{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=A7E3D4DE-BF2A-41D5-B448-E6B06AE29AAA", "Ukraine Support Is One Example of American Leadership Paying Dividends", "2022-12-13", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Ukraine and national defense:\n\n\u201cSenate Republicans have spent months focused on the need for a strong, bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act and robust funding for our Armed Forces.\n\n\u201cDefending our homeland, deterring future threats, and supporting our allies and partners should not be last-minute low priorities.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re fundamental duties if we want to remain the strongest power in the world. And investing in strength today protects our country, our servicemembers, and the American taxpayer tomorrow.\n\n\u201cTake, for example, Ukraine.\n\n\u201cFor nearly a year now, the free people of a sovereign nation have stood firm and battled against brutal and lawless aggression.\n\n\u201cThe Ukrainians\u2019 brave stand has been made possible in part because the United States and a number of other countries have realized that supporting their self-defense directly serves our own interests.\n\n\u201cEurope together constitutes America\u2019s largest trading partner. Instability in Europe poses a direct threat to the countless American producers who sell to our friends across the Atlantic. Further huge disruptions to European markets would only add to the inflationary challenges that Democrats\u2019 spending has caused us here at home.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s more, a successful Russian invasion would embolden the entire club of anti-American thug regimes to take bolder and more brazen steps toward further conflict, including direct threats to American lives.\n\n\u201cEvery day Russia spends on the back foot in Ukraine degrades its own ability to wage further wars and dramatically changes the cost-benefit calculus for others who might contemplate similar violence.\n\n\u201cContinuing support for Ukraine is the popular mainstream view that stretches across the ideological spectrum.\n\n\u201cOn my side of the aisle, for example, the former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said recently that supporting Ukraine \u2018fully and completely\u2019 is in the best interests of the United States.\n\n\u201cThe top foreign policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, James Carafano, has spoken out forcefully about the need for continued military aid.\n\n\u201cSo has former Secretary of State Pompeo, former Vice President Pence, and virtually every other leading national security official from the previous Administration.\n\n\u201cNow, while the conflict has exposed serious weaknesses in Russia\u2019s ability to wage conventional war, it has also exposed shortcomings in the West, particularly with our defense industrial bases.\n\n\u201cOur European friends who\u2019d treated themselves to holidays from history after the Cold War \u2014 who presumed a new normal of stability and security and shifted spending disproportionately into domestic programs \u2014 have received a harsh wake-up call. They are rushing to reinvest more in their own defenses.\n\n\u201cSome politicians here in America fell victim to that same lullaby.\n\n\u201cNow, fortunately, supplying the specific kinds of American armaments that Ukraine needs does not cut our readiness in other important regions, such as the Pacific.\n\n\u201cChina and its neighbors are watching the conflict in Ukraine closely, and the CCP would be delighted if Ukraine fell to Russia.\n\n\u201cBut the long lead times to replenish what we are sending still provide us with a sober reminder.\n\n\u201cWe know for a fact that the world\u2019s foremost military and economic superpower can and should both produce all the capabilities that we need for ourselves and serve as freedom\u2019s arsenal for our friends at the same time.\n\n\u201cWe just need to organize our resources and make critical, overdue investments in our defense industrial capacity.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s why the National Defense Authorization Act we\u2019ll take up soon provides multi-year procurement authority for longer-term certainty, planning, and efficiency. It authorizes significant investments in modernizing our forces and capabilities.\n\n\u201cBut following through on these promises also requires that we pass robust appropriations. I made that clear at last week\u2019s briefing with Biden Administration officials.\n\n\u201cAnd I\u2019ll say it again:\n\n\u201cProviding for the common defense is a fundamental governing responsibility. It is not extra credit.\n\n\u201cOur Democratic colleagues will not receive a goodie bag of domestic spending in exchange for fulfilling this solemn duty.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "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.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=A7E3D4DE-BF2A-41D5-B448-E6B06AE29AAA"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6064080409705639, "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"}