operations, i think you're making a mistake when it comes to ukraine. i think doing it without oversight is a serious mistake african american i think doing it in a way that seriously harms our position in the pacific, which is our most important foreign policy challenge, is a serious mistake a i think doing it before we secure our own border is a serious mistake. but given all of that, if you wasn'ts to give money to foreign wars in ukraine, that's one thing. but to turn around and say, we have plenty of money for that endeavor but we have nothing for

the people in the united states of america, we have nothing for those who are sick an dying of cancer because of their government's action -- to say that, mr. president, is not only a juxtaposition that strikes the mind, to say that is manifestly unjust. to say that is wrong. to say that cannot be sustained, mr. president. to say that is a scar on the conscience of this body. it cannot be that we have unlimited sums of cash for foreign wars and we have nothing for the needs of our own people who our own government has hurt. that cannot be true in this country. it cannot be. which is why, mr. president, i will soon demand again that this body vote to make good on this government's commitment to help those who its government has poisoned.

but i hope and expect that when that time soon comes, we will not hear talk about how expensive it is to clean up after the federal government. how expensive it is for all of these americans, hundreds of thousands of them who have been poisoned by the government, how expensive it is for them after we have been treated to speech after speech, hour after hour, day upon day of how important it is to spend this money in ukraine. if it's good enough for the ukrainians, surely it's good enough for the american people. surely, mr. president, it is good enough for the american people. and what of those in east palestine? here we are a year now since the train derailment, the explosions, the chemical spill in that state. i.t. not just the -- it's nottious the residents right there, as devastating as it was for east palestine, affecting

everybody who lives along the river and the greater watershed area and i just note again, mr. president, what is it that this body has seen fit to do for the residents of east palestine? has that crisis been addressed? has that spill been cleaned up? ? has our river been cleaned? no. have we voted on a railway safety bill? no. no. we haven't lifted a finger, this body hasn't, to do anything to help the residents of east palestine or anybody else downstream from that crisis. certainly the people of missouri haven't gotten an ounce of relief. nothing. nothing. but we have unlimited time, unlimited resources, and unlimited rhetoric for our foreign wars.

there is a moral incongruity here that cannot be sustained. it cannot be that the american people will constantly be asked to be fodder for foreign wars and adventures while their needs are overlooked, overshadowed and put to one side. it is not sustainable, madam president. it is not right, madam president. whether we're talking about st. louis and st. charles, missouri, or east palestine or any other state in this makers it is not right that this body's priority is time and time and time again overseas wars, the machinery of war, foreign adventurism, and of course let's not forget the priorities of wall street. let's not forget that. right, who is it that always gets paid? in the national defense bill we were told overed and over, they're just no money available

for americans poisoned by their government. but i notice that we had a trillion dollars in funds available for defense contractors. wall street always gets paid. the defense contractors always get paid. and this body always hops to to do their bidding. i've seen it over and over in my short time in the senate. it doesn't take long to see who really calls the shots around here. the big corporations, the defense contractors, the wall street banks. they call the shots. both parties -- let's be honest. that's why we call it the uniparty, because at the end of the day, there's one set of interests that play the tune and that call the shots, and they're the ones who get paid. now, the american people have to take a back seat to that. if the working people of my state and ohio have to get nothing, then that's just how it is. but wall street will certainly get paid. the defense contractors will certainly get paid. they'll certainly have their

way. and so here we are again. i'm sure they love this bill. they love this bill, which makes me think, mr. president, maybe one way to help clear the eyes and focus the mind on this body is, maybe we ought to pass a law that says that no member of congress can hold stock or trade stock in corporations that have contracts with defense -- with the defense industry. wouldn't it change things around here if no member of congress could turn a profit on the machinery of war? my goodness, what a difference that would make. my goodness, how the debates in this chamber would change. my goodness, might it be, heaven forbid, that members might ask themselves, what should we do for the workers of this country as opposed to the defense contractors who are making hand over fist money in ukraine? i keep hearing all this talk about how this bill is really all about renewing our industrial base.

what that really means is, it's about sending more money to defense contractors. they've already got paid once this year. now they're going to get paid again. and i'm sure again and again and again. but, mark my words in just a few weeks time, we'll be hearing about how we have no funds, no funds for anybody who was a victim of nuclear radiation, no funds to do anything for east palestine, no funds to clean up any of the disasters that government has created. no, we have no money. we have no money. it's all gone to ukraine. i think that the moral contrast is clear, madam president. and all i can say is, i don't think it's lost on the american people. who want to see a congress that actually puts their interests first, to see a congress that actually invests in them ahead of all others, to see a congress that says if there's going to be a conflict between what we can

afford to do overseas and at home, we're going to prioritize home. if it's between rebuilding another nation and rebuilding this one, we're going to rebuild this one. if it's between securing another nation's borders or our own we're going to secure our bone. if we're going -- secure our bone. if we're going to invest in the foreign wars, we're going to take care of our people. at the very least. i think it is not lost on them, which is why it is here we're passing this bill, probably in the dead of night. another exercise in this body's monumental detachment, disconnect and frankly contempt for the american people. i'll be voting no, mr. president. but i'll be here to stand and speak for and say yes to the people of my state and other states around this nation who want to be prioritized, who want to be heard, who want to be put first by their government. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. budd: we meet this week at a critical time for our country and world. there are wars raging in europe, the middle east. china poses a growing threat to the u.s. and our interests in the indo-pacific and we're currently facing the worst border crisis in u.s. history. we're feeling the consequences of these crises all over the country. new york city, we witnessed illegal aliens attack members of law enforcement and brazenly flaunt obscene gestures on camera to all of america. in boston an illegal alien who crossed the border in december of 2022 was arrested after arresting a handicapped citizen.

pick your city. pick your state. my home state of north carolina, we've seen a 22% increase in drug overdose deaths, the highest level ever recorded. this is primarily due to deadly fentanyl that was produced in china, then transported into our country through an open southern border on president biden's watch. police departments from charlotte to raleigh, they've uncovered tens of thousands of pounds of fentanyl, enough to kill every man, woman, and child not just in my home state of north carolina but in this whole country. in order to tackle the challenges both at home and abroad, the senate and the white house, they attempted to craft an agreement to deal with this border crisis. senator, my friend and colleague from oklahoma, senator lankford, he did the best he could considering the ideologies of those he was negotiating with.

but, unfortunately, senate democrats are still beholden to progressive ideologies and ideologues who believe in open borders. this term progressive, that's a perversion of the term progress, isn't it, especially since it leads the other side of the aisle down a path of chaos and tragedy. for example, president biden has taken 94 executive actions that transformative border from a place of relative security to a place of lawlessness. that might be progressive, but, friends, it ain't progress. it might be progressive but it's not progress to live in a nation where children die of accidental fentanyl overdose before they even learn to drive a car. it might be progressive but it's not progress to allow activities, cartel members and human traffickers to run freely around this country.

