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 stuff comes with a

price. the free stuff comes with a price, and it's an inflation tax. and the inflation tax hurts the very people you tried to help. so it's a catch 22. they are behind the eight ball. they're poor and want help from government. they get the help from government but that causes their prices to rise which traps them in this same place that they started with, maybe worse. so when we get a bill like this, it brings things into stark perspective for everyone because what we're finding is this isn't just a priority about whether we borrow or spend the money, this is about whether we spend it across the ocean or whether we spend it in our country. it's also with a very visible problem that we have, 785,000 people came in in the haas two month -- in the last two months, so we're looking at a couple of

million people could come in. we're close to a million in two months. this is a problem that can't be easily pushed away. this problem arose and there was a decision to try to match up. the democrats really, really want to send your money to ukraine. i can't tell you how much they want to send your money is ukraine. they want to be send your money to ukraine. they are hot and heavy, so hot and heavy to send the money to ukraine, nothing will stop them. it was sort of the perfect situation for putting up leverage and saying, okay, we know you want to lut the treasury, we know that you think you can send all of this money, but what about this? we won't let you do it unless you secure the border. that's how the debate sort of began. and a lot of people say, why don't republicans stand up more?

see, in the senate the unusual and really creative thing that our founding fathers did was in the senate they didn't make it a majority rule, it's a supermajority rule. if you ever have 41 votes in the senate, you can block anything the majority wants to do. we have 49 republicans. that means we have the power of 41. if we had interested leadership that wanted to use the strength of our 41, that wanted to use the strength of the minority to say, we will only let them shovel the money and flush it down the toilet and give it to other countries weeks will only let that happen if you secure the border. we had the leverage. what ended up happening is we ended up getting what i would call is fake reform. it was reform negotiated, and the mistake was doing it i think behind closed doors and with

only one individual. not that it's really all that individual's fault, but the individual really needed to come back to the caucus and say, you men and women, do you think you might support this border bill we're putting together? instead it was an all done deal, here it is, and almost all of us said it's not adequate, almost all of us said, it's worse than the one before. and our leadership abdicated. they said we're not going to use the power of the minority because we want to send the money to ukraine also. this is the problem now. and in our country some people will say there north macedonia to be more -- more people say there needs to be more compromise. you have ten or 15 republicans who side with the democrats, they believe in ukraine first and america last. they believe we should borrow $100 billion whether it comes

from china or whether the federal reserve prints it up, we'ringif to take 100 billion -- we're going to take 100 billion and send it over there on top of the money we already sent. some might say, well, you know, it's for a good cause. shouldn't we examine what it will be spent on, shouldn't we have an inspector general, someone trained to look for waste, shouldn't we have a bern appointed -- a person appointed to look for waste? democrats all voted no and all of the big government republicans who love the money, they voted no too. they don't want scrutiny about how the money is spent. i even helped them to pick who would be the inspector general, someone who has been doing it for ten years. the inspector general in charge of afghanistan is called sigar and he's done a great job.

he has accountants and economists and people who hook at this war spending. -- who look at this war spending. they know how to look at war spending and war contracts, they know how to look for malfeasance and he's found billions of dollars of it. we spent a couple of trillion in afghanistan, that is not the inspector general's fault, that's congress' fault. as a consequence, the people who love sending your money overseas, they hate him. they hate the idea so much they voted it down with a vast majority. they don't want an inspector general. but if you ask them, well, you don't want to oversee the money? they would say, oh, no, the pentagon or the state department or somebody already has an inspector general, they'll do it. i said, oh, you mean the pentagon that can't be audited, the pentagon that refuses to be

audited, the pentagon that says they're too big to be audited. you trust them to oversee the money going to ukraine? when ukraine has a history of being in the bottom 10% as far as corruption, meaning they have had more corruption than the other 90% of countries, i think that's kind of crazy. even if you were for the money, you would think that the power of 41 -- 41 supposedly conservative republicans could look them in the eye and say, we are going to give you the money, we want this, this, and this, they have the power to do it. they abdicated their power, they said we're not going to do anything on the border but we're not even going to ask for an inspector general. we're fine. shovel it out the door. where is the money? inevitably some of it is buying weapons. and to listen to the supporters of this bill, they are proud of

the weapons and the profit that will go to the people who sell weapons. this, to me, just boggles the mind. they actually have a new name. they now call it the defense industrial base. since the time of eisenhower, it was known as the military industrial complex. they renamed it the defense industrial basin we're going to rebuild ours with war profits from ukraine. so we're really not giving it to ukraine, we're giving it to ukraine, they're giving it right back to american arms manufacturers. see, it's this sort of america tile -- merchantile, it's good for business, it's good for money, are people realizing that we're not talking about this, we're talking about war where 5000,000, and they think instead of 100,000 rifles, we send a

million, and our companies will be bigger and more profitable and able to make more money for us, not acknowledging that it might kill more people than a thousand. if they have 10,000 tanks, there is more profit for the arms merchants. that would be great. we're reinventing the defense industrial base. really? you're going to make the argument that war is good or maybe war ain't so bad or maybe just a little war here and there if we can get some more profit for these guys, the big companies, the large multinational arms manufacturers, if they could get a little more profit. it would be good because that would reinforce the defense industrial base. this is saying the quiet part out loud. this is saying something they should be embarrassed by. this is saying something so reprehensible and so disgusting,

but it's happened from the leadership on our side, the leadership on the other side. it's happened also with the biden administration. in committee they come to us and they brag about how this isn't really money to ukraine, this is money to america. we're giving it to ukraine, but it's sort of a conduit, it's sort of a laundering scheme to get the money back to america. t to our arms manufacturers. so under this logic, the longer the war goes on, the more weapons we sell, the better it is for our defense industrial base. so a one-year war -- let's say we're close to two years, a two-year war that's lost 500,000 people, which would be better for the defense industrial base, a two-year war that loses 500,000 or a three-year war that loses 750,000 people?

it's a lot better for the defense industrial base to have a third year of war. and we ask ourselves, what would be the ultimate result of the war? and, like i say, my sympathies are with ukraine. russia is the aggressor and russia should be repelled and if i were ukrainian, i would fight for ukraine against the russian aggressors, but the thing is as they fight and as this war goes on, how many wars end in unconditional surrender? virtually zero. world war ii ended that way, but it's one of the few wars that ended that way. it ended in utter defeat through the drop of the atomic bombs on japan and it was complete and unconditional surrender, and i believe the same with germany as well. that's a rare war that ends that way. most wars are fought to somewhat of a stand still and there's a sufficient settlement. recently the commander and chief in ukraine reported to the public that he felt like the war

was at a standstill. typically when that is said -- i'm sure he is a brave soldier, he's well liked by the troops, but when that is said that it's an indication that perhaps negotiation could start, that doesn't make him a coward or weak, it makes him strong because he knows another year of war will grind will be this meat grinder that will grind and torture and maim another group, another group of thousands of the young men of ukraine. and if he felt like it would be an imminent victory and that ukraine could win and russia would be defeated, then -- then i'm sure he would want to fight on. and he probably still wants to fight on, but i think what the indication is that there has to be some openness to negotiation. i don't think russia is strong enough to take ukraine. likewise, i don't think ukraine is strong enough to push russia out. they fought to a standstill.

and the thing is that if our promise is unlimited weapons and unlimited money to ukraine, i think it makes it less likely that people will look for an exit ramp, will look for a possibility of a peaceful outcome to this. there will be no complete victory in ukraine. there is an infinite amount of money that can be sent, $170 billion is getting close to infinite, we never sent that much money to any country ever. if we go another year, they burn through about $10 billion a month and they already think they're a couple of months behind on that. within four to six months, they will be asking for more money again. but shouldn't we at least ask where it's being spent? sure, some is being spent on are arms, tanks, guns, this, that, but some of it is going to pay their government salaries, some

of it's going to pay for welfare, disability, health care, first responders, i think we pay the salaries of 50,000 first responders, do we have enough money to pay for the entire government, another government plus all of their weapons? in addition to their government, we've been paying their pensions. that embarrassed some of the people. they said finally, we'll pay for everything else. we'll pay for all of your government, but we draw the line at pensions, so they secluded -- excluded the pensions from this after paying for pensions over the year, but billions upon billions is going to pay for their government. most of us here want a smaller u.s. government now they want to ask us to pay for a bloated ukraine government. it is worse than just paying for their government and all of their programs. we're giving small business subsidies to ukraine. if you watched 60 minutes not too long ago what you saw was a

laddie's hand bags -- lady's hand bag, a business getting subsidies for this. i'm for profit and loss, you sell something good someone wants to buy, you become successful in business. now they're not just asking to subsidize american businesses, they want us to subsidize ukrainian businesses. i think that's obscene. i that's absurd. i think when i go home and ask people, can you believe they're sending money to a hand bag shop in ukraine, people are aghast, they're livid, they're like, who are these people. we'll vote them out. this is what should go on. this is what this debate is about. people at home need to know who these people are. every democrat say one, people need to look at how their senator votes on this or how their congressman votes if it

