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Congressional Daily Record
This section captures a formal floor step rather than a policy debate. It mentions legislation such as To direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress., committees such as Committee on Foreign Relations, members such as Charles Ellis Schumer.
Official title: LEGISLATIVE SESSION
Issued
April 15, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextDIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES
WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT HAVE NOT BEEN
AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS—Motion to Discharge
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, pursuant to section 1013 of the Department of State Authorization Act, fiscal years 1984 and 1985 (50 U.S.C. 1546a), and in accordance with section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 123, to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific authorization for use of military force.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to discharge from the Committee on Foreign
Relations, S.J. Res. 123, a joint resolution directing the
removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within
or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been
authorized by Congress.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Majority whip.
Tax Day
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today is April 15. Americans all across the country know that it is tax day in America.
like he is almost despondent that this year the American people are able to get higher tax refunds than in the past.
more of their hard-earned money. For people that are filing their taxes for the first time under this new tax law, the Working Families Tax Cuts, they are seeing that they are keeping more. And this is what we promised: to put more money in people's pockets.
I hear about it at home in Wyoming. I was home, traveling in the State, and recently spoke to a group of veterans. They were meeting with their families in Dubois, WY. We had a “welcome home” for our veterans.
I was also in Sundance, WY; Gillette, WY; Laramie, WY. I visited with students. I was in Lusk, WY, as well as Newcastle. I sat down with farmers, ranchers, and small business owners. Across the board, we talked about new opportunities that they are experiencing as a result of the law, since Republicans cut taxes dramatically, and how that appears to them in their daily lives and what it means to them and their families.
And those families in Wyoming aren't alone. Americans all across the country are seeing smaller tax bills and larger tax refunds.
refunds. The average refund this year is over $3,400 per family. Now that is nearly $250 per month in people's pockets. That is much higher than it was last year. These are the refunds that people are getting.
amount of money that people are getting back in their refunds, and I think he said the word “dud.” Maybe to him that is a dud. Maybe to him, in New York City, that is a dud.
For working families in Wyoming, $250 a month means a lot of money in their pockets. When they go to the gas station, the grocery store, when they
That is not what I am hearing around my home State. It is probably not what you are hearing in your home State of Oklahoma. People understand that money in their pockets matters to them, and it matters to their families, even if the Democrats don't believe that or the minority leader doesn't see it the way we see it.
people to keep more of their hard-earned money, and it is a direct result of the bill that we passed, the Working Families Tax Cut law.
So what have the Democrats said to do about that? Well, they tried to do the opposite last year. They wanted to pass a $4 trillion tax increase on the American people—not $4,000, not $4 million, not $4 billion—$4 trillion of increased taxes. That is where they were headed.
They weren't just heading that way. They voted for that. They voted for the largest tax increase in American history.
And Senator Schumer, today, talked about a poll. And what did he say? He said Americans think they are paying too much in taxes right now. Can you imagine what they would have been saying if they were paying what they are paying now plus 4 trillion additional dollars in taxes?
and put together a group and lead the charge to raise taxes by $4 trillion, if he comes to the floor and talks about the fact that Americans think they are paying too much in taxes?
these refund checks that are putting more money in people's pockets and saying: Well, it is a dud.
It is not a dud for the people of Wyoming. They are encouraged by what we are doing, and they want us to do even more. And we need to do more.
The Democrats talk about a $4 trillion tax increase. That is raising taxes on families, on workers, on small businesses, all across the board. Well, Republicans permanently lowered taxes, and we did it for hard-working families and small businesses.
they are working, whether retired—to keep more money in their pockets. More than 53 million Americans have benefited from at least one of the new Republican tax cuts. That is a lot of people.
benefiting for the first time from our “no taxes on Social Security” pledge. This is a new $6,000 deduction for seniors.
Mr. President, 30 million seniors have already benefited, and everybody doesn't even have their taxes in yet. The deadline is tonight at midnight.
benefiting from the expanded child tax credits. That is $2,200 per child, per year.
Millions of parents have enrolled their children in Trump Accounts. That is a big deal. For parents with newborn children, the savings accounts get $1,000 deposited into them straight from the U.S. Treasury. It happens immediately when your child is born. And I am happy to report that there are groups of individuals around the country who are matching those contributions in the Trump Accounts and adding more in individual States or to young people born in different locations—all of this in an effort to get these young people off on a good start.
benefitting from the “no tax on tips” provision in the Working Families Tax Cut law. These are our waiters, our barbers, our bartenders, the tour guides. They have claimed an average deduction of over $7,000 on the no tax on tips.
overtime. They are the firefighters, the police officers, the nurses, the linemen, the coal miners in Wyoming and in your home State. They have claimed an average deduction of over $3,000 on overtime.
more—working more. Think about that. That is not what the Democrats are proposing. What we did was put incentives in for people working more, to keep more of what they earn.
Democrats are looking to take more for the government. We are looking to find ways to let people keep what they earn.
bureaucrats in Washington or the Democrats that want to take that money to spend it. That is why they wanted to raise taxes by $4 trillion. They wanted to tax more so they could spend more. It is all wrong.
farms and ranches in my State and in the Presiding Officer's from the dreaded death tax. The small business owners in our communities talk about that when I walk Main Street, and I saw it in Newcastle, WY, 2 weeks ago. Instead of being forced to sell their land or their small businesses to pay taxes to Washington so Democrats can spend more, families in Wyoming are now able to plan for their futures for generations to come.
immediately deduct up to $2.5 million in new equipment. That means more jobs, more growth, more people in the workplace. It means more opportunities for farmers, for ranchers, and for Main Street America.
Nation are seeing bigger paychecks—another thing that the Senate minority leader referred to as a “dud” earlier today. Real wages are up this year. This is significant progress.
refunds, and higher wages are the elected Democrats in this body, who voted for a $4 trillion tax increase, and the minority leader, who led the charge. Democrats want to raise taxes on the American people. They believe that the money you earn isn't yours. They want it so they can spend it. Democrats believe that the money you earn belongs to the government. That is why the Democrat Party is known as the party of high taxes.
It is not just here in the U.S. Senate; it is in the States and the big cities that are run by Democrats across the country.
and sworn into office. So Democrats in Virginia now control the house, the senate, and the Governor's mansion—a big flip in Virginia. Since they took over in January, Democrats have introduced 50—50—new tax increases. That is the Democrat mindset: Raise taxes. Get power. Raise taxes.
cleaners, and gymnasiums. They are proposing new taxes on firearms and on ammunition in Virginia. That is what has happened now that Virginia has elected Democrats.
Democrats like to use the word “affordability.” Apparently, the Democrats' idea of affordability is higher taxes paid by working families so they can spend more money on liberal social programs. That is where we are in America today.
jobs, growing paychecks, lower taxes, and that is exactly what we are seeing here today, on April 15, as people file their taxes and see the larger refunds this year—refunds of over $3,400, over $250 a month.
Washington. They have earned it. They should keep more of it. Republicans trust people at home to know best what they want to do with that money—what they want to spend, what they want to save, what they want to invest.
more money in their pockets because Republicans—all of us—have passed the Working Families Tax Cut law. Republicans are going to continue to fight for an America where families get to keep
more of what they earn and make the decisions about how to spend it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The President pro tempore.
Iowa
Mr. GRASSLEY. I have two items I would like to discuss. During the Easter break when the Senate was not in session, I was holding in Iowa Q&A's in 25 of our 99 counties. My annual practice allows me to hear directly from the grassroots. At my meetings, Iowans set the agenda. No issue is off limits.
it is working out for our hospitals and helping our communities. For example, in Pella, IA, they are using the Federal dollars to invest in a PET scan machine and an oncology nurse.
and, of course, my State of Iowa, I am calling on President Trump to use his emergency powers to suspend the countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizers. I also appreciate the President's recent tweet in regard to his concern about high fertilizer costs for farmers, so I am suggesting one way to him of how he could fix that.
family farmers, and that is for the nationwide, year-round E15. There has never been a more important time to infuse markets with $14 billion to boost the farm economy. That $14 billion is not my figure. It comes from the economists for the Iowa corn growers.
sick and tired of government shutdowns. As a cosponsor of the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, I hope that we will consider that it costs money to shut the government down, and it costs money to reopen government. We ought to applaud Senator Lankford on his legislation for a continuing resolution that he has been trying to push Congress to adopt for maybe the last 5 or 6 years. There is no better time to use an example of the need for Senator Lankford's legislation than the fact that we had a 43-day, all-government shutdown last year, and this year we have already, for the Department of Homeland Security, had a 45- or 46-day shutdown so far. Senator Lankford has the best idea that that will never happen again in our government—any shutdown.
the policymaking tables, and I intend to roll up my sleeves and keep working on behalf of Iowans.
FISA Section 702 Reauthorization
with FISA Section 702 reauthorization. In 5 short days, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—FISA for short—is set to expire.
Section 702 is an essential national security tool. That law is responsible for over 60 percent of the intelligence in the President's daily brief. Section 702 enables our intelligence and law enforcement community to thwart attacks before they occur. It is, as I see it, a preventative national defense-national security issue.
abroad. It gives our military a strategic edge, allows us to hunt down foreign terrorists and rescue hostages, and helps us defend critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.
driven synthetic drug disruptions abroad and prevented a mass casualty terrorist attack at a Taylor Swift concert overseas.
protect Americans. But there is also no doubt that powerful tools like this require strong oversight and accountability.
oversight as it applies to Section 702. I have and will continue to demand transparency. I will faithfully make sure that we execute in Congress its duty to encourage oversight, but we must balance our oversight responsibilities with our responsibility to protect our country and our countrymen. I refuse to incapacitate our intelligence community at a time of conflict and when threats to our national security and prosperity continue to multiply.
