House Bill 76, extending the governor’s emergency powers, faces a Senate debate, amendments, and vote on Wednesday. If Must Read Alaska sources are correct, it could be a long day. The bill faces as many as 50 amendments in the Senate.
House Bill 76 was offered by Gov. Mike Dunleavy back in January, and with no action taken by the Legislature, his emergency powers expired Feb. 14. He’s been able to continue to lessen regulatory burdens and have a successful vaccination distribution program only because he has a “live bill.” If HB 76 dies, the entire vaccination program crumbles, for starters. If Covid spikes with the summer tourism season, he won’t have the ability to redirect resources due to the bureaucratic red tape involved in medical responses.
There are a few in the Senate who absolutely opposed to the term “emergency powers,” because these powers seem to go on forever during the pandemic, and they appear as a threat to civil liberties. Some amendments will be along the nature of “end this Covid charade and get back to normal.”
The Senate, a more functional body than the House, is trying to achieve the art of the possible with HB 76, keeping very limited powers for the governor and giving him the ability to end the disaster.
What the governor needs, actually, are just four specific powers, but Alaska’s emergency powers laws are written as “all or nothing,” which is why there is so much contention between lawmakers.
The powers Dunleavy needs are boiled down to:
An easing of procurement regulations around vaccines
Ability to provide immunity to those giving vaccines. Many are volunteer health professionals)
Being able to house Covid-positive people in non-medical settings like hotels to help them isolate
Telehealth
To understand where HB 76 came from, one needs to wind the clock back to last year. The governor had emergency powers through Nov. 15, powers granted by the Legislature over a year ago.
But the Legislature couldn’t or wouldn’t call itself back into special session to extend that emergency power, and so the governor did two 30-day extensions to get Alaska through the worst of the Covid spikes over the winter, and into the legislative session, when lawmakers could act. Winter Covid spikes were worrisome as hospitals started feeling the pressure and vaccines were not yet available, as they are widely available today.
But although the Legislature has now been in session for 100 days, the House and Senate are still wrangling over the details of what it means to have emergency powers in this new year.
Complicating the matter is that once the governor files a bill, he cannot take it back. At this point, HB 76 is owned by the Legislature to mold how it wishes. This means the governor’s emissaries to the Legislature must keep an eye on the bill and try to help shape it into something that will benefit Alaska, but also assure Alaskans their civil liberties are protected. Ultimately, the governor could be handed a terrible bill that he might veto.
While the Senate debates HB 76, it appears the House Speaker may delay Wednesday’s floor session to “the call of the chair,” until the Senate completes its work on this critical piece of legislation. After that, the bill will either be passed to the House for concurrence or go to a conference committee to hammer out differences between the amended version expected from the Senate.
Assemblymen Forrest Dunbar and Chris Constant have seen the polling, and it’s not pretty for Dunbar, who is running for Anchorage mayor in the May 11 runoff election.
Dunbar is one of the most strident opponents of restoring normalcy to the Anchorage economy. It has hurt him with voters, according to polling seen by Must Read Alaska.
On Tuesday, the two men crafted an amendment to Emergency Order 20 that removes all requirements on businesses and lifts all gathering limitations. Constant offered it to the Assembly, it was seconded by Dunbar, and the Assembly passed it. This, after a year of refusing to lift the lockdowns.
The only lockdown measure that remains after Sunday night is the mayor’s mask mandate.
With public sentiment strongly against the acting mayor’s emergency powers, which has been in effect for over a year, Dunbar has worried. His campaign has no energy and has not been able to get traction due to his record of more than 20 votes to keep Anchorage in restraints.
Constant and Dunbar are joined at the hip on the Assembly and vote in lock step during every meeting. Constant did the heavy lifting on the amendment; he explained that he has been watching the death counts in Anchorage and that deaths have dropped off since December.
Constant said he has been all over the municipality and “I witnessed various stages of commitment to the mandates and requirements that exist, 50-50 at best, and still the numbers are coming down. Deaths has ceased at this time. Hospitalization down to a couple a day.”
Using his feelings as a barometer, he said it was time to rescind the restrictions. Constant also volunteers for the Dunbar campaign in his spare time and is his closest political ally.
The business community likely agrees. It has been vocal and visible in its opposition to Dunbar and this weekend a massive business-initiated fundraiser for Dunbar’s opponent, Dave Bronson, saw 450-500 business people come together to support Bronson. The group raised $39,000, even with the $500 per donor limit. No one remembers such a huge political rally in the history of Alaska since Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president.
Momentum has clearly been in the Bronson campaign, and a Hail Mary was needed for Dunbar.
Dunbar, in his campaign literature, has stated that 70 percent vaccination of the population is required to get the economy back on its feet. 70 percent is also the goal the acting mayor set in March for when she might lift the restrictions on Anchorage businesses.
But meanwhile, Anchorage shoppers have voted with their feet and are heading to the MatSu Valley for shopping, dining, and recreation. Some Valley businesses report their best year ever, while Anchorage businesses have closed by the dozens.
Now, Dunbar and Constant say they are ready for indoor gatherings to resume normally. That means graduations and proms, and it means sporting events can proceed with spectators.
This will also give Dunbar more of an opportunity to campaign, something he has been reluctant to do in person. Most of his campaign events have been via Zoom teleconference.
Constant pointed out that he has discovered that people in Anchorage are not complying anymore with the mandates anyway. It “is just not happening,” he said. Later in the meeting, he proposed converting all the mandates that had been lifted into recommendations.
