[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 194 (Monday, November 27, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5588-S5589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, before the Senate adjourned for 
Thanksgiving, we voted to extend Federal Government funding into the 
new

[[Page S5589]]

year. I am glad there was no appetite in the Capitol for saddling the 
Nation with a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown.
  The short-term funding legislation produced by the Speaker of the 
House was an important step toward fulfilling Congress's responsibility 
to pass full-year appropriations, and work continues toward restoring 
the sort of regular order appropriations process that Senators on both 
sides of the aisle have set as our goal.
  But the Senate convenes today with some extremely important 
outstanding business that we need to address this year. In a few short 
weeks, we need to deliver on several urgent national security 
priorities. For starters, a number of our colleagues are hard at work 
on the conference report of the National Defense Authorization Act. 
This is Congress's primary opportunity to shape America's national 
security priorities and set the course of strategic competition with 
major adversaries.

  We need to empower our Armed Forces with a clear directive for the 
many challenges they face. We need to prepare them to deter and fight 
future wars, not drag them into political culture wars. We need to 
focus our military on geopolitics, not climate politics.
  But at this especially dangerous moment, we also need to deliver 
supplemental resources to help both America and our partners defend 
against linked threats from our biggest adversaries: Russia, Iran, and 
China.
  Make no mistake, the PRC is not deterred. Beijing didn't take a 
Thanksgiving break from its historic military buildup, its threats to 
the freedom of navigation in international waters, or its efforts to 
meddle in Taiwan's domestic politics.
  Russia is not deterred. Putin hasn't eased off on his brutal conquest 
of Ukraine.
  Iran is not deterred. The world's top state sponsor of terrorism has 
continued to underwrite an alarming surge in attacks on U.S. personnel 
in Iraq and Syria since the barbaric attacks of October 7.
  Hamas is not deterred. Even during a temporary pause in fighting, 
terrorists are clearly determined, with Iran's help, to wipe Israel off 
the map ``from the river to the sea.''
  America needs to stand with our friends and stand up to our 
aggressors, and Senate Republicans have been working for weeks to 
ensure that supplemental legislation includes robust investments in the 
hard power and defense industrial capacity we need to confront them 
head-on.
  But on this side of the aisle, we also recognize that national 
security begins here at home. Last month's total southern border 
encounters marked the busiest October in decades of CBP records, and 
the harsh reality of the Biden administration's border crisis continues 
to impact millions of Americans in cities across the country.
  So I am thankful that Senator Lankford, Senator Graham, and Senator 
Cotton have been working diligently to produce legislation to address 
this crisis head-on. Senate Republicans have been laser-focused on 
actually fixing our broken asylum process, not just pouring more money 
into a system that is simply not working, and our Democratic colleagues 
would do well to take these efforts seriously.
  The bottom line is simple: We don't have the luxury of addressing 
glaring threats to our national security one at a time. Crises don't 
solve themselves just because Washington can't muster the political 
will to address them.
  Unfortunately, Senate Democrats have already suggested they want to 
condition urgent resources for one of our top security priorities on 
not addressing another one. Apparently, our colleagues are considering 
putting support for Israel on the chopping block unless we promise not 
to fix the border crisis they helped to create.
  So, Madam President, this sort of cynical, shortsighted politics has 
denied the American people real border security too many times. The 
challenges facing America are connected, and the time to address them--
each of them--is now.

                          ____________________