when it comes to our side's recent history, the republican house, they acted. they passed h.r. 2. at the end of the day it's democrats who refuse to agree to any provisions that would meaningfully secure our border. and at the same time the threats we face on the world sustainable, they demand our attention -- on the world stage, they demand our attention as well. we've got an opportunity to rebuild the arsenal democracy, to make significant investments in our national defense and prepare ourselves for the threat from the chinese communist party. right now our defense supply lines, they're brittle and our manufacturing base, it's not prepared for future conflict and it's got to be modernized. our allies and our partners like israel and taiwan, they need our help, especially our friends in israel. they're in a fight for survival. and we need to send them the aid that they need to finish the job and free the remaining hostages,

one of which is a north carolinian. at the same time we should share israel's military objectives to destroy hamas, to demilitarize gaza, and to deradicalize the palestinian population. we don't need president biden's virtue signaling to a democratic base that's increasingly becoming prohamas. we need to let our allies in israel and around the world know that we're on their side and that our resolve is indeed strong. if we let our own defense atrophy and we leave our allies high and dry, then forces of evil and instability will be even more emboldened and our world will become even more dangerous. remember it is american strength that deters aggression and it's weakness that provokes it. but in order to be a strong nation, we've first got to be strong right here at home. we must secure our own border before we can help other

countries protect theirs. so i believe this position is reasonable and i'm going to mention a quick example for my point here. on one of my recent town hall i asked a question to thousands of people that were on the call. i asked, and i quote, if you could be assured that the southern border was secure, would you support sending support to our allies and our partners? i'll say that again. if you could be assured that the southern border was secure, would you then support sending support to our allies and our partners? roughly two-thirds of the respondent said yes. i'll bet it's the same in other states around this country. most folks, they aren't opposed to helping our friend. they just think we need to take care of our country first. and america first doesn't have to mean america only. but as i watch the process play out here in this chamber i can't

blame folks back home. the senate's initial deal which attempted to address the border crisis was then replaced with a bill with zero border provisions at all. and to date there's not been a full amendment process as was promised. for example, i think it would be outrageous to allow a single u.s. taxpayer dollar to flow to gaza while hamas terrorists hold american citizens hostages. this amendment and many others, they're not even going to be considered. the truth is that this entire process, it's not working. the only viable path forward is for congress to force president biden to get serious about border security and for the american people to see the situation at the border start to get better. until that happens, we find ourselves locked in a stalemate as the world burns. we can't accept this. yeah, we want to help our allies and our partners.

but to keep our nation strong, we must always put america first. i reserve the balance of my time. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: what we have here is a ukraine first bill. this bill was never really about securing our border but about securing another country's border. what we have here is a failure of the elites of washington on both sides of the aisle, the leadership in the democrat party, the leadership in the republican party, what we have here is a failure of these elites to understand that the

american people want to put america first. 61% of americans hive from paycheck to paycheck, and they want to put ukraine first. i want you to talk to your constituents at home, the ones who live paycheck to paycheck and tell them why you're shipping $60 billion to ukraine. this will be $170 billion. we have never before in the history of the united states flooded so much money into another country. 61% of our country lives paycheck to paycheck. eight out of ten families that make $50,000 or less don't have enough money to pay for their bill in two weeks if their check doesn't come. if they have one interruption in their family, one thing that sets them back, one unexpected

expense, they don't have enough money to pay their bills. and you want to put ukraine first. this is why the democrat party is losing the working man. this is why the republicans have become the party of the working class. this is why many, if not most members of the unions are now looking at republicans, because we support the working man. we support the working women of america. and we recognize that they do not want to send their hard-earned money and taxes halfway across the world. what does their money go for? do we know what they're doing with their money in ukraine? well, we do know that the money went to fund six fashion brands to go to the paris fashion show. we do know that it's funding small businesses to sell ladies' handbags. we do know that it's paying for the salaries of 57,000 first

responders. what about the first responders in our country? what about the people who get in an ambulance and have a $35,000 bill in our country? what about tackle the problems of america first? instead this bill is a ukraine first bill. it's a ukraine first policy. according to the ukraine first party, which includes elites of both parties, war is good. war is useful. war profits make us stronger. it sounds a bit orwellian. they say that war profits will build the defense industrial base. this is the part they used to say quietly. they used to whisper this. they used to never say it out loud, that war profits fund the defense industrial base. and, by golly, we're going to be stronger the more war profits

there are. according to the ukraine first party, war's not so bad. war profits make us stronger. lost in this reprehensible argument is any sense of grief over the 500,000 dead, for the mothers and fathers weeping graveside, little sense of grief, little sense of understanding that supporting and lauding grief is supporting and lauding the death of war. missing from the war profits are good argument is any sense of compassion for the thousands of lives that will yet be lost by the prolongation of this war. if military contracts for 100,000 rifles are good, what about a million rifles? if military contracts for 1,000 tafrpgz are good -- tanks are

good, what about a million tanks? if military contracts for 500 bombs are good, what about the military contracts for 5,000 bombs? missing from the goument that war profit -- argument that war profit is good, that the more armaments we sell, the better is compassion for the death we're talking about, the prolongation of war. you know, war doesn't end typically in victory. almost all wars end in negotiated settlement. the longer there are unlimited war profits, the longer there are unlimited weapons being sent to ukraine, the longer the war goes on, the more people who die. this is a grinder. it's a meat grinder over there. there are whole towns without young men. do i think russia is in the wrong? of course they are. arrest they aggressor? of course they are. do i have sympathy for ukraine? absolutely. but we also are now funneling money to a country that has no elections.

they've canceled their presidential elections. they've suppressed speech. they've banned certain opposition parties. they banned certain opposition press. they banned officials of opposition religion. this should bother people because it is said that american might and foreign aid is to express our power and our values. are our values no elections? are our values suppressing speech? what's become confusing even in our country, as the democrat party has become the party of censorship. they are the party that agrees that the biden administration is okay to meet with the fbi, to meet with homeland security and to meet in the offices of twitter, meet in the offices of facebook. they suppressed for over a year anybody who was willing to say that it looks like the virus came from a lab in wuhan. that was suppressed for over a year. not just by private business, but by the government, by the

biden administration meeting the fbi, homeland security meeting with the tech companies. so it doesn't surprise me that they don't care too much. just get the money out the door even though in ukraine they're living under a regime where speech has been suppressed. what the american firsters, with the ukraine firsters are really arguing for is an america last policy. they're really arguing for a longer, bigger, more deadly war because it expands the profits of the defense industrial base. how despicable. how absolutely disgusting. they're saying the quiet part out loud. they're okay with war. the longer the war, the more profits. the stronger the american defense base. it's this circular argument we're not sending the money to

ukraine. it's coming right back. it's coming back in the form of profits to the american arms merchants. it's okay. we're really not going to lose $170 billion because it's coming back in profits. we'll make more bombs. whatever happened to the progressive left? wasn't it great when there were people on the left who actually were progressive on things such as war? how absolutely disgusting. so argue that war profits are a benefit, a benefit that somehow overshadows the awful specter of war's death and carnage. the amount of money going to ukraine in this bill is more than we spend on the entire marine corps. think about it. we're going to send to ukraine more money than we spend on our own marine corps. this is a bill about ukraine first. this is a bill that makes us

weaker. there is no money to give to ukraine. it's not like we've got a pot of money. there it is no surplus, there is no rainy day fund. this money will be printed up or borrowed from china to send to ukraine. it makes us weaker. once the border bill failed and they decided that this wasn't really about the border, that this was about ukraine's border, the american firsters plowed on but with with a more intellectually better proposal, nothing for america, everything for ukraine. that's what this bill is. nothing for america. nothing to stop the invasion of nearly a million people across our southern border. they offered a border bill that would have said, well, if we have an emergency, the emergency's already happened. nearly a million people came in in the last two months. that is the emergency.

