Our heavenly father, may your holy name be honored. May your name be held in high regard in this senate. We give thanks to you for you are good, and your steadfast love endures forever. You have watched over this nation through various times of peace, prosperity, turmoil, and war. May we continue to look to you and be a people who seek your face. Draw us near, and may we draw near to you. Blessed is the nation whose god is the lord. Reveal to us our sins and forgive us. Reveal to us also your love, and enable each of us to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Today, i pray that you grant to these senators of the United States the spirit of wisdom, the fear of the lord, and the courage to act by the counsel of the lord in all matters great and small. May they have your perspective on all things. May your kingdom come and your will be done here in our nation as it is in heaven, in and through these senators. Bless their families and their health. Give them your peace. O god, fill this place with your presence, and unite us as one nation under your leadership, inindivisible with liberty and justice for all. I pray in the name of jesus. Amen. The presiding officer please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Grass mr. President . The presiding officer the clerk will read a communication to the senate. The clerk washington d. C. , october 15, 2019. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint th hon earable honorable thom tillis, a senator from the state of North Carolina to perform the duties of the chair. Signed chuck grassley, president pro tempore. Grass i ask to speak in morning business for to minutes. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Grassley two subjects today. On october 13, the United States navy celebrated its 244th birthday. The United States navy was founded by the Continental Congress in 1775. To disrupt british shipping and navy power in the revolutionary war. At the time the navy was just a simple ragtag band of converted merchant ships. Today the United States navy is the most powerful naval force anywhere in the world. They provide the military with the ability to protect power to every corner of the globe. Americas navy works tirelessly to protect freedom of navigation, commerce, and travel around the world. On another point, for the last three decades, des moines has hosted something this week every year called the World Food Prize. As the word food prize kicks off this week in des moines, i pay tribute to an outstanding iowan and president of that foundation. Later in his Foreign Service career, ken quinn was ambassador to cambodia. But earlier in that career, ambassador ken quinns life of service took him from a small town iowa to Southeast Asia and back. Decades ago he identified an avenue to peace and prosperity. As a young Foreign Service officer, he saw that roads secure Economic Freedom and Food Security for impoverished people of Southeast Asia. For the last 20 years, ambassador quinn now not in the Foreign Service has cultivated the World Food Prize into the nobel prize for agriculture. Thanks to his stewardship of the seeds freedom seeds first planted by Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 1970 dr. Norman burr burrlog the World Food Prize will yield humanitarian goods for generations to come. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator madam president . The presiding officer the senator from North Carolina. Mr. Tillis madam president , i seek unanimous consent to speak for a period of the presiding officer the senate is in a quorum call. Mr. Tillis im sorry. I ask the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Tillis thank you, madam president. Madam president , i ask unanimous consent that i be able to speak for the presiding officer without objection. Mr. Tillis a period of five minutes as if in morning business. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Tillis thank you, madam president. Madam president , and maybe for those who were watching the opening prayer, that was Pastor Andrew Brunson from North Carolina. Pastor brunson this month marks a year since he was released from a turkish prison. And he and his wife were swept up and his wife far reen is in the norine is in the gallery as well. They were swept up in what i consider to be an overreaction by president erdogan and the turkish regime in imprisoning thousands of people after the coup attempt in turkey. I found out about this case actually first pastor brunson was from North Carolina and then slowly but steadily, diplomacy wasnt working. And he found himself in a turkish prison at one point really in what we would consider to be despicable circumstances in a prison cell designed for maybe eight or ten people. It had more than 20 in it. None of them speaking the english language. Pastor brunson was a missionary in turkey for almost 20 years. He had a church in izmir where all they tried to do for those who wanted to hear the word of god is to speak it. For that he was ultimately incarcerated and accused of being a part of the turkish coup attempt. Then it was about a year later that they issued an indictment for him. A 62page indictment that read like a horrible, fictional novel. Some of the most absurd allegations you could possibly imagine, certainly things