Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, over the last several weeks, I have talked at length about the damage that President Biden and his administration are doing to the national security of the United States and to the security of our allies in Europe by giving Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift in the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.
Today, I am going to talk about the staggering diplomatic damage that the President is doing by allowing and, indeed, facilitating this project proceeding. It is well known that Nord Stream 2 is opposed across Europe as an enabler of and, indeed, an example of and a weapon of Russian expansionism and aggression.
Europeans have good reasons for their opposition. They know firsthand what the costs are. They know that completing Nord Stream 2 will leave the entire continent vulnerable to Putin's blackmail and aggression, and that NATO's ability to act will be severely constrained while billions will flow into the Kremlin's coffers.
What is sometimes underappreciated, however, even by the people who are familiar with this issue, is the all-but-complete unanimity of the opposition in Europe.
In 2018, the European Parliament voted by a vote of 403 to 105 to oppose the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The pipeline proceeded, nonetheless, until it was halted by the bipartisan sanctions passed by this Congress in December of 2019--sanctions that I authored along with Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. The pipeline was halted the very day those sanctions were signed into law.
Then, in January of 2021, after Vladimir Putin tried to murder Alexei Navalny, the European Parliament voted again to oppose Nord Stream 2, this time by a vote of 581 to 50.
So I want you to pause for a second and reflect on the fact that Joe Biden looked at that vote and said the President of the United States is with the 50--never mind the 581--in the European Parliament. The Biden administration was going to side with Russia on a 90-percent issue, where the Biden White House is on the losing side.
Throughout all this process, there were plenty of voices in Germany who were opposed, especially after this vicious attempt on Navalny's life. The Parliamentary leader of the Greens, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, said:
The blatant assassination attempt by the mafia-like structures of the Kremlin can no longer leave us merely concerned, it must have real consequences.
Stating, ``We need a clear answer'' that will ``make clear, Nord Stream 2 is no longer something we can complete with Russia.''
Mr. President, my request to Senate Democrats, my request to President Biden, my request to Kamala Harris is listen to the Greens. That is not a sentence I have uttered on the floor of the Senate before, nor is it one I anticipate saying frequently in the future. But the Greens in Germany are telling you this is a bad idea; yet today's Democratic Party that exalts climate change as the greatest issue in the cosmos, when it comes to kissing up and surrendering to Putin, decided to tell the Greens to go jump in the lake.
Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen issued a statement that:
Germany is asking for European and NATO solidarity in response to the despicable Navalny poisoning. They will get it, but an honest answer from Putin is unlikely. Time has come for Germany to halt Nord Stream 2 construction, before it's too late.
If Senate Democrats mean what they have said for years on Nord Stream 2, then listen to the former Secretary General of NATO; listen to the Greens in Germany.
But now, bizarrely, after Joe Biden has ignored the Greens, after Joe Biden has ignored NATO, after Joe Biden has ignored our Central European allies, all of this was done in the hopes of getting goodwill and support from Angela Merkel.
The Biden White House--the political geniuses that presided over the surrender and failure in Afghanistan, the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in a generation--their plan was, let's piss the whole rest of the world off so that we can make friends with Angela Merkel. By making friends with Angela Merkel, let's let Putin complete his pipeline.
Perversely, President Biden and Merkel issued their statement as a declaration for support of our Eastern European allies.
Boy, with support like that, who needs enemies?
I would like to read a joint statement from our Polish and Ukrainian allies in response to the laughable statement that Biden and Merkel put out. Here is what our Polish and Ukrainian allies said:
The decision to build Nord Stream 2 made in 2015 mere months after Russia's invasion and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, created security, credibility, and political crisis in Europe.
This crisis is significantly deepened by the resignation from attempts to stop the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
By the way, as an aside, that resignation would be Joe Biden's abandoning of U.S. law sanctioning Russia.
The letter continued:
This decision has created political, military, and energy threat for Ukraine and Central Europe, while increasing Russia's potential to destabilize the security situation in Europe, perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union member states.
Let me read that again:
This decision--
Joe Biden's political genius, surrendering to Russia-- has created political, military, and energy threat for Ukraine and Central Europe--
That sounds bad. It is bad-- while increasing Russia's potential to destabilize the security situation in Europe, perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union member states.