this is a bill that is ukraine first and american last and ought to be defeated. i noticed my colleague from alabama is here and i will reserve the remainder of my time. how much time toy have -- do i have left? the presiding officer: the senator has eight minutes remaining. the senator from alabama. mr. tuberville: madam president, reclaiming my time. i come to the floor to sound the alarm, as a lot of my colleagues are, about the crisis at our southern border. i've been here over three years and i've never seen this group try to do more for people out of our country than within our country. it's amazing, but this is the worst border crisis in our history. since joe biden took office, there have been at least eight

million illegal crossings at our southern border that we know of. this is in addition to the two million gotaways. these are the illegals that we know of. the real number is probably much, much higher. border crossings are at a record high, deportations are at a record low. why is this happening? you know, it didn't come out of the blue. this is a policy choice by president biden and his allies here in congress. we've been talking about this now for three years asking why, and we've not got one good answer yet. why is our borders open? joe biden campaigned on opening up our borders. he campaigned on giving free health care to illegal aliens. so it's no surprise that he's keeping his promise.

since taking office president biden has taken 94 executive actions related to immigration -- 94. we've got the same laws on the books as we did when president trump was in office, but president trump secured the border. joe biden has opened our border more than it ever has been in the history of this country. let's take a look at just a few of these executive actions. first, president biden stopped building the wall. in fact, he's been selling off parts of the wall for pennies on the dollar. i know people in alabama that have bought stacks of steel that the american taxpayers paid in l lots, $300,000 for these certain lots, $300,000 of american taxpayer money.

these people now can go on-line in an auction and buy these lots for $0.10 on a dollar. i know people who have bought $300 lots -- $300,000 lots for dollars, same thing for razor wire and other parts of the wall that are being sold. they're basically being given away. so we've been selling parts but president biden, nobody told him to do it, he did it on his own, he chose to do it. president biden got rid of president trump's remain in mexico policy. that was the most effective policy we've seen in discouraging the abuse of our asylum system in years. i've been down to the border several times, and border patrol has told me time and time again, finish the wall.

that's the best thing we can do here. it won't stop it, but it will give us an opportunity to police the wall, make them come in through certain sections of the wall and allow us to have some kind of border security. president biden is currently suing the state of texas to get them to stop securing the border. let's think about that for a second. the president of the united states is suing a border state for stopping illegal immigrants from coming into our country. that doesn't sound quite right. and i'm proud that my state of alabama has sent texas hundreds of national guardsmen to help them police texas's borders, unfortunately president biden is trying to stop them from doing that. and, as i mentioned, joe biden has essentially stopped all

deportations right now -- completely stopped it. he's not letting ice do their job, immigration police. all of these policies have led to this unprecedented crisis. they've also sent a message to the world. if you can get here, you can get in, and you'll never, never have to leave. that message has been heard around the world loud and clear. there's 193 countries around the world, and we know of 190 countries have been accounted for coming across our southern borders. illegal aliens have literally crossed our border wearing joe biden t-shirts. i would imagine the american taxpayer somehow paid for those. tv reporters have asked meem coming across our border why

they came across? time and time again, they say because president biden invited them. that's on television. fox news reporter found one in tucson saying, joe biden, i love you. thank you for everything. he was not from mexico. he wras from africa. -- he was from africa. people are coming here from every corner of the world many people are flying to mexico and walking across our border. the whole world news that our border is open. these illegal aliens are criminals, drug traffickers. just last year nearly 500 people on the terror watch list were caught trying to cross our

southern border. 500, now you would think that would open somebody's eyes. you would think it would go all the way up to pennsylvania avenue, but nobody seems to care. just a few weeks ago, christopher wray, the fbi director, says something bad is going to happen. this is christopher wray, the guy who runs our fbi, federal bureau of investigation, said something's going to happen. he seemed like in his voice he was beg somebody to do -- begging somebody to do something, but nobody has. but just imagine if 500 have been caught, how many more terrorists have come across the border unchecked. it doesn't take many. it only takes a few. 9/11 was committed by 19 foreigners here on visas, 19. it only takes a small group to do terrible, terrible damage. but americans are already dying because of the border crisis.

we all know that. we're here to protect american citizens, but we're losing. we're losing that battle. more than 300,000 americans, 300,000 americans have died from drug overdoses since joe biden took office, 300,000. i met with the police chief of mont montgomery, alabama, not too long ago. he said, coach, i never heard the word fentanyl until two years ago and now it's 95% of what we have on our streets here in montgomery, alabama, killing young people. that's roughly half of the americans killed in the civil war, 300,000, and that's the most -- that was the most deadliest war in american history. the governor of oregon declared a state of emergency over fentanyl, the governor of oregon, and the governor is a

democrat, but she declared a state of emergency. where does she think the fentanyl is coming from? she should demand that the people that represent the constituents in her state do something about what's happening. federal law enforcement has said for years that almost all of these drugs are coming over the southern border. you don't have to take my word for it, that's what the dea has said for years under obama, under trump and under biden. they said most of the drugs that come into our country come across the southern border. every day we fail to secure our border, another 150 americans die from overdoses, 150 a day, a plane load of people. this is in addition to americans

who are victims of crime committed by illegals. a few weeks ago we saw the video of illegal aliens attacking new york city police officers. new york city is a sanctuary city. in fact, new york city is giving out free money on debit cards to illegal aliens as we speak. american citizens don't qualify for this money that the new york -- new york city government is it giving out. if you're a citizen, you don't qualify for it. american citizens just have to pay for it, yet new yorkers wonder why there's a magnet pulling illegal aliens from all over the world into their city. i wonder why that is. new york state is also a sanctuary city. that was a policy choice by the current governor. that means they do not cooperate

with ice. that's what a sanctuary city does, when an illegal commits a crime, they do not get sent to ice. it doesn't matter what crime they commit. my democratic colleagues want them to stay in our country because they don't want them to be sent home because that is exactly what ice would do. in this new york case, the of these people who attacked the police were released and they were allowed back on the street where they could continue to commit crimes again americans. this case shows you how much democrats care about our police officers, defund the police. that's all i've heard since i've been here. really? they want police to go out and arrest the same people and over and over and over again. police are risking their lives every day. every time they arrest someone,

every time they kick in a door, they are risking their lives, yet liberal journals and -- judges and left-wing prosecutors will let criminals go back on the street again, again, and again. democrats, like president biden, talk about a lot of compassion in our immigration system. we've got to be compassionate. they don't have any compassion for any americans. they don't have compassion for americans like kate steinly who was murdered in san francisco, they don't have compassion for a woman raped by an illegal on a train recently in philadelphia, they don't have compassion for a mother and daughter killed by a drunk driver who allegedly had been deported four times. when americans get attacked or even killed by illegals, democrats just see that as collateral damage. it's just a price of opened borders. it's clearly more important to them to keep the border open

than to bring justice to the victims, protect american citizens, what an idea. just weeks ago the house passed legislation to deport illegals who have been caught driving drunk, deport them, 150 house democrats voted against deporting anybody that was illegal caught driving drunk. 150. the house also passed legislation to deport illegals who committed social security fraud. 150 house democrats voted against it. democrats want even the most basic things to secure our bo border, but won't do anything. now, that is an election year, obviously. now that we've gotten to this point, and people have to have votes, we're supposed to believe that for democratic -- that our democratic colleagues have had a total change of heart.