RISAA for short—added critical and successful reform to section 702 in response to some abuse and overreach. I have been monitoring the implementation of these reforms for 2 years, and so I want to discuss with you some of my concerns.
select Members of Congress to attend and conduct oversight of “any proceeding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.” This ensures that these hearings, which necessarily occur in secret because of national security, are subject to congressional oversight in a secure way. That was intended in our legislation.
imposed a set of unlawful restrictions on congressional access to these proceedings. Among other things, the rules DOJ imposed allowed the Justice Department to kick Members out of the courtroom at will, also prohibiting them from even taking notes and even prohibiting them from requesting information or sharing what they learned with their colleagues. And from my standpoint of emphasis upon oversight and following the law, this was an untenable position and situation and, of course, contrary to the compromise that was worked out during the last reauthorizations 2 years ago.
I have been fighting to fix this issue for months. I even wrote a letter to Attorney General Bondi with my Democratic colleague Senator Durbin, demanding change. We both recognize that transparency and congressional oversight is not a Republican or Democrat responsibility or issue, but it is rather a separation of powers issue—something that you learn in eighth grade civics or high school government classes— that we call checks and balances. Around here, we don't use that term. We use the term of “oversight.” In other words, Congress passes laws that appropriates money, and we have a responsibility after we do that to make sure that the executive branch faithfully executes these laws.
and an important transparency and accountability tool has been returned to the Congress. So I am really grateful to the Trump administration and the Department of Justice for revising and repairing the misguided and noncompliant procedures that were written in the previous administration. This new Department of Justice policy restores the intent of RISAA and the constitutional separation of powers to its proper boundaries with Congress as a coequal branch.
Surveillance Court is working to create overflow space to ensure that all eligible Members and their staff will be able to attend proceedings and thus exercise their oversight authority.
Biden thought they could get away with violating this responsibility that the compromise gave us to exercise our oversight responsibility. But that is the way it worked out, and now we have that corrected.
reauthorization are in full effect. In the last public audit, the FBI achieved a 99-percent compliance rate with the U.S. persons queries, which have also decreased sharply overall in recent years.
The reforms that we imposed in RISAA are working. If it expires, so do its civil liberties protections and many of the oversight mechanisms.
that section 702 targeting and querying compliance remains at nearly 100 percent throughout the intelligence community. FISA, including section 702, remains subject to intense Agency, judicial, and congressional oversight and
scrutiny. So if section 702 expires, so do its civil liberties protections.
accountable. I will never stop asking questions or abandon my oversight duties. That doesn't mean that we should blind ourselves and gamble with the safety of our communities. So with these oversight reforms fulfilling the intent of the previous reauthorization, I will support this year's reauthorization. Let's reauthorize 702 before it expires.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). The Senator from New Jersey.
War Powers Resolution
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, it has been 2 weeks since we last voted on a War Powers Resolution to responsibly end Trump's unauthorized, unconstitutional, reckless war with Iran. In just those 2 weeks, the war has continued to spiral out of control, and Americans are paying the price.
another War Powers Resolution for a vote, why we are forcing that debate onto this floor. Americans are facing soaring costs, and this war is making those costs explode and get worse. Prices are rising because of the decisions made by President Trump without congressional approval. Gas and essentials are surging as global energy markets react to the blockade, the destruction of energy infrastructure, and the unbelievable, immense uncertainty in the market. Inflation jumped sharply, driven overwhelming by energy costs tied to the conflict. Analysts say we spent $25 billion during the month of March on the war, and this month, it is expected to be similar.
consent. He has basically said that any President is entitled to commit tens of billions of dollars, to commit American lives—13 we have lost, hundreds of Americans injured—as he began this war without authorization, without transparency.
only without approval but with shifting reasons for the provocation of our going to war itself.
This President has said everything: We are going to stop this regime. We want regime change and then we don't. He has said that we are going to save civilians from being murdered by this regime, and now, he says that is not the priority.
outcomes he says he seeks are outcomes that have shifted themselves. He has failed to tell the American people why we are in this. He has no endgame.
Just today, the administration deployed 10,000 more U.S. troops into harm's way into this region. Naval forces have expanded to now enforce a maritime blockade that takes the efforts of tens of thousands of American military professionals, and officials are preparing for potential additional strikes and ground operations.
So where does that leave us? Well, No. 1, if the war ended today— which it won't. It seems to be expanding. But if it ended today, the oil shock, the economic crisis would go for months and months longer— again, Americans paying the price. We still have our American troops in greater harm's way. We have an Iranian regime who—even though their near-term combat capabilities have been significantly degraded—now are flexing more power in that region and influence by choking the Strait of Hormuz, which we have not been able to stop.
The situation is worse. The regime is more extreme. The fissile material to make a nuclear weapon is still there in that theater. This President has made the situation worse, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, American lives, and hundreds of troops injured.
doing of this war, their failure to ask for accountability, this failure to have even one open hearing on the biggest military engagement since the war in Afghanistan, not one open hearing where Congress has asked for accountability, for transparency, for facts and information.
provide a check and a balance, to provide oversight—and what we have done is nothing of any substance to play that critical role.
not checked by Congress, and we are not doing it. The price we are paying—every American is feeling it. That is why this war is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people of all political backgrounds, because they know. Not only are they feeling the pain of it economically, not only are they seeing the pain of it when American troops are killed in battle and the families live with that loss, not only knowing the pain of the hundreds injured, but they are also seeing with their own eyes how the situation is getting worse and not better.
because Congress cannot look away. Congress must do their job. Congress must stand with the American people, ask the tough questions that we deserve answers to, hold this President to account, really do our job of asking the hard yet urgent questions.
We need transparency. We need accountability. We need the Senate to do its job. So today, I again lead, with a handful of my colleagues, to bring these War Powers Resolutions, to demand a debate, to demand that this body show some account for its inaction on a war, for allowing an Executive to spend tens of billions of dollars, throw the world and our Nation into economic shock, not achieve any of its stated goals with the nation of Iran, and make more of that region more dangerous and unstable by the day.
We must do our job. We must defend the Constitution, which spells out the checks and balances that should be happening but are not. But we will continue this fight. We will continue to force debate on this floor. We will continue to call on my colleagues across the aisle not to just let Donald Trump do whatever he wants but to hold him to account, to hold public hearings, to ask the difficult questions, to demand accountability.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Working Families Tax Cuts
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, well, today is tax day. It is not a day that conservatives usually celebrate, but this year it is a little bit different. And that is thanks to the working families tax cuts, the Big Beautiful Bill, that are allowing individuals to keep a lot more of their hard-earned money.
remember government doesn't create jobs, it creates the environment for jobs growth.
Government is not the one that is generating income. All of that comes from hard-working taxpayers. They send their hard-earned tax dollars here to Washington, DC. And today is a day we should be mindful of the imperative that we should be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar.
administration was, every time you turned around, taxes were going up; inflation was going up because taxes were going up; and government spending was going up.
Well, things have changed. Things have changed. And as I said, because of the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill, what we know is, citizens are seeing more money stay in their pocketbook without having to send it to DC.
over $3,500—$3,500—for most refunds. A big reason why is that almost half of the filers are claiming new tax breaks that were created in the working families tax cuts, Big Beautiful Bill.
So think about that. Half of the filers are benefiting from the bill that every single one of our Democrat colleagues voted no on that bill.
that are $775 higher than they were last year, and as we think about that, that is more money in your pocketbook for groceries, for gas, for car payments, for education expenses, for clothing, for things that your family wants to do with your hard-earned money.
from
Mr. Bisignano is that they are really executing the mission that was put before them to drive efficiency, to process these claims, to answer questions, and to make certain that people know they can set those withholdings lower, and when they have got a deduction coming, they know how to claim that deduction, and that they get those refunds faster.
President Trump and because Republicans, indeed, have put the American people first.
They have put these hard-working taxpayers first. That is what people want to see, put them at the first of the queue. They deserve it.
Beautiful Bill, last spring and summer, we would have had a $4 trillion tax hike. Think what that would be doing to you right now if your taxes had gone up, if those escalation rates had kicked in, things had gone up. And what we do know is that while our colleagues across the aisle, the Democrats, wanted to see Americans pay more in taxes, that what that equates to is, there would be fewer jobs; there would be lower wages; and I think one of the big ones, especially when you talk about a State like mine, Tennessee, where small business is your largest employer, then there would be less opportunity.
opportunity. And our small business employers, people that are there on Main Street, are prospering, and businesses are growing.
Democratic colleagues chose to vote against. What we put in the working families tax cuts, the Big Beautiful Bill, that is yielding these deductions that about half of the tax filers are taking is this—this is one that I have worked on for years—and it is the bonus deduction for every senior. And for 88 percent of our Social Security recipients, it has eliminated all the income tax they have on that Social Security.
it is so important to see. Section 5 has that enhanced deduction for seniors. So it is, for every senior, a $6,000 deduction. If you and your spouse are both over 65, that is a $12,000 deduction, but it is part 5, when you get to the point that you are filling out this form, and all the instructions are right there. That is a really big deal. And what we know is that because of this provision, seniors are saving $670.
