Motion to Discharge--S. Res. 195
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. We all want the Department of Defense to be managed efficiently and effectively. It is vital to our national security.
What we have right now is chaos, literally, confusion, turmoil, and turbulence, in part, because we have a Department of Defense that is unaccountable.
Last Congress, I led a bicameral letter to then-Secretary Austin demanding answers after a GAO report found significant failures in barracks' facilities across the country. Billions of dollars have been poured into installations for housing and infrastructure improvements. Again, those investments are being undercut by the mass layoffs we see right now at the Department of Defense.
We expect Mr. Marks to manage the entirety of these installations and environmental programs at DOD, but the administration, in effect, is undercutting at every turn.
This Secretary of Defense has created that chaos. He has shredded the Department's report on climate change, despite its outlining the serious implications it will have on the military in coming decades. I wonder whether the Secretary has actually visited Guam or Alaska and seen the effects of climate change in either place. I wonder whether he understands the equipment, the electronics, the ammunition that are required and that themselves require special storage and resilient infrastructure if we expect them to perform in combat effectively.
As climate change creates a more challenging environment for our warfighters, the DOD should be leading the charge in research and adaptability.
I feel especially strongly that the DOD, in firing its scientists and throwing research in the trash, is betraying the values and principles that the Secretary ought to be fighting to uphold.
Mr. Marks would be responsible for all of it. Yet the Secretary hasn't the slightest idea of what he is doing in these areas. We questioned him for more than 4 hours during his hearing at the Armed Services Committee; that is, the Secretary. We all knew that he was the least qualified Secretary of Defense in our history. And 4 months later, sadly, unfortunately, we can say, confidently, we were right.
What he is doing is slashing personnel, the experts, the scientists.
I fear that the chaos at the Department of Defense, due to the slashing of positions, the confusion caused by ideological interventions that are harmful, reckless, and unnecessary, that those kinds of downsizing and defects in leadership will hurt the military families and, particularly, their access to healthcare.
TRICARE provides for the well-being of our servicemembers, their families, and loved ones.
Mr. Bass has a long service record, but this administration is undercutting his potential work, and we deserve to debate it on the floor of the Senate without unanimous consent, without shortcutting public accountability.
The administration now in charge of the Department of Defense should be held accountable for exactly the healthcare interests that Mr. Bass will have responsibility for advancing.
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, on this one, I think the stakes are particularly high. At the Department of Energy, the DOGE-Musk cuts led to hundreds of employees being fired. They were responsible for overseeing our nuclear weapons stockpile. That set of moves caused a massive counterintelligence disaster and a logistical train wreck. After realizing these employees were indispensable, the Agency begged for them to come back.
Billions of dollars have been poured into this program, and what we have seen now is the whirlwind, the confusion, and chaos caused by this mismanagement. We need full accountability. We need more facts, which we have been denied.
Our Armed Services Committee, along with other committees, should be looking into what the consequences were of those DOGE slashing-and- trashing steps that put our Nation in jeopardy. We are not going to have it if we proceed to this nomination with unanimous consent, shortcutting public debate.
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish I could agree to the unanimous consent on this nominee.
As my colleague from Florida obviously understands, the issues here are bigger than any one of these nominees. The issues are more consequential than the career or advancement of any single member of the Department of Defense team. This Secretary seems more concerned with his own public image than the safety of our servicemembers because he has violated basic security protocols.
We are talking here about an official who will be responsible for securing our national intelligence. When this Secretary, in effect, has jeopardized them through actions that are currently under investigation, how is the person responsible for the Office of Intelligence and Security at the Department of Defense supposed to do their job when they face the most serious counterintelligence threat in recent memory from within the Department of Defense? Elon Musk's firings put thousands of highly qualified people out of a job. Many of them possessed security clearances and knowledge of their Departments' most sensitive programs. Their service is vital to our national security. Thousands were fired without cause. Our adversaries couldn't be happier, and they may be profiting from those mistakes right now.
These cuts come at a time when we are prioritizing--we in the U.S. Senate--funding to expand our nuclear triad and to counter China's growing nuclear capabilities. These workforce reductions undermine our goals across the board in the Department of Defense. We need to provide personnel for program oversight, supply chain management, cyber security, and other critical functions. So I think we need accountability, and we need the facts. They haven't been forthcoming.
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. What I hear from the other side is, essentially, ``Give the President whatever he wants in the name of his having the prerogative.'' He should name his own team, but we have a responsibility. It is a constitutional obligation. ``Advice and consent'' is more than just saying: Give him his own team. If we had been responsible in this body--if my Republican colleagues had stood up and spoken out as they should have done--we would have a different Secretary of Defense right now. It would have been unnecessary for the Vice President to come here and break a tie. We would have a more competent Secretary of Defense. That is the mindset that got us where we are today, and that is the reason I have lodged these objections.
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