During Senate floor remarks, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) demanded the NDAA be brought to the floor, and blasted the Biden-Harris Administration over military posture.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Madam President, I want to join my colleagues here on the Senate floor and talk about the
00:04importance of national security right here in the Congress of the United States is certainly
00:09one of our top priorities protecting our nation.
00:13You know, President Ronald Reagan, who very much focused on the issue of peace through
00:19strength and I'm going to talk about that here in a minute, Madam President.
00:25He once said, quote, we know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom
00:32are strong, but when they are weak.
00:36It is then that the tyrants are tempted.
00:41It is then that the tyrants are tempted.
00:45Well, Madam President, tyrants like this guy, that's Xi Jinping sporting some camis there
00:51with his military.
00:55Tyrants like this guy and the tyrants around the world, they are tempted.
01:00They are tempted.
01:02They are on the march.
01:03Look at this poster.
01:05That's Xi Jinping again in his military uniform kind of looks ridiculous from my perspective,
01:10but hey, they're on the march.
01:14Putin, the terrorists in Iran, Kim Jong-un in North Korea, Venezuela, for goodness sakes,
01:22all the tyrants are working together and they are on the march because the forces of freedom,
01:32as President Reagan said, have become weak.
01:36And look, Madam President, you've heard it from my colleagues from North Carolina, Mississippi.
01:41We're on the armed services together.
01:44By the way, they're both doing a great job.
01:46I'll make sure we can see that.
01:52And yet, this body is not taking up what we need to take up.
01:58So just a couple examples, Senator Budd was talking about the chaos in the Middle East,
02:05the appeasement of Iran by the Biden-Harris administration.
02:09By the way, in my great state, just this past week, we had a joint Russian-Chinese
02:17strategic bomber patrol come into our ADIZ, into the kind of territorial airspace right
02:25near Alaska.
02:26It never happened before.
02:29In the history of the country, the Chinese and Russian joint bomber patrols with fighters
02:37coming into American airspace, the tyrants, this guy, they're tempted.
02:44They've never done that before, Madam President.
02:47And we heard about this.
02:49We all know this started due to the botched, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that has
02:56sent the message of weakness.
03:00Now, our wonderful military up in Alaska, they scrambled 10 fighter jets, fully armed,
03:06went and greeted the Chinese and the Russians and said, not today, guys, turn around, get
03:13out of our airspace.
03:15But that was an escalation, Madam President, never happened before.
03:19In the United States, we need to be stronger, much stronger than the Biden-Harris administration
03:27has enabled us to be.
03:29So what can we do here on the Senate floor, Madam President?
03:33Well, what we can do, and you've heard my colleagues talk about it, is that we can bring
03:38up the National Defense Authorization Act.
03:41Like a lot of my colleagues who have been talking on the floor right now, I serve on
03:45the Armed Services Committee, was glad to work on this bill in a bipartisan way.
03:50I saw Chairman Reid here a minute ago on the floor.
03:52He did a great job, the chairman of the committee.
03:55We dramatically increased the top line number that we need in terms of our military, the
04:03men and women who did the mission like they did last week in Alaska.
04:07By the way, that's not an easy mission, flying 1,000 miles from their base to go intercept
04:11Russians and Chinese with fighters, that was not an easy mission.
04:15Our military members did it really well.
04:18But here's the issue, Madam President.
04:22For so many of my Democratic colleagues, especially the majority leader, the military and bringing
04:28the NDAA on the floor is just not a priority.
04:31No offense to some of the people we're confirming right now, but these are not priorities.
04:38The time on the Senate floor reflects priorities.
04:41The majority leader has kind of indicated, hey, even though we've got a good NDAA, even
04:46though our country is in peril right now with the dictators on the march, even though the
04:51House already passed a version, the Senate, ah, forget it.
04:55We'll do like a tax judge.
04:57We won't bring the NDAA to the floor.
04:59Now I know a lot of Democrats who worked hard, the presiding officer is one who worked hard
05:05on this bill.
05:07A lot of my Democrat colleagues want the bill on the floor.
05:11For whatever reason, the Senate majority leader during this dangerous time will not bring
05:15a bipartisan bill strengthening our military to the floor.
05:22Why won't he do that, Madam President?
