Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise to support the upcoming confirmation this week of my friend Jim Bridenstine to be Administrator of NASA.
We are now in our second year without a Senate-confirmed Administrator of NASA. Not only has that been bad for the United States, but it is also bad for the commercial space industry, NASA, and all of us who prioritize restoring and strengthening America's leadership in space. NASA needs a strong leader, and it will have that strong leader in Jim Bridenstine.
I serve as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee's Space Subcommittee, and I am proud and deeply gratified that President Trump chose to nominate Representative Jim Bridenstine to lead NASA. I can think of very few people I know who are more inspirational than Jim. Unfortunately, throughout Representative Bridenstine's confirmation process, we have seen cynical politicians attempting to malign his character, despite the fact that he has spent his entire adult life in public service. Jim Bridenstine is a veteran and a war hero. He is a man of deep character and deep integrity. Having served our Nation in combat as a fighter pilot, he earned the respect of the men and women who served under his command.
Representative Bridenstine's combat missions included airborne battlefield command and control and tactical air control flights in support of the liberation of Iraq, controlling over 180 kill box interdiction and close-air support missions, resulting in the destruction of countless tanks, armored vehicles, and time-sensitive fixed targets.
Representative Bridenstine later transitioned to the F/A-18 Hornet while on Active Duty, serving at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, TOPGUN command, where he flew both the E-2 and F28. There, he received fitness reports from his commanding officers, which rated him as ``the number one Hawkeye pilot and weapons and tactic instructor'' and ``the most tactically skilled pilot in the E-2 community.'' That is a remarkable record, and it is one that has been followed by honorable and distinguished service in the U.S. Congress.
Throughout my time in the Senate, I have been blessed to meet with a number of astronauts. It is worth noting that quite a number of those astronauts at NASA have backgrounds very similar to that of Representative Bridenstine. He will be able to lead them as one who has served in missions similar to the ones they have served in and are serving now. I have no doubt he will be an effective leader of NASA and will work to ensure the safety of the men and women who step forward to save our country; that he will work to lead NASA in a way to ensure that America continues to lead in space, and, in particular, that NASA and the commercial space sector, working hand in hand, will move forward to implement the bipartisan commitment this Congress has made that man will go back to space and go to Mars and that, in particular, the first foot that sets on the soil of Mars will be an American astronaut landing to explore that next frontier.
I urge my colleagues to put aside partisan politics. If this vote were on the merits, Representative Bridenstine should be confirmed 100 to 0 on the merits. I urge my colleagues to come together so we can have a strong leader of NASA, an honorable war hero, and a leader who will lead space exploration going forward. Israel Independence Day
Mr. President, I also rise to join Israel and the Jewish people to celebrate Israel Independence Day.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the modern State of Israel. On Friday, May 14, 1948, Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion, brought together members of the Jewish People's Council in the Tel Aviv Museum. By then, the Zionist movement to rebirth the Jewish state had been at work for decades.
Ben-Gurion stood underneath a portrait of the pioneer of that movement, Theodor Herzl, and described the historic right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spirit, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
That writing had been recognized by the international community, he said, and declared the founding of the modern State of Israel. He also said:
We, members of the People's Council, representatives of the Jewish community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel to be known as the State of Israel.
Eleven minutes after Ben-Gurion made his declaration, and over the objection of many of his advisers and the State Department, President Harry S. Truman courageously recognized the State of Israel. I am sorry it took us a full 11 minutes to do so.
Meanwhile, armies from five Arab States declared war and invaded, in an attempt to destroy the new state. Despite being outgunned and outnumbered, Israel would prevail.
The Israeli victory might not have happened without heroic soldiers who had recently returned from World War II, including Jewish Americans volunteering to go and help. Some volunteers provided badly needed weapons, others offered military experience, and some fought.
In 1951, then serving as Israel's first Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion established Israel's Memorial Day, which takes place the day before Israel Independence Day and which commemorates those killed in the wars and the terror campaigns waged against Israel.
From Tuesday to Wednesday evening, Israel came to a complete standstill in honor of the 23,646 Israelis who have fallen in wars, and the 3,134 terrorist victims since 1860. I stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel in commemoration.
It has been seven decades since Prime Minister Ben-Gurion made his historic declaration of independence and President Truman gave his historic recognition, and I am proud to say that America continues to stand unshakably with our allies.
On December 6, 2017, President Trump rightly recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announced that the U.S. Embassy would be moving to Jerusalem, implementing the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 that was adopted overwhelmingly by Congress. I have long advocated and supported the United States to take these two actions which are required to rectify a historic injustice.
Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years and the capital of the Jewish state since its founding in 1948.
I recently introduced a resolution reaffirming the deep connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem and denouncing efforts at UNESCO that have attempted to rewrite historic truth and to erase from history undeniable facts. I am also proud my home State of Texas adopted legislation on Israel Independence Day last year to combat the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, the BDS movement. On May 14, 2018, exactly seven decades since President Truman recognized Israel, the United States will finally and formally recognize as much and open our Embassy in Jerusalem.
I, along with many millions across our Nation and across the world, look forward to that day, and we stand in alliance and solidarity with the people of Israel, celebrating the great friendship, the great national security alliance between two great nations.
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