Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise to strongly support the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Mississippi.
We should pay our Coast Guard. It is not right that we aren't paying the Coast Guard. Right now, every other military branch is being paid. The Army is being paid. The Navy is being paid. The Air Force is being paid. The Marines are being paid. Those in the Coast Guard are not being paid even as they are risking their lives.
Many of us in Texas and along the gulf coast saw the incredible heroism of the Coast Guard in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, during which so many brave men and women risked their lives to save thousands upon thousands of innocents. They should be paid. I think it is important for the American people to understand what just happened here because it is highly consequential. It is easy for things to get lost in procedural gobbledygook and to assume: Well, this is some back and forth about the shutdown and about the wall. It has nothing to do with any of that.
What Senator Kennedy did was to bring forward a bill to pay the Coast Guard. The bill did nothing else. It didn't address any aspect of the shutdown. It didn't address any aspect of the wall. It simply said: Let's pay the men and women in the Coast Guard--yes or no. That means you can be a yes on that, whether you think we need to secure the border and have a steel barrier or whether you support open borders. It doesn't say anything either way. It just says that the men and women in the Coast Guard deserve paychecks.
We could have passed that right here today. There is one reason and one reason only that we didn't.
I note that if there are Democrats on the Democratic side of the aisle who are not comfortable with that, who agree that the Coast Guard should be paid, let me encourage my Democratic colleagues to say so because it is their party's leader who has lodged an objection on behalf of, effectively, every Democratic Senator.
The Democrats are fond of using the phrase ``hostage-taking.'' They are, quite literally, holding the men and women of the Coast Guard hostage because they want to win a political victory against the President. Their objective here is to have the President back down and to have not a single mile of border wall built--never mind that the Democratic leader and every Democrat in this Chamber voted in 2013 to build and fund 350 miles of border wall. That was 350 miles that every Democrat in this Chamber voted for.
We are in a shutdown today because they are now unwilling to fund 234 miles of border wall, which is less than they voted for in 2013.
We understand that politics rears its head in this business, and the Democrats want to defeat the President politically, and so the substance is secondary to trying to get the partisan victory over the President. Let me suggest that this ought to be an issue. We keep fighting back and forth on whether securing the border or having open borders is a good idea, but this ought to be an issue that should be real simple.
Senator Kennedy brought forward a clean bill that does one thing and one thing only. It pays the salaries of the men and women in the Coast Guard. If the Democratic leader hadn't objected, that would have passed right now. The President could have signed it tonight. The paychecks could have gone out right now for every man and woman in the Coast Guard.
If you are serving in the Coast Guard in any of our 50 States, let me say: No. 1, thank you for your service. Thank you for your heroism. Thank you for the amazing difference you make. You deserve to be paid. You will be paid. But if you want to know why you aren't being paid right now, it is because the Democratic leader objected to your getting a paycheck.
It is my hope that the Democratic Senators will go to their leader and say: This is a bad idea for Democratic Senators to hold hostage the paychecks of the men and women of the Coast Guard.
We should pay the Coast Guard, and that ought to be something that commands unanimous, bipartisan support.
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Mr. CRUZ. Would the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?
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Mr. CRUZ. Did the bill that Senator Kennedy brought forward do anything--anything else--beyond simply paying the men and women of the Coast Guard?
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Mr. CRUZ. So if the Democrats had not objected and it had passed and the House had passed it and sent it to the President, could we get the men and women of the Coast Guard paid right now, today, and get that passed into law?
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Mr. CRUZ. So the only thing that is necessary to pass a clean bill, paying the salaries of every man and women in the Coast Guard, is for the Democratic Senators to withdraw their objection; is that correct?
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Mr. CRUZ. Thank you.
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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, there is an old saying in Texas among Texas trial lawyers. If you have the facts, you bang the facts. If you have the law, you bang the law. If you don't have either one, you bang the table. We have seen a whole lot of table banging right here on this floor.
The Senator from Colorado spent a great deal of time yelling, spent a great deal of time attacking me personally. He did at one point briefly rise to the defense of my father. I appreciate that gesture, but he spent a lot of time yelling.
I will say, in my time in the Senate, I don't believe I have ever bellowed or yelled at one of my colleagues on the Senate floor, and I hope in my time before me, I never do that. I think we should discuss issues and substance and facts and not simply scream and yell at each other.
Let's go over some of the facts. In the angry speech of the Senator from Colorado, he did not dispute, No. 1, that he and every other Senate Democrat in 2013 voted for 350 miles of border wall. That is a fact. He has voted for 350 miles of border wall, as did every other Democrat in this Chamber at that time.
No. 2, he did not dispute that in December of last year, the then- Republican House of Representatives voted to fund the government--to fund the entirety of the government--and to secure the border, and the Senator from Colorado, and I believe every other Democrat, filibustered that bill and caused the shutdown.
I voted to take up that bill. You voted to take up that bill. Had we taken up the bill, had we simply passed the bill the House of Representatives had passed funding the government and securing the border, the government would never have shut down.
It takes some degree of chutzpah to stand up, after filibustering funding for the government, as the Democrats did, and blame the shutdown on the opposing party.
The Senator from Colorado did not dispute the Republican House voted to fund the government, and he and his Democratic colleagues filibustered that, which caused the shutdown.
No. 3, the Senator from Colorado did not dispute that the stated reason the Democrats filibustered that bill is because it authorized the funding of 234 miles of wall.
