William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the motion to recommit.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of my point of order.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, legislatively, this is a terrible idea, to introduce a 13-page sanctions bill at the last possible second and expect us to vote on it without knowing the true impacts of it.

I absolutely agree that we should have tools to hold the Chinese, the Russians, anyone accountable who does any of the things that the gentleman said. Within current law, there are a ton of tools to do precisely that. Putting in law brand-new sanctions legislation without thinking about it is a bad idea.

And if this was so crucial and so important, why are we seeing it just at this last second?

There was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 ideas submitted to be added to the defense bill all along the process. We would have had time to work on it and think about it and actually craft a decent piece of legislation. This clearly does not have that objective in mind or they would have introduced it a long time ago. This is a bad way to make law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge us to vote ``no'' and not to jeopardize all the incredible work that Members on both sides of the aisle did in this bill. There are a ton of Members, Republicans and Democrats alike; those 2,000 provisions are roughly equal between Republicans and Democrats. We have an incredibly bipartisan piece of legislation before us in which individual Members decided something is important, worked the issue, and got us a product that we could support.

Mr. Speaker, this puts us in the very risky position of passing really bad legislation at the last second for no good reason, and I would urge Members to vote ``no.''

Now, let me be clear. We absolutely need to hold accountable Russia, China, whoever wants to interfere with our process of developing a vaccine or cyber hack us in any other way, and there are an enormous number of tools to do so.

I do want to point out and just simply make an urgent plea.

One of the gentleman's arguments was that China hid the true risk of the virus from the American people, and, yes, that is terrible that China did that. It is not actually their job to warn the American people. It is the President's job to warn the American people. And talk about someone who has done a horrible job of warning us of the true dangers of the virus.

It was just, I think, last week, maybe a week and a half ago, when the President said 99 percent of the cases will be completely harmless. That is wrong.

The President said again, just a couple days ago, it is just going to magically disappear. He cannot even bring himself to tell us to wear a mask.

Some people don't like mandates. Okay. That is fine. Let's have the leader of our country tell us what we ought to do to protect ourselves.

He is the one who is not warning the American people of the true danger of this virus, because, sadly, we would kind of listen to him. We are not going to listen to the Chinese. We don't trust them, for all the reasons they said.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would implore Members on the other side of the aisle, ask our President to do what they are now asking the Chinese to do. The least that he ought to do for the American people is to warn us of the danger we face.

This is incredibly frustrating. I want my kids back in school. I want my constituents back to work. If we took the virus seriously, if we did the work necessary to contain it, we could do it.

The President wants to stand up and say: Meh. It is not a problem. Nothing to worry about it. It is all good.

We are paying an enormous price for that.

So, yes, let's hold Russia and China accountable. Let's also hold our President and the executive branch accountable for the spectacular failure in leadership that we are living and, yes, dying with today in this country.

Let's also oppose this motion to recommit as bad legislation that isn't going to make any difference whatsoever, and let's pass the defense bill. This is an excellent piece of legislation, a bipartisan piece of legislation that we have all worked on and produced an excellent product.

Mr. Speaker, I ask Members to please vote ``yes.'' Please pass this bill, keep the legislative process going forward.

And don't forget, what we are doing here is providing for the national security, providing for the Department of Defense, providing for the men and women whom we are asking to put their lives on the line for the defense of this country, giving them the support they need and they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I ask Members to vote down the motion to recommit and vote for the national defense authorization act.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source