National Security Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. In a few hours here, the press headlines are going to read that the Senate just passed the Ukraine funding bill. That is what they will call it. This bill is about a lot more than just Ukraine. There is a lot in this bill, and I want to go through some of it.

First of all, it provides something I have strongly supported, which is providing, in this case, $26 billion to the State of Israel to defeat Hamas, to defend itself against its enemies. This is actually something we tried to pass on its own or could have passed on its own months ago. It was blocked. It was held hostage for Ukraine funding, but it is something we should have done months ago.

It is interesting. I think Israel, in and of itself, is a miracle country. On the first day of its existence, it was invaded, I believe, by 12 separate armies. The whole world thought they would be overrun and defeated very quickly, and they survived. And they have throughout their entire existence had to deal with the fact that everywhere they turn, they have enemies all around them.

It also happens to be the only pro-American democracy in the Middle East. Today, it is engaged in a battle to not just defeat these vicious criminals and terrorists who committed a slaughter on the 7th of October of last year, but they also have to deal with rockets being launched against them from Lebanon. You have 90-something thousand, potentially, Israelis permanently displaced in their own country. They can't go back to where they live in the northern part of their country. And then there is the threat from Iran and the threat from all the terror groups--Hezbollah and the like--that are constantly targeting Israel and then having to face all the things that are happening around the world, as well, in this effort to delegitimize their right to be a Jewish State.

I am a strong supporter of Israel's defense. We should have done this weeks and months ago, and it could have been done as its own bill, but it was held hostage.

This bill provides, as well, $8 billion to help nations in the Indo- Pacific, particularly Taiwan, and the purpose of that is to build up the military capacity of our partners in the region, frankly, to dissuade and prevent the Chinese Communist Party from starting a war in the Indo-Pacific that would make the one going on in Europe look like child's play--far more dangerous.

By the way, that is something I have been trying to do since 2019. I believe I was the first Member of Congress to call for a banning--not a banning of TikTok, a banning of ByteDance, which is the company that owns TikTok. If ByteDance sells TikTok, TikTok could continue to operate. But we should not have a company operating in the United States with the algorithm that it has and the access to the data that it has that powers the algorithm. We should not have a company like that operating in the United States that happens to do whatever the Chinese Communist Party tells them to do.

But the reason why the headlines are going to be about Ukraine funding is because that is the part of this bill that, frankly, has been controversial and has people who oppose it.

I, personally, believe it is in the national interest of the United States to help Ukraine. Ukraine was invaded, not once but twice, by Vladimir Putin. I supported Ukraine in helping Ukraine back in 2014 when they were first invaded by Putin; and President Obama would only supply them with blankets and meals, ready-to-eat. And I support continuing to help them now to defend themselves. They didn't start this war. I support helping them defend themselves to the extent we can afford it and to the extent we can sustain it.

But while this invasion of Ukraine most certainly poses a national security risk to the United States and a risk to our country, the invasion of America across our southern border is even more important. It is even more a severe threat.

Today, and every single day for the last 3 years, thousands of people--many if not most of whom we know very little about--are pouring into the United States across our southern border.

I made it clear months ago that while I support helping Ukraine, I would only vote to do so if the President issued Executive orders that would help stop this. It was his Executive orders ordering us not to enforce immigration laws that created the incentive and the driver that has led to this crisis and only that. Only Executive orders to begin to enforce our immigration laws will allow us to stop what is happening now.

But the President continues to refuse to issue those Executive orders. He continues to refuse to enforce our immigration laws, and so the crisis continues. And sadly, just a few moments ago, we took a vote here that basically says that we here in the Senate will not be allowed to vote on amendments to make changes to this bill.

So we are left with the choice. I am left with this choice. If I want to help Israel, if I want to help Taiwan, if I want to ban ByteDance from operating TikTok in the United States, then I have to drop my demand that the President enforce our immigration laws, and, by the way, I have to vote for billions of dollars to be spent on all kinds of programs around the world that I will describe in a moment, including for people who are illegally entering this country. This is moral extortion.

First of all, 9 million people over 3 years--that is how many have entered our country. This is not immigration. We should always be a country that welcomes immigration. It enriches our country. Controlled immigration, in which we control how many people come, who comes, knowing enough about them--that is immigration. But 9 million people and counting in 3 years? That is mass migration, and mass migration is never good. There is never such a thing as positive mass migration, particularly of 9 million people in 3 years. At a time when our country, from the inside and the outside, is being infiltrated by people and by movements that seek to destroy America, mass migration is catastrophically dangerous.

Last week, in a coordinated effort--and it was a coordinated effort; they admitted it--to cause the most economic impact possible in the United States, at least until our leaders abandoned Israel--that was their demand--we had pro-terrorist mobs, which is what they are--these are not protesters; these are pro-terrorist mobs--shut down traffic on an interstate highway in Oregon. They blocked passengers from getting to the airport in Chicago and Seattle. They closed down the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

At this very moment--right now, as I speak on the Senate floor--at some of our most prestigious universities, their campuses are closed because they have been taken over by pro-terrorist mobs, chanting things and harassing Jewish students to go back to Poland, they say. Others are chanting: ``Go Hamas. We love you. We support your rockets too.'' Others--I have heard these chants--here it goes: ``We say justice. You say how. Burn Tel Aviv to the ground.''

