During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) criticized President Biden for his 'weakness'.
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00:00The senator from Wyoming.
00:02Madam President, first I ask unanimous consent that the following senators be allowed to speak for up to five minutes each prior to the scheduled roll call vote.
00:10And it's Senator Hoeven and Senator Moran and Senator Cornyn following me.
00:14Without objection.
00:15Thank you, Madam President.
00:16Madam President, I rise today to speak about the need for strong American leadership.
00:20President Biden's weakness seen on the world stage is dangerous.
00:26It's dangerous for our nation and it's dangerous for the world.
00:29It hurts our citizens and it encourages aggression against our nation and others.
00:36Sadly, America doesn't have strong leadership right now from the president or the vice president.
00:41Joe Biden is stumbling, he's bumbling, he's blundering into a disaster.
00:45It's not one night of forgetfulness on the debate stage.
00:49It's three and a half years of a pattern of failures.
00:53We are living in the time of heartbreak at home and humiliation abroad.
00:59Look at the drugs, the death, the destruction coming from our southern border.
01:04Under Democrat open border policies, there have been 10 million illegal immigrants who have invaded our nation.
01:13Americans all across the country are in danger.
01:16Democrats' open borders allowed Venezuelan criminals to go to Houston, Texas to sexually abuse and murder a 12-year-old girl.
01:25Illegal immigrants' crime has taken the lives of many Americans across the country.
01:30They make headlines every day.
01:33The open border allows deadly fentanyl to flood our nation and poison our communities in all of our states.
01:41And certainly Wyoming has been one of the victims of this poisoning.
01:45More than 300 terrorist suspects have come into America.
01:49That is 300% higher than what we saw under the strong policies of President Trump.
01:56And terrorists are roaming our nation undetected.
02:02Remember, border security isn't optional.
02:05It's an obligation, a commitment to the safety of our American people.
02:09It is the foundation of our safety.
02:12Without border security, there can be no national security.
02:16Under Joe Biden, Americans are not safe at home, and increasingly, the world is not safe either.
02:25President Biden's weakness has invited war, it's invited conflict, and it's invited chaos around the world.
02:32He continues to appease Iran by letting Iran avoid sanctions.
02:38Iran's exporting almost 1.3 million barrels of oil to China each and every day.
02:43It uses the money from these oil sales to fund terrorism around the world.
02:49President Biden made the misguided assumption that concessions to Iran would stop conflict.
02:55Instead, Biden's appeasement makes Iran more aggressive.
03:01Meanwhile, Biden has proven to be a fair-weathered friend to our strong ally, Israel.
03:08On American college campuses today, student protesters expressed hostility to the very existence of the Jewish state.
03:18Democrats in Washington have also grown more hostile to Israel.
03:22Senator Schumer stood on the floor. He demanded on this floor in March that Israel replace its prime minister.
03:28Senator Sanders called the very next month for America to stop sending aid to Israel.
03:33The anti-Israel drift in the Democrat Party is bad enough.
03:37What's more worrying is that President Biden, the leader of the free world, lacks the backbone to stand up against it.
03:45Rather than resist the pro-Hamas wing of his party, Biden has repeatedly bowed to them.
03:50He recently slapped a de facto arms embargo on Israel.
03:54The weapons he withheld would limit civilian casualties and help Israel free the hostages.
04:01Biden stopped that.
04:04That includes eight American hostages who spent the last nine months, including their Fourth of July, in captivity by Hamas.
04:11President Biden blocked these war-winning weapons anyway.
04:14He would rather appease a small group of pro-Hamas voters in Michigan than support our closest ally in the Middle East.
04:22Playing politics is the core of Joe Biden's foreign policy.
04:26He recently claimed that no American service members died on his watch.
04:31He told the world that. Well, that's false. It's wrong. It's a denial of what's happened.
04:36On January 11th of 2024, two Navy SEALs were lost at sea during a mission to stop weapons shipments from Iran to Houthi terrorists.
04:45Less than three weeks later, January 28th, three American soldiers killed in Jordan by Iranian-backed militias.
04:52Then there is the disaster of Afghanistan.
04:55On August 26th, 2021, ISIS terrorists killed 13 brave American service members.
05:03They were the first American military casualties in Afghanistan in a year and a half.
05:07Twenty-year-old Lance Corporal Riley McCollum of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was one of them.
05:12This was a young man who loved his country and left an impression on everyone he met.
05:17He was our home state wrestling champion. He had recently been married.
05:21He was about to become a father.
05:231,300 people in Wyoming showed up to attend his funeral.
05:27It was outdoors in a tent, 37 degrees, lasted several hours, and no one left.
05:34Because Americans deserve better than a president who forgets the sacrifices of American heroes
05:39and forgives the aggression of Americans' adversaries.
05:43Joe Biden's weakness and confusion are a vivid contrast to what past presidents have done.
05:49I think of President Ronald Reagan and his successful policy of peace through strength.
05:55For eight years, President Reagan built a strong national defense.
05:59He restored America's confidence. He confronted America's enemies.
06:03His approach incredibly ended the Cold War without firing a single shot.
06:09Three decades later, President Trump adopted a similar policy.
06:13No more apologizing for America like President Obama had done.
06:18We had strong borders. We had a strong military. We had a strong economy.
06:22And we had strong American leadership.
06:25Our allies respected us. Our enemies feared us. We were safer.
06:30It's time for America to return to that approach.
06:34The truth is that Joe Biden is a president who cannot defend his record and cannot defend this nation.
06:40For the safety of our nation, we need a lot less of Joe Biden's weakness and a lot more peace through strength.
06:46That's what we need to do. That's the way we get America back on track.
06:51Thank you, Madam President, and I yield the floor.