that wouldnt keep you in jail overnight in the United States that were potentially going to have pastor brunson convicted and spend 35 years in a turkish prison. We got word back that after the indictment was issued against pastor brunson, that he was afraid that the American People were going to believe it and that we would simply move on and hed be left there at the fate of the turkish judiciary. When i heard that, the first thing i told my staff is ive got to go to turkey. I want to go to the prison that pastor brunson was in. Ive got the opportunity to meet his wife norine the day before and i went to i went there and i told pastor brunson across the table about as wide as this desk is that were not going to forget you and were not going to stop until we get you released from prison. I then had a series of efforts here that i have to really compliment all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, more than 72 senators signed on to a letter encouraging pastor brunsons release. More than a Hundred House members signed on to a similar letter. We did everything that we could diplomatically to get pastor brunson released. I decided i wanted to see how the court case was going so i went back to turkey a few months after i first met pastor brunson in the prison and i sat through 12 hours of socalled turkish justice. I saw this man stand before a dais of three judges and a prosecutor where basically youre assumed guilty until you prove innocence. His defense attorney was as far away from him as that wall. Thats turkish justice. Thats not anything we can imagine in this country but thats what this man was subjected to. But over the course of several months working with the president , working with secretary pompeo, Vice President and a number of other people, we were able to get president erdogan to recognize this was a political exercise. It was not an exercise in justice and he needed to be released. To a year ago this month he was so a year ago this month he was released and now hes opening the senate in prayer. I want to thank pastor brunson for his perseverance. He went through things that most of us could not imagine. And norine who is his strongs advocate. I see the parliamentarian looking at me as if im not supposed to recognize the fact that Norine Brunson is in the gallery. So i will not recognize that fact because that would be a violation of the rules. But they are a sight for sore eyes and im so glad to have them back in this country. I know theyre going to continue their missionary work wherever they k. I thank them for their leadership and deep faith and thank you for opening the senate today. Madam president , i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call mr. Mcconnell madam president . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell congress is returning to washington for a work period that will be filled with important todo items, but we already know what will top the agenda over in the house of representatives. House democrats are finally indulging in their impeachment obsession. Full steam ahead. Many of us remember the Washington Post headline that was literally published on Inauguration Day back in 23017. Heres what it said. The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun, and sure enough House Democrats have been at it ever since. One prominent House Democrat called this presidency illegitimate before it had even begun. One of Speaker Pelosis Committee Chairs whom she has tasked with leading this process promised years ago that shed find a way to impeach the president. So, madam president , now that Speaker Pelosi has finally crumbled and allowed her leftwing impeachment caucus to dictate the houses actions, i dont think many of us were expecting to witness a clinic in terms of fairness or due process. But even by their own partisan standards, House Democrats have already found new ways to lower the bar. This is about the most consequential process the house of representatives could possibly engage in, overruling American Voters and nullifying an election. Surely any such process must be conducted with the utmost fairness and transparency. It must be held to the most exacting of standards. And yet, House Democrats have wasted no time flowing fairness and precedent throwing fairness and precedent to the wind. Already theyve denied their republican counterparts certain minority rights, like equal subpoena power that republicans provided democrats during the clinton impeachment. Already theyve made clear that President Trumps counsel will not be allowed to participate in hearings, present evidence, and crossexamine witnesses all important rights that republicans provided to president clinton. Already one house chairman has been caught publicly mischaracterizing his committees handling of the whistleblower inquiry on which this whole investigation hinges. So, madam president , for all the public hyperventilating over institutional no remains that weve heard from norms that weve heard from House Democrats, it appears that they have no intention of letting norms, precedents, or basic due process stand in the way as they seek to cancel out a presidency. In the meantime, here in the senate well keep our focus squarely on the substantive work that we need to complete for the American People. In the