I have to say, I find it amusing that a new adjective has crept in. It is now not 234 miles of wall; it is medieval wall. I don't know if there is something in there that has a moat and has catapults that are throwing burning tar--medieval wall now.
It is kind of an odd thing. It does raise the question: Well, if walls are medieval, why did the Senator from Colorado and every other Democrat in 2013 vote for 350 miles of medieval wall? To the extent walls are medieval, they presumably were medieval in 2013, just as much as they are now.
The President has a good observation. He said: I will tell you something else that is medieval, the wheel. There is a reason the wheel is medieval--because it rolls things, and it works. Walls are effective.
Unlike the Senator from Colorado, I live in a border State. We have 1,200 miles of border. I have spent a great deal of time down at the border with Border Patrol agents. We have miles and miles of wall right now that are working. I have been to those walls--not once, not twice but over and over again.
One of the rich things about this Chamber is, Senators from States nowhere near the border presume to lecture border States about what it is like on the border and what works securing the border. Walls are effective. I will tell you, every single Border Patrol agent I have asked----and I have asked dozens, probably hundreds of Border Patrol agents--are walls effective, unquestionably, they say yes.
Let's not destruct the straw man. Walls are not the only thing. You need technology. You need boots on the ground. You need all sorts of other tools. The critical point in intercepting someone crossing over illegally is the time between detection and interception, and what a wall does is slows down the traffickers to give the Border Patrol time to intercept them.
By the way, we have seen it over and over again in San Diego. When they built the wall, the illegal traffic plummeted. In El Paso, when they built the wall, the illegal traffic plummeted. Now the Democrats' position is not substantive. They voted for 350 miles of wall. So why are they shutting the government down over 234 miles of wall? It is not substantive; it is political.
We get that they hate Donald Trump. If anyone in America had missed that point--that they really don't like this man--their yelling and screaming and bellowing has made that abundantly clear. Just because you hate somebody doesn't mean you should shut down the government. I voted to keep this government open, right now, today. The Democrats are filibustering funding for the government.
Let me tell you something else the Senator from Colorado didn't dispute. We had a whole colloquy with the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Mississippi and the Senator from Alaska about funding the Coast Guard. Did you notice, in that entire bellowing speech, the words ``Coast Guard'' were never uttered? Not once.
What Senator Kennedy asked this body to do was pass a clean bill to pay the paychecks of the Coast Guard. Senator Kennedy's bill doesn't mention a wall--whether you like one or not, it doesn't mention a medieval wall or any other kind. It simply says: Pay the Coast Guard-- yes, no.
Every Republican agrees, pay the Coast Guard right now. It is not fair to treat the Coast Guard differently than we are treating the Army and Navy and Marines and Air Force.
The Senator from Colorado didn't address that because it is indisputable, it is a fact that the reason that didn't pass right now is because the Democratic leader stood up and made an objection.
By implication, every Democratic Senator presumably agrees with it. The fact that the Senator from Colorado didn't say, yes, we should fund the Coast Guard, and, you know what, my leader was wrong when he held the paychecks of the Coast Guard's men and women hostage because he wants to win a political fight with the President.
By the way, I would note to the Senator of Colorado, it is not the end of the world to stand up to your party's leader. Some of us have a history of having done so in the past.
We are now in the longest government shutdown in history. This shutdown needs to end--the American people want it to end--but we also need to secure the border.
I have to say, the contrast between the two parties could not be clearer. The President has repeatedly said he wants to negotiate and compromise. He says he is willing to meet in the middle. He hasn't insisted on every mile of border wall he asked for. He hasn't insisted on every single dollar of border security. He said: Let's meet and compromise. Republicans on this side of the Chamber have said: Let's compromise in the middle.
The position of Senate Democrats is that they will not negotiate; they will not compromise, period. Their position, how many miles of wall can be built? Zero. They are not to 1 yet. When it comes to negotiating, their position is not an inch of wall can be built, even though we the Democrats already voted for 350 miles of it. Why? Because Donald Trump is President.
That is an extreme and radical position. Look, I understand, folks watching at home, it is hard to tell--you are reading the news. It seems like both parties are bickering. It is hard to tell what is happening, particularly because on the Senate floor, there is a lot of procedural mumbo jumbo.
If you want to understand what is going on, the exchange between Senator Kennedy and Senator Schumer illustrates it all. Senator Kennedy's bill did one thing and one thing only. It paid the salaries of the men and women of the Coast Guard. It didn't touch any other issue.
Every Republican agrees with that bill. The Democrats objected and said: We will not pay the Coast Guard.
Had they not objected, we could put that bill on the President's desk today, and they could get their paychecks right now. That is emblematic of the approach of Senate Democrats.
When the Senator from Colorado stopped screaming at me, he then engaged in a bit of historical retrospective about the great Framers of our Constitution, which I enjoyed and very much agree with. I am someone who spent a lifetime devoted to the Constitution. I am inspired by the Framers who gave us this extraordinary democratic Republic. The Senator from Colorado called for Members of this body to aspire to be more like the men and women who gave us this country, gave us this Republic, if you can keep it, as Benjamin Franklin put it. I concur with that.
What I urge the Senator from Colorado do is to reach out to his Democratic colleagues and counsel compromise. I am urging my colleagues on this side to do the same. The difference is, the Republicans are willing to compromise, have offered to compromise, and, in fact, just now sought to pay the Coast Guard, and the Democratic position is: No, no, no. We object.
That is partisan, it is extreme, and it is not behavior that would bring pride to the Framers of our Constitution. I hope this body can do better.
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