The letter continued:
Ukraine and Poland will work together with their allies and partners to oppose Nord Stream 2 until solutions are developed to address the security crisis created by Nord Stream 2, to provide support to countries aspiring to membership in Western democratic institutions, and to reduce threats to peace and energy security.
Mr. President, what do our friends in Ukraine and Poland tell us?
That Joe Biden's decision has created a ``threat to peace and energy security.''
But even then, Biden-Harris officials insisted that they had worked out security arrangements; it was all perfectly taken care of. They would ensure that Russia would never, ever, ever use Nord Stream 2 for blackmail.
Mr. President, that is their promise. That is Joe Biden's promise. Fear not, they have it figured out and they have commitments that Russia will never use Nord Stream 2 for energy blackmail.
How long do you think those commitments lasted?
If you have a stopwatch, I am not sure the stopwatch could measure increments of time that small because Russia didn't even give a decent interval, didn't let the ink dry on the Biden White House press release before they immediately began doing the thing that Biden promised Russia would never do. Biden White House said: We have an agreement to make sure Russia never uses it for energy blackmail.
What did Putin say? Excuse me, we are in the middle of energy blackmail.
So we don't even have to wait a year, 2 years, 5 years. We don't have to wait a month. We don't have to wait a week. We don't have to wait a day to know if the Biden promise was true or false that Russia would never engage in energy blackmail over Nord Stream 2. Why? Because they are doing it right now, this instant, as we stand here.
Just one week ago, the Kremlin and its gas barons, the oligarchs--the corrupt mafia oligarchs that run Russia--said that if Europe wants reliable gas as we approach winter--and, gosh, did we mention it gets cold in Europe, that having gas to heat your homes and prevent your grandmother from freezing to death might be a nice thing?
Well, the Kremlin and the gas oligarchs said it is very simple: If they want to have heat, all they need to do is rush through the activation of Nord Stream 2.
They said: ``Undoubtedly, the earliest possible commission of Nord Stream 2 will help balance the natural gas crisis in Europe.''
Undoubtedly.
Russia is literally reducing the supply right now, today, exercising its blackmail in September.
The Presiding Officer lives in the Northeast United States. September is a beautiful time of year. The autumn leaves are turning. The breeze is crisp. You are not right yet shivering to turn on the heat at night. The same is true in Europe. But fast forward to November, fast forward to December, to January, to February, when the bitter cold starts setting in, when having gas or not, and having heat or not, is the difference between living and dying.
What are the Russian oligarchs saying?
They say, very simply: ``Undoubtedly, the earliest possible commissioning of Nord Stream 2 will help balance the natural gas crisis in Europe.''
And, of course, the response from Biden and from Germany has been crickets. Remember, Biden and Merkel said, if they try that--those dastardly Russians--we will stand up boldly to them, we will hold them to account.
Where is Joe Biden? No, I mean that seriously. Where is Joe Biden?
Nowhere. Maybe in the White House basement. I don't know. But he is not doing anything to stand up to the Russian energy blackmail happening right now. By the way, neither is Merkel. Their promises just weeks ago have already been demonstrated to be completely hollow and empty. The protections of their bogus deal were, on their face, a bluff; were, on their face, empty.
But how often is it in politics that such an empty promise gets revealed as a lie minutes after it is made?
In this case, Putin was only too happy to oblige. That is why we call the pipeline the Biden-Putin pipeline.
But, of course, the punch line of all of this--so the Biden administration has managed to tick off Europe, to tick off the European Union. They managed to tick off Ukraine. They managed to tick off Poland. They managed to tick off the Eastern Europeans. They have also independently managed to tick off the French so much that they pulled their Ambassador home from the United States.
But they did all of this, they said, in the deep gravelly tones of the Foggy Bottom establishment. They did all of this to build lasting relationships with Angela Merkel. And that would pay dividends. Never mind a generation of billions for Putin and Russia; never mind a generation of energy captivity for Europe; never mind thousands of high-paying jobs in America--union jobs, good union jobs--destroyed by Biden; never mind that. The benefit of making Angela Merkel is worth it.
Mr. President, you know, there is an old saying that God has a sense of humor. That was illustrated this weekend because, this weekend, there was an election in Germany. The people went to vote.
And what happened?
The German voters went to vote, and Merkel's party didn't win the election. Now the Social Democrats will be looking to form a coalition with the Greens.
Which Greens?
