Russia

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I have spoken throughout these last several days about how the Nord Stream 2 pipeline--the Biden-Putin pipeline-- runs counter to everything that the Biden administration professes to stand for, and, indeed, what much of the Democratic Party has been insisting for the last half decade are the most important issues of the country.

We, of course, spent 4 years, during the Trump Presidency, listening to Democrats say, ``Russia, Russia, Russia,'' over and over and over again. It was a newfound discovery. Some of us are old enough to remember Barack Obama turning to Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential election when Mitt Romney was advocating for strength in dealing with Russia and for taking on Putin, and some of us remember Obama looking at Mitt Romney and saying:

[Mitt], the 1980s called. They want their foreign policy back.

That was in 2012, when the Democrats thought it was passe to stand up to Russia.

Then 2016 happened, and Donald Trump was elected President. Suddenly, the Democratic Party got religion. Suddenly, Russia was bad. Now, I thought Russia was bad before. I thought Russia was bad when Trump was President. And I think Russia is bad now. I don't like dictatorial thugs like Vladimir Putin, who is a KGB thug.

But, interestingly, for our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, their outrage against Russia is situational. It applies only in the situation that a Republican is in the White House. When a Democrat is in the White House--when Joe Biden is there--suddenly, Putin is hunky-dory. Suddenly, Democrats don't have much of a problem with Joe Biden defying Federal law, ignoring Federal law, and giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin.

Suddenly, the Democrats have given all of these speeches on Russia, who passed CAATSA. I talked earlier about CAATSA, the legislation that imposes mandatory sanctions on Russia to stop a President who refuses to impose those sanctions. Well, Joe Biden is in defiance of CAATSA. Do you see a single Democrat standing up, saying: Mr. President, obey CAATSA? No. They are whining that the deputy assistant under secretary of whatchamacallit has not been confirmed yesterday, and, clearly, the world is going to come to an end without a deputy assistant of whatchamacallit.

If our Democratic colleagues believed their rhetoric of the last 4 years, we would see Democrats stand up with me and say, ``Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Putin is a mistake,'' but they are not.

One of the ironies, in addition to the ``Russia, Russia, Russia'' thing--and the truth of the matter--is most of the Democrats never believed Russia, Russia, Russia. If you go back to the Soviet Union, if you go back to the Reagan administration, the Democrats had spent decades as apologists for Soviet Communists, as apologists for Russian dictators. But for 4 years, I have got to say that our Democratic colleagues can give a good speech. They sure sounded genuine when they said, ``Russia, Russia, Russia.'' But if they believed those words, then they would look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and they would say, ``Russia, Russia, Russia.''

By the way, they didn't like Donald Trump's rhetoric on Russia, and by the way, I didn't like a lot of the things President Trump said on Russia. I wish his rhetoric had been stronger, but it is worth noting that Trump had the courage to call out Germany for Nord Stream 2. Trump had the courage to impose sanctions under the bipartisan sanctions legislation we passed into law. The Cruz-Shaheen legislation passed in 2019, and the second wave of the Cruz-Shaheen bipartisan legislation passed in 2020. President Trump imposed. What did Joe Biden do? Waived it. What did Joe Biden do? Ignored the law. What did Joe Biden do? He gave a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin.

So, if any Democrat meant a word they said about Russia, we have got to see them standing here. You will note the Democratic side of the floor is largely empty.

But not only is Joe Biden's rhetoric and the Democrats' rhetoric on Russia not matched by their action, but we also know that Biden's actions don't meet the Democrats' rhetoric on climate.

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