Authority under article 1 of the constitution and actually do whats right. I yield the floor. The presiding officer duly noted. Mr. Risch thank you. Mr. President and fellow senators, were about to vote on an important piece of legislation. Its a piece of legislation that will never become law, but nonetheless it deserves our attention and certainly deserves serious consideration. We know two things as we approach this. Number one, under the constitution, it is absolutely Crystal Clear that only congress can declare war. Number two, which is Crystal Clear, we know the president of the United States has the authority to defend the country. And finally, number three, and this is very important as it relates to this, no one, no one wants war with iran. No one agrees that we should proceed to war with iran. That is simply not the situation here today. There are constitutional questions here we know that we have to wrestle with, and they are difficult ones. The its important to note here, first of all, that the dispute thats been going on with iran for a long, long time has really nothing to do with the iranian people. We support the iranian people. They are they have a long history, a proud tradition, and they deserve substantially better than what theyre getting in leadership today. This is an important debate were going to have today about war powers and the use of military force. One of the things also thats clear but that muddies the water, and that is that there is no clear line of delineation between actual war and the use of kinetic force. As i said, its important to have this debate. I really believe it should not be held in this context. It should be a policy that were debating that is usable in all contexts. Ive sat through hours, dozens of hours of debate on war powers, the war powers of the president. Its an ageold debate thats gone on since George Washington was president. Its a hard debate because these words were all written in the 18th century and things were a lot clearer then. Things are much less clear today. These debates were long. There were many lawyers involved. Indeed, no conclusion can be reached. Its one of those areas ive come to the conclusion that the words that need to be written in order to clearly specify the place that the president occupies and the place that the congress occupies is a very, very difficult one. There are things on this earth and i really believe this may be one of them where we know it when we see it but we cant define it. We know war when we see it. We also know what is kinetic action in order to protect the people of the United States thats more isolated in the hands of the president during a defensive measure. We know that when we see it, but defining the distinction between the two of when one blurs into the other is very, very difficult. The president needs the authority that he has to defend the United States, and it is clear that Authority Comes from three buckets. Number one, it comes from the article 2 of the United States constitution. Number two, it comes from the war powers act. And number three, it comes from the aumf that has been passed by this body for some time. And iran, understand that the president has that authority. Ep has specific he has specific authority from all of those buckets, notwithstanding the arguments that have been made here by some members of this body, the president unquestionably has those powers. This power has been used very sparingly by this president. Compared to the last administration, the numbers are really indeed striking. The drone action, the drone strikes that have been taken then and now during the obama administration, 540 of them over 8 years. In this particular administration they are very, very few and far between and can only be described as a handful. This is a president who abhors the use of military force. I have had the opportunity to discuss it with him at length, and ive actually been in the room when hes been confront pped with these questions confronted with these questions and had to make the decisions. He is deeply moved by these kind of questions and understands how difficult they are. When he talks about how he has to write letters to the men and women who didnt come home, about having to make those phone calls, about having to go to dover to receive remains of our brave men and women who didnt make it home alive, he is deeply, deeply disturbed by these matters. And i can tell you, as i said, having been there when hes had to make these decisions, that these weigh heavily on him. So what are we doing here today . It certainly isnt to rein in this president. He has not used power willynilly. Very, very sparingly used in great contrast to the previous administration. What were doing here today is were trying to get our arms around the question of when is it appropriate for the president to use military force, and we all have our ideas on that. We have the words that the Founding Fathers left us. So were going to debate it here today, and its important. The unfortunate part about this is were also sending a message to iran, and iran is listening. There is no question that theyre listening to this debate. Theyre listening that the, what people are saying here on the floor of the senate. And one of the messages that will come out of this, the way this is drawn is that we want, that the drafters of this want to send a message of appeasement to iran and this has been tried. It hasnt worked. The last administration bent over backwards to offer appeasement to iran. They were greatly betrayed by it. It was tried with the jcpoa, and it didnt work. The reason it didnt work is we are not dealing with people here who are acting in good faith. What we need to do is we need to send a message of firmness and not weakness, and at the end of the day when were all done with this, there will be such a message. It needs to be a consistent and uniform message when it comes to messaging to iran, when it comes to messaging on our Foreign Policy as it relates to iran. But it will not be this law that is before us because its going to be vetoed. We all know its going to be vetoed. It takes a twothirds majority to override that. Its not going to happen. And so the mixed message is there. Iran will listen to it and the hardliners will take it one way, other people will take it the other, and that is not a good situation, but hopefully well be able to lay this out in a way that they can read between the lines and get the message that is important. The president took action that people have criticizeed here that was difficult. It was a tough decision. It was a really bad guy, a guy who was worse than Osama Bin Laden. He was the person who was executing irans maligned policies in the world and in the region. His killing and loss of limb have become legendary in the world today. Whenever i see one of our young men and women that are missing an arm or a leg, they owe that to general soleimani. He killed hundreds of people. He was responsible for the i. E. D. Program that took the lives of so many and maimed so many of our men and women that were fighting in the middle east. And he got to the point where he was wandering around, really, with impunity and not worried about what he was doing or that anybody was going to take any action against him. Lets look at the timeline over the last year. The iranians started by blowing up oil tankers. Nothing was done about it. They attacked the Saudi Oil Fields where 100 americans were working. Nothing was done about it. They took down a drone of ours over international space. Nothing was done about it. Finally, they ratcheted up over the fall 13 attacks on u. S. Soldiers at u. S. Bases in iraq. These were our men and our women that we had asked to go over there and push back against irans attempted infiltration into iraq. 13 attacks they took. Finally, on one of those attacks, somebody was killed. The president laid down a red line that if an american was killed, there was going to be a price to pay. They start they finally killed that person. They attacked our embassy in baghdad and attempted to set it on fire. And so eventually, the president made the choice to do what he did, and this was in response to the continual pushing of the envelope from iran and the miscalculations that iran made. This man was traveling. General soleimani was traveling. He had been traveling from place to place, putting in place final plans and coordination for the execution of an attack against the american people. It was imminent. Now, you have heard my friends here say oh, no, it wasnt imminent. We listened to the we listened to the intelligence. I sit on the Intelligence Committee. I sat through all of the briefings that were given that were at the secret level and the top secret level that were given to the people here in the body. I also sat through the ones that were given to the Intelligence Committee which were compartmented and much more granular. There was no doubt that this plan was planning an imminent attack to kill americans. He didnt get the chance. Thank you, mr. President. Thank you for what you did. Now, weve heard the argument here that it wasnt imminent. This person was substantially more imminent danger to the United States of america and to americans than when Osama Bin Laden was, but when the president of the United States, barack obama, took out Osama Bin Laden, we all cheered it. In fact, we passed a resolution here 1000 commending the president of the United States for what he did. So today, mr. President , you have heard us pass such a resolution thanking you. Thank you, mr. President , and farewell, general soleimani. Iran, do not miscalculate and read what is happening here as capitulation or weakness or appeasement. It is not. It is a disagreement between this branch of government, the legislative branch, and our Second Branch of government, the executive branch, as to how we should defend ourselves, but make no mistake about it. We will defend ourselves. In america, we operate under the rule of law. This bill thats in front of us that we are debating today will not become law. It will not be part of the body of law which we live by. It will be vetoed. Iran, take note. If you continue on the path that you are on with your maligned activities, it is going to take you to a very bad place. Id urge a no vote. I understand how this is going to come out. I will be standing here again to sustain the president s veto, and it will be sustained. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the President Trump said he planned to veto the resolution, which aims to stop him from using military force against iran without congressional approval