Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Air Plan Approval; South Dakota;

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this is an important debate we are having, and I will give you my view on how all of this works.

Under the Constitution, two things occur: The President of the United States is designated as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, not Congress. So the Commander in Chief is one person, the President. Declaring war is a duty of the Congress. In the case of modern times, it requires 535 people to vote.

The question is, Can you use military force as the Commander in Chief without a declaration of war?

The answer is yes.

There have been five declarations of war in the history of the country: the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. Only five times in the history of our Republic has the Congress exercised its responsibility and right to declare war--five times.

Now, does that mean that other actions taken by the Commander in Chief don't exist where there were no declarations of war?

The answer is no. They do exist. We have been able to find 130 examples of a Commander in Chief using military force without a declaration of war by the Congress and also without congressional authorization under the War Powers Act.

One example is in 1989, when President Bush 41 literally invaded the country of Panama. He sent ground forces in, sustaining casualties, to take down Noriega, who was the leader of Panama, who was a drug kingpin. Panama was being used as a drug safe haven when President Bush 41 authorized the military without having congressional approval to go in and take him down--take him out of Panama and put him in an American prison. We used ground forces, and we lost people in that endeavor.

Things like this, President Clinton used and threatened military force to take a military coup in Haiti down and returned power back to the elected leader of Haiti.

I could go on and on and on about how different Presidents have used military force that has sometimes involved casualties without their having congressional approval. So I don't want to hear anybody tell me that this has never been done before. It is actually the norm.

What is odd in America is to declare war by the Congress. The norm is for the Commander in Chief to use military force as he or she deems necessary to protect the national interests.

The 1973 War Powers Act is a congressional statute, not a constitutional provision, that has a series of reporting requirements when military force is used, crescendoing with an approval process by the Congress, and if that approval is not given, the operations must cease.

In my view, it is patently unconstitutional. You are creating, through the War Powers Act, 535 Commanders in Chief. The Members of Congress sit in judgment over the Commander in Chief, and under the War Powers Act, they have a veto under the law. I think that violates the constitutional structure that has been around since the founding of the Republic.

Now, what can Congress do?

If Congress doesn't like a military operation, the Constitution says that it is Congress that appropriates money, not the President. So, for instance, in Venezuela, if you don't want any American boots on the ground, I think you could come forward and pass through the appropriations process a prohibition of funds to be used to have American ground forces in Venezuela. If you don't like the seizing of the oil for the mutual benefit of Venezuela and the United States, you could say that no money could be used on behalf of the American Government to seize the oil. We would win the day because that is the way you check what you think is an out-of-line action by the President when it comes to using military force. You can do those two things.

What we can't do is substitute our judgment for the decision itself. We can't all sit around up here and say: You know, I don't know if we should use troops here or troops there. I don't like the way this thing is shaping up.

That is chaos.

President Trump is well within his legal rights under article II to use military force to advance the national interest, which is to end the drug trafficking dictatorship of Maduro, which every Republican and Democrat condemned, and President Trump finally did something about it. He was flooding our country with drugs, and it was a safe haven for Hezbollah and other drug cartels. Everybody said he should go. Well, President Trump made those words real. He used military force in the advancement of a national security interest of this country: to stop Venezuela from being a safe haven for drug dealers and international terrorists.

He has a plan to rebuild the country and eventually transition it, through an election, to a new regime. Regime change will come to Venezuela through the ballot box. In the meantime, he is threatening military force to people who want to undercut this effort.

He is taking the oil and selling it and creating an account for the benefit of Venezuela, which is basically out of money. He is telling those people who are holdovers from the regime: I want to work with you to get to where we need to go, which is to rebuild the country and have a free and fair election, but if you don't work with me and you try to undercut what I am doing, then you can meet the same fate as Maduro.

Maduro was an indicted drug guy. He had indictments for being a drug trafficker. The argument is that this operation was to enforce the warrant. It was more of a law enforcement activity because he was the President of the country--not legitimate, by the way, and everybody pretty much denied that he was the legitimate President when he stole the election.

So the bottom line here is--the theory that some of my colleagues are hanging their hats on is that this is legitimate because it is actually a law enforcement function. I respect what you are saying, but I don't agree. This is clearly beyond issuing a warrant. This is clearly beyond using law enforcement power. The game plan is not only to take the indicted leader of the country--who is a horrible person--and put him in jail but to change the country in a way that doesn't threaten America in the future, in that it will not, in the future, be a drug haven for cocaine to be dumped into our country, and it will not be a safe haven for Hezbollah and other drug cartels.

That is the goal. Well, that is going to take a while. That is not about the warrant; that is about our national security interests.

People ask about ``America First.'' What does it mean?

Here is what I think it means: ``America First'' means that we are not going to tolerate--in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba--countries in our backyard that are run by international drug cartel leaders, who are not legitimate in terms of being elected, to poison this country; that we are going to clean up the drug caliphate in our backyard; and that we are going to use a combination of tools to do that, including military force.

So there will probably be another one of these War Powers Act resolutions. I want to tell my colleagues where I am going to be on that: If you don't like what you see coming about threatening force in the future to have a transition to make Venezuela free and fair and if you don't like taking the assets of the country and selling them to prop up a failing economy, then limit the President's ability to do that by denying funding for those operations. That would be lawful.

The War Powers Act, in my view, is unconstitutional because you are not denying funding; you are basically vetoing the decision of the President to enact a national interest, and the national interest is far beyond taking Maduro down and putting him in jail. It is about transforming the country so we will never live again with Venezuela threatening America by dumping cocaine into our country--killing tens of thousands of people--and being a safe haven for international terrorist groups like Hezbollah. They are aligned with Russia. The goal is to make sure that it never happens again, and that will be a process that involves military force, potentially, and diplomatic engagement.

What the Congress, I fear, is going to do is to limit the President's ability to achieve that national interest by misapplying the War Powers Act--by substituting our judgment for his when it comes to how to change Venezuela.

The bottom line is, if you don't want troops on the ground--right now, there is no need for them--and if you think that is a bad idea, then let's pass an appropriations bill that denies funding for that. If you don't like taking the oil, selling it, and putting the money in an account to get Venezuela back on its feet and to help pay us for the operations, then say through the appropriations process: No money can be spent to do that.

That is within our lane.

The idea that we are going to reject the plan of transforming Venezuela that has been drafted by the Commander in Chief because you don't agree with it means that he is not the Commander in Chief; we are. So, if a congressional enactment can veto the Constitution, then we are really off script here.

A congressional statute has to give way to the Constitution. The Constitution names the President as the Commander in Chief--only the President. The Constitution says that Congress and only Congress can declare war.

After 250 years, what have we learned?

There have been five declarations of war. They are unusual. There have been over 130 military actions without congressional authorization that have used military force to advance the national interests. That is the norm. The War Powers Act throws that into chaos.

So I look forward to future debates. President Trump has all the constitutional authority he needs to execute the game plan against Venezuela and to advance our national interests.

Again, if you don't like what he is doing, there is a constitutional process available to you, and that is to cut off funding. The other process would be impeachment. If you think he is doing something unlawful under international law, you can impeach him. Those are your two options.

So I will be voting against this idea, and I will be voting against this idea in a new form in perpetuity because I think it creates a constitutional imbalance of where the Congress, over time, becomes the Commander in Chief, not the President, and we cannot run this country having 535 Commanders in Chief.

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