{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.inhofe.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/inhofe-speaks-on-the-senate-floor-showing-support-for-president-trumps-accomplishments", "Inhofe Speaks on the Senate Floor Showing Support for President Trump\u2019s Accomplishments", "2020-12-11", "2020", "2020-12", "Republican", "House", "OK", "James Inhofe", "I000024", "www.inhofe.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "This week, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) spoke on the Senate\r\nfloor about successes we have seen under President Donald Trump's leadership.I was listening to the previous speaker from Rhode Island\r\nand I figure it's time to clarify a few things that are said about our\r\nPresident. I know that right now a lot of people are believing that we are\r\ngoing have a changehave a democrat president. A lot of decisions are being\r\nmade. But, to show you that there is a big difference of opinion, I want to say\r\na few things about our President just to remind people. You know, they've\r\nforgotten what has happened. Now I know that there are differing opinions on\r\nthatpartisan opinions.   My very close friend from the Democrat aisle and I are going\r\nto hopefully have a vote tomorrow that will take place on the defense\r\nauthorization bill. The biggest bill of the year. The most significant bill of\r\nthe year. Senator Reed and I have an agreement on almost every element of it\r\nand we both have come to the conclusion it's a tremendous bill. It's one that\r\nyou really can't justify opposing. A lot of things have been said that are not\r\ntrue.   I want to just mention a couple things because this is a\r\ngood time to do it. We have a president who has done things that have never\r\nbeen done before in terms of accomplishmentspositive accomplishments. I\r\nremember two years ago I wrote this little card because I was taking track of\r\nall these good things that have happened. I remember showing it to the\r\npresident at that time. He read that and he was very excited about the way that\r\nwe have composed it, but keep in mind, this was two years ago. Look at these\r\nten things that this president has done.   First of all, the big tax cut that he had. And by the way,\r\nwhen we look at the fact that he did such great things for the economy, prior\r\nto the pandemic, we had the best economy we've had in my lifetime. Then the\r\npandemic changed all that. But he did this by looking back at history. It was\r\nnot a republican, it was a democratit was President Kennedy who had the wisdom\r\nto say when he was working on the Great Society programs that were going cost\r\nso much money, he said, we've got to raise our revenue and the best way to\r\nincrease revenue is to decrease tax rates, and so he decreased tax rates. We\r\nall remember that. And while it worked, unfortunately the president died before\r\nhe could really take advantage and enjoy the benefits of the work that he had\r\ndone by his tax cuts. That has been tried since that time and it has worked.\r\nBut, what this president did in addition to that, he didn't have just tax cuts,\r\nhe had regulation cuts. Now you have, what I call it, the golden day of\r\nregulation relief. The best economy we've had in that period of time.  They say that full employment is four percent unemployment,\r\nwhen in fact we actually got down below three percent. That was something that\r\nhas not been done in my memoryand good benefits came from that. There's a\r\ndifference of opinion between democrats and republicans and we understand that.\r\n  I've always felt that an indicator of success in the economy\r\nis to see how many people you get off of food stamps. A lot of liberal friends\r\nsay they measure it by how many people get on food stamps. Nonetheless, we've\r\ngotten five million people off food stamps. That's what happened and that's why\r\nwe had the economy that we had. I hate to think of where we would be today if\r\nwe had started with an average economy. We started with the best economy we've\r\nhad in my lifetime. That was because of our president and the support he had\r\nfrom our party.   The second thingnow keep in mind I am from Oklahoma we're\r\nan oil state and we knew that during the Obama administration it was a war on\r\nfossil fuels. Fossil fuels are coal, oil and gas. It's an effort to try and get\r\nback into renewables. Someday we may have the development of renewables. They\r\nare not there now in spite of what the previous speaker said. They are not\r\navailable now. So, what this president did was he stopped the war on fossil\r\nfuels. Now, as a result of that within the first two years, we had a 277\r\npercent growth in crude exports, 132 percent increase in coal exports and 52\r\npercent increase in natural gas exports. A lot of that translated in to the\r\neconomy that we were enjoying.   In terms of illegal immigration, I know this became very\r\ncontroversial. The wallpeople didn't like the idea of the wall. I can remember\r\na conversation I had with Netanyahu when I was in Israel once and he said he\r\ndidn't understand how a modern state can have borders that are not secure. He\r\nsaid you can't do that, it doesn't work. Well, he's now got that done against a\r\nlot of opposition. We all know that. And Israel, how many presidentsevery\r\npresident I can think of in my career here in Washington had said we need to\r\nmove the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, but they don't do it.\r\nAnd so, this president just went ahead and did it. He's a little abrupt and we\r\nunderstand that, but he got these things done.   The WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act right now\r\nand, actually, the FAA Reauthorization were both booming successes. They were\r\nhis efforts. And then judges. I don't know that it's a record, but in the four\r\nyears that this president has been in office, we've had about 220 judges that\r\nhave been confirmed. These are all judges that have one thing in common: they\r\nreally believe in the constitution, they are constitutionalists. In addition to\r\nthat, he has three of the United States Supreme Court Judges.  