i've not seen anybody down there in three years and two months, and i've been going once or twice a year, i've not seen any of my democratic colleagues down there. i would be shocked if i didn't see somebody down there in the near future because it is an election year. they're paying lip service to the crisis at the border. they don't listen to their rhe rhetoric. look at their actions. democrats are not doing anything of substance that would actually help. president biden could start by undoing all 94 executive actions on immigration. we didn't need to do that. but he did it because he wants open borders. earlier today i spoke at length about why the schumer-murphy voter bill is not good enough. i won't belabor the point, but as senator feinstein murphy said -- but as senator murphy said understand their bill, the

border never closes down. even at 35,000 -- at 5,000 crossings a day, we would still process 1400 illegals per day. 1400. this is like putting a band-aid on a bullet hole. why even worry about it? the acceptable number of illegal crossings isn't 5,000. it's not 4,000. it's zero. in a tv interview a few days ago, chris murphy said fail to deliver for the american people we care about most. no, they care more about the undocumented americans. what is an undocumented american? undocumented is just a left wing code for illegal. they don't like using the word illegal. the term used in federal law is illegal alien. that's who we're talking about.

these are not americans who lost their paperwork and just can't find their documents or lost their passport. these are illegal aliens who have no right, no right to be here. first we stopped them from coming in. and then we deport the ones who are here. for decades we've been told that there are about 11 million or 12 million illegals here right now. i would say that's very, very short on numbers. but this is a huge problem. alabama's population is six million, my home state. so there are two states of alabamans worth of illegals already here before joe biden let in the other eight million. this takes away power from american citizens. they're overrunning our hospitals, our schools. they're even affecting the balance of power in congress and

the electoral college. seats in the house of representatives are divided up based on census votes -- census, and votes in the electoral college are based on votes in congress. right now, illegals are counted as parts of the census. a democratic member of congress on tv recently said i need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes. the presence of tens of millions of illegals in this country is tipping power to blue cities like new york, boston, philadelphia, and los angeles. it is watering down the power of the american voter. i joined with senator hagerty to introduce legislation to fix this. only american citizens should have representation in congress. we ought to count citizens only. otherwise our voting system is not equal for all americans. they shouldn't be -- this shouldn't be a partisan issue.

this is an american issue. but it looks like partisan, it looks like a partisan issue when democrats in congress go on television and say they need more illegals in their state for redistricting. democrats have shown no willingness to stop this crisis, none. they've put out some press releases and a few vague statements in the press, but they have taken no meaningful action in three years. action speaks louder than words. remember, president trump had the same laws on the books as president biden, but president trump secured the border. he went by the law. he went by the constitution. joe biden opened it up. and so, new laws are not absolutely necessary, but certain new laws would be very helpful. and so, right now, i would like to propose an amendment to the ukraine bill that would actually secure the border. my amendment is still a bill -- is a bill i've introduced, the

border safety and security act. the bill would simply suspend all illegal entries completely until the department of homeland security has operational control over the border. my amendment also prohibits mass parole programs. the schumer border bill would have allowed parole programs to continue at an unlimited pace. my amendment prohibits catch and release and requires detention. the schumer bill releases illegal aliens. the schumer bill would have allowed up to 499 -- or 4,999 borders crossings a day. my amendment would mean zero crossings, as soon as it is signed into law. it also allows states to sue the administration if it doesn't do its job and enforce the laws. we should not pass a ukraine bill until we first pass a border bill worthy of the name. that was my position in december, and it's my position

now. either we will end this border crisis or this border crisis will end us. i yield the floor. mr. paul: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: often, the titles of bills before the legislature don't really represent what the bill stands for. the title of this bill should say ukraine first, america last, because that's what this is really about. now, bills in the legislature, bills that come before the senate don't have pictures or covers on them, like a book would have or magazine. if this bill had an image or cover on the front of the bill, the image would be the migrant in new york who assaulted a police officer, was freed from jail on no bail, and gave the middle finger of both hands to

america. that's what this bill is, it's the middle finger to america. this bill is the middle finger to every working man and woman in america, every struggling american family. this bill gives them the middle finger and says we don't care about you, we care more about ukraine than we care about our southern border. we don't seem to care, or these ukraine firsters don't seem to care about the crime that's happening, they don't seem to care about the assault of a police officer in new york. they're intent on more coming in. just that one image, just that one image of that man, that migrant, that illegal immigrant who came across the border and decided to assault with a whole group of other thugs, to assault a police officer in new york, just that image alone ought to be enough for us to say enough's enough. enough's enough. we really have to control our

border. guess what -- from now on, the only people who come to america are legal immigrants. but this bill, this bill ignores the southern border. almost a million people came over the border in the last three months. almost a million people. and the ukraine firsters are saying we don't care about the southern border. we care about ukraine first. and so the picture, the image that every american should have when they see all of these billions of dollars, $60 billion being shoved out the door, being loaded on the plane, as you see these smiling politicians gleefully dropping off the pallets of cash over there, every american should remember the image of the young man giving america the bird after he assaulted a police officer. that's the image of this bill. that's the image of the ukraine firsters. and nobody should forget about it. when we look at the problems

that we face, we need to be fully aware that there is no pot of money, there is no surplus funds, there is no money to give to ukraine. we don't have enough money to pay our bills. we do not have enough money to pay for what we budget every year. in fact, the entire budget that congress votes on is borrowed. let me make that very clear. the entire budget -- not a little bit of it, not half of it, the entire budget is borrowed. this would be like someone saying, i don't have any money for rent, i don't have a job, i'm going to borrow the money for my rent. that's essentially where we are. two third of spending up here is entitlements. all of the tax revenue, from every source that comes into the federal government, is only enough to pay for medicare,

medicaid, social security and food stamps. everything else is borrowed. we don't vote on the entitlements. the entitlements are on autopilot. what do we vote on? we vote on what is military, discretionary and nonmilitary discretionary. $1.5 trillion. people talk about what is a trillion dollars. well, we're running a $1.5 trillion deficit in one year. in two years, $3 trillion has accumulated. how much is a trillion? how much is 3 trillion? if you take trillionon in $1 billions and stack them up, $3 trillion would reach to the moon. 240 thousand miles high would be the tack of $1 bills. that's what we borrow in a two-year period. it's accelerating. in the last week, the federal reserve chairman said the debt problem is urgent.

