Protect Act--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, we are here today on probably one of the most serious national security issues that we will confront. I say that as a member of the Armed Services Committee, having received a variety of classified briefings on threats to this country. Some of them regarding ongoing foreign interference in our election are truly chilling. But the threat to our national security from White supremacists, now operating so openly that the Director of the FBI has said they are one of the paramount threats and an ongoing security threat to our Nation, demands that there should be action now.

The bill that my colleague Senator Durbin is offering passed unanimously by the House of Representatives within recent days. Let me repeat. It passed unanimously by the House of Representatives. It reflects the real and urgent danger of this threat.

The President has refused to denounce White supremacists. The President has told one of the most prominent of those groups to stand by. That failure--an abject failure on the part of the Commander in Chief--to respond to an ongoing security threat demands this action now. We must stand up for the integrity of our elections, the security of our Nation, and the fundamental freedoms that we prize as American people.

We will not allow this cancer to metastasize in this country and thwart the will of Americans who are going to the polls, in effect, right now. The ballots are being cast. The threat to our electoral will is ongoing.

I am proud to join my colleagues who are here on the floor who represent an ideological spectrum, as did the House of Representatives in unanimously approving this bill. The paramount threat to our Nation and the integrity of our elections is White supremacy, violent extremism, and nationalism that potentially jeopardize the very pillars of our democracy.

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