Continue America's Legacy of Fighting for Freedom

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, every generation or so, our country is challenged with a fight. It is a fight in which we invariably line up on the side of freedom, of liberty, of the right of all individuals to make their own decisions, to not be told by dictators or by mullahs or by totalitarians what to think, how to pray, or who will lead them--every generation.

My generation was 9/11 when we were brutally attacked by extremists who hated our way of life; my grandparents' generation was the Cold War in which we stood against totalitarianism and communism in Europe and elsewhere; my great-grandparents' generation was World War II in which we stood up to fascism--always on the side of freedom, always on the side of liberty.

While we don't always get it precisely right, and the cost in blood and treasure has often been horrendous, we are invariably there. We have stood against the odds for freedom and democracy.

Now we waver. This generation, now we waver.

Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago, something that we didn't imagine we would ever see again: Russia invades a sovereign country, crosses a border with tanks. Now we waver.

Our parents and our grandparents, who fought those wars and the Cold War against Nazism, are saying: What is wrong with you? What has become of the instinct to stand for freedom and democracy?

Mr. Speaker, we hear these objections about the border over and over again. My Republican friends are right about the border. We need to move.

By the way, we did move. We had a bipartisan agreement supported by Republicans in the Senate, and the Republicans in the House said no.

Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? This country, this body, can do more than one thing at the same time. We can stand for freedom and democracy and fix the border. Do not tell me that we choose between the two.

We hear that the objectives in Ukraine are unclear. The objectives are as clear as can be. We will sustain this fight until Vladimir Putin realizes it is too expensive for him to stay in that fight.

We hear that the Ukrainians are corrupt. We didn't hear that about our Afghan allies or about our Iraqi allies, but we hear that about the Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, China, North Korea, and Iran are watching. What they are seeing is that Republicans--forget about loss of life--if it is a little bit of money, we don't sustain the fight.

Do you think President Xi is not watching this moment carefully? Can you imagine what the implications are down the road for Taiwan?

Failure to respond to Russian aggression will be something that we pay the cost for in years to come. A leader of this body said it: A failure to respond to that aggression ``empowers other dictators, other terrorists and tyrants around the world, because if they perceive that America is weak or unable to act decisively, then it invites aggression in many different ways.''

That was Speaker Johnson, the leader of this body.

Mr. Speaker, in 1938, Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, went to Munich, where a bunch of us just were, and he appeased. He came back to England and said, I have achieved ``peace for our time.''

Of course, that was not true; that was appeasement. As a result, the name ``Neville Chamberlain'' stands in history for the legacy of appeasement.

Is that the legacy that you want for yourselves? Do we want to abandon, for the first time in hundreds of years, our tradition of standing for democracy and freedom? I don't think so.

Maybe you do. Maybe you do because Donald Trump wants that to happen.

At least bring the bipartisan Senate bill to the floor so that those who are infused with the legacy of this country's fight for freedom, and not infused by doing whatever Donald Trump demands of us on this particular day, can stand up for what this American country has always stood for.

Bring the Senate bill to the floor.

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