05:25Why won't he do that?
05:26Well, I will say there is a major, major difference between our parties.
05:34Major difference.
05:36What is that difference?
05:37Well, I like to proudly proclaim that the Republicans have been, are, and I hope will
05:45always be the party of peace through strength.
05:51Peace through strength.
05:55By the way, Madam President, if you take a look at the Republican Party platform that
06:00we issued in Milwaukee at our convention a couple weeks ago, it's all about returning
06:07to peace through strength.
06:08That's what the platform is about.
06:09By the way, I took a look at the Republican Party platform in 2024 and the Reagan Bush
06:16platform in 1984 on peace through strength.
06:21They're almost identical.
06:22That's what we believe in.
06:24That's what President Eisenhower believed in, Roosevelt, Reagan, President Trump certainly
06:35did in his first term.
06:37And here's the difference, Madam President, and you know, I know some of my colleagues
06:40don't like it when I say this, but hey, the truth hurts.
06:44The Democrats are the opposite of this.
06:48When the Democrats have gotten into power in the White House, what do they do?
06:53They always come and cut defense spending and they always undermine readiness.
07:00That's why the Senate Majority Leader is saying, I don't want to bring the NDA to the floor.
07:04That's not our priority.
07:05We don't do that.
07:08Let me just give a couple examples.
07:11Jimmy Carter cut defense spending in his first three years in office and the Russians and
07:15Iranians took advantage of America's weakened posture.
07:19Bill Clinton cut the size of our military by one third, upending a decade of progress
07:26under the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
07:30Barack Obama slashed the Pentagon's budget by 25% during his second term.
07:37Our military readiness plummeted.
07:39I remember coming to the Senate in 2015.
07:43I was the ranking member on the readiness subcommittee and was shocked to see three
07:48out of 58 brigade combat teams in the U.S. Army were at their highest levels of readiness.
07:54Three out of 58.
07:57Obama slashed readiness.
08:01And of course, now we have the Biden administration.
08:06Madam President, every year, this president, Biden-Harris, have been in office, they've
08:14cut defense spending every single year.
08:18This year's Biden-Harris budget shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, shrinks the Marine
08:22Corps.
08:23That's a fact.
08:25Next year's budget, in the next two years, if the Biden-Harris team are re-elected, we
08:30will go below 3% of GDP.
08:35Take a look at this chart.
08:36It shows you, these are the numbers on GDP.
08:39That's 15% during the Korean War, 8, 9% during Vietnam, Cold War, Reagan era, 5, 5.5%.
08:47Bush, about 4.5%.
08:51Right here, 3%.
08:55We've been below 3% of GDP four times since World War II.
09:01That is the wrong message to be sending the dictators in the world.
09:05That's what the Biden-Harris budget for the Department of Defense does right now.
09:12Now we can fix this.
09:14We can work on the NDAA, which as I mentioned, in a bipartisan way, we significantly increase
09:24the top-line budget.
09:26I want to commend Roger Wicker, Senator from Mississippi, ranking member on the Armed Services
09:32Committee for his great leadership on that.
09:36By the way, the White House was against that.
09:38They love going below 3%.
09:41During the Biden-Harris administration, you'll crank up spending for other federal agencies
09:46by double digits, some up 20%.
09:49But Homeland Security, securing the border, and our military men and women, they get a
09:56cut.
09:57Again, that's what National Democrats do.
09:59Our tradition is what the American people want, particularly during these dangerous
10:03times, peace through strength.
10:05And one way we can do that right now on the Senate floor is to bring the NDAA to the floor.
10:13To bring the NDAA to the floor.
10:16And yet, the Senate Majority Leader doesn't want to do that.
10:22Not surprising.
10:23That's the tradition of National Democrats, weakening our military, not taking it seriously,
10:27not a priority.
10:29But that's not what the American people want, Madam President.
10:32We need the NDAA to the floor now.
10:35During these dangerous times.
10:37And my colleagues and I, I'm glad to be with all of them on the floor.
10:43By the way, I'm pretty sure there will be some Democrat Senators calling for this too.
10:48They're not doing it right now, but we need it on the floor today.
10:51And I'm honored to be here with so many Republican Senators making the same call.
10:57I yield the floor.