Now, think about that. If you are a senior and you are using that deduction and you are represented by Democrats, they voted against that. They voted against allowing you to have a $6,000 bonus deduction. And what we know is that 30 million seniors have already used that—30 million seniors. According to Mr. Bisignano, it is the most used of all the deductions. It is money in your pocket.
and overtime. With the new tips deductions, senior filers are seeing a savings of $1,370. Some have gone as high as $5,500. These are savings that are leaving money in your pocket.
voted against that. So if you are a worker who uses and receives tips, they voted against that. If you are a senior who works with tip income, they voted against your senior deduction, and they voted against your deduction with tips.
Now, we also know that children that are born can do Trump Accounts. They are eligible for that $1,000 seed account. These accounts will grow all through that child's life. This is a way they can have money for education or for a first home or keeping that account and letting it grow until they are ready for retirement.
grandchild, every Democrat voted against—against—their having that nest egg.
debt-free. How wonderful would it be if they had that money for a downpayment. And think about overtime work. We have so many Americans that work overtime. Again, they are benefiting, but the Democrats voted against no tax on overtime.
benefits more than 40 million American families. So if you have children that are under 18 and you are taking that enhanced child tax credit, you are looking at that, and you see when you get to that bottom line and you look at your total deductions, your total credits, Democrats voted against that.
of first refusal on your money. They think they know better what to do with your money than you do. They say: Send more of it to DC, and we will put it where we want it. But what we know is that the American people want to keep their money and keep it in their pocket.
Now, we also have a deduction for interest that is paid on “Made in America” vehicles. That is an important thing. So if you bought a car this past year, that interest on that car payment, you are going to be able to deduct every penny.
lifetime gift tax exemption. Now, in Tennessee, this was very important to us for family farms. We raised that to $15 million per individual for a couple that has a family farm or maybe a small business manufacturing company. That is $30 million. So they will be able to pass that company and its assets on to their children and grandchildren so that they can continue to run this business.
But, bear in mind, every Democrat in this Chamber voted no. They voted against your being able to take what you have worked hard for, to build, to build that company, to carry on the legacy of that farm.
They voted against your being able to do that. They voted against an increase to the standard deduction. That is used by 90 percent of all filers. So as you fill out your tax form, remember, the Democrats said you don't deserve it, they do. They want your money. They don't want you to keep your money so they voted against raising the standard deduction.
You know what, they really have been the “no” caucus when it comes to cutting taxes. They have been the “no” caucus when it comes to allowing you to live your version of the American dream.
What they want, they want that control; they want that power. They want to be able to say: Give it to us. Let us decide what to do with your money. And, oh, by the way, they want more of it. They want you to have less.
So this is tax day. We should be grateful for President Trump's leadership. Without him, there would be no Working Families Tax Cut; there wouldn't have been that Big Beautiful Bill. So instead of celebrating historic refunds, Americans, if the Democrats had been in charge, if they had their way, would be struggling to pay another $4 trillion in taxes. Think about that one.
sealed, delivered, and signed into law, and that on this tax day, tens of millions of Americans are celebrating increased deductions, increased tax credits, and more money in their pockets because of larger refunds.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
War Powers Resolution
Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today as a U.S. Senator, of course, but also as a former soldier who served in uniform the last time a President rashly sent our men and women into an unjustified war in the Middle East.
from injuries I earned in Iraq. Every morning, as I struggled to sit up straight, every time I was rolled into yet another surgery, I made sure to read the poster I had next to my hospital bed. It was a framed copy of the Soldier's Creed, the words that those lucky enough to wear the Army uniform live by.
That same framed copy now hangs by my desk here in DC. As I glanced at it
Trump never deigned to serve a day in his life than the mockery he makes of the Soldier's Creed's commitments every single day he has been in office.
true for all of those who wear the uniform of this great Nation. Its 13 lines tell us to be disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained, proficient, and to look out for those who look out for us, to look out for one another.
Chief. The very, very least we should expect of him is to epitomize the standards that we ask our troops to swear by, to live by. The very, very least we should expect of the Commander in Chief is to be as competent, disciplined, and professional as the men and women whose very lives hinge on his capacity to lead, on that competence and professionalism we expect to see in the White House.
never leave a fallen comrade behind. Yet “Cadet Bone Spurs” is someone who will always quit. And every hour he orders our servicemembers to remain in unnecessary, growing danger, he is proving that Donald Trump does not give a damn about leaving a comrade or so, so many comrades behind. Every moment that Donald Trump leaves our heroes mired in the muck of this illegal war of choice with Iran, he is showing that he cares more about saving face than leading our troops.
So I come to the floor today with a simple question. Our military men and women go out there every day and do their jobs, no matter the risks—all on Donald Trump's orders. So I ask you, Mr. President: Why the hell can't you do your job too? Why can't you live up to the same level of proficiency as our troops?
never ever wish another endless, needless, unjustified war like the one I served in on anybody else. I wouldn't wish it on the heroes who are packing up their rucks right now, knowing they may never touch American soil again. I wouldn't wish it on their families, who are being forced to spend their days anxiously awaiting news from half a world away. And I wouldn't wish it on the American people, who want their President to focus on bringing the costs down here at home, not starting new, expensive, taxpayer-funded wars continents away.
that. From the moment this conflict began, the President has tried to shroud his incompetence behind the valor of our servicemembers. When asked to justify his illegal actions, Donald Trump has tried to hide his cowardice behind our heroes' courage. He has tried to act as if questioning why we are at war is the same as questioning the skill and bravery of our troops themselves. It isn't.
because I know that our military will always do the best job possible. When given a mission, our servicemembers will say: Yes, I will serve. They don't say: Why me. They don't ask: Will I be safe? No. They dust off their boots, they show up, and they do what is asked of them to the best of their ability every single time, time after time, tour after tour, no matter the risk, no matter the sacrifice. They will always, always execute their orders to the maximum capability of their professionalism, and they are proud to do it.
That isn't the problem. The problem here is that the person who is supposed to be leading them spends more time talking about his Marie Antoinette ballroom than he does sitting in the Situation Room, trying to get us out of this war.
looks at the word “America” and only sees the letters “M” and “E” in the middle of it.
the end state is like for his war of choice but probably doesn't know what the term “end state” means at all.
charge of our Nation's nuclear codes has himself gone increasingly nuclear. He is not believing literal war with Iran is enough. He has now gone on to proverbial war with the Vatican, choosing to pick fights with the Pope, of all people—the Pope.
end the conflict in the Middle East, he has threatened to annihilate an entire civilization, terrifying people overseas and here at home, who are understandably worried about retaliatory strikes.
has whipsawed to the next risky frontier in the region—a dangerous, complex, partial military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, launching it at our Nation's expense with no justification, no explanation, or any real plan as to what comes next. His only plan seems to rely on the valor, willingness to sacrifice, and professionalism of our military men and women. But let me tell you, that is not enough. They need a true commander.
ignore what we are all seeing with our own eyes. He is trying to declare “mission accomplished,” despite his obvious failures at every single turn. He is declaring “We did it. We're winning” after all signs point to the opposite. We are still at war. Americans are still at risk. Civilians across the region are still dying for no reason that anyone can truly articulate.
the last 6 weeks is more chaos. Because of his choices, a new, young Ayatollah is in charge who seems even more radical than his father was. Thirteen American heroes have been killed and hundreds more wounded. More Gold Star parents are grieving their children.
prices. They are unsure if they can pay even more every time they go to the gas station, but they have to because they need to get to work; they have to take their kids to school; they have to take their aging parents to the doctor. The farmers of Illinois, the farmers of this great Nation have seen, at a time when we should be planting, their input costs skyrocket because of Donald Trump's war of choice.
unjustified, it is not just tragic, it is a travesty. Trump wouldn't let himself be dragged by the bone spurs to serve in Vietnam, so how dare he—how dare he—drag our Nation into a war of his choice today? But this draft dodger—this five-time draft dodger—is too infatuated with maximum pressure to make a serious effort at even minimum diplomacy.
senseless, and dangerous—a doctrine in which fact and fiction are one and the same, one in which our Commander in Chief seems to come to military decisions by virtue of temper tantrums and announces them via tweet in the middle of the night and one in which avarice outweighs advice every single time.
blood soaking into the desert sand a half a world away. I know what it is like—I know what it is like—and what is at stake for the troops this administration is sending into harm's way. We must safeguard their valor and their professionalism by doing our jobs.
I can tell you this: It is a whole lot easier to cover your eyes and order other Americans to sacrifice their children and sacrifice themselves if you don't have to do any of the sacrificing yourself. It is easier to send other people's children to fight in a war if you know your own children are cozy in a penthouse suite somewhere. It is easier to ignore the everyday realities of war from inside the hallowed halls of the White House where you have McDonald's being DoorDashed to the Oval Office. But it is nearly impossible—it is near impossible—if you have been actually outside the wire yourself.
over two decades ago. I ran for Congress not because I wanted to be in Congress, not because I wanted to be a Congresswoman or a Senator. I ran for Congress to honor the men and women who carried me out of that bloody war zone.
would be in a position to make sure that our elected officials fully consider the true cost of war—not just in terms
who wear the colors of this great Nation. That was the vow I made to the troops I deployed with and to all of those who have served since I hung up my uniform.
sacred oath because right now, thousands of our troops are ready to do their jobs even if it means laying down their lives. And it is tragic, it is disgusting to me that even as they prepare to do their jobs, our President and some Members of this Chamber seem so eager to neglect their own.
am here to remind Donald Trump that he does not have the authority to unilaterally force us into war. He may never have read the Constitution, but I have.
only Congress—only Congress—has the power to declare war. We are the ones tasked with deciding when and how Americans are sent into combat. We are the ones charged with that most solemn duty. Yet Trump is acting as if article I simply doesn't exist, as if obeying the Constitution is optional, as if our founding document is just a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper that he can crumble up and toss into the garbage can at will.