The situation has gotten so intolerable that, just 2 days ago, a rabbi advised Jewish students to leave Columbia University and go home for their safety.

This morning, I got a text message from a friend--a Jewish friend-- and I read something I never thought I would ever have to read. Here is what he wrote me:

I have to tell you, for the first time in my life, I see Jewish people scared for their safety and considering exit strategies from the USA, including buying homes in foreign countries and looking to liquidate USA assets.

I never thought I would ever read that from anybody in America.

These mobs, by the way, don't just want to destroy Israel. They want to destroy America. Some of these mobs are out there chanting ``death to America'' in the streets of American cities.

As for one of the mob leaders at one of these riots, this is what he said into a microphone:

It is not just ``Genocide Joe'' that has to go; it is the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and devilry to happen and would support it-- such a system does not deserve to exist on God's Earth.

Do you know what system he is talking about? This system--our system, our system of government--that is what he was talking about.

Where did all of this come from? How did all of this happen from one day to the next? How can things that we once only saw happening in the streets of Tehran, manufactured by the evil regime--how are those things now being chanted in our streets in our country? Where did this come from? The clues are everywhere.

Hamas and Hezbollah have been very, very public about how these violent, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic mobs are part of their strategy to intimidate American leaders to support policies that will help destroy Israel.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terror groups have repeatedly called on their supporters around the world to protest ``in cities everywhere,'' and they boast about how their friends--or who they call their ``friends on the global left''--were actually now responding to their calls.

By the way, they openly brag. This is all coming from interviews that they do on television programs that can be monitored. They openly brag that this is ``because of the introduction of colonialism, racism, and slavery studies into history curricula.''

They go on to say that many young Americans have been--this is my term, a term I read today in the Wall Street Journal--have been groomed to ``support armed resistance,'' to support intifada in the United States.

By the way, it is not just the mobs that we are seeing. Beyond that, as the Director of the FBI has acknowledged, ISIS generates income-- they generate revenue--by running a human smuggling ring that brings migrants to the United States.

Just the bare minimum common sense would lead you to conclude that, if ISIS has a business to smuggle migrants into the United States, why wouldn't they use that to smuggle a few terrorists here to do in America what they did in Moscow a few weeks ago?

So we have Hamas, and we have Hezbollah, and we have all of these terror groups encouraging and supporting violent mobs calling for intifada inside America. We already have people here, on student visas, calling for ``Death to America,'' and ISIS controls a migrant smuggling ring that they can use to bring people into the United States to conduct attacks.

But if I want to help Israel, if I want to help Taiwan, if I want to help Ukraine, if I want to ban TikTok, I have to agree; I have to vote to do nothing to stop thousands of people a day whom we know literally nothing about--just allow them to come across our border and be released into our country.

As far as some of the money that is being spent all over the world, I have always supported the United States being engaged in the world, and I continue to be, but I ask you this: I have senior citizens, and I have veterans, and they call my office, and they call our offices, and they say: I have nowhere to live. Housing is too expensive.

I met a senior, a couple of days ago, in his eighties. He still has to work nights as a security guard, and he literally lives in a mobile home--not even a mobile home, in like a trailer parked in someone's backyard.

These people call. They have lived in this country their whole lives. They have served our country. They call for help, and the most we can often do is help get them on a waiting list for section 8 housing. This is a problem that exists in America right now.

But if I want to help Israel, if I want to help Taiwan, if I want to help Ukraine, if I want to ban TikTok, I have to vote for spending billions of dollars to give to charity groups so they can fly people around the country here and put them up in hotel rooms or so they can help for resettlement in another country.

We have rich countries in the Middle East, allies of ours. Their leaders own some of the largest yachts in the world. Some of their leaders own some of the most expensive horses you could possibly buy in the world. They have built some of the most extravagant and luxurious resorts on the planet in some of these countries. These are rich countries and strong supporters of the Palestinian cause, as they call it.

But if I want to help Israel, if I want to help Taiwan, if I want to help Ukraine, if I want to ban TikTok, I have to vote to send American taxpayer money to deal with the catastrophe that has been created by Hamas in Gaza--100 percent by Hamas. There was no war. There was a ceasefire before Hamas crossed over and slaughtered and raped and kidnapped. But now the American taxpayer is on the hook.

Look, I understand that, in our Republic, in our system of government, compromise is necessary. We have to do it all the time. I have passed a lot of bills--I am very proud of that--and every one of them involved my finding someone from a different ideological perspective, from the other side of the aisle. You have to compromise, meaning you are not going to get everything you want. You are going to have to give them something they want in exchange for something you want or you may have to change the way you wrote what you want. That is what you have to do in order to pass laws.

I understand compromise--I do--but this bill is not that. This bill is not a compromise. This bill is basically saying that, if I don't agree to drop my demands that the President secure our border, if I don't agree to spend billions of taxpayer dollars all over the world to resettle people here and in other places in the midst of our own migratory crisis--if I don't agree to all of that, then Israel and Taiwan and Ukraine do not get the help they need and that I support, and TikTok does not get banned. This is not compromise. This is legislative blackmail, and I will not vote for blackmail.

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