Oh, the very same Greens that are passionately opposed to Nord Stream 2, that cried vociferously to kill the pipeline, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris said: Go jump in a lake.
The new coalition.
By the way, just about every electoral scenario that comes out of this election will empower the Greens in Germany, and the political geniuses in the White House have just alienated and antagonized the Greens.
Biden's supine giveaway. Isn't that a good word--supine? It describes the Biden foreign policy for every enemy of America: Be flat on your belly, and give our enemies what they want. Biden's supine giveaway to Putin was all for nothing. It literally produced nothing for the United States. It alienated our friends, and it emboldened our enemies.
If you are Xi in China and you see Joe Biden rolling over and surrendering to Vladimir Putin, giving him everything he wants--giving him a pipeline that will enrich him for generations to come--what do you think Xi is thinking? I can tell you what Xi is thinking. Xi is thinking this is a President who is weak who will surrender to me too. We saw that demonstrated just in recent days, where the Biden administration surrendered on a senior executive from Huawei in allowing her to go back to China, giving Communist China exactly what it wanted. And, once again, what does Xi take and what do the Chinese Communist leaders take from that? That this President will roll over, will surrender.
And, you know, there is a striking irony. These catastrophic decisions and failures are particularly jaw-dropping given that President Biden ran on a platform of restoring diplomacy. Do you remember the refrain ``the adults are back''? It was said with this moral superiority--that the Biden guys were going to come in, and no more of this American strength. Huh-uh. The adults know better.
Here is what Joe Biden said on February 4:
I want the world to hear today: America is back. America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy. . . . We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again, not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's.
Biden spoke specifically about Russia. He said:
American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including . . . the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy.
Biden added that ``we must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom [and] championing opportunity.''
You know, if irony had ever been alive, that speech killed irony. If irony were dead and buried, that speech made irony roll over in her grave. Literally every word of that speech, every syllable of every word down to ``and'' and ``the,'' has been proven false.
``America is back,'' Biden told us. ``Diplomacy is back.'' ``We will repair our alliances.'' Mr. President, how has that gone? Have we, in fact, repaired our alliances? With Nord Stream 2, Biden has pissed off the French, the Polish, the Ukrainians, the European Union. Has Biden repaired our alliances?
Has Biden engaged with the world once again? Well, if ``engaged with the world'' means to surrender to Putin and give him everything he wants, then I guess so.
To meet not yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's--how is giving Putin a massive natural gas pipeline meeting tomorrow's challenges unless the challenges are how to fund Russia's military? If those are the challenges he is talking about, then congratulations, Joe Biden; you actually lived up to that.
He spoke about Russia. ``American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism.'' How did Joe Biden and Kamala Harris meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism? By funding it. Every year, Putin will cash a check of a couple billion dollars, courtesy of Joseph Biden. What should we use this couple of billion dollars for? How about for advancing authoritarianism.
Biden said:
We must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom.
Mr. President, let me ask you something. Whose freedom did Joe Biden defend with this pipeline? He certainly didn't defend the freedom of the Ukrainians. He didn't defend the freedom of the Poles. He didn't defend the freedom of Europe. He didn't defend the freedom of France. He didn't defend even the freedom of Germany. Merkel wants this, but the voters in Germany have made clear that they don't want it. He didn't defend the freedom of the men and women of Georgia, of the Baltics--of all the former Soviet Republics whose safety and security is now jeopardized because Biden has decided to be a principal funder of the Russian military. That is not defending freedom.
He certainly didn't defend America's freedom. On his first day in office, Joe Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline. He killed 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs. John Kerry helpfully told those union members: Learn to code. You silly, dirty worker who wants to work on a pipeline, no, no, no. Sit down at a MacBook instead.
How is it that the same President who kills American jobs on an American pipeline creates Russian jobs on a Russian pipeline? I don't know what you call that, but you don't call it defending freedom. You don't call it championing opportunity.
You know, I have to say, some years ago, I traveled to Europe. I was in Ukraine. I was in Poland. I was in Estonia. When I was there, I met with the leaders there, and I asked them about Russian aggression. This was years ago. I asked them about standing up to Russian aggression. To a person, when I asked them that, the blood drained out of their face, because, for the Poles, for the Ukrainians, for the Estonians, Russian tanks in the streets is not a hypothetical. That is not a scenario they are wondering what that would be like. Those of us old enough to remember it, as they sat at the table with me, they remembered. They remembered those Russian tanks.