gets to the house of representatives. because this is about people who are prioritizing ukraine first and america last. some of the money that's gone over there, in addition to going to small businesses, actually went to send six contestants to paris fashion week, to the famous fashion show of paris. in the midst of this war we're sending money to send some fashion brands, whatever that is, from ukraine to the paris fashion show. in the middle of this war their president had time to take some fancy pictures with "vogue". i don't know, that kind of looks bad. that sort of just -- that one doesn't pass the smell test, when we're in the middle of a war, sure he's wearing his gray t-shirt, but he's in "vogue," he's at war. about a month ago he was in

argentina for the victory party for the new prime minister. no doubt asking for money. i'm a big fan of the prime minister of argentina too. i didn't go down there on the taxpayer dime. i won't take a taxpayer dime to go down there. he's in the middle of a war. what is he doing in argentina? he's everywhere, all around the world, asking for our money. my oath of office is to my country. adopt mean i don't have -- doesn't mean i don't have sympathy for ukraine. doesn't mean i don't want them to win. this would be a different debate if we had a big pile of money and we ran a surplus. but i can't in good conscience send money to ukraine that we don't have. that hundred billion dollars going out there this bill, in addition to the previous 110 billion dor lars, is all -- in addition to the previous $110

billion is all borrowed. people say it's in our vital national interest to give money to ukraine. that's merely an opinion. there's a debate on both sides of it. i'll give you the debate on the other side of this. they say we must support ukraine or the dominoes will fall. that was a theory from the cold war, which didn't turn out to be true during the cold war. the interesting thing is it is useful to understand how the soviet union lost. to my mind, it's very clear how the soviet union was defeated. the engine of capitalism defeated the engine of socialism, the engine of communism. no comparison. capitalism, which is freedom to exchange goods, to trade goods across boundaries, it's so incredibly powerful that it has driven our success, but the soviet union couldn't keep up in the arms race because socialism

frankly doesn't work. doesn't work for developing a strong military. they were always much weaker than we thought. but it doesn't work for charity or for anything else. one of the great things about our country is incredible wealth, all the way to our middle class, which exceeds the middle class of any country on the bleeped, but also -- on the planet, but also because that allowed amazing charity. as you look around and see most of our national parks, a huge percentage of the land was donated by capitalists. a lot of the land being september aside in western states -- set aside in western states, wealthy people are buying it so it won't be developed. that's capitalism. that's a result of capital. i. socialism -- that's a result of capitalism. socialism doesn't work. there was a story in poland how

price controls worked and they always led to shortages. a guy goes in to buy eggs. he said are you the store that doesn't have eggs? the guy said no, we're the store that doesn't have toilet paper. the store across the way doesn't have eggs. that's the story of socialism. it's scarcity. that's the story of price controls. there's been a debate for a long time in our country about whether or not you can have a free-market capitalist to site and have a large military industrial state. this was some of the division after the war between the libertarians and conservatives. a little bit between buckley and murray rothbard. rothbard was worried if you have a bill military state, the money that went into that would cause us to lose our freedoms, you

couldn't have both. really, you need not have this massive military state. that argument still goes on. i'm one of the ones here who says that balancing our budget, spending what comes in is so important that we should look at spending across the board. that spending would include military spending, it would include entitlement spending, but it's part of the problem. i'll be very ecumenical in my criticism in that the debt is the fault of both parties. the democrats are completely oblivious. they don't care at all. republicans pretend to care. many of the big-government republicans who support this bill, they're fine with sending money to ukraine, but they want virtually unlimited increases in military spending. it's the reverse of the current compromise that's needed to defend our country. of the reverse of the compromise would be to say everything needs a little bit of a haircut. we're not going to balance the budget by cutting "sesame

street." i don't say cut public television and we'll balance the budget. i say cut a little of everything. people are afraid of that. even people running for office, it's like, you'll raise the age of social security, you'll cut entitlements. you have to look at everything. if you take entitlements off the table, you say i'm not doing anything about the entitlements, it's two-thirds of the spending. you can cut the entire budget, you don't balance the budget or barely get there. we have to trim a little across the board. it's amazing how unreasonable that is up here. i'm an outlier. i'm one of the few, there's probably two, three people in the senate that would cut everything across the board. maybe more, might be 10, 15. i think people would be open to it. medicare is a trillion-dollar budget. could we cut anything out of it and still keep the medicare benefit? i'm not looking to tell poor people they can't have health

care or people who can barely afford it. i'm saying what can we do with a trillion dollars to spend it better? absolutely we can spend it better. could you not save 1%, could you not save 5%? when we look at this, i'll give you an example, i'll give you an example of something that just tugs at the heartstrings, alzheimer's disease. i've had family members with it. it's sad. to watch it progress among people. we give generously, the government does, your money, not their money, the government gives generously to research. we ought to be able to study alzheimer's, sure. i'm not against it. let's say they've got a hundred million dollars for research last year. is nobody up here brave enough to say we're out of money, we'll give you 95 million next year? this isn't eliminating the research, but saying your get

95%. i say that to everybody. everybody get 95% of what you got last year. at home, not one person looks askance or criticizes. they say that's reasonable. you're not being draconian, you're not being radical. we just spent 95% staff last year. businessmen and women come up to me and say we've had bad years where we had to cut 30% of spending. they're like 5% is no big deal. it nefrp happens in government -- never happens in government. as the economy goes in the tank, government spending goes through the roof. these are the things we have to talk about. these are things we have to think about. madam president, will you tell me how much time i have rema remaining? the presiding officer: 16 minutes remaining. mr. paul: good. lots of time. just getting started. as we try to make these decisions, it is about having a

government that sets priorities. i can't emphasize enough how different it is from your local government to washington. every mayor in the united states, i may not agree with their policies, but virtually every mayor, particularly small-town america, spends what comes in. some of the bigger cities have borrowing capacity and got in trouble with loans. most cities in america spend what comes in. what happens when you go to the city council meeting, what do cities do? they do stuff you kind of want -- pave the roads, fix the roads, fix the stop lights, make sure the ditches are dug and the sewage works. we all agreed to a certain amount of government, particularly at the local level. when you go to a city council meeting, there will be a budget. i know that's extraordinary. we don't do that up here. we spend $6 trillion we don't have a budget.

we haven't had a budget the last three, four years. no budget, $6 trillion, no budget. that's insane. everybody up here who is for that should be fired. i produce a budget every year on my own, one senator, not on the appropriation committee. i don't often win. actually, i never won my budget, but my budget is fairly dramatic, according to washington standards. mine i call the penny plan budget, cut 1% across the board. that used to work, balancing the budget over five years, but we spend so much on covid, we locked you up, gave you all checks, put masks on you, four, five masks, earmuffs, goggles, sent you checks, told you not to work. crazy. we spent so much to balance your budget, it would be a 5% cut. it would make us stronger. how? i proposed giving government workers bonuses for finding

waste. wow, that would be something. an incentive for a government worker to save money. you're in charge of a $12 million budget at the department of energy or education, you're in charge, you have your mission statement, here's what you are supposed to do, you think you can save a million dollars just by not buying the wrong stuff and not buying too much of stuff. we should give you a raise. i've been trying to pass that for 12 years. i can't get democrats to agree to it. you know what their sticking point is? well, if that person has $12 million budget and save a million dollars, we should spend it somewhere else. literally. i'm trying to give people incentive to save money, and i would think that the money, since we're $1.5 trillion in the hole every year, could go back to the treasury, and their argument is absolutely not, they must spend it somewhere else. insane. i remember a story of one

republican chairman telling me when we took over a few years ago, they went into one of the rooms which was a paying closet, they went in there -- was a big closet, they went in there, there were like 5,000 printer cartridges. they're like i wonder what this is. maybe they got a good deal on cartridges. which might have been true, except they didn't fit any computers or printers anymore. you know printers, everything changes. some person ordered something nobody in business would have done, and they had 5,000 cartridges to throw away. this is how government works. you don't have the incentives. friedman said that nobody spends somebody else's money as wisely as their own. that's a pretty profound statement. i think it's the most profound statement that you can apply to why government doesn't work very well. it also goes in parallel with another statement that

government is a necessary evil. they go hand in hand because government's a necessary evil because you have to give up your liberty. we don't live in a perfectly free society. perfectly free society, you have no government, you keep all your money. we give up a certain amount of freedom for safety, roads and things. those of us who understand and make this debate over liberty understand that we do have that lineality and -- that liberty and we're making a sacrifice to live in society. we think our liberty is precious, so we don't want to give up too much. we see government as a necessary evil. we don't want too much of it. if we gave up 100% of our income to have government, we'd have no freedom to enjoy the fruits of our labor. we give up 50%, that's too much. those who believe in liberty want more liberty, less government. we also want, because government's not very good at anything.

