Directing the Removal of United States Armed Forces From Hostilities Within or Against Venezuela That Have Not Been Authorized By Congress--

Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I rise today to respond to Senator Kaine's S.J. Res. 90, and I would like to state clearly that the administration is very much opposed to this resolution, and they have put out a policy statement as of today stating that they strongly oppose S.J. Res. 90.

Without going into all the details, they say that S.J. Res. 90 fails to account for the extraordinary national security threat posed by transnational violent drug-trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists operating in and around the Caribbean Sea. That really says it all, and not much more needs to be said, but I do have a few comments on this.

President Trump has taken decisive action to protect thousands of Americans from lethal narcotics. He has kept drugs off the streets, kept children alive, and eliminated narcoterrorists who have been profiting off of the deaths of members of our communities.

These people have been transmitting drugs into the United States via a lot of different ways. One of them was by vessels, shipping vessels, in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean.

But some Democrat Members and members of the media have claimed that President Trump does not have the authority to conduct these strikes. I will tell you right now, that is plain wrong. I myself and many of my colleagues have sat recently through hours of briefings and analysis by government legal departments and attorneys who have studied this issue. Unanimously, they have concluded that the action taken by President Trump is absolutely lawful.

As Commander in Chief, if the President sees a group of terrorists planning to harm America or our allies, he has the right--not only the right but the duty--to do something about it. He has taken an oath to protect this country, and I and the majority of my colleagues are glad the President took this action.

Now, for some reason which I don't understand, the people who oppose the President's actions somehow make a differentiation between drugs and explosives. If these were explosives that were on ships being brought to the United States by terrorist organizations to be distributed through the United States and kill and maim Americans, people would say nothing about it. These drugs are no different than that. They do the exact same thing: They kill people by the thousands in the United States.

President Trump is doing what needs to be done to protect the American people, just as he has done before. Take for example the recent defensive strikes against the Houthis in the Red Sea. This went on for some time. When the Houthis threatened the U.S. ships in the Red Sea, citing article II of the Constitution, the President took action to eliminate the terrorists threatening our troops and U.S. commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

These strikes are fully compliant with the War Powers Resolution and fully compliant with the President's article II constitutional authority as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces.

Prior Presidents did not need nor did they seek congressional authorization to defend America in this Western Hemisphere. Panama and Grenada are two examples where Republican Presidents also took action in our own backyard to go after threats to the American people.

These strikes have been discrete; they have been intermittent, with little risk, if any, to U.S. servicemen. No 60-day clock has been triggered, as many Democrats have tried to argue today.

I wish my colleagues would join me here today in congratulating the President for what he has done and thanking the President for what he has done on behalf of the many parents who will not have to bury their children early and will never know that they were saved from this.

But there is no doubt--none whatsoever--that every time we take a strike and we send tons of these poisonous drugs to the bottom of the ocean, thousands of American lives have been saved.

Mr. President, thank you for what you are doing on behalf of all those Americans who will be saved from these poisonous drugs. Thank you, and continue to do what you are doing.

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