Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on Sunday, as we Americans savored the holiday weekend and gave thanks for our liberty, the people of Hong Kong took to the streets to demand their own. Many waved American flags.

Hongkongers are continuing to speak up for the freedoms and the autonomy that Beijing has slowly tried to erode. As long as Beijing does not relent, it looks like the people of Hong Kong are not going to relent either. In local elections last week that were largely symbolic, pro-democracy candidates literally blew away the candidates the Chinese Communist Party would have preferred in a literal landslide. Not even Beijing's propagandists can credibly blame this massive display of popular revulsion at their authoritarianism on the ``black hand'' of the West. In spite of China's propaganda, the West should not stay silent as Beijing sneaks to snuff out dissent in Hong Kong.

Just a few days prior, the Congress and President Trump had sent our clearest signal yet that, yes, the United States of America stands with Hong Kong. The Senate unanimously passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and the President signed it into law. It delivered important updates to the original U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act, which I authored back in 1992. Preserving freedom and promoting democracy has required constant vigilance with Hongkongers since Communist China assumed control of the region.

I have been proud to stand with that effort. With my original legislation, we paved the way for cooperation between Hong Kong and the United States, codifying and strengthening economic ties and facilitating the robust exchange of ideas and support of greater democracy in the autonomous region. We have laid the foundation for a U.S.-Hong Kong relationship that has strengthened both their society and ours and created leverage to hold Beijing accountable.

Back in 1992, I observed that democracy was ``finally gaining a tenuous foothold in Hong Kong.'' Recent months certainly have reminded us just how tenuous that foothold can be when an authoritarian country flexes its muscles. They reminded us just how intent Beijing remains on exporting its oppressive surveillance state not just within mainland China but also into Hong Kong and, frankly, all around the world.

The unanimous Senate vote for expanded oversight and firm responses to Beijing was welcomed news on the streets of Hong Kong, not because the U.S. Senate or international nonprofits or anybody else is ginning up these protests, as Beijing wants people to believe, but because those speaking out for freedom recognize a friend of freedom when they see one.

It has been funny to see how invested Beijing is in these conspiracy theories that this organic protest movement is actually the work of shadowy puppeteers. Just a few days ago, the Chinese Communist Party's Foreign Ministry took the panicked and laughable step of ``sanctioning'' several American nonprofits and NGOs, such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and the National Endowment for Democracy. Like I said, it is laughable. I admire the heck out of these organizations, but they aren't exactly in the business of commanding millions of people from Hong Kong to Beirut, to Baghdad, to Tehran to take to the streets. They are not that good.

Here is the business they are in: speaking up for the timeless and universal principles of basic human freedom. They help keep the torch lit. It is the brave souls around the world who want better lives for themselves and their children who pick up the ball and run with it for themselves.

The junior varsity tantrum that Beijing is throwing against these U.S.-based organizations is literally comical. It puts the Communist Party's hypersensitivity on full display. It is the same flailing that we see from other regimes from Moscow to Tehran, driven by the same aggressive, authoritarian instincts that push social media propaganda, street corner surveillance, police violence, and the modern-day gulags where China is imprisoning and brutalizing the Uighur people. These are the forces history never judges kindly. I am proud of the people of Hong Kong. I am proud of the Senate's latest action to support them, and I am proud to continue standing alongside them in their journey to true self-determination. Appropriations

Mr. President, nearly every day I have come to the floor to talk about the key pieces of legislation that we will only be able to complete with bipartisan cooperation--essential things like funding for the entirety of our Federal Government, something we have to do, including funding for our men and women in uniform; the money for the tools and the training and the weapons that our volunteer servicemembers need to complete their missions; things like the National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress has passed every single year, always on a bipartisan basis, for the last 58 years. This is literally the bill that reauthorizes the U.S. military. It could not be more basic or fundamental.

So it is dismaying that my Democratic colleagues have seen fit to hold these basic duties hostage for the sake of picking fights with the White House, for advancing a partisan domestic agenda. It is disappointing that Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leader have abandoned their own written promises that they would not make our bipartisan appropriations processes conditioned on poison pills, policy riders, or changes to Presidential transfer authorities. All those commitments were made in the summer. Even though they put that in writing, they have chosen to shoehorn partisan demands right back into the process. So we are stalled. We are stalled because the agreement we all reached in the summer has not been honored by the other side.

Today I want to keep this really simple. The Senate's dispensation on that Hong Kong legislation proves that we can still work together when our core principles and our national interest are at stake. Of course, those things are exactly what is at stake with defense funding and the NDAA. So it is way past time--we are in December--to get serious.

Chairman Shelby and Chairwoman Lowey have agreed on subcommittee allocations. Chairman Inhofe and Senator Reed have made strides on our bipartisan NDAA. I would implore my Democratic friends: Please stop gambling our national security on the roulette wheel of domestic politics. Please stop that. Stop putting political theater ahead of our troops.

We all know this is a heated political moment, but domestic politics do not excuse our men and women in uniform from doing their duties. So they cannot excuse our Democratic colleagues from doing theirs. Our servicemembers need Congress to have their backs. We can only fund the government if it is bipartisan. We can only pass an NDAA if it is bipartisan.

The roadmaps are in hand. We have the same traditions that have yielded 58 bipartisan NDAAs in a row, and we have the bipartisan agreement that everyone signed just a few months ago when Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leader promised in writing they wouldn't throw partisan wrenches into appropriations.

Our country can't afford for the Democrats to obsess over impeachment and obstruct everything else. Look, let's use these roadmaps. Let's get these things accomplished for the American people.

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