This should not, must not be a partisan issue. No matter if you are struggling to pay rent or if your name is plastered in fake gold on a building on Fifth Avenue, no one can ignore the Constitution, especially if you have sworn an oath to defend it. No matter if you are a Mar-a-Lago worker who is pulling down double shifts or if you are the President of the United States, no one is above the law.
when our military must be called upon to defend us. There are certain moments when the threat in question is significant and imminent, instances when military force is the most effective tool at hand, and when using it is necessary to protect America and her interests.
has shared publicly that he hasn't immediately contradicted—and sometimes in the same sentence—this was not one of those times. If the administration thinks that I am wrong and there was an imminent, reasonable, actual threat to America, then guess what. The floor is theirs.
Come to the Senate. We are just 20 minutes from the White House. It is not hard to find. It is even faster in your motorcade, Mr. President. It is not hard to find us. We are the building with the big dome on top. We are only a 20-minute walk.
Trump knows where the Capitol Building is. It is the spot he told the insurrectionists to march toward on January 6.
they need to come to Congress and do their jobs: Explain their case and give the American people a say through their elected representatives, the Members who sit at every one of these desks in this Chamber.
why they are being forced to bear the costs of this conflict, both in dollars and cents and daughters and sons.
Iran is worth having more children grow up without their moms or dads. They need to make it clear that they have thought this through and well enough that they can actually articulate what an end state with this war of choice in Iran would even look like.
completed, then the Members of this Chamber must vote. It is our duty. Yes, it is our burden. It is the least we can do for those who are willing to sacrifice everything to safeguard this democracy.
adhere to the Constitution—well then, it begs the question: What are you hiding? What are you hiding, Mr. President? We already know you are incompetent. What else are you hiding?
a month and a half. Thousands are dead or are grieving, wounded, and suffering. Only someone as inept and unfit, someone as callous and cruel as Trump would see this as winning. Only a draft-dodging coward would think that this is the right way to engage in a war. Only a man so unqualified to be Commander in Chief would be proud to keep on risking our heroes' lives without even having a concept of a plan for how to get them back home without risking more graves at Arlington.
We can't let this chaos continue unchecked. As our troops continue to sacrifice whatever is asked of them, we Senators—we Senators—need to do the absolute minimum required of us. That is why, this week, I am calling up my War Powers Resolution, demanding that the Trump administration finally end this illegal war, and calling for some actual public oversight and accountability on behalf of the American people. It will come to the floor for a vote shortly.
really. You can vote with me to end this conflict and show that you actually care about putting America first, like you claim; or you can vote to put Trump's ego first, proving that, when push comes to shove, you care more about protecting Trump's thin skin than the Constitution that you swore to defend.
At this point, it is pretty clear. Donald J. Trump will always be more interested in looking out for his own self-interest rather than truly serving America's interest.
brave enough to stand up and tell Donald J. Trump—the five-time draft- dodging coward—“enough.”
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise in support of my colleague's War Powers Resolution.
humbled to be here in the Chamber and listen to her—to listen to her recount her own experience as to her own vow as a Member of this body and to take the very painful lesson that she absorbed when her future was completely altered by her wartime service and put it to a positive use in trying to protect others like her.
over again: that our military serves with distinction and bravery and that they serve with professionalism and excellence. But so often, the issue for them is the quality of the civilian decisions about whether they go to war or not. So often in my lifetime—in Vietnam and Iraq and now in Iran—that brave service was compromised—really, betrayed—by poor civilian decision making and for improper political reasons, rather than a careful assessment of what was in America's best interests.
I have been asking the question since this war began: Have we learned nothing from 25 years of war—unproductive war—in the Middle East?
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have not factored in the more than 65,000 American troops and contractors who were injured. They have not factored in the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. They have not factored in the fact that the U.S. military engagements did not produce a safer region. They have not factored in the $8 trillion spent during those 25 years. They have acted as if that history is now wiped away, and we can engage in a war in the Middle East without reflecting upon these lessons that are written in blood and in the precious resources of our Nation.
So I am not going to ask the question again today, “Have we learned nothing from 25 years of war?” because I think the answer to that, sadly, is plain.
I would argue that we have learned at least three things: War is costly. An unwise war is deeply unpopular. Those who would make diplomacy impossible
make war inevitable. I think those are the lessons that the last 45 days have taught us.
First, war is costly.
lived in Spotsylvania County, VA, who had purchased a home, who was within a few months of retirement and was wanting to retire to that home with his family—have died. Spouses and kids and parents and friends and brothers and sisters are mourning the losses from this unwise and illegal war.
the depth of those injuries and the lack of planning that left them exposed to the attacks that caused them to be injured. While I wish it were otherwise, it is likely that there will be more such stories.
There is also the cost in dollars. We are spending, by some estimates, between $1 billion and $2 billion a day. We are expecting to see the President, sometime soon, send over a new request for a dramatic increase in funding to fund this Iran war.
Today is tax day. Today is tax day. President Trump is the “taxer in chief.” Last year, he imposed chaotic tariffs on the world's economy, right before tax day, and those tariffs cost American families a couple of thousand dollars each. With this one-man tariff war that President Trump started without having congressional authority—that was, ultimately, in significant part, struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court in February of this year—last year, right before tax day, President Trump stood up and showed by his actions that he was the “taxer in chief.”
more for energy, and pay more for building supplies because of the actions of this President—in particular, just the price of gas at the gas pump in Virginia and nationally. The price of gas has gone up $1 a gallon since February 27, just because of President Trump's unilateral decision to take us to war.
Virginians buy 8 million gallons of gas a day. So that is $8 million Virginians are having to shell out of their pockets—that they weren't having to shell out—because Donald Trump started this war.
This is happening in Illinois. It is happening in Connecticut. It is happening in Nebraska. It is happening in every State, and it is happening all over the world. We are reading about economies that are shutting down 1 day a week. We are reading about street protests in allied nations over the cost of petroleum, all driven by this one man's deciding to take us to war.
So the first lesson from the last 45 days: War is costly.
The second lesson is, an unwise war is deeply unpopular. This war is deeply unpopular with the American public.
States. I represent Virginia, which I believe is one of the most pro- military States in the country. I spent significant time in the Hampton Roads area, which is the center of American naval power, where we build ships and subs, and it has the biggest Navy base in the world.
I spent a lot of time with Virginians over the last 2 weeks. This war is unpopular. Virginians are deployed, and they don't know why, and they don't know when they will come home.
deployment of a carrier in American modern history. They were supposed to be home with their families before Christmas, and they are still deployed away from their families, with significant maintenance issues reducing the quality of life on that ship.
This war is unpopular. But, of course, it is unpopular. If you go to war without a clear rationale—and the President has floated five or six of them. If you go to war without a clear plan, without apparently anticipating what everyone would have anticipated with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, if you go to war without allies, if you go to war without Congress, the war will be unpopular. With no plan, no rationale, no allies, and no congressional debate, the war will be unpopular.
This was so easy to predict at the beginning. For some reason, the President thought the magic of his own personality could turn a war of choice into something that would be embraced by the American public. The American public is too smart for that.
So an unwise war is deeply unpopular. That is a lesson of the last 45 days.
The President, the Vice President, and his U.N. Representative—even within the last 2 hours, in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—said the war was necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There is no intelligence that said that Iran was near getting a nuclear weapon. If what President Trump wanted was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, then he committed one of the most egregious blunders in the history of the United States, in his first term, when he tore up a diplomatic deal that did precisely that.
Russia—engaged in a 20-month negotiation with Iran that led to an agreement. On the first page of the agreement—page 1—Iran reaffirms that it will never seek to purchase or develop any nuclear weapons. We had the agreement with Iran for no nuclear weapons. We had mechanisms of inspection. We had limitations on centrifuges and limitations on the enrichment of plutonium or uranium.
We had a diplomatic deal, and the President tore it up. The deal was working according to our allies. The deal was working according to President Trump's first Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, who urged him to stay in it.
Agency that was investigating and inspecting Iranian facilities, but President Trump took a deal that guaranteed no nuclear weapons ever, and he tore it up. The United States doesn't walk away from diplomatic deals; other nations do that. But the President established a dangerous precedent. And many of us said to him at the time: If you tear up a diplomatic deal, you are paving the path to war. It might be soon or it might not be soon, but you are paving a path to war.
is exactly what Donald Trump has done. Those troops who have died, they have died because Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. The costs that are being experienced by American consumers, we are suffering those costs because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. The injuries to civilians, to schoolchildren, the injuries to American troops, those are occurring because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal.
Senate that has the eagle representing the United States and in each claw it is holding the arrows of war or the laurel branches of peace, and the seal of the United States always has the eagle looking to the laurel branches. We are supposed to prefer diplomacy first.
to be a Department of War, and rules of engagement to protect civilians now can be dismissed and called stupid and things that we don't need to follow.
first. I hope this body still believes in the United States being a values-based nation, not a bully nation. That is what this vote is about, and that is why I am so proud to join my colleague to support it, and I will continue to be on the floor with my colleagues every week until we stop an illegal and unwise war.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Armstrong). The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am here on the floor to add my support to the resolution being brought before us by Senator Duckworth. This is the third week in a row that we are having an opportunity on the Senate floor to have a short debate and a vote on the most significant military engagement
in the Middle East in many of our Senate careers.
we have yet to have a single hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee on this war, on this military operation.
thankful to Senator Duckworth for bringing one this week—we would have no debate, no vote on the floor on the authorization of war, maybe the most sacred charge we are given as U.S. Senators.
