Bradley Byrne: “If I may make sure that we are all clear about where we are on the START; the START runs through 2021. That is 4 years…”

“If I may make sure that we are all clear about where we are on the START; the START runs through 2021. That is 4 years from now. What the bill says is that if we find that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty--and there is some indication that that is true--that we wouldn't extend it beyond 2021. But that is 4 years from now. So what does that mean? This is a shot across the bow to Russia. We are telling Russia: If you continue to violate the INF Treaty, we are not going to extend with you on START. This is telling them: We are not going to let you get away with this. And I would think, at this point, after all that we have heard, we would want to stand up to Russia, and this is a very vital way to do that. Secondly, about the GTMO issue that he brought up, there are two amendments made in order by this rule for us to discuss GTMO, and I believe we are going to have that debate tonight. Now, I don't agree with the amendments, but we made them in order so we can have that debate on this floor. So we are going to debate GTMO. My prediction is that we are going to defeat both of those amendments, but the people on the other side of the aisle have been given a great opportunity to make their argument that we shouldn't do that. Nukes. Why are we trying to modernize our nuclear force?…”