Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last week terrorists wearing suicide vests entered the Istanbul airport and opened fire on travelers before detonating their vests. Forty-five people were killed and more than 200 were injured. While no group has yet claimed responsibility, Turkish officials believe that ISIS was behind the attack.

The list of ISIS-related terrorist attacks in the United States and against our allies is steadily growing: Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, Orlando, and Istanbul. Then, of course, there is the constant barrage of attacks in the Middle East, such as last week's deadly attack in Baghdad that resulted in the death of 250 people.

So far the attacks in the United States have been inspired by--rather than carried out by--ISIS, but that could change at any moment. In the wake of the Istanbul attacks, CIA Director John Brennan stated he would be ``surprised'' if ISIS isn't planning a similar attack in the United States.

Given the terrorist violence in recent months, it is no surprise that a recent FOX News poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans, 84 percent, think that ``most Americans today are feeling more nervous than confident about stopping terrorist attacks.''

Unfortunately, they have reason to be nervous because under President Obama we are not doing what we need to be doing to stop ISIS. For proof of that, we have President Obama's own CIA chief, who has made it clear that the measures the administration has taken to stop ISIS have failed to reduce the group's ability to carry out attacks.

Testifying before Congress 3 weeks ago, Director Brennan stated: ``Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach.''

Let me repeat that: `` . . . our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach,'' said CIA Director Brennan.

That is a pretty serious indictment of the Obama administration's ISIS strategy or the lack thereof. If our efforts have not reduced ISIS's terrorism capability and global reach, then our efforts are failing and we need a new plan, but that is something that President Obama seems unlikely to produce. Despite a halfhearted campaign against ISIS, the President has never laid out a comprehensive strategy to defeat the terrorist group. As a result, ISIS's terrorism capability and global reach are thriving.

Keeping Americans safe from ISIS requires a comprehensive approach. It requires not just containing but decisively defeating ISIS abroad. It requires controlling our borders and strengthening our immigration system. It requires us to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies the tools and funding they need to monitor threats abroad and here at home. It requires us to secure the homeland by addressing security weaknesses that would give terrorists an opening to attack. Unfortunately, President Obama has failed to adequately address these priorities, and at this late date, the President is unlikely to change his approach.

The Republican-led Senate cannot force the President to take the threat posed by ISIS seriously, but we are committed to doing everything we can to increase our Nation's security. A key part of defeating ISIS abroad is making sure the men and women of our military have the equipment, the training, and the resources they need to win battles.

This month, the Senate will take up the annual appropriations bill to fund our troops. This year's bill focuses on eliminating wasteful spending and redirecting those funds to modernize our military and increase troop pay. It rejects President Obama's plan to close Guantanamo Bay and bring suspected terrorists to our shores, and it funds our efforts to defeat ISIS abroad.

The bill received unanimous bipartisan support in the Appropriations Committee. I am hoping the outcome will be the same on the Senate floor.

Last year, the Democrats chose to play politics with this appropriations bill and voted to block essential funding for our troops no fewer than three times, even though they had no real objections to the actual substance of the bill.

Playing politics with funding for our troops is never acceptable, but it is particularly unacceptable at a time when our Nation is facing so many threats to our security. I hope this time around Senate Democrats will work with us to quickly pass this legislation.

In addition to funding our military, another key aspect to protecting our Nation from terrorist threats is controlling our borders. We have to know who is coming into our country so that we can keep out terrorists and anyone else who wants to harm us. If criminals and suspected terrorists do make it across our borders, we need to apprehend them immediately.

One thing we can do right now to improve our ability to keep criminals and suspected terrorists off our streets is to eliminate so- called sanctuary cities. Right now, more than 300 cities across the United States have policies in place that discourage local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration officials. That means that when a Homeland Security official asks local authorities to detain a dangerous felon or suspected terrorist until Federal authorities can come collect the individual, these jurisdictions may refuse to help. Sanctuary city policies have resulted in the release of thousands of criminals who could otherwise have been picked up by the Department of Homeland Security and deported.

Senator Toomey has offered a bill to discourage these policies by withholding certain Federal funds from jurisdictions that refuse to help Federal officials keep dangerous individuals off the streets. I have to say that I am deeply disappointed that this afternoon the Senate Democrats chose to block this important legislation. By opposing this bill, Democrats are complicit in making it easier for felons and suspected terrorists to threaten our communities.

Giving our intelligence and law enforcement agencies the tools they need to track terrorists is one of the most important ways we can prevent future attacks.

In June, the Senate took up an amendment to give the FBI authority to obtain records of suspected terrorists' electronic transactions, such as what Web sites they visited and how long they spent on those sites. The FBI has stated that obtaining this authority is one of its top legislative priorities.

The agency already has authority to obtain similar telephone and financial records, but what the FBI Director described as ``essentially a typo in the law'' has so far prevented the FBI from easily obtaining the same records for Web sites. Fixing this intelligence gap would significantly improve the FBI's ability to track suspected terrorists and to prevent attacks. Unfortunately, again, the majority of Senate Democrats inexplicably voted against this amendment, which I hope will be reconsidered in the Senate in the near future.

On top of that, Democrats are threatening to block this year's Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which provides funding that the FBI and other key law enforcement agencies need to operate.

When the President's CIA Director testified before Congress in June, he told Members: ``I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety of threats to our national security.''

Given these threats, and especially given the recent ISIS-inspired attack on our own soil, it is both puzzling and deeply troubling that Democrats would block the FBI's No. 1 priority and then play politics with the funding that will help the agency track suspected terrorists in our country.

As I mentioned above, the final essential element to protecting Americans from terrorist attacks is addressing our vulnerabilities here at home. The recent terrorist attacks in Istanbul and Brussels highlighted vulnerabilities at airports we need to address to prevent similar attacks in the United States.

This afternoon, the House and Senate announced they had reached agreement on a final version of aviation legislation. In addition to aviation safety measures and new consumer protections--such as guaranteed refunds of baggage fees for lost or seriously delayed luggage--this legislation provides one of the largest, most comprehensive airport security packages in years.

This legislation improves vetting of airport employees to address the insider terrorist threat, the risk that an airport employee would give a terrorist access to secure areas of an airport. It includes provisions to get more Americans enrolled in Precheck to reduce the size of crowds waiting in unsecured areas of our airports, and it contains measures to add more K-9 and other security personnel at airports so we are better able to deter attacks. In addition, the bill requires the TSA to look at ways to improve security checkpoints to make the passenger screening process more efficient and effective.

I look forward to sending this legislation to the President by July 15. As the President's own CIA Director made clear, President Obama's halfhearted approach to countering ISIS has failed to reduce the threat this terrorist organization poses.

While I would like to think the President will develop a greater seriousness about ISIS in the last 6 months of his Presidency, I am not holding out a lot of hope. But whatever the President does or fails to do, Republicans in the Senate will continue to do everything we can to protect our country and to keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks.

I hope that Democrats in Congress will join us.

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