We should not normalize that. We should not fail to note how extraordinary it is that our Senate Republican leadership has declined to do any oversight of a war that is costing billions of dollars every week, that has already led to the loss of over a dozen American lives, that has erupted a regional war throughout the Middle East and is literally melting down economies all over the world, especially in the developing world—not a single hearing—not a single hearing—in the U.S. Senate. Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth have not come to the Senate to explain what their plan is, what their strategy is, what their endgame is.
And I think we know the answer. They simply can't explain what is happening. They can't articulate a strategy. They are not ready to answer questions from Democrats or from Republicans who, I think, increasingly are starting to scratch their heads about how on earth this is in the U.S. national security interest.
want to speak, let me just talk about what has happened since we last had an opportunity to vote.
First, the impact on the U.S. economy is getting more acute. There are more and more Americans who are unable to make their lives work because we have seen a 30-percent increase in gas prices since this war began. Farmers have seen a 35-percent increase in fertilizer, a 50- percent increase in diesel costs.
spill over into big increases at the grocery store. And so amidst high inflation, you are now going to see costs just become prohibitive for a lot of American families—a 30-percent higher gasoline cost simply because of this war of choice.
farmers had already said that they were in a worse financial shape this year, prior to the war, than when President Trump came into office—now that gets even worse.
What is the impact on our national security? Well, the President has said that there are a bunch of different meandering explanations and objectives for this war. He said that we want to destroy their missile program. Well, what have we found out in the last 2 weeks? We have found out that we have come nowhere close to destroying their missile program. In fact, they still likely have the majority of their missiles. And during the cease-fire, Iran has used that time to rehabilitate and rescue many of the missiles and the launchers that were buried in rubble. China stands ready, as soon as the bombing fully ceases, to help them immediately rebuild their missile program. There is no way this campaign is going to eliminate their missile program.
was to eliminate their nuclear program. And yet, a month and a half later, they still have all of their enriched uranium. We have not destroyed Iran's knowledge of how to produce nuclear weapons out of existence because neither are possible through a bombing campaign alone.
Sometimes regime change is an objective; sometimes it isn't. The President said: Well, we were gone last week. In fact, we have already achieved regime change. Well, technically, there is a new Ayatollah, but there is absolutely no evidence that this new Ayatollah, that this new crowd of elite leadership—mainly coming out of the hard-line IRGC—is any less provocative, any less dangerous, any less adversarial to U.S. interests. In fact, the opposite is probably true. A doddering 90-year-old Ayatollah was replaced by a group of leaders that are likely much more fanatical and probably much more effective in their aims to try to attack U.S. interests there and around the world.
reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait was open before this war began; it is now closed. It is unclear whether President Trump knew that they would close the strait and just threw up his hands, didn't care about the impact on the U.S. economy or whether he didn't know—which would be egregious in and of itself—and was shocked to find out that Iran would close the strait.
We are now a month and a half into this war. The strait is still closed. The President is trying to reopen the Strait by blockading it, which is a very strange strategy, one that, in day two of this new plan, does not seem to be succeeding.
Finally, what is the impact on the world? And I just want to touch on this very shortly. A new war is erupting in the Middle East; Hezbollah was empowered by the attacks; and there is a prospect of a massive new ground invasion of Lebanon from Israel. Already, hundreds have died in that conflict. Last weekend, you likely saw images of just vicious bombings of what looked to be civilian infrastructure happening inside Lebanon. But a new war in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon, in which thousands will likely die, in which millions will be displaced, that is horrible for U.S. interests, for our allies' interests. The region is exploding in violence.
developing nations. Developing nations' economies are literally melting down right now because a 30-percent increase in fuel costs for a short period of time is something that wouldn't tank the entirety of the American economy, even though it does great damage to individual families. But in nations where a short-term fuel shortage or a 30- percent immediate spike is something that a government or a very poor population cannot manage has caused a lot of these countries' economies to simply melt down. These governments are now closing their public operations. Universities in some developing nations are permanently closed because they can't afford to keep the lights on.
these energy price increases that have been designed, manufactured, by Donald Trump. So it is not just that the Middle East is exploding; it is not just that we aren't meeting any of our objectives in Iran; it is not just that American consumers are being harmed—there are billions— billions—of poor people all around the world whose lives are more miserable, whose lives are slipping into greater chaos because of this war.
to force at least a short debate, to force a vote. And my hope is that at some point our Republican colleagues, besides one, choose to join us.
politically, and admit that this war was a massive mistake. We did that when there were Democratic Presidents in office. President Obama helped participate in a war in the Middle East, helping the Saudis be involved in a conflict in Yemen. Many of us thought that was a mistake. We came to the floor and opposed President Obama. We actually filed resolutions making it harder for President Obama to fuel that war.
choose to just say what is clear and obvious—this war was a mistake; it should end as quickly as possible—and not believe that this is somehow incommensurate with their broader political support for the President.
You can, as a U.S. Senator, occasionally stand up to the leader of your party if it is a matter of right and wrong. I believe this is a matter of right and wrong. Maybe it won't be in today's vote, but hopefully in one of the votes we will continue to have, we can have some bipartisan agreement that this war needs to end.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, first, I want to salute Senator Duckworth for bringing this critical issue to the floor so that the American people can hear
what our views are on this war but also reflect their views. I also want to salute her for her heroic service in the U.S. Army.
Thank you, Senator.
I rise today to discuss the war in Iran. Forty-six days ago, President Trump unilaterally launched this war. He declined to make his case before the American people. He refused to consult Congress. He failed to present evidence of an imminent threat, and he ignored his advisers, who warned him about the peril of such an operation.
Nation in a major conflict, and he alone had the ability to secure a quick, complete victory.
After more than 6 weeks of war, what has the President accomplished? Thirteen American servicemembers have tragically lost their lives. More than 300 have been wounded. Thousands of civilians across the Middle East have been killed and injured, and hundreds of thousands displaced. The United States has lost dozens of aircraft, sustained significant damage to our bases, and burned through an alarming amount of our missile inventory and other munitions.
gasoline and household goods in our communities have risen significantly. American families are bearing the cost of a war they wanted nothing to do with and have gained nothing from.
On February 27, the Strait of Hormuz was open to maritime traffic. American farmers could count on fertilizer shipments. Our high-tech chip makers, in whom we have invested billions of dollars, could count on helium deliveries.
Today, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Incredibly, it is now President Trump who is blockading the strait, rather than Iranians. This is a bizarre and incoherent strategy. A blockade will push prices even higher, with ripple effects on food, fuel, and consumer goods across this country—indeed across the world.
pressure with defiance, not concession. This blockade is unlikely to change Iran's negotiating position, and I worry it will do nothing more than place our servicemembers in greater danger.
of fighting result in the United States being in a weaker strategic position than before the war began. Here are the facts. Iran still retains its nuclear program. Its ballistic missile capabilities and drone arsenal, although diminished, still pose a threat. Moreover, the regime has learned it can effectively control the Strait of Hormuz when it chooses. President Trump has badly damaged America's standing with our allies, emboldened our adversaries, and lost any moral authority he had on the international stage. The American people, including many of his own supporters, strongly disapprove of this war.
At this stage, we must ask: What comes next?
experts and is uninterested in earning the support of the American people.
anything other than his “own morality,” then Congress has a duty to constrain him through the powers we hold as the constitutional check and balance on the President.
Congress controls the purse. Congress declares war and ratifies treaties. Congress represents—and answers to—the American people. It is long past time for Republicans to stop avoiding their constitutional duties and start reining in the President's ability to unilaterally wage war. At a bare minimum, it is long past time they hold public hearings with Cabinet officials to provide accountability for the American people.
moment. The administration should use this time wisely and immediately return to negotiating a diplomatic agreement. That means engaging in serious, structured conversation with Iran to address nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, their proxy activity, but also the sanctions that are in place and the security guarantees that the Iranians will demand.
Hormuz. The Iranians have a complex, layered network of sea mines, fast attack boats, air and sea drones, missiles, and hidden launch sites in the cliffs around the strait that provide them with many effective options to threaten ships in the passage. Even if the United States cleared the strait of mines and began escorting commercial ships with our own Navy vessels, militarily suppressing and defeating Iran's ambush network is not a sustainable long-term option. A diplomatic arrangement is the only real answer. And I must say that to achieve this diplomatic arrangement, the President needs and should announce a group of experts—not real estate developers and golfing buddies—to go over there. This is not going to be settled by the friends of the President cutting a deal.
policy, nuclear objectives, et cetera, to get the JCPOA. It is going to take us a while to settle this issue, too, and we can't settle it with a casual group negotiating on a weekend.
bombarded gulf nations in response to his attack. That is rather astounding because everyone with a modest knowledge of the Iranian regime was not particularly shocked. Indeed, the course of this war was entirely predictable. Generations of American military and political experts have examined the Iran problem and repeatedly reached the same conclusion: War with Iran would not achieve our goal.
Indeed, President Trump was given the same warning by his advisers. According to press reports, Gen. Dan Caine the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs warned the President of becoming entangled in a prolonged conflict and expressed concerns about U.S. casualties and the difficulty caused by a lack of allies. General Caine also raised the possibility that Iran would block the Strait of Hormuz, stating it was long believed Iran would deploy mines, drones, and missiles to close the world's most vital shipping lane.