i think friedman also said that only the government, if you put them in charge of the sahara desert, could have a shortage of sand. because of just sheer incompetence. it's really not the people are stupid, that work in government. although, sometimes it's a debatable question. it's that they don't get the same incentives. in business, people are rewarded for success. some people worry about this. some on the left hate business because they see this dog eat dog world. but it's a dog eat dog world where the only people who succeed in business succeed by pleasing someone else. interesting thing about transactions in capitalism, people think transactions in capitalism are equal. they're kind of equal and not. if i want these glasses, they're very expensive, they cost me i think $1.99. if i want these, i have to want

them more than the $1.99. the person selling them he or she wants my money more than i want the glasses. it's unequal, because we're both motivated to trade. there has to be some disparity that we see. the people who make these glasses only succeed if they sell them at a good cost and sell them cheaply. these are actually from a foreign country. i won't mention which country, because everybody hates all the other countries now, wants to shut down trade. i feel richerthat i can get them for $1.99. i get them 20 at a time, i they've them half the time, they break half the time. not bad. think of your life tomorrow if amazon and wal-mart were bought by the government. what if they started telling amazon and walmart they couldn't buy other companies? they're already doing that. they're trying to prevent the merger of companies. these are the philosophies that we're talking about that have led us to the situation where we

are because these are the philosophies of people who don't believe in spending what comes in. they believe in around infinite amount of spending, but they also don't prize liberty enough to keep people out of our economic affairs. walmart is an amazing store because you can go in. you buy this pen. it's scanned and somewhere in benton within milliseconds is finding out you bought that pen there and they're sending another one. the pen is going out the door, but that's capitalism. if it were the government, let's say the post office, not quite so efficient. nothing in government works very well. it doesn't mean we won't have any government. it means we should have as little and as small a government as we could possibly have. because nobody spends somebody else's money as wisely as their own. another way to think about this is to think about the city councilman and the city council has been commissioned. they have something good. they want to build a theater or

build something in a town and it's $10 million. they say it's a good cause. let's do it and they vote for it. but if you ask that city councilman for a thousand dollars to invest in a business, which decision does the person spend more time with? which decision does the person, you know, feel it deep in his gut or her gut to give $1,000? when it's their money. our government can't operate with people's money so i don't know whether we can change government. we could try adding some incentives to government. but what we could really try to do is make government small since we know government is inefficient. try to keep government out of other enterprises. i do worry on both sides of the aisle that the fear of foreigners and the fear of foreign countries and the anger towards foreign countries is going to be to our detriment. when the average shopper goes to walmart because of imported goods, there are -- they're a thousand dollars riverer because their money goes farther. a lot of the stuff is important.

in my state we have toyota. i drive a toyota camry. some drive a prius. they're owned by a foreign country, japan, but 20,000 kentuckyians work for them and those kentuckyians understand we don't have any anger with the japanese and we shouldn't have anger with the japanese but recently the administration is -- everybody is clapping and many that are clapping, they're banning nippon steel from buying u.s. steel. what if it makes u.s. steel stronger to be joined with nippon steel. we like toyota. why can't we like nippon steel. nippon steel buys a lot of -- in my state it already employs people. they're already good for america. if we forbid them from buying another company, now that company goes bankrupt and now chinese -- we broke up u.s. steel in the 19 20es. we never should have. they would be so big and so strong had we not broken them up that they'd be more likely to compete.

people are now saying big tech. we hate big tech. let's break up big tech. what is that going to do? it's going to make the chinese competitors better and stronger. we need to stay out of it. if people want to watch tiktok or buy a radio from japan or vietnam, let them. if you like it and the price is good, buy it. but the more and more we have the anger and the isolationism that comes with breaking up trade, the more likely we come to war. with regard to this bill, i think this bill really is ukraine first and america last. i think the american people agree with me. we spent five days filibustering this. and i know we will lose sometime tonight. we can each speak for an hour. i think we'll get to 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning so we can hold them off. we can draw attention to this. but this is about winning america. it isn't about winning this vote. it's about showing america that

we care about your sovereignty of the we care about your tax dollars and we think the priority should be here. the priority should be our border. that we should be concerned enough to stay up to protest, to filibuster, to protect americans from a bill like this, to say that america is important, that our voters are important. one of the supporters of this bill said today, and i won't mention by name, but said that people at home can't understand a bill like this. that the alead foreign policy -- elite foreign policy minds of washington somehow can understand this more than the people. i couldn't disagree more. i think every one of my acquaintances and friends and people running to kentucky have every much ability if not more ability than the people in this room to make a decision on this, and i have yet to meet one who came up to me and said i want ukraine first. they say i want to defend america's border.

i want to defend america. and i want to defend a country that leaves us alone, that leaves us free, that allows volunteerism to create the great and vast wealth that our country has become. madam president, how many glorious minutes do i have left? the presiding officer: the senator has four minutes remaining. mr. paul: a lot of votes up here, win or lose, don't change things. i do predict that this vote is transforming things. people have asked whether or not there's dissension on the republican side. i think there's a great deal of dissense because what -- dissension. what has happened is a minority of republicans have decided to decide with virtually all of the democrats. despite the fact that the majority of the caucus is against this bill, i think that's led to the length of this

filibuster and the support for this filibuster. five days in, we're five days in and we'll probably make it five and a half days on this filibuster. the last 24 hours or so have been talking filibuster. my colleague from utah, senator lee, spoke for four hours on saturday. we do this because we care about our country, we care about the looting of the treasury. we care about the destruction of the dollar. we care about setting priorities and saying we don't have enough money, we don't have enough things to be everything to everyone. what we need to do is obey our oath of office. our oath of office is to america. doesn't mean we can't have sympathy for other countries. come back to me when you have a surplus. when you're running a surplus, when you're running this country on a profit, when you're running this country and paying for the things you promised to our people, then come to me and ask

me about another country. but you don't borrow money for charity. you don't walk down the street and if you're a poor person and you have four kids and you provide enough for your rent and food and your gasoline and you're barely getting by and you see a homeless person, you don't say hey, honey, let's go to the bank and borrow $1,000 to give it to that homeless person, even if you're sympathetic. you might help them up or to the side of the street. you do not go to the bank and borrow money. you can be the greatest cause in the world but we're borrowing the money. there is no money. there's no rainy day fund. there's no surplus. and there's no reason on god's green earth we should be borrowing money to send it to ukraine. we're either going to print it up which causes inflation and hurts the working class or we're going to borrow it and go further in debt. so i for one think that the

american people are opposed to this bill. i think they're opposed to the concept of ukraine first and america last. and i predict that this issue doesn't go away. i predict the house of representatives is not going to take up this bill. i predict the vags majority of republicans -- vast majority of republicans in the house of representatives are more conservative than republicans in this body. i predict this fight is not over. during this debate and the fact that we were able to delay and talk about this for five days, five and a half days, the speaker of the house spoke out. and i don't know that he would have been prompted to speak out, although he has spoken out previously against this, but the speaker of the house spoke out today and said he's not taking this bill up. they'll put together border reform that actually would transform things, boarder reform that announces that it's an emergency. so i will be a no and continue to be a no on this bill because i think it puts ukraine first

and america last. and with that, madam president, i yield my time. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: i want to start by talking about ukraine. we have a lot of different opinions here on it. so i wanted to take a moment and discuss this issue of ukraine because there's been a lot of talk about it. i've been watching. as the senator from kentucky just pointed to a moment ago, there's been a lot of debate over the last five days about the topic of ukraine. let me -- i want to set the stage for why what's happening in ukraine happened. but let me just first preface it by saying what is happening there is not irrelevant to this country and certainly not unimportant. so to set the stage, we've got to go back a little bit. in 2014 vladimir putin actually invaded ukraine. he didn't admit -- he sent in special forces.

they were dressed in costumes. he pretended it wasn't his people but it was. the rationale -- want to go back a moment with history about ukraine. ukraine was supposed to join -- wanted to join europe. there was this push inside of ukraine to join the european union and to become european in its orientation. putin didn't like it. and began threatening and pressuring the then president of ukraine. the then president of ukraine under that pressure from putin backed down. upon backing down, he faced a fierce public resistance to that decision. and as a result of that, the then president of ukraine ordered security forces into the street to attack protesters and crack down. those protesters eventually overwhelmed the government, overthrew that government basically. the president had to flee under the auspices of vladimir putin's

protection and then putin decided to take little green men because they weren't dressed like regular russian military and some of the separatist groups supported by vladimir putin to seize portions of ukrainian national territory. in addition, the russians did send their troops dressed in these little green men costumes to take a portion called crimea. there's several reasons why that was important to them of the first obviously is access to the ocean, access to the sea and for the navy and so forth. and the other is because crimea is actually -- has been historically a pretty vibrant and profitable tourism site. so they believed it would add to their economy as well. they even went as far as to conduct a fake referendum, a fake election in which the people of crimea allegedly voted to join the russian federation.

