[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 153 (Thursday, September 21, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4646-S4647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 Confirmation of General Eric M. Smith

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I am on the floor for a couple of 
reasons but No. 1 and most important is to congratulate General Smith, 
Gen. Eric Smith, to be the new Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.
  Now, the Presiding Officer may have seen the vote--a pretty 
impressive vote, 96 to 0. That does not happen a lot in the U.S. 
Senate. But every Senator on the floor just an hour ago gave Gen. Eric 
Smith a huge vote of confidence--and with good reason.
  This is a Marine officer who has a stellar career--stellar career. He 
has commanded at every level in the Marine Corps: as an infantry 
officer, Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. As a 
general officer, he commanded the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Southern 
Command, 1st Marine Corps Division, III MEF--Marine Expeditionary 
Force--and Marine Corps Combat Development Command. That is about as 
stellar a career as it gets.
  Additionally, he is a serious combat veteran. As I have noted to my 
colleagues before, a lot of the flag officers in the military right now 
were the lieutenants and captains right after 9/11. This is a group of 
senior military leaders who have seen more combat than certainly almost 
any other generation since World War II. And General Smith was one of 
those: wounded in action in Iraq, did not want to go home; frontline 
commander in combat; served in Afghanistan.
  Unfortunately, like a lot of commanders during these challenging 
wars, he had a number of marines and friends killed in action whom he 
was in command of. So he knows war. He knows the Marine Corps.
  I look forward to working closely with General Smith on a whole host 
of issues related to the Marine Corps and now, as a member of the Joint 
Chiefs, related to the national defense of our country, including 
Marine Corps force design, including the Navy's requirement that is in 
law--in law, if you are watching, Secretary of the Navy Del Toro; it is 
in law--31 amphibs for the Marine Corps.
  So these and many other issues I look forward to working with General 
Smith on. But again, 96 to 0.
  Great job, General. Semper Fi.
  Mr. President, I also think it is important to just talk a little bit 
about how we got here, and to be honest, we should have gotten here a 
lot earlier--weeks, if not months, earlier.
  I am a pro-life and pro-military Senator, so I have been very 
involved in these negotiations between leadership

[[Page S4647]]

and some of our Members on issues of moving forward nominees but also 
on not agreeing with Secretary Austin's memo as it relates to travel 
issues.
  There have been a number of us who have been trying to get to a 
resolution on some of the holds that are happening here on the Senate 
floor.
  By the way, holds happen all the time. The way they are resolved 98 
percent of the time is through compromise. So that is why I am trying 
to help my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and the administration 
and the Department of Defense. But in the meantime, there was nothing 
preventing the majority leader from bringing qualified military members 
to the floor for a vote--nothing. As a matter of fact, in the Senate, 
we vote on members of the Joint Chiefs all the time. That is a 
tradition here--when the Democrats have been in charge, when the 
Republicans have been in charge--but that has not been the priority 
here.
  In the last several months, we have had 76 rollcall votes, everything 
from the Assistant Administrator of the EPA to district court judges, 
NLRB judges, Board members for the National Archives, Assistant 
Secretaries of Education, HHS. You name it, we have been confirming 
them, with the exception of one group: military officers.
  A lot of the press is saying: Well, that was the Senator from 
Alabama.
  That is not true. That is not true at all. We could be voting on 
individual members of the Joint Chiefs. That wasn't the priority. That 
wasn't the priority.
  Senator Tuberville was going to make a resolution, signed by 17 
Senators, to file cloture on General Smith, and all of a sudden, the 
majority leader thought it was important to start moving forward on 
Joint Chiefs of Staff nominees. I think that is good. That shows some 
compromise. And I think even that little bit of compromise is going to 
help us on the broader issues that we are all trying to address.
  But I do want to just correct the record. In our Ukraine briefing 
yesterday, Secretary Austin, Secretary of Defense, said he really 
appreciated Senator Schumer's leadership on filing cloture on these 
Joint Chiefs we just voted on. Well, with all due respect to Senator 
Schumer and Secretary Austin, it wasn't his leadership; it was our side 
of the aisle that forced his hand to do it. That is a fact. That is a 
fact.
  So, Mr. Secretary, I know the Senate procedures can be a little 
confusing, but you might want to thank this side of the aisle for 
actually moving forward to make sure that Joint Chiefs are getting 
confirmed.
  So I hope we continue to do that and continue to work like a number 
of us have been on a broader compromise here to move forward on these 
other military nominees.
  By the way, I do welcome many of my Democratic colleagues' newfound 
interest in national security. A number of them have been howling about 
national security and we are not ready and readiness issues. A lot of 
them, I have never heard them talk about national security, but they 
are all talking about it now. That is great. Welcome.
  By the way, join me in criticizing President Biden for sending to us 
3 years in a row three budgets each year that dramatically cut our 
Department of Defense.
  President Biden's budget this year shrinks the Army, shrinks the 
Navy, shrinks the Marine Corps. It is exactly the wrong message to be 
sending Xi Jingping and Putin during one of the most dangerous times 
our has Nation faced since the end of World War II.
  So if you are worried about national security, join me on some of 
these. It is great. I hear a lot of howling from silent voices on 
national security from the other side of the aisle, so I welcome you to 
be caring about these issues.
  I want to end where I started, and I want to thank and congratulate 
again General Smith. I also want to congratulate the new soon-to-be 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, who is also 
exceptionally qualified, and the new Chief of Staff of the Army, 
General George. All three were recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 
overwhelming numbers--overwhelming. That is progress. On both sides of 
the aisle, that is progress. That is what we needed. I am hopeful that 
progress will lead to more compromise on these other issues that we all 
know are important.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.