And then on the repeal. If you talk to anyone in business in\r\nAmericathis was a couple of years ago about the biggest problem they had, it\r\nwas the Dodd-Frank effort and it was the overregulation of business and\r\nindustry. So, he relaxed those rules and that gave a lot of the prosperity. The\r\nreason for the economy that we have today and the record employment that he has\r\ngiven us of 157 million jobs, but this is back two years ago.   Now, I would say that if you single out one thingI don't\r\nsay this critically of the Obama administration we all have different\r\npriorities, and I have considered President Obama to be a friendhowever, his\r\ntop priority was not the strong national defense. He had other priorities. We\r\nall know that and as a result of that, if you'll take the last five years, that\r\nwould have been from year 2010 to 2015, he reduced the funding of the military\r\nto 25 percent. That's never been done before. That's something that this\r\npresident came in and immediatelyand I chair the committee so I was very much\r\ninvolved in this, but we ended up lifting that and putting it back in the\r\nposition that it should be.   Now, this is interesting because somebody reminded meit was\r\nJohn Bonsell reminded me this morninghe said what you ought to do is get a\r\nlist of these things that happened since two years ago. And so, real quickly,\r\nidentifying China as the number one adversary in the NDS, that's the National\r\nDefense Strategy which has worked very successfully. That's a program that is\r\nput together by six Republicans and six Democratsall experts in the fieldand\r\ntalking about national defense. And he stuck with that and has identified China\r\nfor the problems that they are giving us right now.   He has a new investments in the future. Hypersonics is a\r\ngood example. After the last administration, China and Russia both surged ahead\r\nof us in their research on hypersonics. That's one of the most recent\r\ndevelopments of modern equipment. And that has worked. We're not quite there\r\nyet but were catching up. In the cyber worldhe is advancing in that area. As\r\nfor as the terrorist leaders, Baghdadi and Soleimani, both of them were\r\nconsidered to be the worst terrorist on the planet and he's taken both of out.   He established the Space Force. The Space Force is something\r\nthat we really needed to do. Not so much that we were behind but the fact that\r\nour competition Russia and China were in their particular space forces, we\r\nwanted to make sure everyone knew, and our partners knew, that we were right\r\nthere with them.   And, of course he eliminated the Widow's Taxwe remember\r\nthat. And the Abraham Accordsthis is really interesting because we have Arab\r\ncountries right now that are working closely with Israel. This hasn't happened\r\nbefore. Now the UAE is working with them and the Israelis didn't have to give\r\nup anything. That's a major advancement that we're enjoying.   Then of course, one of the issues we're working on right now\r\nis on these arms sales. We feel that we need to be selling arms to our allies.\r\nAnd, we want to make sure that the whole world knows that if you're a loyal\r\nfriend of ours, we want to make sure that we do for them what we should be\r\ndoing.   During that timeframe, he rescued 55 hostages in 24 countriesthat\r\nis a big deal.   I know that people were upset with his attitude toward NATO.\r\nHe believes in NATO but he believes that the partners in NATO need to start\r\ncarrying their fair share and it worked. It increased their share by about 130\r\nbillion dollars. When you talk to real people when you get out of Washington\r\nand talk to the people on the street, they say why are we in NATO when they are\r\nnot carrying their end of it? Now, that's all changing.  Anyway, that is what this President has done. But, there is\r\none thing that is happening that I think is maybe the most significant thing\r\nthat this President has accomplished. He came out with something called Warp\r\nSpeed. General Perna is a real expert and has been monitoring what is going on\r\nand getting the medical equipment necessary to defeat this thing [COVID-19]\r\nthat we have been under now for almost a year. In June he said by year endby\r\nDecember maybe as early as Novemberwe're going to have the decision made and\r\nhave a way to stop the pandemic that has been plaguing us for so long. We had a\r\nhearing and we looked at the things General Perna was coming up with that\r\nshowed us, conclusively, that we were going to have a vaccine that was going to\r\nwork by year end. It would then take about three months after that to get the\r\ndistribution going. We were talking about having this over by April. The\r\ninteresting thing is that that happened in June and yet, still today, we are\r\nright on schedule for that to happen.   My fellow Senator from Oklahoma, James Lankford, gave a\r\nspeech yesterday. It was fascinating. He went into all the indicators that were\r\nout there and you come to the conclusion that this plague is going to be over\r\nand were going to be able to go back to normalthat would be certainly good.   I just wanted to mention that those things are happening.\r\nAnd those are things that are on behalf of our President. I've never seen the\r\nmedia turn against someone like they have our President. People don't even know\r\nthese things. I'm hoping we can get this out so that people will be aware of\r\nit.  Now, back to the bill that we're going to have. I know that\r\nmy partner, the Ranking Member on the Armed Services Committee, is going to\r\nwant to be heard concerning some of the great things that we're going to be\r\ndoing in that bill. I will be doing the same thing tomorrow morning. This is a\r\nbill that we can all be proud of. I've never seen it misrepresented so much as\r\nthis bill has been misrepresented. With that, I'm anxious to hear my partner\r\nand I will yield the floor.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.inhofe.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/inhofe-speaks-on-the-senate-floor-showing-support-for-president-trumps-accomplishments"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1295471340417862, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}