Ukraine
Floor Speech
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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I am sorry that you are having to stay here so late tonight, but I am glad you are in the chair.
I wanted to come down to the floor, now that the vote is done, just to explain the objection that I made earlier today. I am not going to do it at an elaborate length, but I think it is important to say that I was deeply disappointed--as were many people--that the deal to keep the government open did not actually have as part of it continuing funding for Ukraine, which I think is critically important. I think most people in the Senate believe it is critically important.
As I mentioned to the Presiding Officer earlier today, to my caucus earlier today, one of the reasons--or maybe the reason--why this is something that is so important to me is that my mom, who is still alive, was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938. She was a Polish Jew.
I couldn't imagine a worse place in the world to be born at that time than where my mom was born. She and her parents and an aunt survived. Everybody else was killed.
As everybody in this Chamber knows--certainly, the Presiding Officer knows--16 million people were killed in Ukraine and in Poland by the Nazis and by Stalin.
My mom cannot believe that she has lived long enough to see another land war break out in Europe. That is what she says to me: I can't believe I lived long enough to see this. I almost can't believe it either because we had gotten used to reliance on our international organizations, the rule of law, the idea that democracy had spread, the idea that capitalism had spread.
There were some people, when the Berlin Wall fell down in the late 1980s, who were writing books about how this was kind of the end of history because the liberal--small ``L'' liberal, not big ``L'' liberal--the small liberal order had prevailed. Of course, we know now that wasn't true.
And we know now that there is a contest in the world of at least two very different visions of how a human should organize themselves. We believe in democracy. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Vladimir Putin believes in none of those things. And Xi Jinping believes in none of those things either.
It was an amazing experience for me to sit as a member of the Intelligence Committee and watch Putin make one mistake after another as he contemplated invading Ukraine--something a lot of people believed he wouldn't actually do. I think a lot of Ukrainians thought that he might. I think a lot of Pols thought he might. I think a lot of others living in Eastern Europe were worried that he might actually do it.
I said that he made some fundamental mistakes, and he did make some fundamental mistakes. One was he believed that his army was a lot stronger than it has been. That doesn't mean they don't have serious military capabilities. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't unleash a battlefield of nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat or chemical weapons at the drop of a hat if he felt like he was losing in a way that threatened his regime or threatened him. I certainly am clear-eyed about that. I know the Presiding Officer is and everybody else is.
But his army is a lot more hollowed out than he thought it was. That is what happens when you are a totalitarian living on top of a totalitarian society. No one actually tells you the truth. No one says: Vladimir Putin, your army has been hollowed out. We have wasted all that money that you asked us to spend on the army through corruption and other kinds of things.
So that was one fundamental mistake. A second fundamental mistake was his failure to understand what the Ukrainian people's reaction would be. We didn't get it all right. Some of our intelligence wasn't right. There were people who were saying that Putin was going to be in Kyiv in 72 hours. There was the feeling that Zelenskyy's government would collapse and that the Russians would have a puppet government in Kyiv.
Instead, what has happened is the Ukrainian people have exhibited more bravery than anybody could have ever asked for. It is astonishing what they have done. And, to me, it is astonishing what they have accomplished.
You hear people in the press these days talking about the stalemate on the frontier or on the battle, on the frontline, as if that is somehow a failure on the part of the Ukrainian people. I see that as exactly the opposite. I see that as an unbelievable achievement by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, by the Ukrainian people, by President Zelenskyy, and by the American taxpayers who have supported this work.
That is the third thing Vladimir Putin didn't count on, was that people all over the free world and democracies all over planet Earth would be so inspired by the courage of the Ukrainian people, would be so inspired by the bravery of the Ukrainian people that they would demand of their elected officials that we do more, do more, do more. That is what people have said in countries all over the world. That, he didn't count on either.
That has been an amazing thing over the last 2 years, after we had a President here who cast a lot of doubt on whether NATO was even something important or whether the rule of law was something important or whether the United States following through on our commitments was even something important. And we have shown that none of that is true, and NATO is stronger today than it has ever been. The transatlantic alliance is stronger today than it has ever been.
We have allies from Europe to Asia who understand what the importance of this fight is. They know that this is not just a fight for Ukraine. They know the Ukrainians aren't just fighting for Ukraine--although, that is an important fight; that is an important battle. They know this is a fight for democracy. This is a fight for the free world.