A separate intelligence official reportedly emphasized, in his words:
It wasn't just predictable. It was predicted. He was told
in advance.
are not going to capitulate and that the difficult work of diplomacy cannot be wrapped up in a mere 21 hours of negotiation. Facing this reality, the President has several options.
often, and leave the region without a deal. But what would he leave behind? A battered Iran with more antagonistic and radical leaders who may have concluded the only way to avoid future attacks is to acquire a nuclear weapon. With hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium on hand, that possibility is very real—and could be accelerated with Russian, Chinese, or North Korean assistance.
force the regime to surrender. However, this would inevitably result in renewed attacks against our forces in the region and a prolonged closure of the strait. And as I mentioned earlier, the regime has already demonstrated that its threshold for pain is high and its regard for its people is low. An extended military campaign would not change the Iranians' negotiating demands.
Now I would propose a third route. The President can resurrect serious negotiations with Iran across the full range of issues dividing our two nations. The agenda must be broad enough for both sides to claim benefit. That is the only way you get to a deal, and we hope “The Art of the Deal” is present in this situation.
and malign proxy activity, and Iran will seek guarantees against further military operations, sanctions relief, and other assurances.
Kaine—to
President Obama, but with diplomacy, his administration may be able to regain some of the important pieces that he previously abandoned.
But there is an additional obstacle to peace that must be addressed: Prime Minister Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent the better part of 30 years gathering support for what he believed to be an inevitable confrontation with Iran. His personal and political fortunes are entirely aligned with the continuation of this war. As he faces an election and a criminal trial, he is using the war as personal and political armor. Unless Trump is willing to force Netanyahu to stand down, Israel will continue operations regardless of what America does.
Mr. President, this war was ill-conceived, I oppose it, and if it is still ongoing after 60 days, I will vote against an authorization of military force to continue it. I am proud to be here today in support of Senator Duckworth's proposal. From day one, Trump lacked any clear objectives and realistic views of the consequences, but peace can be accomplished. The path forward requires honesty from President Trump about what military force can and cannot achieve, the discipline to negotiate seriously, and the courage to lead our allies rather than alienate them.
this path. He has shown an intractable instinct for destruction first and diplomacy last. He will never secure a peaceful conclusion to this conflict as long as Congress allows President Trump to wage war whenever and however he sees fit. Yes, we have to stand up and be true to the oath we all took: to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this War Powers Resolution. I urge them to choose the path of peace before the costs of President Trump's war become irreversible.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. KIM. Mr. President, I rise today because I had conversations with a woman in New Jersey recently that I just can't get out of my head. I was in Atlantic City talking with a woman there about how she felt things were going in our country and for her and her family. What she said really stuck with me, seared into my mind. She said that with everything going on right now—this war and rising costs—she felt like she was “drowning.” That was the word she used—“drowning.”
That is the impact this war is having on the American people. And when someone is drowning, you don't just stand by and wait; you don't hesitate; you don't wait for somebody else to act; you act with urgency, swiftly and decisively.
That is what we are trying to do here right now. We are acting by bringing up another War Powers Resolution to bring an end to this war and give the American people the relief they need.
think that this war is going just fine. Depending on what day it is, Trump either is saying the war is over or threatening to escalate it. That is the problem. We are engaged in a war without a clear mission, without taking negotiations to end the war seriously, and without the consultation or buy-in of the American people.
indefinitely. They don't care about the consequences; they are simply posting their way through it on social media.
What we have seen from Republicans here in Congress isn't any better. A month and a half into this war, and we have not had a single hearing—a month and a half in.
tired of this war, people who can't afford this war, who can't afford to pay for the decisions that this President made, and the Republicans in Congress have stood by and watched like bystanders.
have all just stood by and watched as the American people feel like they are drowning. If anything, they are making that feeling of extreme anxiety worse. That anxiety is driving our urgency to act.
that stress and anxiety, and one of them was gas prices. Gas prices were below $3 a gallon in February. In New Jersey, the average price is a little more than $4 a gallon right now, but it is so much higher in some of the biggest population centers. You go around the country, and you can find gas for $5, even $6 a gallon right now. If you are a working parent and you have to put gas in the tank every single week to get the kids to school and yourself to work, you are paying significantly more at the pump.
Ending this war is an urgent matter. It is not just gas for our cars that is driving this urgency. Look at the price of diesel. The average price of diesel—what a lot of trucks that transport goods run on—was $3.72 in February. It is more than $5.80 in New Jersey right now according to AAA. That means everything you buy, from meat and eggs to coffee and clothes, is getting more expensive because the cost of shipping it costs more than $2 more per gallon than before.
this President has been acting during this war. Threatening to destroy a civilization—that is not American; that is not what we do; that is not who we are.
Jersey, hundreds of thousands of veterans, people who are obeying the law, people who are abiding by the principles of our country. But this Commander in Chief is threatening to change that.
war crimes in America's name, it sends a shock through our consciousness; it sends a clear signal that ending this war is an urgent matter. That is why we are doing what we are doing right now— because the American people can't wait for this President to act like a responsible Commander in Chief. They can't wait for this Republican Congress to wake up. They need relief, they need it now, and they deserve it now.
help now and the power we have with this vote to deliver it for them. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution by Senator Duckworth— someone who knows better than any of us the toll that war takes and the urgency needed to stand up for our neighbors.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from New Jersey for his powerful words, and I, too, rise in support of this War Powers Resolution put forward by our colleague Senator Duckworth, who knows a thing or two about the costs of war.
war against Iran—a war that the overwhelming majority of American people want to see end; a war that this Congress never authorized and where we have never had a hearing from a Trump administration decisionmaker about the war; a war that was started by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu that has made us less—not more—safe; and a war that has made us much worse off, not better off.
We have lost 13 American servicemembers. Hundreds more have been wounded. Thousands of civilians, innocent civilians, have been killed throughout the region.
the President casually remarking that “[s]adly, there will likely be more. . . . That's the way it is.” That is what President Trump said.
and it is not the way an American President should talk about our troops. We must not and cannot normalize President Trump's reckless actions that have brought us to this point.
The costs of this war are mounting. We just saw it today: The President intends to send thousands more troops to the Middle East— 6,000 as part of a naval deployment and thousands more to come later.
This war has already cost us, in addition to lives, $52 billion—$52 billion—and another billion dollars every day from the American taxpayers. On top of that, on top of what taxpayers will be shelling out, we are seeing Americans struggle with rising prices: gas prices, oil prices. Of course, when you have rising gas and oil prices, it drives up prices on everything else, like fertilizers that our farmers need as we go into the season of growing. And all this coming from the President who promised that he would focus on lowering prices and ending wars. He promised the American people he would be “a peacemaker,” and he is a warmonger. He lied, and because of his lies, people are dying.
Strait of Hormuz. We should all remind our fellow Americans that the Strait of Hormuz was open before the President started this war. It was open before the President started this war, and now the President's main goal is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The President also said the other day that we achieved regime change. He just didn't tell the American people that when he knocked off some of the top Iranian leaders—the ayatollahs—they were replaced by an even more militant and even more radical regime. That is the President's definition of “regime change.”
Now, the President likes to claim periodically that we won. In fact, more than 3 weeks ago, the President of the United States said “We won,” the United States won. He said that a few days ago. The President said “We won.”
are we still doing there? If we won, why are we still there? Why are we still putting American lives at risk? Why are we spending a billion dollars of taxpayer money a day if we won?
Well, we didn't win. And it is impossible to measure how you win because the President never set forth clear rationales for this war because there wasn't really one to be had. And certainly they have advanced no endgame, like what does it mean for him to win the war that he already said that he won.
endgame here, and it is clear every day that this war is not in the interests of the American people.
Now, we have seen from President Trump not strength or leadership. What we have seen is recklessness. Now we in the Senate should apply some brakes and accountability. We have seen a President threatening massive war crimes in the name of the American people, threatening to end a civilization.
Pope because the Pope seeks peace. He has posted an image of himself as Jesus Christ. This is the man in the White House who is running this war. He is putting American lives at risk and endangering people throughout the world, and he is simply not fit to be Commander in Chief.
So all of this without the consent of the American people. That is where Congress is supposed to come in.
States who is so unhinged, how is it that we can only find one Republican Senator, Senator Rand Paul—how is it that we can only find one to stand up for the Constitution and against this President who clearly is not following the will of the American people, a President who took us into an illegal war that is making us less safe and worse off? That is our job. That is our job, and this Senate keeps ducking its responsibility.
opportunity for our Republican colleagues to show that they are going to exercise their responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States. We will keep offering War Powers Resolutions so the American people know that we are working every day to end this war which they want to see come to a close. Maybe we can begin that process today.
urge my colleagues to search their souls and talk to their constituents and vote yes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled vote: Senator Schiff for up to 10 minutes, Senator Risch for up to 5 minutes, Senator Duckworth for up to 3 minutes, and Senator Schumer for up to 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today to stand with the American people, who are demanding that we bring an end to President Trump's war in Iran.
take us to war, and I would like to take a moment to reflect on what this illegal war has achieved and what it has cost.
pump, and it has jacked up the cost of fertilizer and fuel for Wisconsin farmers. As Americans struggle to afford basic necessities, the Trump administration has spent tens of billions of dollars on a war that Americans did not ask for. We have lost 13 servicemembers, with hundreds of others injured. Thousands of civilians have been killed, including dozens of schoolgirls by an errant U.S. missile. President Trump has eased sanctions on Russia and shown Iran how to profit from blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The same oppressive regime remains in place, Iran still controls its enriched uranium, and the United States is no closer to a guarantee that Iran will not pursue a nuclear weapon.
nothing at a tremendous cost to the American people, and still Donald Trump has been unable or unwilling to offer a coherent reason for why we are at war.
