Josh Hawley: “reserving the right to object, I find myself here on the floor again as my friend the Senator from Virginia, whose…”

“reserving the right to object, I find myself here on the floor again as my friend the Senator from Virginia, whose sincerity and urgency on this issue I don't doubt for a second, tries to move a whole slate of nominees to which multiple Republican Senators have objections. And let me give you a sense of why. One of the nominees that my friend is attempting to move here, let's be clear, to do this without a vote--we could be voting on these nominees. The majority leader could schedule votes on them any time, but he hasn't done that. He hasn't done it in some of the cases for months. This is an act--this is a request to suspend the regular order of the Senate and to confirm these nominees without a vote. Well, I, for one, am not going to consent to confirming without a vote people like Ravi Chaudhary. He is being nominated for Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. Mr. Chaudhary, who appeared before the Armed Services Committee, on which I sit, as does my friend from Virginia--Mr. Chaudhary has proposed using AI technology--artificial intelligence--to track members of the military, identify them as extremists, and then have them expelled. He said: The key to disrupting them-- Meaning ``extremists,'' his word, people whose views he doesn't agree with. The key to disrupting them is uncovering and understanding their initial behaviors, elements that are contained in their electronic footprints. What Mr.…”