and that was the status quo beginning around this time of 2014 up until the invasion that began in -- almost two years now. and there was this line of demarcation. there was -- between the separatist forces backed by putin and the ukrainian military, and they faced off and there were squirm issues -- squirmishes and the like. and then putin decided to invade. why did he decide to invade? putin i am confident was told by his people two things. the first thing he was told in the russian speaking areas of ukraine, he would be greeted as a liberator, that people would come out into the streets holding up roses and greet the russians as liberatliberators. they wanted to be a part of russia. the second thing he was told is that ukraine would collapse. that zelenskyy and the leadership in kyiv would abandon the country and they truly bel believed, russians, putin

honestly, truly believed that within a week, ten days they wouldn't conquer all of ukraine but they would certainly conquer much of it and a friendly puppet government would be installed in kyiv. they would at least cut the country in half if not more so and bring it under the russian orbit. i point to belarus as an example. it's theoretically its own independent country, but their leaders do nothing without vladimir putin. in fact when vladimir putin decided he was going to station troops and nuclear weapons in belarus, belarus didn't have the right to say you can't do it here. they had to do it. that's why he envisioned this rump state he was trying to carve out. that's the thinking he had. it's one of the things that these authoritarian regimes suffer from. these authoritarian regimes, no one wants to tell the leader they're wrong. no one wants to tell them they're wrong so they're always telling you what you want to hear. the other reason they tell you what you want to hear, that's the stuff that gets made

attention to. if you want your memo, your intelligence product, your advice and counsel to be listened to in an authoritarian government, then you're going to generally produce things that that person is going to like. you want to confirm their preexisting biases and putin honestly believed that ukraine desperately belonged to russia, wanted to be with russia, and that the russian military was so powerful, they would be able to sweep in and take them out. it didn't work that way. zelenskyy did not abandon kyiv. the ukrainian people did not greet them as liberators and they resisted. it's important to remember they resisted before the flood of american aid and european aid went into ukraine. ukrainians were resisting and they were fighting. at the russians are casualties. ukraine did not want to be part of russia. they still do not. that sets the stage today. even with the hour that i have to speak and everything else, we don't have time to go into all depths of history the way putin

went on some tirade in some interview last week with all of these weird historical references about why ukraine belongs to russia and so forth. suffice it to say, the history is complex. in fact, many soviet leaders came from the ukraine region. but it does not belong to the russian federation. it is a country that wants to be independent of russia with a substantial portion of its population that wants to be western-oriented and putin does not want a western-oriented country that's not under his control on his border. and so he decided he was going to make ukraine his state but it didn't work out that way. so people do ask me and the junior senator from kentucky a moment ago was discussing, people do wonder, okay, that's terrible what happened. why is that our brings? i heard a lot of talk here today, so i think it is important that we bring a little bit of nuance and balance to this conversation. on the one hand, it is not true that this issue is completely

unimportant. it's not true. it is important. why is it in our national interest? there are a number of issues why we should care about what we're happening in ukraine, beyond just feeling sympathy for the people there. there is a reason why, for example, why we -- let me begin with one reason why we care. the first is if the russian federation would have been successful, if putin had been successful in taking ukraine or dividing ukraine in half, it would set -- it would completely unravel what's going on in many other parts of the world. you see, for better or for worse -- i think for better of the past 30, 40 years, there's been a general acknowledgment for the most part that you can't just invade another country and take land from it because you want it. that's what started world war ii. what regulated that was a series of things. nato and europe, our alliances in the indo-pacific, the ability of countries to defend

themselves, the condemnation of the international community. the bottom line is that for much of human history up until, you know, the last 80 years, was basically defined by leaders that decided they really like that land. we're going to take that land because our army is more powerful than yours. if you sit down and read history at all, alexander the great, napoleon, they were all conquerors. they were all people that basically -- their greatness came not necessarily because of something great they did for the world or some extraordinary advances in their society, although some of them did have advances in their society. but largely their fame, their repute, they're judged by empire-building, but a desire to conquer as much land and territory as possible. and it defined virtually all of the famous and great civilizations for the most part that we know about in human history.

but after the second world war, the world sort of got together and said, we don't want to live in a world like that anymore. and we created not just rules and laws at the international stage to govern it, but we also created defense alliances to prevent it. but what would happen now if suddenly russia was able to go in, take ukraine just because, carve it up into a rump state. maybe a little sliver of ukraine left, but the core of the country could have been pulled into -- imagine they would have been able to do to ukraine what they did to part of ukraine and crimea? there are dozens of territory editorial -- territorial disputes going on in the world. between china and india and their border, did hes disputes between china and its claims on taiwan. it ranges from that to in our own hemisphere. where even as we are here gathered now late at night

talking about these things, venezuela and its maduro dictatorship that is decided that land that belongs to guyana actually belongs to venezuela. now, obviously there are some rare-earth minerals there and some really important materials and they discovered a lot of oil, and venezuela is threa threatening -- those oil ricks are threatening that -- those oil rigs are threatening to exploration. if we live in a world where you can go in, invade a country, take it, and nothing happens except maybe a resolution condemning you at the u.n. and you get away with it, other countries are going to do the same. and before you know it, we are going to be living in a world in which war is literally breaking out in every corner over territorial disputes. so that in and of itself is a concern. because the united states is too powerful, too big a country, our economy, our daily lives are

deeply intertwined with things happening all over the world. we may not realize it. we may have taken it for granted, but things that are happening halfway around the world have direct impact on our everyday life. right now the houthis, a banding of basically rebels, guerrillas, pirates, religious zealots, but basically iran has provided for them weapons and long-range rockets that are able to hit tankers. and so today -- and people are going to start to peel it soon -- you will be paying more for a lot of things, particularly potentially oil and fuel because the insurance rates on shipping through the red sea is skyrocketing, particularly for vessels flagged by america or american allies. so the insurance rate on shipping goes up, prices go up for you. what's happening halfway around the world. just one example. so what happens around the world does matter. and if war starts to break out

in different parts of the world, you'll feel it in your pocketbook, you'll feel it in security, migration threats, you'll face it in all of this. we should care just because of that a -- that. imagine, for example, if you're sitting in beijing right now, you're watching ukraine very closely. what happens when the united states and much of the rest of the world says to you, we're warning you, do not do it it and you do it? what happens? do they sanction you for a few months? do they maybe provide weaponry for that country but then after a few years sort of give up and become fatigued and walk away? because if russia within an economy a fraction the size of china is able to weather sanctions and military support for ukraine, china is calculating we can certainly weather whatever the united states and other countries are going to throw at us the day we decide we're going to invade taiwan.

very dangerous situation. so it matters because of that a that. the second reason why 2 matters to us, and i'll talk about this more in a moment, is our reputation does matter. and it doesn't matter as a matter of pride; it matters as real consequence. so right now the chinese in particular, but others, go around the world and are openly saying the follow 0ing. openly -- i'm paraphrasing for purposes of understanding this, but basically the chinese message to the world is, america is a once-great power in decline. they are society is hollowed out. don't you watch television, see the images of everything terrible going on in america right now. their government is dysfunctional. their society is turned upside down and their kids are killing themselves. america is falling after part and completely unreliable.

didn't you see what they did in afghanistan? and suddenly if we decide we're done with ukraine, they'll point to ukraine and say, this is what happens to american allies. they are with you untiler in they lose -- until they lose interest and they walk away. so it begins to undermine a system of alliances, which is the one advantage we have. the chinese don't have any global alliances in the world. the united states has an alliance system value cannot be -- whose value cannot be quantitified. that the alliance system would be deeply threatened if all of a sudden the united states, after about two years, decided we're done with ukraine, we're walking away, we're done with it t the damage would be quite significant. so it does matter. it matters. there is a national interest involved in ukraine. now, i want to address -- i've

also heard some hyperbole, because i think when you make public policy, you have to balances things. you have to determine to yourself, okay, if this matters, how much does it matter? and your investment and commitment must be commensurate to your national interest. i love to believe in ideals and idealism but frankly foreign policy is the work of pragmatism. rarely in foreign policy do we get a choice between the perfect and the terrible. often many times in foreign policy we get two very bad choices, and we're trying to figure out which one of the two is the least worst for our country. and so it is important to have a little balances here. and i'm very confident in everything i'm go to tell you based on the amount of time i spend on these things and so forth. the first is, no matter what, if tomorrow we were to walk away -- and i'm not arguing that we should. but if tomorrow we were to walk away and give ukraine not a

dollar more, not a penny more, not a weapon more, the russian federation would not be able to take owl of ukraine. they -- take all of ukraine. they couldn't from the beginning and they can't now. would they be able to make gains beyond what they hold now? maybe. probably, a little bit. but they would never be able to take the entirety of the country. if they couldn't do it before we were helping ukraine, if they couldn't do it before their military had capabilities they no longer possess and started to beg north korea, they certainly cannot do it now. i think it is hyperbole to believe that the ukraine is is going to completely crush the russian military, not because they're not brave number of but because the size advantage is extraordinary. the russians at the end of the day have an existing military industry that can produce weaponry. they're just a bigger country with a lot more country that they can conscript.

they have more weight to bring and more leverage on the international state u. stage, primarily because they have a veto at the security council and they have more nuclear weapons, the largest stockpile in the world. if we don't stop this now, next russia la move against -- there isn't a single nato country that russia could defeat in a war. if they couldn't take ukraine, if they couldn't take ukraine has not a member of nato, whose territory they had already penetrated, whose intelligence services they had already deeply penetrated, if they couldn't do that and can't do it now, how will they take any of these other countries? leaving aside the neigh to t. a lines for a moment. russia is in no shape to invade or take anybody for a substantial period of time. threaten, yes (. maybe acts of sabotage. maybe p, you know, destruction with agents or criminals that they hire. yes e but invade and take a country?

