[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S176-S177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, in the next few days, Senate Democrats 
will move to discharge a War Powers Resolution to tie the President's 
hands in defending this Nation against Iran and terrorist masterminds 
like Qasem Soleimani. Let's think about how we got here and the 
implications of this reckless action.
  Qasem Soleimani has the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands 
and hundreds of thousands of innocent souls across the Middle East. For 
more than 20 years, he was the Supreme Leader's most trusted 
lieutenant, Iran's terror mastermind, and the man responsible for the 
deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan by 
supplying the most deadly kinds of roadside bombs soldiers ever faced. 
He and his proxies and Iranian leaders like him are responsible for 
bombings of our Embassies in places like Lebanon and Kuwait. They are, 
in no small part, responsible for the ongoing horror of the Syrian 
civil war, for the civil war in Yemen. There is no doubt, based on the 
intelligence we have and this bloodthirsty past, that Qasem Soleimani 
was in Baghdad on January 2 to plot something very dangerous and very 
big that was going to target Americans once again.
  We should all be thankful that Qasem Soleimani no longer walks the 
Earth, and we should be proud of the troops who executed that mission. 
The world is a safer place and America is a safer nation because of it. 
The people of Iran have been given a voice against the man who was 
responsible for mowing them down in protests over the years and whose 
death they have been out on the streets celebrating even though they 
risk being mowed down by their own security forces once again.
  Yet, over the last 2 weeks, the Democrats have been able to do 
nothing but express their regret for the President's decision to 
eliminate Qasem Soleimani. And make no mistake--this War Powers 
Resolution is not about the future; it is about delivering an implicit 
or, if you listen to their words and don't just read the resolution, an 
explicit rebuke to the President for ordering the killing of Qasem 
Soleimani. They certainly want to prevent the President from doing 
anything like that in the future. That is why they have introduced this 
War Powers Resolution.
  We should always remind ourselves when we are having a war powers 
debate, as we do from time to time, the War Powers Resolution is 
unconstitutional. It was passed by a liberal Congress in 1973 at the 
height of Watergate, and not a single President since then has 
acknowledged its constitutionality--not a single one, to include all 
the Democrats.
  I hear a lot about the Constitution these days and reclaiming our 
authority to declare war and to constrain the Executive. I guess all 
those constitutional experts missed the Federalist Papers and their 
authoritative explanation of the Constitution and why we have the 
government we do. We have a House of Representatives with 435 people to 
be the institution that is most closely tied to popular opinion. We 
have a Senate to act as the cool and deliberate sense of community. And 
we have a single President--a single President--to act on behalf of the 
entire Nation in moments of peril.
  Federalist 70, if they would just open up that authoritative 
explanation of the Constitution, says why there is one President, not a 
council of two or three or four, as some of the States had at the time 
of the founding. Because of the division of opinion and perspective and 
temperament that an executive council would have, there is one 
President--one President--who can act, as Federalist 70 said, with 
energy and dispatch and, yes, in some occasions, with secrecy. So if 
the Founders didn't think we should have an executive council of 3 or 4 
or 5 people, imagine what they would have thought about 535 commanders 
in chief making operational decisions about when to take action on the 
battlefield.
  These debates about War Powers Resolutions are really about how many 
lawyers and armchair rangers can dance on the head of a pin. Do you 
think wars and battles are won with paper resolutions? Those wars and 
battles are won with iron resolution. Do you think the ayatollahs are 
intimidated by ``whereas'' clauses and joint resolutions? The 
ayatollahs are intimidated, deterred, and scared when we incinerate 
their terror mastermind and we tell them that we will do it again if 
they harm another American.
  Even if you grant the War Powers Resolution constitutional, look at 
the actual text of this resolution. It makes no exception for Iran 
developing a nuclear weapon. The ayatollahs could hold a press 
conference tomorrow or the Supreme Leader could tweet that they are 
going to rush to a nuclear breakout. The President would have to come 
to Congress if he would want to take any kind of action to deter it. It 
makes no exception for designated terrorist organizations and 
individuals, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds 
Force, who have killed so many Americans and continue to target them 
today. It makes no exception for attacks on our allies in the Middle 
East, nations like Israel.

[[Page S177]]

  The sponsor of this resolution will say: Oh, it makes an exception 
for imminent attacks.
  We have seen what that gets us over the last couple of weeks--again, 
lawyers and armchair rangers arguing about the meaning of 
``imminence.'' Well, I have to say that whether an attack is imminent 
looks pretty different if you are a soldier on patrol in Iraq than if 
you are a comfortable Senator sitting behind secure walls and armed 
guards.
  None of this means Congress has no role in matters of life and death 
on the battlefield. It is very far from it, in fact, and I will take a 
back seat to no one in asserting that constitutional authority. I would 
remind my colleagues that when we had an opportunity to insist that 
Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran be submitted to this Chamber as a 
treaty, there was one Senator who voted to insist on that--only one. 
This guy. Ninety-eight other Senators were perfectly willing to create 
some made-up, phony-baloney procedure that allowed Barack Obama to 
submit a nuclear arms agreement with a sworn and mortal enemy that 
chants ``Death to America'' and put it into effect with a large 
majority opposed to him, as opposed to the two-thirds majority that our 
Constitution requires for treaties.

  We do have a tremendous degree of constitutional authority in the 
Congress. We regulate interstate commerce, which means sanctions. We 
confirm Ambassadors. We confirm the President's Cabinet. We declare 
war, which we have done only a few times in our past despite hundreds 
of instances of introducing troops. But most importantly, and the way 
to constrain the Executive if this Congress thinks he should be 
constrained in a particular case, we have the spending power--in 
particular, the spending power for our Armed Forces. That is the way 
the Congress--any Congress with any President--can control the use of 
the Armed Forces by the President. It is something this Congress has 
done a lot in the past. We did it in Vietnam, did it in Nicaragua, and 
did it in Somalia.
  There were plenty of times where the President has acted in some ways 
in a much more aggressive and far-reaching fashion than President Trump 
did just a couple weeks ago--the first Taiwan Strait crisis, Granada in 
1983, Libya in 1986, and Iran in 1988. I would even say Libya again in 
2011, although most of my Democratic colleagues like to send that down 
the memory hole since it was a Democratic President.
  So I would simply say that if you disagree with the President's 
decision to kill the world's most sadistic, bloodthirsty, terrorist 
mastermind and you want to stop him from doing so again, file your bill 
to prohibit the use of any taxpayer funds for such operations. It is 
very simple. It is one page. I will help you write it, if you need 
help--one page: No funds will be used to support operations by the 
Armed Forces against the Government of Iran or any of its officials. Do 
it. Have the courage of your convictions.
  Why are we not seeing that bill? Because it failed just last year. 
All of these same politicians offered language on our annual Defense 
bill to try to prohibit the use of any funds in operations like we just 
saw, and it failed. We passed a defense bill, as we always do, by 
overwhelming majorities, which means they don't have the votes because 
they know their position is not popular with the American people. Not 
surprisingly, the American people don't want their elected leaders to 
act as lawyers for the ayatollahs.
  So if you are not going to act in what is our true constitutional 
power, spare us the unconstitutional and dangerous War Powers 
Resolutions and simply let the people who are serious about our 
national security--from troops on up to the top--do what is necessary 
to keep this country safe.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  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. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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