Vladimir Putin has said, in perhaps the most candid moment of his life, that he considers the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century to be the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The natural corollary of that is that his foreign policy objective is to recreate the Soviet Union and to subjugate the former Soviet Republics.
One of the most dangerous consequences of this pipeline, of the Biden-Putin pipeline, is that if this pipeline is allowed to go online, I fear we will see Russian tanks again on the ground in Ukraine.
Mr. President, you and I both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If and when that happens--in 6 months, in a year, in 2 years--I am going to ask you to remember these remarks, if and when we see Russian tanks on the streets in Ukraine, because Putin is no longer afraid that Ukraine is needed to transit energy. Putin now has his own pipeline--the Biden-Putin pipeline--to circumvent Ukraine.
If we see that subjugation of our ally, if we see that subjugation of liberty, Mr. President, I hope you and I hope every Member of this body and I hope the American people remember right now that Joe Biden, in February, said: ``We must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom [and] championing opportunity.'' He has an opportunity to do so.
By the way, let me point out something. The Biden administration has a fantastic opportunity for a reset. Let's assume somebody in the administration realizes they screwed up on this pipeline. When they are losing votes in the European Parliament by a vote of 500 to 50, that ought to be a signal, particularly for people who pride themselves on their foreign policy prowess, on the adults being back. Losing a 10-to- 1 vote in the European Parliament is not indicative of diplomacy being back.
By the way, when they lose the vote in this body--in both the House and Senate--when we have addressed Nord Stream 2, every time we have done it, it has been virtually unanimous. The margins of the U.S. Congress have been bigger than 500 to 50.
So let's say somebody in the Biden White House is having second thoughts. I don't know if they are. Maybe they are so committed to their policy that facts be damned; no second thoughts on that. But let's say someone is. Then Joe Biden has been given a gift. He has been given a gift of the recent German election.
There has been only one argument that the Biden White House has put forward for surrendering to Putin on this pipeline, and that is to make the German Government happy. It is a bad argument. It is an argument the Presiding Officer has rejected, that I have rejected. Virtually every Senator in this body, Democrat and Republican, has rejected it as a bad argument that hurts America, that hurts Europe, that helps Putin.
But, for sake of argument, let's give the Biden White House the benefit of the doubt. Let's assume they really believe that. Well, this weekend gave him a gift. If the lone benefit they achieved was this will make the German Government happy, what do we know now? This makes the German Government unhappy.
As we stand here today, the ledger of cost and benefits is very simple: There is one winner on the Biden-Putin pipeline, and that is Vladimir Putin; that is Russia; that is the Russian Army. Everybody else is a loser. So I would say to the Biden White House they have an easy gift: Reverse course.
By the way, the Biden State Department, Secretary Blinken, fought to impose these sanctions, and political operatives in the Biden White House overruled the Secretary of State.
Secretary Blinken, you have a fabulous opportunity.
The Secretary of State is unhappy that I have holds on nominees to the Department of State. The Presiding Officer is unhappy as he sends repeated tweets, expressing his dismay that I am using the leverage of a Senator to try to stop this pipeline.
Well, I have good news: The German electorate has given you an answer to this problem.
The Biden White House has an easy excuse. The German Government is changing. So their only benefit--to make the German Government happy-- has disappeared. If all they care about is making the German Government happy--if they don't care about the rest of Europe; if they don't care about Ukraine; if they don't care about the European Union; if they don't care about American jobs; if they don't care about Putin getting richer and stronger--if the only criterion is to make the German Government happy, do you know what they should do today? Sanction Nord Stream 2 AG. Follow the law. If they do that, I will lift the holds, and these nominations can proceed very, very quickly.
The German voters have given Joe Biden a gift. The only question is if anyone in the White House is paying attention, if anyone wants to accept the gift, or are they too stubborn? They have picked their course, dammit, and they are going to go down with the ship even if it hurts America forever.
There is still time to stop this pipeline. The question is, Does anyone in the White House care? I hope and pray that they do because if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris persist in their decision to completely and totally surrender to Vladimir Putin, that will harm the United States not for a year, not for 10 years, but for 30, 40, 50 years going forward.
Mr. President, the German voters have given you a gift. You should take it.
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