the poles would crush them. the lithuanians would crush them, any of these countries much that's hyperbole. that's what's next here u almost like we're living back in 1939 and the nazi war machine is pushing forward into helpless countries. that's -- i get it. there's always a desire to live in an historic time and claim as some have here on the floor, this is an historic moment. the history of the world is is going to be determined. this is important, this matters a. this is a regional conflict with international repercussions that have a direct impact on our national security and our national interests. but it is nothing like the eve of world war ii. so it's important to have this balance. now, the greatest geopolitical threat -- challenge that we face today is the emerging rise of an axis, a very loose's a lines.

a partnership between china, russia, iran and then some other junior partners, and they are number-one interest of all these countries is to create a world or a world order that at a minimum is an alternative to the western-led, u.s.-led world order -- at a minimum, an alternative -- but ideally, a replacement. and while they have differences, the iranians and the russians have some differences, they both want to dominate syria, they have differences, the chinese and the russians have differenceses, historic and otherwise, the russians do not like to be seen as the junior part of the chinese, but they are. the chinese have long claimed that siberia belongs to them. there is a lot of ethnic chinese now living in siberia a so they do have some differences. they have been able to somehow put that aside because they share a common goal that's important to their national interest. and that is they want a world in which the world order is

favorable to them and unfavorable to us. one in which they have more influence and we have less influence. they want a world order in which the united states can no longer and our allies can no longer sanction russia by denying them access to the banking system because they've got their own banking system. they want a world in which the united states cannot threaten them with sanctions because there's alternatives to the dollar as the reserve currency. that's the world that they all want to live in. and so they are partnering on this. and what do they want to see in ukraine? if you are sitting in beijing right now, what -- how do they view ukraine? how do they view what's happening in the middle east? here's how they view it. they view it as we want america to be drained by the money and attention they have to pour into ukraine. we want america to be drained by what threatens to escalate in the middle east. the chinese

want america to be drained in these two parts of the world because they know the more money we spend and less attention we give to those parts of the world the less money we will have for the indo-pacific. it's one of the reasons why the chinese get annoyed at the north koreans because every time the north koreans launch rockets and give speeches about how they're going to blow things up and partner with the russians and feel more confident in doing these things, they feel like it's more of an excuse for the u.s. to pay attention to the indo-pacific and deploy military assets to the region. they want us to be drained. on the other hand, if we don't commit to these parts of the world, particularly ukraine, they're going to tell everybody we told you. these americans can't be counted on. they will abandon you, turn on you. that's their goal. either drain us, and if we pull out, hurt us. collapse, undermine our alliance

so that our allies in europe will decide the americans shall we're not going to partner with you anymore. you can't be trusted. so the nations in the middle will no longer cooperate with us because we can't be trusted. we're unreliable. the nations in asia and indo-pacific will cut the best deal they can with china because america can no longer be trusted. that's their goal. drain us or undermine us. so what is our goal? what should our goal be? our goal should be to remain committed to helping ukraine so that we're not seen as unreliable and undermined in our credibility, but do it in a way that doesn't drain us. do it in a way that does not distract us from our ability to focus on all these other parts of the world that are equally or more important in many cases. that is, that should be our strategy. to retain our credibility and

the strength of our alliance through the commitments we made in ukraine but without being drained. that's the kind of balancing. by the way, i want to say something. again, of the people that will speak this evening, i may be the only one in support of helping ukraine at least at the level i do. let me remind everybody that no matter what the house decide to do, this spending cannot be zero. and the reason why it cannot be zero is because 20 of the $60 billion is to buy weapons for ourselves. that's what a lot of people don't realize. part of the aid we've given ukraine, it's not piles of cash. yes, we have rifles, we have guns, we have explosives, bombs, rocket, antiaircraft capabilities in our stocks that we had for ourselves, and we gave it to them. we gave it to them to use. but now we don't have it, so we have to buy it. we have to restock what we gave

them. that's 20 of the $60 billion. at a minimum it has to be $20 billion because otherwise we may look vulnerable. our strategic objective here is to be supportive of ukraine but not in a way that makes it, that makes us incapable of being able to concentrate on the other parts and other matters that matter to us. as far as how this turns out, i've long resisted, though i've long believed this to be the case, i've long resisted talking about it in this way because i didn't want to undermine the position of ukraine and any negotiated outcome. ultimately the conflict in ukraine will end in a negotiated outcome. as i've already said, the ukrainians are not going to wipe out the russian military and the russians are not going to be able to conquer half of ukraine. i think the russians already

fully understand that their objectives the day they invaded are out of reach. what the russians want now is to negotiate a deal, the best deal they possibly can, holding on to as much ukranian land they can get their hands on and to force and compel the neutrality of ukraine. in essence what the russians want at this point is to have enough military success so they can gain a little bit more territory, but also force any future ukranian government to be neutral. not to be a member of nato, not to be allied with the west. that is the russian goal. and so in any negotiation it's about leverage. negotiation is about leverage. who has the most leverage. who has the most to give and who is in the most desperate need of a deal. and so part of the reason why we should not abandon ukraine and give them nothing is because we want them to have the strongest

possible negotiating leverage. if we cut all of ukraine's money and said we're done with ukraine, we're finished, ukraine would have no leverage. russia would have all the leverage. the russians would then be able to negotiate a deal that could very much leave us with a ukraine that looks like belarus, with a government, a puppet government and with russia holding significant land. then multiple countries around the world are going to see that as an example of what they can get away with in their regional conflict. and that will matter, as i've already explained, that will have an impact ounce as a country. so that need to be our goal. can't stop the help. we want to give them enough help so that they have the strongest possible hand in a negotiated settlement at some point. here's my problem with what we're going to be voting on here in a few hours. as important as all of this is,

as important as what's happened in the invasion of ukraine is, our country is facing an invasion too. if i walked out these doors tomorrow, most of the people here will get on airplanes and fly home in the morning after whatever time the vote is here, reenter the normal world oud the bubble of this place, and the overwhelming -- i don't even have to take a poll. the overwhelming majority of people would say i don't have anything against ukraine. i hope ukraine wins. i don't like putin. i get everything you said about our national interest. but how can we focus on that and not at least also focus on what's happening to us in our country, at our southern border? it makes no sense to people. and it's not just isolated to this instance. when was the last time the senate met over a weekend, super bowl weekend of all things, for

hours and hours and hours, basically said we're going to stay here until we get it done because it's that important. other than funding the government when is the last time you saw congress working on something that matters directly, a priority of the american people? it doesn't happen. it doesn't happen. if i were to summarize what most people out there are going to say, they're going to say how could we be so focused on an invasion of another country and do nothing about the invasion of ours? and that's what we face at the southern border. there's no other way to describe it. i'll address some of the points that will be raised in response to what i just said because they have already been made. the first is there was a bill, a bipartisan negotiated bill, and you rejected it. first of all, i didn't negotiate it. i didn't even know what was in it until the sunday that it was

released a week ago yesterday. and there were some things in it that i think are positive but generally i rejected it because when i took the sum of it and read the details, i won't spend all the time here tonight discussing the problems i had with it, i actually am convinced beyond any doubt in my mind that had we passed that legislation, yes, we would have gotten some improvements on asylum language, which is something we should do, but it had other provisions that made things worse in the long term. one that i continue to point to is that we were going to have in this country thousands of new asylum agents basically who would have the power at the border to either, iowa, give someone -- to either a give someone an immediate work permit. this would give them a work permit on the spot. that would be an enormous magnet for more people to come. you mean i can come to the u.s., say the magic words and i get a work permit right away?

you're going to see the numbers spike. here's the other thing these asylum agents would have the power to do. these asylum agents would have the power to give them asylum right there and then. and it would be more efficient. it's not like asylum, yes, two differences between that and the process today. the first is the process today would be an asylum judge. that's taking a very long tiechlt those agents would make things more efficient, incentivize more flow. people would say we would have a pretty substantial chance, say 30% or 40% of being given a work permit or asylum on the spot. once you have asylum, most people don't realize this. once you have asylum it is basically the equivalent of a green card. once you are given asylum you are five years away from being a citizen, which is what many people on the other side of the aisle want. it's what many democratic activists openly want.