There is no way that this fight would have been as successful as it has been without U.S. assistance, without U.S. intelligence.
This is one where the good guys have come together in a way that is really meaningful and in a way that the tyrants in this world, I think, were not expecting.
Our intelligence community certainly thinks that Xi Jinping is now having to think twice and three times and four times about whether or not he is going to invade Taiwan as a result of the success of the Ukrainian people.
President Zelenskyy was here 2 weeks ago, and he told us that, without our support, they would lose. I told my colleagues today that I was standing there with--it was probably--I wasn't as close as you were, Madam President, but I was close. I was just several desks away from where he was standing. And I was thinking to myself--it was in the old Senate Chamber where you didn't need a microphone in the old days and humans were talking to humans. People showed up to have these debates, to have these conversations. And here we were, 100 humans who were in the Senate, who happen to be in the Senate today, and here is this guy, President Zelenskyy, who, until 3 years ago or so--or 4 years ago, maybe--was an actor in his home country in Ukraine and who ran for office almost as a lark because there was so much corruption that he felt like he had an obligation as a citizen to run, to run for President, to try to overcome that corruption.
Then something happened that he probably didn't think was going to happen, which is Putin invaded Ukraine, and the entire weight of the world dropped on President Zelenskyy's head--just a human being, one human being. Not the tallest guy I have ever seen, not the strongest guy I have ever seen--a pretty regular person standing there in his fatigues and the entire weight of the world is on his shoulders.
Our support of the Ukrainian people, because of what they have been willing to do not just for Ukraine but for democracy, has made a huge difference to them and to what President Zelenskyy is trying to accomplish.
Tonight, I did object earlier because I was worried that--I thought it was important for us to make sure we send a clear message that we are not leaving Washington without figuring out how to fund Ukraine; that we are going to spend the next 45 days or so making sure that the United States continues to lead in this effort. No one else in this world can lead here. That is a lesson I have learned from my mom. That is a lesson I have learned from her experience in Warsaw and around Warsaw. Nobody but the United States can lead. We are the only folks who can lead.
President Zelenskyy said we are the only folks who can lead. And we cannot allow our political differences here, our political disputes here, to keep us from delivering the aid that Ukraine needs. We can't do it. And I think there are probably some people who thought, when we left today, that is what we were doing.
I thought it was important for the leadership of the Senate to put out a statement tonight--Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell and several others on each side of the aisle--underscoring that we are going to spend the next 45 days working together to pass a robust Ukraine aid package. And I think that is vitally important. And I hope, in a small way, hopefully, we all had the chance today to think again about how important this is, how important our leadership is, how important our presence here as human beings is.
We are not going to get another chance at this, I suspect. I suspect that we are going to have one chance, and that chance is going to be 45 days from now. And this Chamber, just like President Zelenskyy has done, just like the Ukrainian people have done--he said, in fact: We are giving our lives. All we are asking for is your money.
He is right about that. They are giving their lives. And I think that if we had entered this war or watched this war happen, starting 2 years ago, and we had not supported the Ukrainian people in the way that we have, the world wouldn't have supported them, and they wouldn't have made the extraordinary progress that they have made. And who knows how this could end. We don't know.
It is important for us to stay in this fight and continue to lead. It is important for us to learn the lessons of 16 million people who lost their lives in Eastern Europe, in Poland, in Ukraine, believing that they were dying invisible to the rest of the world. And we can't let that happen again.
Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent that the statement that Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell signed tonight be printed in the Record.
``Nevertheless, this agreement leaves a number of urgent priorities outstanding. In the coming weeks, we expect the Senate will work to ensure the U.S. government continues to provide critical and sustained security and economic support for Ukraine.
``We support Ukraine's efforts to defend its sovereignty against Putin's brazen aggression, and we join a strong bipartisan majority of our colleagues in this essential work. With the eyes of our partners, allies, and adversaries upon us, we keenly understand the importance of American leadership and are committed to strengthening it from Europe to the Indo-Pacific.''
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Mr. BENNET. I thank the Presiding Officer for all of your relentless support for the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskyy, and thank you for being there tonight.
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