Adam Smith

I have only one more speaker, so I reserve the balance of my time.

I demand a recorded vote. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Alabama will be postponed. Amendment No. 15 Offered by Mrs. Walorski The Acting CHAIR. It is…

Who has the right to close on this amendment? The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Washington has the right to close.

This is the manager's amendment. I agree completely with what the chairman just said, technical corrections that we ought to support. I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim the time in opposition, though I am not opposed to it. The Acting Chair. Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes. There was no objection.

It is not a matter of not supporting our troops. To say that the decision to oppose the defense bill is because you don't support the troops I hope the gentleman would agree is not where we are coming from.

Mr. Smith has introduced legislation along with me that would require lethal assistance be provided to the Ukrainians

I hope that Congress will have the political will to eliminate sequestration entirely.

Our sense is, is that Iran's leadership has not made the decision to go all the way and acquire a nuclear weapon.

The problems keep cropping up in many places.

I believe it is critical that we do not validate Iran's standing in the region by allowing them to have threshold nuclear capability.

You know, I believe strongly that we are making a serious strategic mistake in not dealing with radical Islam...

I think it would be a mistake strategically to excessively rely on U.S. military force to try and solve this problem.

We do not want to give the President a blank check and take away any of our authority.

A vote to authorize a President to send American men and women into battle is as serious and sobering a vote as any vote cast by a Member of Congress.

I see no reason to for a second believe that they will be upheld.

I think we can pretty much count on it not being upheld, so we should start planning.

Part of the--you know, reason for the chairman and I, you know, doing the bill that we did to give Ukraine greater position to defend themselves is to sort of up the military cost.

Confronting that threat is the number one biggest issue, and it is not easy to confront.

The big concern with Russia is what would they do next.

Now we realize that our presence in Europe is more important than it used to be.

The bottom line is Russia is now attempting to set up again a bi-polar world.

What Mr. Putin is trying to do is fundamentally alter the post-World War II construct in terms of how the world is organized.

I worry a great deal about the notion that people are focused on the U.S. military as the solution to this problem.

I think it is the largest national security threat that we face as a country.