they want more citizens who are grateful because they know which party are the ones that gave them asylum and citizenship because they'll become voters for them. that provision alone would increase the number of people coming to this country. today they come knowing they'll be released. they'll have to wait six months to get a work permit and at some point they're going to have to show up for an asylum hearing. now they'll come knowing we have a real chance not to get released but to get an immediate work release and maybe even granted asylum on the spot. that would not make our system better. it would make it worse. that alone was the reason why i could not support that deal. but i want to be clear when people say we gave you exactly what you wanted and they turned it down. they're not serious about border security. you did not give me what i wanted. i don't know what they told you i wanted. i never said i wanted a bill. i said i wanted the president to reverse the executive orders

that he issued that created the migratory crisis we now face, that created this invasion. let me show you something in this graph, something i really wanted to point to. this is the year, this is the land encounters by month heading into the year, at the end of the fiscal year 20. this is january of 2021. this point right here is the election of joe biden. just look at this graph. from the moment he was elected in january, look at the spike and the spike. what happened? what happened between here and here? and moving forward. i don't have a big enough board to show you what's happened. explain to me this spike right there. what happened there? because something happened there. the line here was fine. if i went back further you would

see the line was flat, actually down this wachlt what happened here in this moment at time? if this was an ekg or medical test, dockets would say something -- doctors would say something happened here. a lot of things happened there. on his first day in office biden gets elected, issues a 100 day moratorium. he campaigned for president and the world heard him say i'm going to get rid of all the trump policies so already people that want to come into our country are waiting for the election to go. i said this the other day when i gave a speech, when i talk to you about these issues this is not something i picked up from some briefing or document i read or experts that came in. i get this from the people that actually came because a lot of them live in miami and their relatives live in miami and their decisions about coming to the united states illegally, it is not built on legal interpretations of the law. most of them don't even know

what our immigration laws are. many of them misunderstand our immigration laws. they come based on what they believe our policies are. you have traffickers telling them things that aren't true but you also have perception. and the perception was trump was restrictive. trump did everything to stop people from coming. biden is going to do the opposite. he gets elected, that leads to a spike just as his elections did. not just elections, his policies. something else happened in that period of time. joe biden became the first president in the modern history of our country that decided we would not detain virtually anyone who came into this country unlawfully. people love to say immigration law is so complicated, so difficult, so hard to understand. it is. it's complex certainly to practice. but at it's core it's pretty straightforward. here's what the law says i. i'm

paraphrasing. it says here are the people who are allowed to come into the united states. and if anyone who comes into the united states is not supposed to be here, you are to detain them until removal. bottom line, you're either allowed to enter the country or you're not. if you are not and you enter illegally they're supposed to detain you until they remove you.fundraising. there have always been exceptions and there have been narrow exceptions. obama applied it that way and those exceptions for humanitarian concerns and things of this nature were designed for individual cases. so a well known, you know, figure in china or in some other part of the world shows up a and -- and everybody knows who they are, they are being oppressed, they allow them. people are dying, you send them home and they will die -- biden

made the exception of the rule, he said it would be inhumane to detain anyone. and so people realized very quickly, forget about the law, forget about the particulars of the law. people realized very quickly, if i can get to the border and i turn myself over to a border agent, my chances of being released into the country are 85% or higher. and they know it pause they know people -- pause they know -- because they know people who did it. this is how it works. i literally had people come up to me, look at the cashout payment i made, it cost me $5,000 to come over here, i paid them to bring them in. they showed it to me. i asked them, how can you know about this? -- how did you know about this? i know people who did it. somebody comes illegally, they turn themselves in, they're

released, turned over to a nongovernment organization, a charity and that charity tells you all of the benefits that you qualify for, they may give you a plane ticket or bus ticket. they make it to where ever they're going and they call home and tell everybody here's how i did it, here's how i came and more people come behind and toll them. this spike is easy to understand. joe biden changed the way we ennorsed im -- enforced immigration law. he said we're going to release everyone. people figured it out and they started coming and the invasion began. that's what created the problem, not a law. the law is the same. the law today is the same as it was that day right there. the law today -- immigration law in america is identical. our immigration statutes are identical today to what they were on this day, this day and all those other years. the numbers don't lie.

put aside the graph for a moment. in his first full month in office, 101 -- almost 102,000 people were encountered at the border, just in his first month in office. that is double in the highest number encountered. none of the other excuses people come up, end of covid, climate change. the -- did the climate change that much from one month to the next? what changed was a new president who said, come, we'll release you. the year 21 from here forward that ended with over 1.7 million total encounters at the southern border. during that 12-month period in 2021, that fiscal year, the highest month was over 213 encounters at the -- 213,000

encounters at the border. you look at the last year of the trump presidency, there were 458 encounters, it went from 458 in the last year of the trump presidency to 1.7 million in the first year of the biden presidency. the immigration law didn't change. what changed is the president and his policies and that's what created this crisis, and that's how you fix it. now, obviously the president doesn't want to fix it. doesn't want to change it. there's reasons why he doesn't want to change it. the first is admitting that trump was right to change it back to what those policies were, is to admit trump was right about immigration and the thicks he did make sense -- and the things he did make sense, and the second reason is that he has an activist base in his party that will go bonkers, he

has an activist base that believes people should be allowed to live where ever they want. i'm not telling you it's a majority, i'm not telling you it's 30%, but it's a big and powerful base because they believe that humans have a right to live in any country in the world they want. they should be able to migrate anywhere they want. they admit it openly. i heard them say it to my face. he won't do it because of them either. but that's what will fix it. reverse the policies that happened right in this period of time. that's what would have fixed it. that's what i asked for. that's what i asked for. they didn't do it. so i can't speak for anybody else, but don't tell me you gave what i wanted on the border, you did not. i didn't ask you for a law. the law -- the law can be improved, but the law is not the reason we got the spike.

the law is the same here as it is here. what changed was those policies and what will change that back is to go back to some of those policies. for biden to use executive orders, to repeal the executive orders that he put in place that created this crisis. 000, this is where people conscious crisis. now, this is where people tell me, why can't we do both? america can help ukraine and deal with the border. i agree with that. not only can we do it, we should do it. my problem with the bill is that it doesn't do it. it does only one of the two things. the choice we were given was here is this fake immigration enforcement, we will call it immigration enforcement, but it's not really, here's this fake immigration enforcement bill and here's ukraine money, which is real money. and if you don't take it, then we're going to say you voted against border security and you get what you want.

and what they want is to not do anything on the border and blame republicans for it. it's a political ploy. that's what we're faced with here today. the problem i have with this bill, as i said, is we're not doing both. if we were getting from the president real changes on border policies to bring this under control, we might not even be here tonight. we might have gotten this done already, and i would have been supportive, but we don't. the other thing i heard people is say, now you're holding ukraine hostage. you're holding up the important ukraine hostage over our border. i would say a couple of things about that. first is you're holding israel hostage over ukraine. if you put in israel aid vote bill on the floor right now, if

you put a bill on this floor right now that said taiwan and israel aid, it would probably pass with 89, 90 votes, but they didn't. they held it hostage so they got ukraine. so they say, we're holding ukraine hostage over the border, they're holding israel shonl over ukraine -- hostage over ukraine and they've held israel hostage over ukraine, and so you're now faced with a bill, you want to help israel, you have to help ukraine and you get nothing on the border. they're the ones holding hostage. the other argument i heard is these are people using this as an excuse to kill the bill. i explained to you. that's not me. you might be referring to other people, but not me. what i wanted us to do is what i said. i wanted us to do something real about our national security, about our invasion, about our border. is it leverage?

yes. in in process, in in place this is the only way you sometimes get thicks done -- sometimes get things done, the only way to get something done is to hold up something you support that the other side wants to get something you want. there is no shame in telling you, yes, it was used as leverage, unsuccessfully unfortunately. i have no shame in saying that because the leverage of what i was asking for is what our people need, what our country needs. it's a priority for our country, it's important for our country. what good is america to ukraine, what good is america to the indo-pacific, what good is a nation now and in the years to come if we can't take care of our own members here at home? and this is a problem. this is not a small matter. this is it not a seasonal ebb and flow, this migration of the united states will get worse, not better. it will get worse in terms of thumbs and it will be worse in

terms of sefrt inside -- severity inside of our country. thumb one, we're being -- number one, we're being overrun by over 3.5 million people released into this country that we know about, 600,000 either have criminal records or pending criminal matters. they'll tell you we know who a lot of these people are. they don't interview these people and even if they did, they don't know who they are. you can buy fake documents from over a dozen countries in the western hemisphere. if you have enough money on you, you can go somewhere and get an official government document that says your name is jose alvarez or raul sanchez or whatever you want your name to be. and you show up at the border and that's who woe think you are. woe -- we think you are. we have no idea who some-these people are or if they have criminal records. do you think the cuban

authorities are taking care of that, do you think people from coming africa or all over the world that those places are providing that for us? the only thing we can tell you is are you in our terrorist dat database. there are a lot of terrorists not in the database until they commit a terrorist act. we have no idea who these people are. people say, well, most are good people, hard work, i'm sure. but that's not the point. the point is you let in three, four, five million people, some percentage of them will be with bad, some percentage will be criminals. i don't care where they come from, you take a million people, some percentage of that million will turn out to be bad people and do harm. and you're already seeing it. we have a migrant crime wave going on in new york and other major cities. they're not committing crimes because they were migrants,

they're committing crimes because they're criminals. do you think people got here the other day and just learned how to pickpocket, a 15-year-old went into shoplift, confronted by a security officer, pulls out a gun, tries to kill a police officer, a block away, fires the gun again, and they arrest him. another roving gang attacked a police officer at a train station. those are the ones you heard about. it's a crime wave, and it's going to get worse. the venezuelan community in south florida has been telling me for the better part of a year that what is coming now is gang members. i didn't know how to judge their claim or what they were saying, now i see they were right. they were right. some of them didn't come straight from venezuela. they left venezuela and they were committing crimes in peru, they were committing crimes in

colombia and bra sflil and when -- brazil and when they realized they could come to america and they saw hair opportunity -- saw their opportunity, they came. now we have a crime wave and it will only get worse. now we have cities, i saw the mayor of denver crying, complaining, he wants more money, sanctuary city, if you come here illegally, don't worry, we're not going to ask you or arrest you, we will give you stuff and benefits. so of course people go in. they go there. and it costs them money. now you have to close your schools, spend money on migrant shelters, spend money on -- all these things, and now they're complaining about it. you were proud to be a sanctuary community and now in this bill we're going to send them hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out for being sanctuary cities.

