On the recordJuly 31, 2024
Madam President, as election season approaches, our political discourse has been heated, to say the least. From an assassination attempt a couple of weeks ago to destructive protests across Washington last week, the friction within America is undeniable. My colleagues and I are here today to discuss one of the things Americans do agree on: defending our Nation. We all see the tension simmering around Taiwan and South Korea and the tension exploding in Israel and Ukraine. And we see the threats China and Russia pose to our Nation. These threats are decades in the making. And while they sound far away--they are, after all, around the other side of the world--the close connections between the security of the world's democracies and the economies of the world mean that these developments impact our everyday lives. America should have woken up and gotten ahead years ago, but, at the very least, we must wake up now. The most critical job we have in the U.S. Senate is providing for our national security, and we do that through our National Defense Authorization Act. We passed the NDAA out of the Senate Armed Services Committee last month with bipartisan approval. It includes provisions that will benefit our servicemembers and that will bolster our national defense. I supported a pay raise for members of our military and secured funding for several Nebraska military construction projects.…