The American people are looking to Congress to do something. The people's branch is supposed to be a check on this President. We need to stand up on behalf of our constituents, who do not like this war and who want it to end. Americans know the cost of this war. They are the ones who are paying for it.
My Republican colleagues have a choice: Do your job, stand up to this President, and send a clear message to Americans by ending this war today, or live with the consequences as more civilians are killed, more servicemembers are put in harm's way, and more American families struggle to make ends meet. The choice is yours.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, we are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have already, tragically, lost 13 servicemembers, including one—CW3 Robert Marzan—from my home State of California.
already had two American pilots shot down over Iran, necessitating a rescue under extremely dangerous conditions—a heroic rescue, a daring rescue, and one that was only possible because we have the most capable Special Forces in the world but a rescue mission that we must all acknowledge put an incredible number of our servicemembers at grave risk and could have easily gone wrong.
squandered tens of billions of dollars that could have been used to build hospitals and affordable housing, to build childcare centers and senior centers, at a time when the President says we can't afford daycare or Medicare or Medicaid.
paying astronomical prices at the gas pump, at the grocery store, on their utility bills and medical bills, but the
has offered no proposal to even authorize the use of force in Iran, nor have Republicans demanded one. We have not had a single open hearing on the war, nor have Republicans called for one. The case for the war in Iran has never been made, will never be made, and my colleagues will not put the matter to a vote for fear they will lose that vote or be held accountable for it.
How long can this go on? And the short, terrible answer is: for a very long time. It is beginning to have all of the telltale signs of a quagmire.
For this war had no clear purpose. It had no well-defined goal. It had no strategic plan. Its rationale has shifted endlessly with the wind and the whims of the President. It has vacillated between being about regime change and then not about regime change, about missiles and then not about missiles, about oil and then not about oil, about Iran's nuclear threat and then not about its nuclear threat since the President had said the Iran nuclear program had been obliterated a year earlier.
like the JCPOA, the much-maligned agreement that Trump tore up and now seems reconciled to embrace—the JCPOA or something like it.
skyrocketing, and now the Vice President says: Two can play at that game. So we are in the blockade business too.
this war will end. It is hard to end a war when you are not clear on why you began it.
We can only be certain of one thing: at some point the President will claim victory. But what kind of victory will it be? One in which Iran for the first time can demand tolls from ships passing through Hormuz? One in which the regime has survived—and empowered and embittered—is even worse with more crackdowns on the Iranian people, even less tolerant of dissent, or worse still, with a fervent desire to break out and build a bomb? One in which we suffer persistent and higher gas prices because of long-term damage that has been done to gulf oil and gas infrastructure? One in which Russia is richer and will be richer for the foreseeable future from the higher oil prices it can charge so that it can better fund its war with Ukraine?
Is this the victory that Trump will declare? One for which we have paid dearly in blood and treasure? One for which we will have cut healthcare by $200 billion more for defense to replenish the stocks of the weapons that he has used?
Does that sound like victory? Does that feel like victory?
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe
the price of aggression is cheap.
come to pass in the form of a President who now too often sees aggression as cheap as he has launched not one, but two wars against Iran, as he has launched unilateral strikes in South America and Africa, as he has overseen a war on vessels in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, as he has blockaded Cuba and threatens to “take it” along with Greenland.
To Donald Trump, war has become easy. It has become a kind of default. And as a result, he has become the President he promised he would never be. Far from his promise to end wars, he is now the President determined to start them—and lots of them.
too fond of war, seduced by the quick success of the apprehension of Maduro and Venezuela and of the access to another country's oil, that such an operation begat, he was induced to make war against Iran.
In the same speech, Reagan also said this:
To keep the peace, we and our allies must be strong enough
to convince any potential aggressor that war can bring no
benefit, only disaster.
Well, what is the strength of our alliances now? The President has turned our back on the security pacts that Reagan championed, like NATO. He has failed to consult with our allies before embarking on this war of choice and claimed we didn't need allies, and then complained when our allies did not come to our assistance in reopening a strait that previously had been opened, but now was closed.
alike as he threatens to end a civilization or to commit war crimes or as he has ordered military strikes while talks were ongoing or as “two more weeks” becomes—well, becomes a kind of punch line.
Regan's formulation? Have we taught Iran that war can bring no benefit, or is Iran now convinced it can bring the world economy to its knees and impose its will by imposing fees on passage through the Strait of Hormuz? Does it believe that while the U.S. military can pound its navy and missile sites, it can still strike U.S. targets and our partners in the region with rockets and drones? Does it believe it has an asymmetric advantage over the United States because drones and missiles are cheap and interceptors are expensive?
that war can bring no advantage, only disaster if, in fact, it is we who are the aggressors.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose the resolution we are going to vote on here in just a little bit. I think this is the—I don't know how many times I have been here on this—but this is the same old, same old again.
The resolution isn't very long. It is a few pages long, and really, the operative language is very short.
It says:
Congress hereby directs the President to remove the United
States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Iran.
Now, let me tell you where we are. First of all, I want to talk to Iran. Iran: Nobody is coming to help you, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the North Koreans, not Venezuela, not Cuba. Nobody is coming to help you, Iran, except for the 47 people over here.
President of the United States who is defending the United States—they are trying to direct him to remove the Armed Forces that we have—our brave, young men and women who are engaged in these hostilities—they are trying to remove them from these hostilities. These 47 people. Nobody else in the world.
So to them I say: The President of the United States has not only the right to do this—I know you claim he doesn't—but he has the right to do this. Not only does he have the right to do this, he has the duty to do this. He took an oath to defend the people of the United States of America.
How did we get here? Forty-seven years ago, Iran started this conflict. We did not. We did not start a war with Iran. We don't want a war with Iran. But we have to defend ourselves. Forty-seven years ago, they took over our embassy in Tehran and held all of our United States, American people who were employed in that embassy for 444 days.
Finally, Ronald Reagan was elected President. We got them out. But since that time, Iran has killed thousands—not hundreds—thousands of Americans wherever they can find them. They do it with all kinds of methods including IEDs, which are deadly.
Fortunately, President Trump in Trump 1 took out General Soleimani
America. You can pass all the resolutions you want. This President is going to defend this country.
Now, I know you say it is illegal. If, indeed, it is illegal as you claim it is, you are in the wrong room. You ought to be in the room across the street in the U.S. Supreme Court, because if it is illegal, you should sue him and you should stop it. You are not doing it because you know you are going to lose that case.
Constitution gives the President the authority. He is doing it. This is not going to be a forever war. Indeed, if anything, it is ending what seems like has been a forever conflict with Iran.
Mr. President, you are doing the right thing. You have done a great job thus far. This is going to end fairly quickly. Keep up the good work.
My friends on this side of the aisle, vote to oppose this resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The Senator from Illinois.
Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I just listened to my colleague on the other side of the aisle who raised concerns about my War Powers Resolution, and I am disappointed—but not in any way surprised—that they continue to carry the President's water on this war.
scheduling oversight hearings for Secretary Rubio. I mean, as a former member of the committee, the Secretary should be used to testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
actual answers on this administration's conduct, planning, and diplomacy during this war of their own making.
6,000 miles east. These troops are ready to do their jobs no matter the risk or the sacrifice required of them, just as our brave American troops have always done time after time and tour after tour.
our President and Members of Congress from the Republican side of the aisle seem so ready to neglect their own duties.
I want a democratic Iran. I want to see its people free from the iron grip of its brutal authoritarian regime, and I am not about to shed a tear for the previous Ayatollah's death. But that does not mean we should not be gravely concerned by the consequences of Trump's actions in his war of choice.
be called upon to defend us. To determine when that is, there are four questions we should be asking. No. 1, is the threat significant? No. 2, is the threat imminent? No. 3, is the military the most effective tool for the goal at hand and that there are no other tools that can do the job? And No. 4, would the military be counterproductive to its most solemn mission of protecting America?
war in the Middle East, Trump has traded deterrence for instability and chaos and made all of us less safe in the process. It is time for us to rein him in.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I want to thank my colleagues—my colleague from Illinois, who has done such a good job and knows all about what our veterans go through in the horrors of war; my colleague Tim Kaine, who has been so involved in this issue of War Powers Resolutions for decades—or a decade—and so many others of us who are introducing resolutions on this issue.
Now, Republicans have voted against this resolution three times now. But as the war drags on for 47 days, with no end in sight, they should join us today on this resolution to end this war once and for all.
With gas costs costing over $4 a gallon, with inflation climbing, with mortgage rates going up, the American people literally cannot afford for Republicans to forego another opportunity to work with Democrats to end Trump's disastrous war, at long last.
servicemembers are risking their lives on the frontlines. The stakes are too high, and the risks are too great for Republicans to stay silent.
Americans who are calling for an end to Trump's wanton war of choice. We still don't know the goals. We still don't know the costs. We still don't know the length of time.
that this Senate can face, which is whether to go to war, and then total silence from the other side—not a single hearing, not a single discussion on this.
Well, I am going to tell my Republican colleagues: They are not going to be able to escape continuing to vote on this. Until our Republican colleagues join us, we will continue forcing a vote on our War Powers Resolution, week after week after week.
This is an American issue, not a partisan one. This is one of the worst forays America has ever made, with so much damage that is going to be lasting.
I yield the floor.
Vote on Motion to Discharge
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to discharge.
Mrs. BRITT. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Justice).
The result was announced—yeas 47, nays 52, as follows:
Rollcall Vote No. 79 Leg.
