Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, we expect a vote on a resolution to direct the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities in or against Venezuela, even though--even though--the United States is not currently engaged in hostilities in or against Venezuela. That is right. We have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We are not currently conducting military operations there. But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.

Here are the facts. Nicolas Maduro is a narcoterrorist who helped lead the so-called Cartel of the Suns. He advanced large-scale drug trafficking, armed an illegitimate militia, solicited arms for a terrorist organization, presided over unfree and unfair elections, targeted political opponents, and oversaw the killing of thousands, as a U.N. report outlined, to name just a few--just some of--his crimes. The United States did not recognize him as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Neither did the European Union. And he was a fugitive of the U.S. justice system.

Back during the first Trump administration, Democrats were calling for the ouster of Maduro and for U.S. assistance in Venezuela and were criticizing the President for not going far enough in opposing the Maduro regime. President Biden raised the reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro to $25 million. But then President Trump directs an isolated Special Forces raid in support of a valid warrant to capture Maduro so that he can be tried for drug crimes, and Democrats are falling all over themselves to criticize the seizure and arrest of this international criminal. Talk about Trump derangement syndrome.

It is funny; I don't remember Democrats trying to tie the President's hands when Democrat Presidents took far more extensive military action that involved thousands of troops or airstrikes over weeks and months in Libya, Bosnia, Serbia, and Haiti. Most recently, in 2024, they locked arms and voted to turn a blind eye toward a monthslong deployment of troops for President Biden's disastrous floating aid pier to Gaza, even while Biden's own Defense Department called it an active war zone and the pier was fired upon twice.

They said those troops were not engaged in hostilities and therefore not subject to the War Powers Resolution, and yet today they are claiming the opposite for a couple hundred troops who were in Venezuela for a matter of mere hours and who have already returned to their bases in the United States or on U.S. Navy ships in international waters. But with President Trump, Democrats are incapable of deciding on the merits. They reflexively oppose anything he does or says, even when it contradicts or is in tension with their own prior opinions.

Whatever the outcome of this process, I trust that the Trump administration will continue to work to combat the terrible scourge of illegal drugs and to keep our Nation and our communities safe. Senate Accomplishments

Mr. President, 2025 was a year of hard legislative work in the U.S. Senate. We passed once-in-a-generation legislation, the Working Families Tax Cut bill, which is currently putting more money in hard- working Americans' pockets. But we didn't just make the headlines legislatively. In addition to a packed legislative schedule, we considered and confirmed 417 civilian Presidential nominations--more than were confirmed in the first year of President Trump's first term or President Biden's. And while 417 would be an impressive number all on its own, it is particularly remarkable given the historic level of obstruction the President's nominees faced. I said ``historic,'' and I mean historic.

When you look at this term, President Trump remains the only President on record--the only President on record--in American history not to have had a single nominee confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote. Compare that to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who each had 98 percent of their civilian nominees confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote in the first term of their Presidencies--98 percent. George W. Bush and Barack Obama each had 90 percent. And while Democrats substantially eroded this tradition of bipartisanship during President Trump's first term, both President Trump in his first term and President Biden each had more than half of their nominees confirmed by voice vote. So the Presiding Officer can see what I mean by historic obstruction.

Democrats, of course, attempted to justify themselves by claiming, in the words of the Democratic leader, that ``historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny.'' The only problem with that argument, of course, is that a lot of these supposedly historically bad nominees received Democrat votes. So either Democrats were supporting historically bad nominees or this wasn't about historically bad nominees at all, which, of course, it wasn't. The real reason Democrats were dragging out nominations for Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement was nothing more than petty politics-- because as we see with Venezuela and as we have seen with Presidential nominations, Democrats are incapable of fairness or nuance when it comes to President Trump. They can't deal with the fact that he was elected President, and so they reflexively oppose anything he does or says, even when it is something they might otherwise support.

The virulent partisanship Democrats have injected into our politics is deeply regrettable, but Republicans, of course, have not let it stop us from achieving things for the American people, whether that is passing the Working Families Tax Cut bill or confirming 417 Presidential nominees in the face of historic Democrat obstruction. And we are right back at it this year, confirming four nominees the first week of 2026.

The American people elected President Trump, and Republicans remain committed to ensuring that he has his team in place so that he can do the work the American people elected him to do.

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