meanwhile, they're not spending that money on the homeless, homeless americans that live in their community. they're taking that money out of services from the taxpayers of those communities so people go to work, they work hard, pay their taxes, and their money is taken and given to people who came into our country illegally. and what about terrorism? i want to be careful because i don't want to say anything or divulge it. let me just say it this way and i said it earlier before. use common sense, do you think that terrorists around the world, hezbollah, al qaeda, do you think they don't know that the most effective trafficking organizations in the history of mankind is operating off of our southern border, you don't think they know that? you don't think they're tapped into that and you don't think they would push terrorists into the country this way? i think that common sense tells

you they would. in the time remaining, i want to briefly talk about israel because it's part of this bill as well. it's interesting the last couple of days, this freakout over something that trump said about nato. he was going to he get -- he was going to get us out of nato. we increased our troop presence in poland because they were contributing towards nato. put that aside. this notion of this theoretical russia is going to invade countries because trump will encourage them, the people on television with the silliness. israel is in a war right now, an existential war. israel's enemies want to destroy israel. they don't want to harm israel. they don't want to defeat israel military. they want to destroy israel. they're in a war right now, and we have a president undermining israel. you say no. okay. i'll go off this article from

nbc, one of the most well-known conservative outlets in america. this is from them. president joe biden has been venting his frustration in private conversations with campaign donors over his inability to persuade israel to change its military tactics in gaza. he's been trying to get israel to agree to a ceasefire, but netanyahu is, quote, giving them hell. netanyahu, quote, is impossible to deal with. he feels like this is enough, one ever the people said of his views expressed by biden. it has to stop. some of his private conversations his descriptions of dealing with netanyahu are peppered with contentious references to netanyahu as this guy, and in at least three instances biden called netanyahu an a-something. i can't say it on the senate floor. according to three people. it goes on, he's grown steadily more frups rated with the --

fruchs rated with the -- fruchs rated with the rising death toll. he called the involvement in gaza over the top. this bill is funding the over over-the-top effort to defeat the terrorist group that didn't just massacre over a thousand israels, but is organizing the destruction of the jewish state. frustrations with netanyahu also have not led to policy shifts, but his administration has begun to consider such options. two weeks ago officials told nbc news that the administration was discussing delaying or slowing u.s. weapons sales to israel as leverage to get netanyahu to dial down israeli military operations in gaza. that's leverage. you're going to vote for a bill to give money to israel so biden can use it as leverage against our ally israel. this is an ally involved in a war right now. not theoretical, not a campaign speech, right now.

you're worried about undermining nato. worry about undermining our ally israel in a war right now, a real war. i could go on forever. they're drafting options for formally recognizing an independent state, the so-called two-state solution. that's the ideal outcome in the perfect world. in the real world, how do you have a two-state solution with groups whose goal is a one-state solution? the palestinian organizations, the plo and authority in the west bank and hamas and gaza, they don't have a two-state solution. their one-state solution is from the river to the sea there not be a single jew. that's their solution. you want to give them their own territory where they can launch more attacks to achieve this goal? i could go on. how does this wind up in the press? this is a strategic leak.

they put this out there to message their activist base. because there is an activist base within the democratic coalition that is threatening to vote against biden. we've seen these reports. that's why he sent the white house aides to meet with antisemites, pro-hamas, pro-hezbollah in michigan last week. these are the people disrupting speeches, you calling him genocide joe, that's who he met with. this is signed to try to apiece them, because they're threatening to vote against him. that's undermining an ally. that's happening real time, right now. all this talk about ceasefire. we can't have a ceasefire. let me tell you how. hamas can surrender its weapons and release its hostages, but they won't. hamas doesn't care how many palestinian civilians die. they deliberately position

military targets next to civilians so civilians get killed. they want civilians to be killed. they steal the aid money. has anyone wondered how much it costs to build the tunnels they built? millions spent building tunnels, not hospitals, not schools, not industries, not creating jobs for the people of gaza. tunnels for their terrorists so they can hide hostages, hide weapons, infiltrate and kill jews in israel. that's what they spend their money on. we're going to send more of that money when this bill passes. that's what you're voting for. it's in there. look, this is part of a broader problem here. people have to be watching this saying these people are completely out of touch with our priorities. they've abandoned all common sense. the list of things that prove this are extraordinary. one of the things i see a lot in

south florida are people in this countries, maybe came from cuba 45 years ago. they worked here their entire life. they retire, get $800, $900, $1,000 a month from social security. they run into somebody from cuba, got here three months ago, 29 years old, doesn't work, is given $1,500 a month in benefits by our government because they're refugees. that refugee a year later is traveling back to cuba 15 times. you're a refugee fleeing oppression from a place you visit 15 times the following year. in the meantime, we're giving you medicaid, food stamps, health care for your children, cash payments from the refugee fund. imagine you've been working here 40 years, and your social security check is small per than the benefits going to a 28-year-old. able-bodied person who just got here. that's real. that's happening every day.

that makes no sense. how about this one, biden has issued a visa ban and sanctions against israeli settlers? where is the visa ban and sanctions on hamas supporters who are here on student visas? we would never have given them the visa if they were hamas supporters. now they're here, they can go up the street, calling for intifada, tearing down poster. we haven't taken away a single student or visitor visa. go after the israeli settlers but not the hamas terrorists and supporters in our country? that's happening. when the horrible events of january 6 happened, within hours we had fences, the tallest fences you've ever seen, barbed wire, national guard from multiple states. we had more national guards people than members of congress. five to one. great people. sleeping in the kitchen, in the dining room. this place was protected.

when a state decides we're going to build a fence and deploy the national guard to protect our state and sovereignty, let's go to the supreme court and force them to tear it down. you'll build a fen and flood this place with national guard to protect yourself and capitol, but not to protect our country? that makes no sense to people. makes no sense. you know the leverage russia -- you know why russia invaded ukraine? they believe europe was so dependent on them for natural gas, they wouldn't do anything about it. so europe is doing something about it. the u.s. says we will export our natural gas surpluses to you so you don't have to depend on the russians. what does this administration do? they suspends lng exports a couple weeks ago because a handful of tiktokiveliers demanded it -- influencers demanded it because of the climate. makes no sense. but they did it.

on issue after issue, we either have lost all common sense or we are consistently ignoring the needs of everyday hardworking americans and putting something or someone above them. over and over and over again. that's why people lose faith in institutions. that's why they lose faith in leaders. that's why they lose faith in our process. that's what leads to populism. in the history of the world, you look at it over and over again, when people believe that their needs, their legitimate needs are being ignored by the people who runs the -- run the government, they've gone in one of two directions. both are toxic. one is socialism. the promise of the victim against the oppressor and government is going to fix it all by controlling the economy and your lives. the other direction is ethnic

nationalism. the argument that all of this is happening because somebody of another race, another color, another religion, they're to blame. one of your fellow countrymen are to blame. that's are the danger in all of this. that's why it's always so important that in a republic a republic is capable of understanding and responding to the needs of people. in our countries it's the people that, for the better part of 25, 30 years, were told it doesn't matter that we send our factories and jobs halfway around the world to another country. don't worry, you'll learn to code and find a new job making a lot more money. they never learned to code or found the better job and they gutted our cities and communities and took them apart. they're tired of being put in second place, and it's happened too often, and it's happening here again now. that's why i'm not going to support this bill. because it violates our most

important responsibility, and that is to give voice to the people of this country and stop putting them in second place behind everything and everyone else. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, some of my democratic colleagues want you to believe any opposition to their agenda is evil and unjustified. they have claimed for weeks mere questions about the $95 billion bill the senate is considering are rooted in some radical right wing anti-democracy conspiracy. the liberal press prints these lies as gospel. it has destroyed the senate and ignores the history of our great

nation. one of the first decisions facing a new republic is whether to engage in a conflict between french revolution ris and the alliance of european nations. as we know, president george washington decided to remain neutral in that conflict, knowing our new nation was not prepared to assume the grand responsibilities of supporting the 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. in the centuries since that moment, our great nation has evolved. the united states has grown into the leader of the free world, the true global superpower representing the ideals of liberty, freedom, and democracy, and standing staunchly against oppression and tyranny wherever it is found. we no longer must wrestle with these decisions the ways our founders did, but we still face

tremendous domestic challenges i'm sure washington, hamilton, and jefferson could have never imagined in april of 1793. today we are once again cash strapped and we're war weary. like never before americans are questioning whether their federal government lost its way. it fails to represent the people they elected. you hear story after story of decisions made by the biden admini administration, people saying who made those decisions? less than 25% of the country believes we're on the right track. 25%. that's not good for government. decades of politicians in washington being addicted to earmarks and pushing reckless fiscal policy decimated the financial health of our great nation. in last year's omnibus, 7,500 earmarks. the united states has more than $34 trillion in debt. soon to exceed 35 billion -- 35

