Ndaa

Floor Speech

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Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, on October 23, 1983, terrorists killed 241 Americans, including 220 marines in Beirut, Lebanon.

Last night, Israeli Defense Forces reportedly killed a top Hamas leader responsible for those American lives lost. The events of last night highlight why the Senate now needs to move on the NDAA to strengthen our military and our allies abroad. Instead, Senator Schumer has done nothing this week but bring low-level nominations to the floor while the bipartisan NDAA gathers dust on his desk.

It is par for the course for Senator Schumer. Democrats ride the fence on this because Hamas is a key constituency of the Democratic Party. That is why Kamala Harris couldn't bring herself to show up to the Prime Minister's congressional address this past week. It is why the Biden administration has flushed Iran with cash and now Iran is bankrolling terrorism all over the Middle East. But they act surprised when the Middle East is destabilized. They are more concerned about appeasing our enemies and supporting our friends and our allies.

Now Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have brought us to possibly World War III. It is the weakest administration in the history of the United States of America.

We have become a complete joke in the eyes of the world, which is why I rise today to call on Senator Schumer to immediately bring the NDAA to the floor for a vote. Senator Schumer has refused to act on this legislation since it passed out of committee on June 13 with bipartisan support. After the events last night, it is imperative now more than ever that we move this bill.

Senator Schumer, let's be serious here, if you really care about our military, you will bring the NDAA up for a vote immediately. Stop wasting our time on messaging bills that are a ploy to bail out vulnerable Democratic colleagues in an election. We need a military that is 100 percent focused on protecting our country and enhancing our national security, not implementing the Biden-Harris woke agenda, which is why I have taken steps to return our military to greatness in this year's NDAA.

Among these victories, I count my amendments which will help refocus the Pentagon on its stated mission to deter war and ensure our Nation's security. One of these amendments includes eliminating all funding for the woke diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the DOD.

Another amendment prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars from being spent on transgender surgeries or any other costs associated with these services.

I appreciate my colleagues on the committee supporting these commonsense amendments that were included in this year's Senate NDAA. I, along with millions of Americans, am scratching my head as to why the DOD has implemented these policies to begin with.

Sadly, no institutions, not even our great military, are safe from infiltration by the Biden-Harris regime's radical woke policies. Immediately after taking the White House, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris weaponized the DOD, using it as yet another tool in their arsenal to further their progressive agenda. One of the Biden-Harris administration's first moves was mandating diversity, equity, and inclusion training in all the DOD. On day one, the Biden-Harris administration announced the military would be conducting training to ``have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias against underserved communities.''

This hateful ideology has no place in the United States, let alone our military. The military is not a social experiment. It should be a lethal fighting force feared by our enemies and comprised of our best and brightest. The military should be built on merit, not diversity.

It is dangerous and insulting to waste our troops' valuable time on political indoctrination such as this.

And that is not all. In 2021, the Biden administration announced it would begin directing taxpayer dollars to pay for hormone therapy and transgender surgeries for servicemembers who want to transition to a different gender. It is not the job of the taxpayers to pay for someone to get a controversial elective procedure. American taxpayers' resources should ensure troops who are injured or sick get quality healthcare, timely, as they need it. And taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll these dangerous experimental procedures that often backfire.

Of course, the Biden-Harris administration would rather spend valuable taxpayer dollars on programs that affirm its progressive world view. The DEI and transgender surgery policies at the DOD are just two examples of the woke policies being implemented. We can't forget that the Biden-Harris DOD illegally mandated taxpayer dollars to fund elective abortions in the military. I have spent the better part of 2 years fighting the Biden-Harris administration on this front.

And we cannot forget the Biden-Harris DOD fired more than 8,000 able- bodied troops for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

None of these policies should be DOD priorities. It is a distraction from keeping America safe and secure and the consequences are dangerous.

For decades, support for the U.S. military was one of the few topics that brought Republicans and Democrats together. In the past year, the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committee would draft the NDAA, which authorized funding for the military and establish policy priorities for the DOD. These bills were largely bipartisan and not usually controversial. Both parties were united in the belief that the U.S. military should be the most lethal fighting force in the world. There were some policy differences here and there, and there should be. But both parties largely left politics out of the military; that is, until the Biden-Harris administration came to town. It is disappointing we reached a point where we need to legislatively intervene to refocus the Pentagon on its mission to protect and defend our great country, but here we are.

Predictably, the Biden-Harris regime injecting politics in our military has come at a price. The departure from bipartisan, commonsense policies at the DOD has resulted in detrimental impacts to military readiness and lethality.

Take recruitment, for example. In 2023, the Pentagon announced that it fell way short of recruitment goals in what it referred to as ``the toughest recruitment year for the military services since the inception of the all-volunteer [Army].''

I would ask: Why would young men and women volunteer to serve in a country and in our military if it has become a place of the far-left indoctrination? Why would they do that? Why would young men and women join a military that teaches them to hate our country? Why would any patriotic citizen join an organization that is more committed to social justice than defeating our enemies?

I must say, I share their concerns. The military, under today's regime, is not the same military that my dad served in over 60 years ago. It is the sad truth. The recruiting failure has resulted in a national security emergency. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have asked our top military leaders about the decision to focus on woke policies instead of addressing the recruiting crisis. Unsurprisingly, they didn't have an answer for me.

The impact of implementing those leftwing social priorities extends far beyond the recruiting problems here at home.

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Mr. TUBERVILLE. These dangerous policies at the DOD have consequences for our military readiness and the world stage.

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