mr. sasse: earlier today it was reported the president's deputy national security advisor was asked about my call that the president and the administration speak clearly about the nature of the enemy we face, about my call that we would be honest with the american people and with ourselves about the fact that we are at war with militant islam, we are at war with jihadi islam, we are at war with violent islam. in response the white house was quoted in the "world herald" this morning as saying this: "our strong belief is not to treat these isil terrorists as leaders of some religious movement. even if you have a derogatory adjective attached to it, radical islam or is islamic extremist, essentially you are saying that these are leaders of a religious movement and that is what they want. they want to be seen not as terrorists or killers or thugs, as the president has said, but as leaders who speak on behalf of a religion, and that is why we have not identified that as the enemy in this effort," th

mr. sasse: thank you, mr. president. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks by the senator from nebraska and the senator from georgia that i be recognized along with the senator from new mexico. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sasse: mr. president, today i'd like to propose a thought experiment. imagine president trump has been propelled into the whitehouse with 300 electoral votes -- ints personality and his promise to get things done by acting unilaterally. the first 100 days are huge. he signs an order that turns the peace corps into stonemasons to build the southern wall. he shutters the department of education, and by executive order he turns the department of interior into the classiest oil company the world has ever known. what happens next? would those who have stayed silent about executive overreach over the last seven years suddenly find religion after years of legislative atrophy would congress spring into action and remember its supposed power o

mr. sasse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sasse: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak about san bernadino, about the decades-long fight that our free society now faces and about our dangerous unwillingness to tell the truth about the nature of this battle about who our enemy is. we are at war. the american people already know this. our enemy, obviously, already knows this. it is only this town where our so-called leaders dawdle and bicker, pander and misprioritize, it is only this town that seems confused. washington ignores what it cannot escape. and this is both a tragedy and a crisis, for it is impossible to win a war when one does not even admit that one is in a war. let's start by admitting that this war is different from most of the wars of the past. this is not about borders or territory. this is not about gold or other material goods. we typically think about state actors, about tra