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Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday afternoon, my Democratic colleagues--and when I say ``my Democratic colleagues,'' I mean all of my Democratic colleagues, with one exception--chose to block legislation to sanction individuals at the International Criminal Court who participated in investigations or prosecutions of American or Israeli citizens.

In the wake of the vote, a number of my Democratic colleagues put out a statement expressing their concern at the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. I suppose it is nice that they are concerned. They should be concerned. But it would be even nicer if they had done something about it.

It is hard for me to fathom how Democrats could vote against this commonsense measure. In fact, they wouldn't even vote to have a debate. I am not sure if they are afraid of antagonizing the anti-Israel wing of their party or if they are simply too beholden to Big Tech, which lodged some tenuous concerns about this legislation.

But whatever their reason, Democrats chose to vote no--no to standing up for our ally Israel and, even worse, no to standing up for our own citizens. Apparently the ``America last'' playbook is alive and well in the Democratic Party.

Mr. President, Republicans tried to the very end to accommodate Democrats in hopes of finally getting this legislation over the finish line, nearly 8 months after the Republican-controlled House first passed the bill. But Democrats kept moving the goalpost, and Republicans were not going to just gut the legislation to get Democrat votes.

If Democrats decide that they want to take real action to address the targeting of our allies and prevent future targeting of American citizens, Republicans are here. Until then, we will continue to do what we can without Democrats to defend our allies and our Nation.

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