On the recordFebruary 12, 2024
let me first start off and say how bad I feel for the Senate floor staff here. It didn't have to be this way. We could have--Senator Schumer could have easily sent us home, let people have a good night's rest, come back at a reasonable hour and continue this debate. But, unfortunately, Senate leadership is so hell bent to provide funding for Ukraine, they couldn't wait. They had to work you folks through the night, and I feel bad for that. You will notice I have a chart here. It is the one I really started using back in about 2013, 2014, on the problems we are having at our border. I wish that was the primary debate we were having right now: What do we need to do to secure our border? What should the U.S. Senate, what should Congress, what should this administration be doing to keep Americans safe? Now, unfortunately--and I will get into that in much greater detail-- this was pretty well taken off the table, not because Republicans were reluctant to join in a bipartisan immigration bill--we never asked for that. But what we asked for is, as long as the administration had a high priority of supplying another $60-plus billion to Ukraine to help Ukraine secure its border, we thought maybe--just maybe--we could use that as leverage to force this administration to secure our border. Now, it is important to recognize that President Biden has probably all the authority he needs to secure the border. Why do I say that?…





