State of the Union Address

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, later this evening, we are going to hear from Trump in the State of the Union Address. In a little more than a year, President Trump and Republican majorities in Congress have delivered on our promises to the American people, from a secure border to more money in Americans' pockets. As the American people will hear tonight, we are just getting started.

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for 11 days now. It is the second time in less than 6 months the Democrats have needlessly shut down all or part of the Federal Government. Senators will have another opportunity today to vote to proceed to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill. Democrats have previously opposed getting on this funding bill. They opposed a continuing resolution that would have temporarily funded Homeland Security Agencies while negotiations continued on immigration enforcement. All signs suggest that our Democrat colleagues will once again vote against moving to DHS funding this afternoon.

The Department of Homeland Security houses a number of critical Agencies, and shutting down this Department has real consequences. Democrats are threatening the work of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, of the TSA, of key cyber security offices. FEMA training centers, like the National Fire Academy in Maryland, are closed. Roughly 45,000 Americans who are in training at one of these centers can't go to class right now.

We are hosting the World Cup in a few months, and some security training for that event is on hold right now because of the shutdown.

Civilian Coast Guard employees won't get a full paycheck at the end of this week, and thousands more Americans, from disaster response personnel at FEMA to TSA agents, are worried about potentially missing pay as soon as next week.

As I said, this is the second time in 6 months the Democrats have shut down all or part of the Federal Government.

The Department of Homeland Security employs thousands of Americans. We should want the most talented and most dedicated individuals serving in these roles. But when these Americans and their families are routinely used as political pawns, morale suffers. Think of what that means for these Agencies' ability to recruit and retain the very best. But I guess none of that matters to Democrats.

Republicans want to get to an agreement on Homeland Security funding. So does the White House. And we have acted in good faith throughout these negotiations. The Trump administration has taken a number of actions on its own in Minneapolis, including deploying body cameras, tailoring its mission to criminal illegal immigrants, and requiring identification for officers.

On top of those actions, the White House put forward a very serious offer to legislate reforms almost 2 weeks ago. It took Democrats 5 days to respond, and when they did respond, it was with a counteroffer that was essentially the same as their first, which raises a question, and that is, are Democrats actually interested in a solution here or are they just interested in a political issue?

There is room for compromise here but only if both sides give room. Democrats aren't doing that.

I shouldn't need to remind my Democrat colleagues that the Department of Homeland Security does critical work. Border security and immigration enforcement are one part of its mission. And it is an important mission. We need to have a secure border, and we need to deport criminal illegal immigrants.

Now, we can have a debate about how these tasks are undertaken, but we are not going to support anything that makes it impossible for law enforcement to carry out its job. We are not going to support anything that makes it more dangerous for officers to do their jobs. Unfortunately, that is what some of the Democrats' proposals would do.

Old habits die hard, and, unfortunately, the party of ``defund the police'' seems to be slipping back into calls to defund law enforcement. I hope that is not the position of the Democrats' here. I hope our colleagues are actually willing to come to a solution, but if they are, it is time to show it. This shutdown is already hurting hard- working Americans and impacting efforts to preserve both public safety and national security, and it is time to end it.

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