Mass Shooting in Orlando, National Defense Authorization and Commerce- Justice-Science Appropriations Bills

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the terrorist attack in Orlando continues to horrify our country. The FBI and our intelligence community will determine whether that terrorist was in direct contact with ISIL or inspired by ISIL. Either way, this much we know already: ISIL is a disgusting group who crucifies children, enslaves women, and throws gay men to their deaths from rooftops. They are determined to continue exporting their signature brand of inhumanity to our country.

The principal way we can prevent ISIL-inspired or directed attacks is to defeat ISIL. The President has led a campaign intended to contain ISIL which has been insufficient to prevent the attacks in Paris or Brussels or inspired attacks, such as in San Bernardino.

We need to do what we can to fight back now to prevent more heartbreak like we saw this weekend. That means, for instance, better preparing this administration and the next one, regardless of party, to deal with threats like ISIL, and we can do so by passing the National Defense Authorization Act before us. It will provide our men and women in uniform with more of the tools they need to take on these threats. It will strengthen our military posture. In short, it will enhance our ability to take on the challenges currently facing us and better prepare us for those we will face in the future, all while supporting our soldiers with better benefits, improved health care, and the pay raises they have earned.

I thank the Senators from both sides who worked diligently to move this bill forward. My gratitude extends most deeply to the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Senator McCain has been unwavering in his support for our men and women in uniform. He also understands man's capacity for inhumanity to man better than most of us, and that is why he is so dedicated to taking on these threats. He knows that passage of this bill will present a serious and necessary step toward a safer country that we all want because, look, we are a nation at war. We are a nation under attack. We need to continue taking action to protect our country.

This bill will send a strong signal to the men and women in uniform, it will send a strong signal to our allies, and it will send a strong signal to our adversaries. We need to pass it, and we need to pass it today.

We will have other opportunities this week to keep our country safe and to take on terrorism. We need to defeat, not contain, ISIL, and we need the tools necessary to take down terrorists inspired by its brutal ideology.

The appropriations bill we are about to consider offers important opportunities to continue this debate. We need to be able to better address the threat of lone wolf terrorists. We need to be able to connect the dots of terrorist communications in order to disrupt their plans. Republicans have offered ideas to take action in areas like these.

The underlying bill, which passed unanimously out of committee, will advance a lot of important priorities, such as funding for agencies-- like the FBI--to fight terrorism and funding designed to help defend against cyber security threats.

Chairman Shelby and Ranking Member Mikulski worked diligently to advance this bill out of committee and bring it to the floor. Members should work with these bill managers if they have ideas they think will make the bill stronger. I mentioned some of them already.

We have made important progress on appropriations bills so far this year. We can continue that progress this week and take further steps to keep our country safe from terrorism.

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