trillion. a budget deficit projected of nearly 1.8 trillion. when ronald reagan got elected, the national debt was less than $1 trillion. since 2019, the u.s. population increased just 1.8%. how much do you think our federal budget is up? 1.8% increase in population, what would you think? 5%, 10%, maybe 20%. no. our federal budget is set to increase by 55%. our federal revenues up last year? 5%, 10%? no, down 9%. in the last three months, we lost nearly 1.6 million full-time jobs. part-time jobs are up, morup mo than 850,000. more americans can't find work. company after company doing layoffs. americans can't find full-time work and have to work multiple

jobs to make ends meet. when they put up the real labor statistics numbers, they say this number of jobs were created, do you think that's a full-time job for a person? that might be a part-time job by the same person, two jobs, three jobs. biden's bad economy and reckless policies created massive inflation. it's up 17% since he took office. it's caused immense pain for families every day, especially poor families like mine growing up. go to the grocery store. look at the cost of food, the cost of a car. then look at what the interest rate is, the mortgage rate when you want to buy a house or when you want to buy a car or the interest rate on credit card debt. unfortunately the world regimes, evil regimes in times do not wait, not going to wait for the united states to be in top fighting or financial shape orifice dal shape to launch their attacks. the weakness, the weakness of

the biden administration has emboldened them to sow chaos in nearly every corner of the world. iran and its proxies like hamas, houthis and hezbollah, raging 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. and 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. i can't imagine why any american would ever buy a product made in communist china. they steal our jobs, send precursors here, 70,000 people die of drug overdoses a year. they threaten our allies like taiwan. america is weak under president biden. and our enemies, they know it.

that's why american enemies are exploiting us and our great ally israel. look at where we are. a land war. israel is under constant attack and tyrants like x jing ping and vladimir putin are watching and waiting to pounce. the conflict makes this fact indisputable. decreasing number of attacks -- increasing attacks in the red sea by the houthis matter to every american family. right now companies trying to get goods across the globe have a decision to make. go through an area with clear and present danger and choose a longer route that will cause delays and increase prices for consumers all because of joe biden's weakness. this is what happens when you letter irs and their sponsors

run rampant and dictate how the world works. the result is more violence, less scrutiny and less security and serious consequences for american families from everything from the price of goods to their safety overseas. that's what we sea today as biden's weakness, needlessly push america towards world war iii. this bill does nothing to hold iran accountable. let me repeat that. this bill does absolutely nothing to hold iran accountable. americans don't want war. but instead of standing up to iran with an incredible deterrent to prevent it, biden has rewarded iran with billions of dollars with the iranians have used to enrich their nuclear program and fund terrorist enterprises like hamas and the houthis. before biden took office -- more naval assets which was good for israel, u.s., and global commerce. now he's weakening this posture.

he started these presidency by removing the houthis as a foreign terrorist organization. why? never could explain it. he did that on february 16, 2021, which was a massive mistake. this has empowered them to raise funds and grow as iran's proxy against israel. it wasn't until a few weeks ago that the u.s. finally redesignated these terrorist thugs as a foreign terrorist organization. it only happened after week after week after week of the biden administration tolerating their attacks which has created danger and disruption to the global economy. the u.s. and partners should have stymied these attacks before they started by destroying houthi assets months ago whether they began terrorizing our trade operations. biden would have been wise taking a page from the trump playbook sooner and acted quickly to show strength and deter ongoing attacks.

biden refused to do any of this because he is a weak president. multilateral internationalism, biden has proven completely ineffective in bringing along most of our allies to stand with us in times of conflict. this is the reason the world is at war now. again, nothing in this bill is going to hold iran accountable, absolutely nothing. it pains me to say this because we all want the president to be strong regardless of their party, but we know biden will never be capable of being a strong leader. that's just not who he is. he will never stand up to terrorism, hold our allies responsible to truly stand behind -- beside us, not behind us and show the world the great consequences of shared economic and security interests of u.s. and allies.

u.s. -- ensure the freedom of the seas and make the world safer and more prosperous. that has been why iran is not directly attacking israel. currently the u.s. navy is the only military force in the word that can see and attempt to control the various battle spaces that exist or could exist. our superiority -- whether necessary defeat our enemies. right now there is a serious disparity and what the u.s. taxpayers contribute toward this issue compared to other nations. i believe this needs to be fixed. this bill does nothing to address this issue. the issue -- u.s. spends $86 billion a year on defense to protect ourselves and our interests around the world. the european union spends just $295 billion. on top of that the u.s. currently has a more than $130 billion trade deficit with the

e.u. just as we force nato countries to agree to a minimum 2% spending on their own military power, we must insist on support from all these benefiting from our protection of the seas. these nations need to boost military spending and fix these trade deficits with increased purchases of american goods. more importantly, we need a president to hold them to that. this bill does nothing to address these concerns. iranian proxies in lebanon, syria, iraq and lebanon continue to escalate because the biden administration has shown it will do little to stop them. communist china, iran wants to use intimidation tactics to dictate the flow of goods and services around the globe. the u.s. must lead the free world to ensure these bad actors are deterred. we should not do it alone. as president ronald reagan said, the key to security and preservation of our sovereignty

is peace through strength. joe biden has never said that. his words echoed george washington's farewell address to the nation and told us that if you want to live in peace, you must prepare for war. neither these great leaders were warmongers but both understood diplomacy and international agreements without great strength do not secure peace. rather it is having the means and the will to deter and defeat enemies that guarantee peace and our sovereignty. well -- while chaos continues abroad, america's national security is also being threatened each and every day by an invasion of single adult males at our own borders. when the president biden's law ms. actions have created and encouraged to maintain. this has been a self-inflicted wound by joe biden. this is the sad reality for a nation under the weak leadership

of joe biden and forces us to deal with world events in a way that i'm sure many of us dislike. the moment we find ourselves in today and the honest context it deserves which is so often ignored or purposefully manipulated by democrats and their allies and the mainstream media. the united states cannot ignore the massive threats we face to our national security and prosperity that i have just outlined. on that i hope we can all agree. but as this body so often does, especially under the control of our democrat colleagues, the senate is about to again fail to meet this moment with responsible and appropriate legislation. rather than negotiate a bill for border securing the public, we are kempt in the dark for -- kept in the dark for months and ultimately fail to negotiate a border security deal with democrats that could actually get republican support and pass because it did not require biden to secure the border. this bill completely fails to

deliver what most of our conference supported and dispursement of ukraine aid to real reduction, of illegal immigration at the southern border. this bill was our only chance to get joe biden to do his job. our only chance. in florida, my home state, want a secure border today frpt they want inflation to cease and they want better paying full time jobs. our republican conference demanded a secure border before we help ukraine secure their border. makes sense. our republican conference supported tying the disbursement of ukraine aid to real reductions of illegal immigration at the southern border. in december i and my good friend senator ron johnson wrote an op-ed on this topic. we made clear this is where the republican conference wanted us to go. let me read it for you. president biden's open border policy is a clear and present

danger to america. we believe a u.s. president's primary responsibility is to defend the country's citizens and our constitution. whether it comes to border security, he is doing neither. rather than addressing and alleviate this clear and present danger, president biden and his democratic allies in congress are the root cause. although the biden administration and mainstream need came are far from transparent when reporting on the current border crisis, what we do know paints a disturbing reality. since biden took office, approximately 9.5 million migrants have illegally entered america. approximately three million have been returned, mostly under the pandemic emergency provisions of title 42. that leaves over six million, six million have taken up residency in america under joe biden. but put that number in perspective, 31 states have a population less than six million.

even though new york city declared itself a sanctuary city, mayor eric adams now asserts that the 100,000 migrants who accepted the invitation will destroy his city. but the hundred thousand migrants he claims will destroy new york city represent less than 2% of the migrants biden has allowed to enter. the other 90%, 98% are dispersed all over america. creating enormous burdens for cities of all sizes. when the biden administration took over, the border was largely secure. once in officer the biden administration claimed president trump's policies to secure the border were inhumane and they abruptly reversed course. the very unfortunate result is that biden's open border policy is now facilitating the multibillion dollar business model of some of the most evil people on the planet, sex, drug,

and human traffickers. it's hard to believe anybody would want for do that. -- to do that. the deprivations caused by this trafficking in the shadows goes largely unreported. overdose deaths largely from fentanyl coming from the southwest border topped 100,000, 100,000 annually. there's nothing humane about biden's policies. in addition to its inhumanity, the open border represents a huge national and homeland security threat. of the six million migrants who got, in 1.7 million are known got-aways. we obviously don't know who these people are or currently reside. in a recent hearing of the senate homeland security and government affairs committee of which we were -- are both members, fbi director

christopher wray stated in response to my question, what has now increased is a greater possibility of one of these foreign terrorist organizations dire directly -- in the united states. it's time to be concerned. we're in a dangerous period, according to director wray. the terrorist threats have elevated. silence since joe biden took office. these are all director wray's words. with an open border, it's obvious how and where foreign terrorist organizations would insert their fighters into our country. president biden's failure to secure the border means it's up to republicans to use any leverage we can, including his administration's desire to provide foreign aid to ukraine once and for all. regardless how anyone feels regarding support for ukraine and we are skeptical, we believe securing america's border and protecting our citizens should take precedence. a recent column stated that