jamie diamond, head of chase morgan, says the problem is urgent. some of the economists and authors who wrote about the collapse in 2008, that predicted it coming, said the debt is an urgent problem. how does the senate respond to some of the keenest minds in the country saying we have a debt crisis? respond by send a hund billion dollars of your money overseas. it's not money we've got on hand. it's not cash on hand. we don't have any money. we are flat broke. people say it's for our national defense. we have these cold warrors who still believe in the domino they're yes. they say we are going to somehow be overrun by communists if we don't do this. we have no no money. there is no money to be sent over there. it hall has to be borrowed. the title of this bill should be ukraine first, america last,

if they were being honest. 61% of americans work paycheck to paycheck. eight out of ten americans who make $50,000 don't have enough money on hand to pay their bills. if something goes wrong for them, you think they're excited about having their tax dollars shipped off to ukraine? ukraine first, america last. that's what this bill is about. it's about giving the middle finger to america. it's about giving the middle finger to every working class man and woman in america. it is an insult. it should be rejected. it should be soundly rejected and we should get back to the business of this country, which is protecting our borders. we've got a real problem. democrats didn't seem to think there was a border problem until a few hundred of them were shipped to new york, all of a sudden they think there's a problem now. they put them up at a fancy

hotel, spend millions of dollars coddling them. the american people are smarter than the elitists up here. the title of this bill is, and ought to be if they were honest, america first -- or ukraine first, and america last. that's what the authors should have called this bill. i reserve the balance of my time. how much time do i have remaining? the presiding officer: the senator has one minute remaining. mr. paul: thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president, there are a number of things that make the united states senate unique as an institution. we've got every state in the union represented equally. if you're a big state or a small state. huge population or tiny one, you're got two senators. that makes our work all the more important and all the more unique. we need to represent our states, looking out for the people of our states, and our states sometimes as states. i can make a case that voting to pass this bill under these circumstances, without amendments or any language

what whatsoever, forcing the issue of border security, forcing the border to be made secure by a re-luckett and, recalcitrant, willfully disobedient administration hell-bent on not enforcing the border. this empowers drug cartels, dissolves our borders, and spends insane amounts of money we don't have on priorities of foreign countries. all at the same time. look, senators today as always have an obligation to vote no on bills that do bad things of the we have an obligation to vote no today on bills, including and especially this bill. but all bills certainly that prioritize gangs above governors, cartels above courts, and encourage breaking the law over enforcing the law, voting yes on this bill is a capitulation. it's a surrender. it's a vote for flooded classrooms and crowded hospitals. it's a vote for increased

homelessness, death by overdose. it's a vote that undermines law enforcement, puts citizenship itself at risk and in doubt. adds burdens to teachers, food banks. undercuts safety in our community parks and threatens the first jobs that lead to the second jobs that ultimately culminate in the best jobs for our younger people. those who vote yes undermine what senators are elected to do first and foremost which is to represent our states, not sides. every senator has the chance, the chance today, the chance tonight, this very evening to vote no on this bill and by doing so in support of governors, schools, churches, playgrounds, clean streets, and safe neighborhoods. by voting against more funding for ukraine tonight in this bill without any language finally compelling president biden to enforce the border, senators have a chance to vote against

more border chaos, no to sanctioned corruption and no to shifting our burden of representation on to the shoulders of families, police officers, charitable organizations, school principals, judges, doctors, and parents. look, at the end of the day everyone wants peace. world peace, however, isn't always within our grasp. world peace isn't our principled business. all we can do is world funding, and that's all government can ever do. tax, spend, print, and force. our economy is our business. our debt reduction is our business. our leadership due to our multilateral strength is essential, but this alas undermines what makes us strong in an attempt to prove our strength and in trying to do that, we will become less strong. we're not helping any group of

people whenever we prolong a war in which they're involved. it does not help the ukrainian people to prolong their suffering in this war. and it doesn't help our people to refuse defiantly after the senate republican conference has come to a conclusion, after senate republicans have made a commitment to each other, to our counterparts in the house, to voters in our respective states and across america, we use this as an opportunity to force a bargain, a real bargain, a bargain that harnesses appetite more prevalent on the left to fund ukraine and an appetite, sadly, existing almost exclusively among republicans to force the issue of border security. we committed to that some three months ago. we got a bill sunday night, a week ago sunday night at 7:00 p.m. eastern standard time that unfortunately didn't do that. it did other things. it contained some provisions that might prove helpful here or there, but it contained a lot of

other provisions that made clear it wouldn't force thissed a managers to do what this -- this administration to do what this administration could already do. that was the essence of the bargain we struck, the agreement, the commitment we made to each other and to our voters months ago. republicans stand for border security and the rule of law regardless of where they come down on ukraine aid. they should realize that we're forfeiting that leverage, that bargaining power tonight if we vote for this. i encourage my colleagues emphatically to oppose cloture tonight and by opposing cloture, to vote for america's communities and for the rule of law. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and reserve the balance of my time. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. romney: the vote we will soon take to provide military weapons for ukraine is a most important vote we will ever take

as united states senators. we're not being asked to send american troops into war. we are asked to help the ukrainians defend themselves. if we fail to help ukraine, putin will invade a nato nation. he may delay his next invasion until he rebuilds his decimated military. but we must be clear-eyed. ukraine is not the end. it is a step. if we fail to help ukraine, china will eventually absorb taiwan. if we fail to help ukraine, we will abandon our word and our commitment, providing to our fri friends a view that america cannot be trusted. the chinese communist party is already spreading propaganda using our delay as a warning to taiwan that the united states will not be there to help in the face of china's threat.

if we fail to help ukraine, nato, the alliance has prevented great power conflict for over 75 years will falter and eventually d disintegrate. if we fail to help ukraine, america will cease to be the arsenal of democracy. it will cease to be the leader of the free world. we will be replaced by the authoritarians, china, russia, iran, north korea. if we fail to help the ukraine, we'll be known not as our fathers and mothers were, the greatest generation, but as the worst generation. now, for months i've listened to the argument fors denying help -- arguments for denying help to the ukrainian people. i observed that the reasons have evolved over time. first it was claimed that europe was not paying their fair share. that was proven incorrect. our allies have already contributed more than $96

billion in aid and the e.u. agreed to provide $54 billion more over the next four years. next, it was argued that we should instead focus on the pacific and taiwan, but taiwan and japan and south korea tell us that the single best thing we can do to dissuade china's aggression is to support ukraine. next we were told that we couldn't afford $60 billion for ukraine-related funding. but somehow we could afford an $850 billion annual defense budget, an annual trillion dollar deficits which just happened under both former president trump and president biden. next it was claimed that we would have insufficient weapons to defend america in israel if we send more weapons to ukraine but the department of defense has explained that helping ukraine will actually strengthen our national security by helping to rebuild our depleted military industrial base. the latest excuse for denying

aid to ukraine is that this bill is a clever disguise to set up an up peachment of donald trump somehow in the future. under the so-called logic, trump has to be elected. democrats have to win the house. and those democrats have to be unable to find any other discretion of donald trump's upon which to base an impeachment. now, i know that the shock jobs and online instigators have rivalled up many in the far reaches of my party. but if your position is being cheered by vladimir putin, it's time to reconsider your position. now, i can't see into the future. but there are no guarantees that ukraine will defeat russia, but that does not mean that we should stand back and let putin have his way with europe. what's sending weapons to -- what sending weapons to ukraine does do is help discourage further raurnl and chinese invasions which could draw us

in. it helps preserve nato. it allows america to remain the leader of the free world and it shows that we honor our word to our friends and allies. the first democratically elected president of poland of 1926 and someone i've been fortunate enough to meet with recently wrote to all the united states senators. he said this, quote, you're obliged to assure a peaceful future for your children. our grandchildren will never forgive us if we fail to stop russia now. if the u.s. does not lead, nobody will. end of quote. couldn't agree more. helping a free people defend their freedom is simply the right thing to do. thank you, madam president. ms. collins: madam president. the presiding officer: the

senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, madam president. madam president, last week general carilla, the commander of u.s. central command, gave me a briefing that was directly relevant to the national security supplemental that we are now considering. during the course of that briefing, the general told me that this is the most dangerous security situation in 50 years. the threats that the united states faces from aggressive iran and its proxies, an imperialistic russia, a hegemonic china, are interconnected and they require our immediate attention and a

strong response. that is why this bill focuses on fortifying our military, rebuilding our own defense industrial base, and strengthening and defending our partners and allies. this legislation would send a strong message to putin that his goal of capturing free democratic nations will not be allowed to succeed. it would reassure our closest ally in the middle east, israel, that terrorists will not achieve their goal of wiping that nation off the map. and it would counter ever growing chinese aggression. madam president, i urge our

colleagues to recognize the perilous times in which we are living, and vote for this absolutely essential national security bill. the world is watching to see if the united states is still the leader of the free world. thank you, madam president. mrs. murray: madam president. the presiding officer: the president pro tempore. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. we all understand we cannot leave our job here unfinished. the clock is ticking right now, and there is so much at stake. we have a strong bipartisan

package to support our allies in ukraine, israel, and the indo-pacific and provide humanitarian aid to civilians who are caught in conflict. by passing this bill, we will show our allies we stand by our word and we will help them in the time of need. we will show dictators that their fragrant attacks will not go unchecked, and they cannot steamroll our allies. and we will show the world that american leadership is still alive and well, and that we are still a strong protector of democracy and provider of humanitarian aid. given all the stakes at this moment, now, right now is a critical time to send that message, which is why i'm glad we're here on the cusp of passing this bill in the senate and to my colleagues who have been holding this up and dragging the process out, we can disagree. you can vote against this. that's how it works. but one way or another, this aid will get to our allies.

we spent months going back and forth to try and get a bill to the floor. and now we are here. we are not going to let a few more hours or a few more days wear us down. however, what is an inconvenient delay for the united states senate is a dangerous one for our allies in ukraine. putin's forces are on the march as we speak. ukrainians are fighting bravely to defend their homeland, but they are running lower and lower on bullets, air defense missiles, and more every day. we measure time in hours. they are measuring it in how many bullets they have left, how many more missiles fall on their cities, and how much closer putin's tanks are getting. the question for us is how long is this going to take. the question for them is how much longer can they hold out. we cannot leave them waiting. so i urge my colleagues to support moving forward on these votes. vote to waive the budget point

of order and let's keep this bill moving and once we get it through the senate, we're going to push every way we can to get it to the president's desk and signed into law. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i move to table

amendment 1579. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to table. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to and the amendment is tabled. mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i move to table 15 -- amendment 1577. the presiding officer: question is on the motion. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to, and the amendment is tabled a -- tabled. mr. vance: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. vance: pursuant to section 3014e of the congressional -- i raise a point of order against all the emergency designation provisions contained in senate amendment 13888, a list of which i am sending to the desk.

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: pursuant to section 904 i move to waive all applicable sections of that act and any other applicable budget points of order for the consideration and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. mr. booker. mr. boozman. mr. braun. 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. 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. the clerk: senators voting in the affirmative -- baldwin, bennet, blumenthal, booker, brown, butler, cantwell,

carper, casey, collins, cornyn, cortez masto, duckworth, durbin, ernst, fetterman, hassan, heinrich, kelly, king, klobuchar, lujan, merkley, murphy, murray, ossoff, padilla, peters, reed, romney, rounds, schatz, shaheen, sinema, smith, tester, tillis, warnock, welch, whitehouse, and wyden. senators voting in the negative -- barrasso, blackburn, britt, budd, crapo, graham, hoeven, johnson, marshall, mullin, ricketts, rubio, schmitt, and tuberville.

mrs. hyde-smith, no. mr. vance, no. mr. young, aye.

the clerk: mrs. fischer, no. the clerk: mr. boozman, no.

the clerk: mrs. capito, aye. # mr. cardin, aye. the clerk: mr. scott of florida, no.

the clerk: mr. cassidy, aye. ms. warren, aye. mr. paul, no. the clerk: ms. murkowski, aye. mr. grassley, no.

the clerk: mr. hagerty, no. the clerk: mr. cotton, no.

the clerk: mr. markey, aye.

the clerk: mr. kennedy, aye. mr. moran, aye.

the clerk: mr. sanders, no. mr. mendendez, aye. mr. manchin, aye. the clerk: ms. hirono, aye.

mr. lankford, no. mr. thune, aye. the clerk: mr. kaine, aye.

ms. rosen, aye. the clerk: mr. schumer, aye.

the clerk: mr. van hollen, aye.

the clerk: ms. stabenow, aye. the clerk: mr. lee, no. mr. cruz, no.

illegals. the clerk: mr. daines the clerk: mr. daines, no. mr. warner, aye. mr. cramer, no. mr. hawley, no.

the clerk: mr. hickenlooper yieks mr. -- mr. hickenlooper, aye. mr. risch, no. mr. scott of south carolina, no.

the clerk: mr. coons, aye. mr. mcconnell, aye.

the clerk: mrs. gillibrand, aye. mr. braun, no.

the clerk: mr. wicker, aye.

the clerk: mr. sullivan, aye. the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 66, the nays are 33, three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to and the point of order fails. the question is on amendment 1388. the yeas and nays were

previously ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. mr. booker.

the clerk: mr. boozman. mr. braun.

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. 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. senators voting in the affirmative, baldwin, bennet, blumenthal, butler, cantwell, capito, cardin, carper, casey, collins, cornyn, cortez-masto, duckworth, durbin, ernst, fetterman, gillibrand, grassley, hassan, heinrich, hickenlooper, hirono, kaine, kelly, kennedy, king, manchin, mcconnell, moran,

murphy, murray, ossoff, padilla, peters, reed, romney, rosen, rounds, schatz, sinema, smith, stabenow, tester, tillis, warner, warnock, welch, whitehouse, wicker, wyden, young. ms. murkowski, aye. mr. cassidy, aye. mr. markey, aye. . ms. warren, aye. senators voting in the negative, barrasso, blackburn, braun, britt, budd, cotton, cruz, daines, graham, hyde-smith, lankford, lee, marshall, merkley, mullin, paul, ricketts,

risch, rubio, sanders, schmitt, tuberville, vance. mr. hawley, no. mr. sullivan, aye. mrs. fischer, no. mrs. shaheen, aye. mr. johnson, no.

the clerk: mr. scott of florida, no. the clerk: mr. cramer, no. mr. crapo, no. mr. schumer, aye.

mr. menendez, aye. ms. klobuchar, aye.

the clerk: mr. hagerty, no. mr. boozman, no. the clerk: mr. hoeven, no. mr. coons, aye.

the clerk: mr. van hollen, aye. mr. lujan, aye. the clerk: mr. thune, aye. mr. scott of south carolina, no.

the clerk: mr. booker, aye.

vote: the clerk: mr. brown, aye.

the presiding officer: the yeas are 66. the nays are 33. the amendment is agreed to. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, 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 amend united states code, on so forth and for other purposes signed by 17 nors. the presiding officer: pursuant to rule 22, the chair directs the clerk to call the roll to ascertain the presence of a quorum. the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet.

mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. mr. booker. mr. boozman. mr. braun. 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 presiding officer: the senate will come to order. 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.

the presiding officer: a quorum is present. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on h.r. 815, an act to amend title 38, united states code, to make certain improochlts relating -- improvements relating to the eligibility of veterans to receive reimbursement for emergency treatment furnished through the veterans community care program and for other purposes shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn.

mr. blumenthal. mr. booker. mr. boozman. mr. braun. 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. 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. the clerk: 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.

the clerk: senators voting in the affirmative -- baldwin, bennet, blumenthal, brown, butler, capito, cardin, carper, casey, cassidy, collins, cortez masto, duckworth, durbin, ernst, fetterman, gillibrand. grassley, hassan, heinrich, hickenlooper, hirono, kaine, kelly, kennedy, king, klobuchar, lujan, manchin, markey, mcconnell, menendez, moran, murkowski, murphy, murray, padilla, peters, reed, romney, rosen, rounds, shaheen, sinema, smith, stabenow, sullivan, tester, thune, tillis, van hollen, warner, warnock, warren,

welsh, whitehouse, wicker, wyden, and young. the clerk: mr. schatz, aye. mr. booker, aye. senators voting in the negative -- barrasso, blackburn, braun, brit, budd, cotton, cramer, crapo, cruz, daines, fischer, graham, hagerty, hawley, hoeven, hyde smith, lankford, marshall, merkley, mullin, paul, ricketts, risch, rubio, sanders, schmitt, tuberville, and vance.

the clerk: mr. schumer, aye.

the clerk: ms. cantwell, aye. the clerk: mr. scott of florida, no.

the clerk: mr. coons, aye. mr. johnson, no. mr. ossoff, aye. mr. scott of south carolina, no.

the clerk: mr. aye.

the clerk: mr. boozman, no.

the clerk: mr. lee, no. the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 66, the nays are 33. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is disagreed to. -- is agreed to. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: this filibuster now enters its fifth day. for many people across america, they may not understand the

byzantine rules of the senate, but they allow for sufficient debate on important questions. often the rules of the senate -- the presiding officer: the senate will come to order, please. mr. paul: often the rules of the senate are abbreviated and bills are passed in a quick fashion, sometimes too quickly, sometimes without sufficient discussion, sometimes without sufficient review. but this bill will take a while to pass. we've been here through the weekend. we were here on super bowl sunday. none of it because of a desire to punish or a desire to inflict pain on those from the other party or another persuasion but with a desire that there be a full and sufficient airing of the pros and cons of this legislation. this is not the naming of a post office. this is a profound question about where our priorities are as a nation. are our priorities as a nation

the borders of ukraine or the borders of the united states? we had a chance in the beginning to perhaps discuss both, but immediately that chance was lost when the proposal to control the border was inadequate, would have actual lay been less than the current -- actually been less than the current law, would h have actually allowed 1 spoil 8 million illegal immigrants to pour into the country. the battle to attach border control was lost when the democratic cosponsor tweeted out to the public how proud he was that the bill would never close the border. that even under an emergency, as the bill defined it it even with 35,000 people coming -- 5,000 people coming across illegal, that the ports of entry would always be open and the american people recreate h. reacted and they called us to say, shall

continue the debate. don't give up. the debate is worth it. our phone lines have been jammed all day. people have been texting in messages saying, don't give up the fight. the fight is worth it t -- it. the fight is worth it on many levels. most profoundly, the fight is worth it because we have no money. more than the debate over the border, more than the debate over whether we should fund ukraine, the night is over whether or not we are going to stave off calamity by controlling our expenditures. and will we have priorities, will respend the money where it is -- will we spend the money where it is most needed? i will never forget being in a committee hearing and a member of the opposite party looked at me and say, we shouldn't have to make choices because, they said, shouldn't we set priorities, shouldn't we spend money on what is most important and leave those things not as important for another day when we have more money?

because, you see, this was the way government operates at every level other than in washington. if you go to your city council at any city anywhere in the country or you go to your county magistrates or you go to your state government, they are all constrained by spending that which comes in. we are the only government in america -- unfortunately the biggest and most expensive -- but we're the only government in america that is not constrained by their budget. in fact, we don't even have a budget most years. we don't operate under a budget currently. they can't even take the time to pass a budget. but even if there were a budget, it's not constrained by the amount of money that comes in. we just spend. there are never any priorities set saying, well, this is more important than this, so we'll have to wait until next year to spend the money on this.

so it's always just spend it on everything. but as we come to this crisis in our country, with $34 trillion debt, we're adding between $200 billion and $300 billion in debt every month. our interest payment has doubled. we're basically borrowing to pay the rent. this is a disaster unfolding before us. there are some who describe a black swan event. a book was written called "the black swan," an unexpected big event that sort of consumes, like the 2008 crisis we had. it was still a black swan and arose out of nowhere. it was enormous. many people are calling this more of the white swan. it is a big event. but it is unfolding in slow

motion. the federal reserve chairman, powell, recently said in the last week or two, he said that the debt is urgent, that somebody must do something about it. when you tell that to many members of this body, that it's urgent that we deal with the debt, the response to the debt wouldn't be sending $100 billion to another country. the responsibility of dealing with the debt, the urgency of the debt would be to do something about controlling expenditures. and yet the response of this body upon hearing from the federal reserve chairman, upon rea hearing from the chairman of jp morgan chase that he was concerned about the accumulation of debt, after hearing from economist after economist, that the interest rates are rising, that interest rates are going to -- squeeze out other spending and there may be a day when we destroy the dollar, the response is to send $100 billion to

ukraine? so superficially and initially the debate here has been about whether ukraine comes first or america comes first. so many bills here are inappropriately titled. many of them say they're going to do all these great things, but in the end there's a more accurate title for so many bills. the more accurate title for this bill would be ukraine first, america last. because they're prioritizing the border of ukraine over the border of the united states. this isn't someone alleging a problem. this isn't us making it up and saying there's a border crisis. this is us seeing it in person, 785,000 people coming across illegally, and people say what is it? do you have a problem with immigrants? and i say, no, i'm for lawful immigration. we bring in about a million

people a year, that's pretty many, but i'm a sponsor with some on the other side of the aisle to bring in other people lawfully. i'm proimmigration. i'm proud of saying some of the best americans just got here. i live in bowling green, kentucky. we have over 100 languages spoken in our schools. we have a large population of people from bosnia. i remember treating my first patients from bosnia and trying to learn a little bit of the language. their language is serbo croatian. i speak exactly about ten words of it. a language sort of logical and easy to pronounce but i enjoy knowing a few words to try to communicate. many of the people in my town own restaurants, one owns a trucking company. they have been successful in our community and we welcome them. our church has invited many of them to begin w. there is something great about america

and accepting immigrants, but accepting immigrants lawfully who take the time and pledge to work and have a sponsor and come in in an orderly fashion is not the same as the people marching up through central america. some of them are coming from china, some are coming from the middle east. some are on the terror watch list. many of them probably want a better way of life but apply to get in. we can't let everybody in all at once. there was a pew, or gallup poll a few years ago, and it asked people, would you want to come to america if you could? if they let you come in, would you come? they estimated the percentages by country and they added it up and it was about 750 million people would come. that might be too many, particularly if they all came in a two or three-year period. we're talking about millions of people coming across the border at the time undocumented, unprocessed. i think it's a mistake. and i think we've made a huge