YEAS—47
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS—52
Armstrong
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING—1
Justice
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Farming
Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, I am back again talking about something that is very, very important to everybody in the United States of America. There should be alarms going off about what is happening. I know we have a lot of bad things happening all over the world. We are in conflicts. We are in situations where we are trying to control our own destiny when we are not getting a lot of help from a lot of people that we should be counting on.
But let's talk about the United States of America for a second. Let's talk about our farmers. Our farmers are in trouble. We better wake up and smell the roses because what is happening in this country should be a crime. We have lost, just in the last few years, 150,000 farms and over 25,000 farmers—150,000. And we take pride in what we do in this country. We do everything as first class as we possibly
Nobody is listening. Nobody is out there pounding on all of our doors saying, “We need help,” other than the ones right now that are in desperate and dire need.
Again, we have a lot of problems. But you think we have problems. We start and continue to lose these farmers that we have in this country, and we continue to eat the trash that is sent in from these foreign countries, we are going to have many, many more problems.
doesn't deal in farming in some capacity—not one State. We are all involved in it. We all have skin in the game.
Agriculture is the backbone of who we are and what we are. And if we are going to continue to be the place that everybody wants to move to, to be a part of, and not a Third World country like a lot of these places that we are allowing to ship food in from, we better wake up.
understand the importance of agriculture or our farmers or, to put it bluntly, they really didn't even give a damn about it, to be honest with you. Instead, they were focused on outsourcing our food, our lumber, our fish. Anything to do with farming or agriculture, we, for some reason, were turning over everything to people outside our country. And the people that are the cream of the crop, that are true Americans in this country, are our people in agriculture.
COVID. I can remember standing up here back in the early part of COVID, back in—what was it—2020 and talking about how in the world have we allowed this country to outsource everything that we do medically? Because when we looked up and COVID was rampant, we were looking around for masks, we were looking around for drugs, looking around for things that save people lives. And guess what. We don't make any of that stuff anymore. We outsourced it all. Now we are doing the same thing to farmers.
Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Brazil, all these people that are either socialists or communist countries. We can't continue to do this. We can't do it.
not by cheap things that we buy to keep this country going, such as what is coming from China or some of these Third World countries.
be tariffing the heck out of these countries that are sending in food that is taking over our grocery stores and our restaurants that they say is great food, it is reliable, it is best in the world, when it is nothing but trash. That is all it is, is total trash. For some reason, because we think that the price is a little bit better, we are getting involved in that—in terms of our grocery stores and our restaurants— and we are serving things that we shouldn't be serving and it is causing a lot more problems.
this country by far. We have got to know where it was raised. We have to know what has been sprayed on the food or where the fish was caught. All the things that go along with food safety go along with farming.
industry has shrunk to the point that there are only a few plants processing the majority of our Nation's cattle today, and that is beyond stupid—really, it is. Think of what we have done. We have outsourced most of our food processing, especially when it comes to beef, to these gigantic processing companies that, by the way, are owned—two of them—by foreign entities.
what these foreign-owned meatpacking companies were doing because their prices were going so high. They were price-fixing. And what do you think is going to happen when you run into a situation where you allow people to control the market?
Think about it. These foreign entities are controlling America's meat supply at the expense of American farmers and their families—people that work hard, like all of us in this country—not to mention that the consolidation of these few processors has threatened Americans' food supply.
percent of the beef market. Think about that. In 1980, they controlled 36 percent of the beef market. Now, today, these processing plants—two of which are foreign-owned—control 85 percent of the U.S. beef- processing market, and we are asking for huge problems.
American-owned small meat processors have been pushed out of business, and that is what they have done. That is how they do it. They try to control everything, so they put in these four meatpacking processing plants across this country, they control it all, and the little guys are gone.
everything that produced good product for U.S. citizens. That is how we were raised. That is how we were brought up.
meat-processing plants. We have got to do it. We have to do it. I mean, that is the job of our Agriculture Department. They have started working on that, started trying to open up more to see what we can do. But we cannot continue to allow four meatpacking processing plants to control everything that we do when it comes to beef.
You know, when I was growing up, it was common to see “Made in America” labels on everything at the store. “Made in America.” We were all proud of it. Now, it is rare. Most of the labels we see are “Made in China” or “Made in India.” I want to challenge everybody: When you go in the store and you think that this product is made in America, all you have to do is look at the box or the can or whatever. You will be very, very surprised where that product is made. Very surprised. And most of the time, it is not going to be made in the good old U.S.A., and it is hurting our American farmers. It is hurting us bad.
doesn't mean a hill of beans. Unless it says “Made in America,” we are selling our country out, we are selling our farmers out—people that have built this country.
we need to be using our own cotton. I want you to think about this: Our cotton farmers are broke. They have had three bad years, and it is getting worse and worse every year.
Now, this is planting season. They are putting all the cotton in the ground. They are putting fertilizer. They have got all these people out there working these tractors and machines worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that they use to plant this cotton. And if you look at it at the end of the day, the cost of putting this cotton in the ground is far and above the amount of money that they will receive when they sell this cotton.
Used to, that didn't happen. Used to, we were not challenged as much. But what have we done? We have allowed foreign countries to do everything they possibly can to outgrow and do things at a rate faster than us, and then we are allowing all this cotton to come in from other countries. Brazil is one.
people and let them know: Hey, if you are going to send your cotton in here, we are going to have a tough time, and we are going to lose our farmers so we are going to start tariffing your cotton and put a pricetag on it when it comes to this country.
We do not owe Brazil one thing. Our farmers don't owe them anything. We owe our farmers in this country. You know, in my State of Alabama, we are one of the top cotton producers in the country, and we bring in more than $400 million of revenue every year to the State of Alabama. You know, our stores are filled with shirts, jeans, towels, bedding, but the problem is that you look on that tag, most of them are made overseas—everything with cotton. I mean, we don't really use cotton in this country anymore unless it comes from overseas.
world. I mean, but they are undercut by all this foreign junk that we are bringing in. So there is a lot of work that goes into cotton production, and one thing about our cotton farmers, they work 365 days a year. They make the best product they possibly can, but, unfortunately, we are held to a standard that a lot of people and a lot of things that go on—whether it is textile mills or people that are involved in the cotton business use the foreign cotton, and we don't use near as much in our country.
I, we are introducing a bill called the Buying American Cotton Act. Now, here is the reason we are doing this: We have to save our cotton farmers. If we don't do it in the next few years, it will be over. They will all be gone. And every American in this country, when you buy something with cotton in it, that cotton is going to come from a foreign entity.
without costing a lot of money. There is a way to do it in this building. All we have to do is pass the Buying American Cotton Act to incentivize folks to buy American cotton and bolster our American cotton producers instead of arguing about bailouts when our cotton farmers go under and they need help. Of course, we always, as the Federal Government, try to help them out, but you can't help them out enough where they can really survive in a long period of time.
an opportunity through the Buying American Cotton Act to give tax credits when people buy American cotton. That is all we want to do. When people buy American cotton, they get a tax credit for it.
If you buy Brazilian cotton, you don't get a tax credit. We have to do something to help our farmers—especially these cotton farmers. When farm income improves, everything else improves. The safety-net programs go down, not to mention the additional economic activity that a strong rural economy will contribute to when you get this tax base done with farmers making a profit. Again, they haven't made any profit going on 4 or 5 years.
Instead of spending money—that is the reason we did this bill. Instead of spending money, we wanted to make sure that these farmers don't need a subsidy at the end of the year. If we give tax credits to entities that buy American cotton, we will not have to pay subsidies anymore. This is an end-all solution to helping the cotton farmers across this country.
Cotton is not just for T-shirts and stuff either. Cotton is for medical supplies, you know, military, critical materials that we use across this country. Cotton plays a key part in national security.
has surrendered its independence. And so that is why I am up here today. We are getting ready to celebrate our 250th anniversary, and our farmers have been a huge part of that. For 250 years, we grew our own food; we cut our own timber; we caught our own fish. We did everything we possibly could. But what have we done? Corporations have run out the private sector in this country—the small businesses in this country. They moved it to corporations out of this country, and they have put us in harm's way. They have really put us in harm's way.
where we do not have to, as a government entity, bail them out every year when they are losing money because they won't lose money, because if we buy their cotton in this country—we are the biggest buyers of cotton all over the world, the United States of America, so let's help our cotton farmers.
And one other thing I want to say about this: I have talked about this several times on the floor. It is getting pretty serious, and it is something that, again, we look at it and say: Oh, it is not going to continue to happen.
today, 300,000 acres of American farmland. I want you to think about that—300,000 acres that the Chinese own. Who is our biggest adversary? China. And we are allowing them to buy American farmland in this country, and a lot of it is by our military bases. Now, I wonder why that happens? And I don't think we are stupid, but we are crazy if we continue to let this happen.
that we keep an eye on this. And we understand there are some States that are going and telling China now that they cannot buy farmland because they run it through different entities. And that is one thing that we need to make sure that at the end of the day, that we keep an eye on this.
in the fourth quarter, OK? And if we don't have a good year this year, we are going to have a serious—serious—problem with our farmers going out of business. And when farmers go out of business, they are big contributors to our country when it comes to tax base, buying things, producing things, and making our country much stronger.
So I plead with people: Please start understanding what is going on here because if we don't put our foot down and we wait too long and our farmers are gone and they have sold their land, we have got a big problem ahead of us.
are having to buy everything out of the country. Again, go back to one thing: Did we learn anything from COVID? Evidently, we didn't. And next time we look up and you are going to have to buy everything coming from another country—especially when it comes from ag—we have got huge problems.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.