{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.welch.senate.gov/welch-on-the-ndaa-this-national-defense-authorization-fails-to-address-the-critical-question-that-is-before-this-country-right-now-the-war-in-iran-welch/", "Welch\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0NDAA:\u00a0\u201cThis national defense authorization fails to address the critical question that is before this country right now...the war in Iran.\u201d\u00a0Welch\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0NDAA:", "2026-07-13", "2026", "2026-07", "Democrat", "Senate", "VT", "Peter Welch", "W000800", "www.welch.senate.gov", "welch", "https://www.welch.senate.gov/category/press-release/page/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) today delivered remarks from the Senate floor urging his colleagues to reconsider debate or advancement of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), citing the ongoing, escalating war with Iran and the inclusion of new policy provisions that require the U.S. to deepen our defense and intelligence sharing relationship with the government of Israel.\n\n\u201cThis national defense authorization fails to address the critical question that is before this country right now, and that is the war in Iran,\u201d said Senator Welch. \u201cIt fails to address the changing nature of warfare, by spending half a trillion dollars more on weapons systems that are the weapons systems of yesterday\u2026It outsources, to another country, decisions on intelligence sharing and weapons production that should only be made by our country. It commits the taxpayers of this country to the obligation of another half trillion dollars, with absolutely no outline of how we\u2019re going to pay for it\u2014and this, on top of a deficit that is the highest we\u2019ve ever had in this country.\u201d\n\nWatch Senator Welch\u2019s speech below:\n\nRead an excerpt of Senator Welch\u2019s remarks:\n\n\u201cWhen it comes to sharing intelligence, I want our generals; I want our national security officials; I want our president, our chief executive and commander in chief; to have unfettered discretion to make those decisions about with whom we share information, what information we share, and under what circumstances, to be our decision and our decision alone\u2026We\u2019ve never, ever, had an obligation to relinquish the exclusive right of decision making that has to fundamentally be made on the best interest of what is in the national security interest of the people in this country. We cannot relinquish that right and that responsibility.\u201d\n\n\u2022\u2022\u2022\n\nLast week, Senator Welch joined a letter led by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) urging their colleagues to oppose the motion to proceed with a vote on the NDAA, unless it addresses provisions that lock in U.S.-Israel defense and intelligence cooperation. These new provisions were included in the bill despite reports by U.S. intelligence agencies that the Israeli government has worked to undermine the President\u2019s peace negotiations and is spying on the United States.\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-14T07:08:55Z", "2026-07-14T07:10:52Z"]], "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.welch.senate.gov/welch-on-the-ndaa-this-national-defense-authorization-fails-to-address-the-critical-question-that-is-before-this-country-right-now-the-war-in-iran-welch/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.1027480252087116, "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"}