mistake in this body today. and i know it won't convince any minds in washington. nobody in the senate is going to be of this mind but i do truly believe the senate is out of step. i talk to people at home, i go to the grocery store, i go to my church. i see people at home and i don't meet anybody who's saying please prioritize ukraine. please make sure ukraine gets their money before you do anything about our southern border. nobody is saying that. i meet everybody who says the opposite and these are people from different parties, republicans, democrats, independents, libertarian, you name it. the people i meet say we can't just leave the door wide open. we have this enormous welfare state. there's got to be a wall either around the country or around the welfare state. we have to do something. but they certainly don't beg me and plead with me to send the money to ukraine. they would never support a ukraine first, america last

bill. and that's what this is. many in the blue states have sort of refused to see this for so long. they just have completely ignored the problem because it's mostly been texas's problem. california too. but texas in particular. the tens of thousands of people coming across the border overwhelm the hospital system, overwhelm the city system, overwhelm you name it. it's being overwhelmed by so many people. so it's intriguing that the only way we've gotten anybody on the other side, particularly in these cities in the northeast to at least be aware of the problem is to let them have some of the immigrants. you know the people who have got love on a yard sign in their yard, they love everybody. they love everybody until they have all these immigrants in their city and saying my goodness, we can't pay for it. they're putting them up in

holthss and giving them free credit cards. they have 100, we'll give them $10 million. what happens when you have a thousand or five thousand? what happens when they begin to commit crimes. lawful immigration selects out for people who want to work and are willing to obey the law. if you're a scofflaw, if you're a potential criminal or if you got let out of the prison in venezuela, guess what? that's part of what's coming across unlawfully. when some of these people made their way to new york, new yorkers are starting to wake up and say my goodness, maybe we can't afford this. maybe there ought to be some criminal justice applied to people breaking the law. but everybody saw the pictures. everybody saw the pictures of a gang of migrants attacking two police officers, kicking them and beating them, kicking them to the ground. awful images. but then everybody in america

saw the images of a migrant let out without parole a day later after kicking a policeman in the face, kicking and bludgeoning a policeman, let out of jail with no bail. what does he do? he flips the finger to america. both hands. holds them high and proud, walks on by, and new york let him go. nobody put him back in jail. nobody rearrested him. he gave the finger to america. well guess what? this bill gives the finger to american taxpayers. this bill gives the minimum ger to all of america -- gives the finger to all of america. this bill is ukraine first, america last. even more than the border issue, which i think is about setting priorities, whether or not the priorities should be america's border versus the ukranian border, i think that's a big issue. and for me, it's an easy one.

this ought to be an america first legislature. we ought to be taking care of american problems before we think about trying to solve the world's problems. this doesn't mean that i have no sympathy for ukraine. i hope ukraine kicks russia's butt. i hope ukraine wins. i hope ukraine can stave them off. and the battle has been somewhat fought to a standstill. but i know that my first oath of office and my first responsibility is to my country, to america. if we are to send $100 billion overseas, this will be a total of $170 billion. never ever in the history of the united states have we ever sent so much money to one country. $170 billion. this is about 1.5, almost 1.75 times the entire economy of ukraine. never before have we done that.

but the thing is it's not like we have the money sitting around. it's not like we have a rainy day fund or a surplus fund or, hey, here's a bunch of money we're not doing anything with. our money's all gone. we have responsibilities. and the really, i think, disturbing thing that this legislature has done, not just this one but over decades, they vote for everything for everyone. everybody's got a need, we'll give you. we're not going to set priorities and spend what comes in. we're going to give everybody everything they want. everybody who ever comes to washington with their hands out, we're going to give you what you need regardless of whether we have the money to pay for it. so this legislature, this senate, this congress has made all of these promises to people. they started these they think. they -- started these things. started social security in the 30's, medicare in the 60 p's. added on to all of these

programs. -- all of these problems. in saying you can have free stuff and it won't cost you anything, it's been a big lie. this big lie to america is that you can have your cake and eat it too. you can have stuff for free. we're going to give you free government stuff, and you won't have to pay for it. you don't have to pay taxes. we still have taxes in this country, but the taxes in this country pay only for about two-thirds of the spending. so we spend about $6 trillion a year and we bring in $4 trillion. in no world will that work. there are repercussions to that. eventually if you spend $2 trillion more than your revenue, you will go into this massive debt and potentially a debt spiral. people say the debt's meaningless. it's just paper. we owe it to ourselves. it doesn't mean anything. tell that to the person who goes to the grocery store. anybody bought a steak lately at the grocery store? i saw a steak in kroger less

than a month ago. $20 a steak. i didn't buy it. so the thing is is that there's all kinds of problems people are facing. there are people with ordinary incomes that are not going up with inflation that are being hit by the price of food, being hit by the price of gas. and think about what is -- has really happened when the money gets printed by government and it goes into these programs. the last people to get into the working class, the people that get advantage to inflation in the early stages are the rich people. these are the people who have stocks and mutual funds and retirement funds. those people have been kicking butt for the last several years. the stock market is doing this, and they're all getting wealthy. it's the ordinary citizen in our country. it's those on fixed income or working class that just get med. but inflation isn't a mystery. they come to us and they say, well, inflation, it could be

transitory and it's probably over, and maybe it has something to do with greed. and i say really? inflation is caused by greed? did people just become greedy? they haven't been greedy since the beginning of time? it's greed that causes inflation? no. it's debt that causes inflation. inflation comes when the federal reserve buys the debt. so when we run a deficit each year, we spend $6 trillion and we bring in $4 trillion, the $2 trillion in debt, somebody has to finance that. so we print up treasury bills, pieces of paper, that's basically what they are, and we sell them. some are bought by foreigners. some are bought by private funds in the united states. but then at least about a third, and sometimes more, is bought by the federal reserve. and you say that's fine. they're a big bank, the country's bank, the central bank. but they don't have money. they own debt. and it's always been boggling to me.

they call this is the asset sheet but it's really just a sheet full of debt. but they buy treasury bills by printing up money, by creating money. and so when they do that, it dilutes the value of the concurrence. so people -- currency. people who say the debt is a number, the debt causes inflation, the federal reserve causes inflation when they buy the debt. and it causes the prices to rise. but inflation disproportionately hurts the poor and the working class. rich people can get by. if the steaks cost more, the food costs more, their gas costs more, rich people get by. they have extra income. but if most of your income is going towards your rent and your food, you get creamed by inflation. inflation is part of a bait and switch problem. so many of the people got elected here because they promised something for nothing. government will be santa claus and we'll give you free

education, we'll give you free electric cars. we'll give you free electric car stations. we'll give free money even to other countries. we'll let people come in for free and take stuff for free. everything is going to be free, but it's a bait and switch. it isn't really free. nothing is really free. you can either pay for it through taxes, and we tax the heck out of everybody. some would tax them even more. a third of it's left over and it's not taxed. it ends up being this deficit that rolls forward and that is financed by the federal reserve and causes the prices to rise. so think about this when you think about the bait and switch that is american politics. politicians offer people something for free. they say to the working class and to the poor, we'll give you free stuff. and many people accept that and they say i want free stuff. i'm struggling. i need some extra help. but then they don't realize that the free