[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 198 (Monday, November 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8069-S8070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Biden Administration

  Madam President, it is the week before Thanksgiving, and the American 
people are still looking for evidence that President Biden and his 
lieutenants in Congress took their oaths of office seriously.
  I have said it before, but it does bear repeating. The anger and 
division that has held the American discourse hostage for the past 11 
months was not created by an increased desire to engage in contrarian 
politics.
  Nobody asked for this--for what is happening now, no. This is a 
direct result of President Biden and the Democrats' refusal to actually 
govern and deliver for the American people. They have been so focused 
on creating a narrative that they have neglected the fundamentals and, 
ultimately, the people who put them into their positions of power.
  This isn't just my opinion. I have heard it from thousands of 
Tennesseans

[[Page S8070]]

that I have visited with, many over the past week. Yes, this is their 
assumption. It is their assumption that anything the White House does 
is coming from a place of bad faith. It is not coming from ``how do we 
make the lives of Tennesseans and all Americans better?'' It comes from 
a place of ``how do we gut our institutions? How do we roll back; and 
how do we exert our control, power, control, government control, Big 
Government?'' That is what people are seeing.
  Think about it. It has taken only 11 months for the people to lose 
their faith in this administration. No amount of ad hoc bipartisanship 
is going to pull the Biden administration out of the hole that they 
have dug for themselves by refusing to do the bare minimum for the 
American people. They have had 11 months to do something, to do 
anything, to show us they care about more than politics. And the fact 
that they haven't been willing to do that has been probably the biggest 
failure of President Biden to date.
  And I think that is probably saying something. When people look at 
what is happening in Washington, here is what they are seeing: They see 
a President who proactively kills jobs, who destroyed our potential for 
energy independence, who let conditions along our southern border 
descend into chaos rather than challenge the disgraceful racial 
politics pushed by radicals in the Democratic Party. And they see their 
elected representatives waging war on our most fundamental 
constitutional rights, eroding ballot integrity and providing cover for 
disastrous economic policies that have done nothing but kill jobs and 
drive prices through the roof. Yes, inflation is real.
  Congressional Democrats have squandered an entire year creating an 
illusion of enthusiasm for their broken agenda, which is a feat they 
were only able to accomplish by refusing to acknowledge the damage 
caused by their reckless tax-and-spending spree.
  If they had even pretended to prioritize appropriations, the debt 
ceiling, or passing a fiscally responsible budget, they might have had 
a chance to salvage a little bit of credibility. But, oh, no, that is 
not what they did.
  The American people are living in the real world, where debt burdens 
matter, and you can't fire up a money printer if you blow your budget 
or have a wish list you can't afford.
  What the American people see isn't just a refusal to govern, but a 
refusal to acknowledge that these problems matter. These things 
actually matter to people: how much we spend matters; being job and 
business friendly matters; integrity, it matters.
  For almost a year, the Biden administration has been hiding from 
allegations that the Obama-Biden Justice Department spied on an 
incoming President.
  Back in August, I led a letter with more than 40 of my Republican 
colleagues demanding an update on the status of Special Counsel 
Durham's inquiry into the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
  The American people have been waiting a long time to see those 
results. There is nothing the administration can do to force them to 
accept or even tolerate the malice and corruption we know fueled the 
actions of the Obama-Biden Justice Department, and equal justice 
matters to the American people.
  But I suppose it is too much to ask that our chief law enforcement 
officers stay true to the law when the President himself has been so 
preoccupied with this reckless agenda that it appears he forgot about 
his role of being Commander in Chief.
  In terms of governance, national defense is about as fundamental as 
it gets. And here we are, a week before Thanksgiving, and just now we 
are getting the NDAA to the floor.
  I, along with other members of the Armed Services Committee, 
negotiated and deliberated our way through 143 amendments--many of 
those bipartisan--and we approved the final product 23 to 3.
  Now, that is about as bipartisan as it gets. But you haven't seen 
that come to the floor. Even the House Democrats, working on their own 
version of the bill, have had enough with the Senate, and they are 
saying so publicly. They understand, just as we do, that this country 
will have to be able to defend itself.
  We should be doing all we can to prioritize defense policy because 
you can be sure our competitors and our adversaries abroad are doing 
all they can to elevate themselves, to defend themselves.
  Tonight, President Biden is scheduled to meet virtually with Xi 
Jinping and to discuss ``ways to responsibly manage the competition'' 
between the U.S. and China.
  Only it is really not competition. They are our adversary. We don't 
need a summit to figure out a response to Chinese aggression. The 
solution is staring us in the face: If you want to manage the 
competition, you set yourself up to win the fight.
  That is how you manage your competitors. That is it. No secret.
  And I don't discount the importance of diplomacy, but Xi Jinping and 
his lieutenants in the Chinese Communist Party have proven time and 
again that their standing operating procedure is rooted in a desire to 
control the world--to control the world--order, rather than to work 
within it. Competition they are not interested in. Dominance, yes, they 
are interested in.

  If we start engaging with China from anything other than a position 
of strength, we will lose. And right now, Joe Biden projects nothing 
but weakness.
  For almost 3 years, I have chronicled in excruciating detail the war 
the Chinese Communist Party is waging against our Nation's ideals. I 
have done this in hopes that my colleagues across the aisle would 
understand that delaying action or maintaining the status quo will not 
save us from our most belligerent and dangerous adversary.
  And yet, somehow, seeing it all laid out in black and white wasn't 
even enough to get action. Seeing the evidence of genocide in Xinjiang 
wasn't enough.
  Reading verified reports that Beijing manipulated multiple 
international organizations in their shameless coverup of the origins 
of COVID-19--that wasn't enough.
  Listening to Chinese officials threaten our pharmaceutical and 
medical supply chains--not enough.
  Watching the Chinese Communist Party attack freedom fighters in Hong 
Kong and threaten our friends in Taiwan wasn't enough.
  Seeing the pernicious effects of the Belt and Road Initiative on the 
global balance of power wasn't enough.
  Not even the knowledge that Beijing gets closer than ever to testing 
the limits of our nuclear deterrence capabilities--that was not enough.
  Madam President, I yield to the majority leader.