Chris Murphy

I kind of feel like they have made their decision, and I think that our funding and our policy should reflect that.

I just wanted to congratulate you and your team on the work that you have done on those two important achievements.

I appreciate the fact that we have continued to scale up the size of the Global Engagement Center.

I am of the belief that the GEC needs to take a primary, rather than secondary role when it comes to the way in which we counter misinformation around the world.

I hope that those of us who have worked in a bipartisan way to support the GEC, will continue to do that.

There is really no way to combat Russian misinformation, their propaganda efforts, which are integral to their campaign against Ukraine; or China's efforts to expand its reach, without the GEC.

The eyes of the world and the nation are rightly focused on Ukraine, on our broad set of competition, challenges with China; the Middle East always gets an outsized share of attention from this country and this Congress.

It seems to me that President Saied has made up his mind to move away from a success story of democracy in Tunisia, towards a neo-autocracy.

Senator Risch and I have led an effort to rewrite the Accountability Review Board process to try to give your folks a little bit more reason to reengage in those fragile places.

Protecting environmental defenders is about much more than just the Amazon.

We must defend democracy when it is under attack around the world.

These human rights abuses and the migratory outflows that stem from citizens fleeing these countries demand our full attention in cooperation.

It strikes me that this issue of critical mineral security is not a partisan one.

Those same countries are recommending that the United States not write off Afghanistan, that, in fact, they believe we have to have some functional relationship with the Taliban government if we also want to have a functional relationship…

To rob this Administration of the ability to help secure critical minerals overseas seems like an effort to cut off our nose to spite our face.

I am really grateful for the Chairman, and the Ranking Member's focus on the suicide epidemic, and for all the work that you have put into it.

I congratulate this Congress because in the last budget for the first time we put $50 million specifically towards the work of interrupting the gun trade.

Let us be honest, at best, Mexico is not taking this crisis seriously enough and, at worst, the Mexican Government or at least significant parts of it are either looking the other way or complicit with the cartels.

We are fueling the cartels' ability to run this trade by allowing these guns to be bought in the United States.

It is also true that the ports in Mexico are a big problem as well and I just do not think it is realistic that we are going to defeat the Mexican drug cartels in the next 5 years.

I appreciate you raising the challenge of resources at the State Department right now.

I applaud the passage last year of the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, although I was disappointed that ultimately the legislation did not include the Senate-passed Strategic Competition Act.

These efforts to secure our supply chains and increase our domestic competitiveness are critical for American families' bottom line.

I am planning a robust agenda in Congress--in this particular Congress and China will be a big part of it.

If we are serious about this competition with China, the State Department needs to be more ambitious.