coming days, well confirm another slate of President Trumps wellqualified nominees. For starters, later this afternoon well advance the nomination of barbara barrett, the president s choice to be secretary of the air force. And speaking of our armed forces, congress can waste no more time inest going our appropriations in getting our appropriations process back on track and delivering the funding that our Service Members need. Just two months ago the president and the speaker of the house produced an agreement to guide the appropriations process. The white house and congressional leaders set topline funding targets for defense and nondefense and agreed to forego poison pills. But last month, unfortunately, our democratic colleagues went back on the deal. Routine funding negotiations were again threatened to poison pill threats and urgent resources for the operations of the pentagon were withheld for the sake of politics. Look, we need to put these political games aside. Democrats need to stop filibustering a pay raise for our troops and the funding our commanders need. We need to gettered funding process back on track for the entire federal government. And House Democrats need to stop slowwalking the usmca, the landmark trade agreement stands to create 176,000 new american jobs. Mexico is ready, canada is ready. And a majority here in the senate is ready. The entire continent is just waiting on Speaker Pelosi to stop blocking this win for the United States and stop blocking these new jobs. I dont care how much my democratic colleagues in the house may dislike the president , they shouldnt throw 176,000 new american jobs on the scrap heap. On all these fronts, i hope sincerely that our democratic colleagues will be able to separate this vital business from our animus toward the administration and join republicans in moving forward with the work of the American People. Now, one final matter i know i speak for many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle in expressing my grave concern at the events that have unfolded in syria in recent days. Turkey is our nato ally. Yes, it hosts millions of Syrian Refugees and has a legitimate security concern about the situation in syria. But turkeys escalation of hostilities with the Syrian Kurdish partners who helped the United States fight terrorism is completely and totally unacceptable. This violence needs to end. Syrian Kurdish Forces have stood proudly alongside u. S. Forces in the fight against isis. Over years of joint effort, their shared sacrifices have put isis on its heels and rendered its fiscal fate essentially cali fate caliph ate nonexistent. Creating a power vacuum begging for the meddling influence of russia, leaving northeastern syria wide open for iran to extend its reach unimpeded all the way from tehran to the doorstep of our friends in israel. And destroying the leverage we currently have to compel bashar assad to stop his slaughter of the Syrian People and negotiate an end to this terrible conflict and humanitarian catastrophe. So, madam president , i want to make something clear. The United States has taken the fight to syria and afghanistan because that is where our enemies are. Thats why were there. Fighting terrorists, exercising leadership in troubled regions, and advancing u. S. Interests around the world does not make us an evil empire or the worlds policeman. It makes us a prudent and responsible world power that stands up for our own security and the freedom of others. Alongside the 80 Coalition Partners that u. S. Forces have led in a counterisis coalition, that is what we must continue to do. We must continue to provide support to the local forces that carry the lions share of the responsibility to defend their homeland. And this effort must continue to include our allies and partners. Even the imperfect ones who sometimes behave rashly and dangerously, as both saudi arabia and turkey have recently. When it looked like President Trump would withdraw from syria at the beginning of the year, 70 70 senators joined in warning of the risk of precipitously withdrawing from syria or afghanistan. The vetoproof majority vote for my amendment s. 1 demonstrated strong and bipartisan appreciation for our enduring security interests in that region. The senate spoke clearly and said that we must ensure we have set the conditions for an enduring defeat of the terrorists before any withdrawal. Regrettably, many of the Democratic Senators running for president , along with my friend, the democratic leader, parted with this bipartisan consensus and voted against this amendment. So i hope those aspiring commanders in chief are asked to explain how they reconcile their criticism of the Administration Today with their votes just a few months ago. Maybe theyll even be asked on the debate stage this very evening. Im heartened to hear that Vice President pence will soon lead a delegation to begin immediate talks with turkey to end this violence. I expect turkish allies listened carefully, welcome our Vice President and take steps to repair our important relationship. It would be a tragedy for both of our nations if turkeys escalation in syria imperils our common fight against isis and emboldens adversaries like iran and russia. This would be bad for u. S. Interests but it would be terrible for