Assemblywoman Allard said the vast majority of people testifying over the past many months have been opposed to the lockdowns. Allard asked for an amendment to terminate the emergency proclamation altogether, but her amendment failed 6-4.
Constant disagreed with Allard that the community opposes lockdowns.
“My constituents are telling me they are no longer coming to this chamber because it is not a safe environment for them,” Constant said into the record. His constituents do, in fact, support the mandates, but now, “We’re ready to move forward.”
Assemblywoman Meg Zalatel said it was too soon to lift the restrictions. She wanted a later date, effective at 12 am May 3, 2021, and her amendment passed, even though Dunbar wanted the easing of mandates to go into effect immediately, and he questioned her repeatedly as to why the city would have to wait.
The voters are already turning in ballots this week, and Dunbar is keenly aware that more than 4,300 ballots in the runoff have already been received by the Municipal Election Office.
There is nothing preventing the next mayor from going back into lockdown after the May 11 election, but for now, a frightened candidate will get the credit for what is at least a temporary lifting of the Anchorage lockdowns.
The Juneau Assembly on Monday voted to continue another year of vote-by-mail during the Oct 5 municipal election. Before the method gets locked in beyond 2021’s election, the Assembly has vowed to ask for public input.
The October 2020 election in Juneau was conducted by the Anchorage Elections Office, and that will repeat this year, costing Juneau taxpayers 56 percent more than traditional elections.
Earlier in April, CNN was outed by Project Veritas for being a de facto wing of the Democratic Party and putting a big thumb on the scale of the 2020 presidential election.
The undercover video captured CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester saying, “Look what we did, we got Trump out. I am 100% going to say it, and I 100% believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out. I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that,” Chester said.
Now, CNN’s opposition research department has the long knives out for an Alaskan who just burst on the national scene: Conservative U.S. senatorial candidate Kelly Tshibaka.
Kelly who? Tshibaka (like Chewbacca) announced last month her run against incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and she’s obviously made CNN nervous. Thus, the media attack machine was sent in for the kill.
A CNN publicist reached out to Must Read Alaskato make sure this news organization saw the story CNN posted: Senatorial candidate Tshibaka is a conservative and should be framed as a Trump-supporter and — gasp — a Christian.
It’s free and easy content, and comes with the CNN seal of approval. Most political blogs would bite.
According to the CNN’s KFile, 20 years ago in the Harvard Law School student newspaper, Tshibaka wrote that those who are gay should not be controlled by the ‘once-gay-always-gay’ rhetoric used to advance political agendas.” She also supported a group that ministers to ex-gay Christians and seekers.
The KFile also found a post on the internet years ago where Tshibaka said the “Twilight” book and movie series is “evil” and not something people should read because it “leaves us spiritually vulnerable.”
Twilight is a young adult horror-romance novel based on vampire mythology. For some, it is fantasy, but for conservative Christians, it’s normalizing horror fantasy for younger readers.
CNN also advises Must Read Alaska that Tshibaka “spread baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election, alleging widespread voter fraud in key states, which has been disproven.”
It is passing strange that a major news network would reach out to a tiny political blog published from “Somewhere in Alaska” to see if the blog would bite on that big scoop. We’ve never heard from CNN before, so why now?
Must Read Alaska has an average of 20,000 readers a day. Most of them live in a place considered at the edge of the earth for those in the national political realm.
Must Read Alaska, ranks 19,000 on Alexa’s U.S. ranking, while CNN ranks #92 worldwide. CNN has 5,400 employees, while Must Read Alaska has one and a half. Must Read Alaska’s portfolio is politics on the Last Frontier. CNN covers the world.
But the Murkowski-Tshibaka contest, CNN has determined, cannot be ignored. It’s the big race in 2022, and therefore it is important to attack the conservative challenger, and to do so now, so as to frame the narrative.
Although she has not been endorsed by Donald Trump, Tshibaka has a campaign team that includes many heavy-hitters from the Trump 2020 campaign — Bill Stepian, Justin Clark, Nick Trainer, and Tim Murtaugh of Line Drive Public Affairs.
She’s from a great, big multi-ethnic family of Bible-believing, church-planting Christians, with family members stretching from Alaska to Republic of the Congo (her husband’s family immigrated), and she came from humble beginnings, with parents who started out in Alaska living in a tent. Tshibaka, brilliant from the start, managed to graduate from Harvard Law School and distinguished herself as a government watchdog.
Tshibaka has a unique life story that CNN was not interested in telling. No mention of her African-American husband and children. No mention of her devotion to family and country. Instead, they packaged her as a Christian, and made that deeply held faith their point of attack.
It wasn’t just Must Read Alaska that CNN reached out to. The publicity department planted the story at other Alaska news organizations, most of which have already reported on Tshibaka’s Christian beliefs, as these were matters brought up by Democrats opposing her confirmation for Commissioner of Administration in 2019.
We’ve seen the CNN playbook — the one it used on Trump. We know the operatives disguised as reporters are gunning for Kelly.
CNN has picked a side in the Murkowski-Tshibaka race in Alaska. It’s the anti-Christian, anti-conservative side. They must be really worried about Murkowski.
Perhaps Sen. Lora Reinbold is getting too much attention. While House Finance members are wrestling with billions of dollars of state spending decisions, and a session that appears to be primed to move into a Special Session in June, House Rep. Sara Rasmussen wants to make sure the public sees her mug.
Not just any mug, but the specialty beverage mug with the words: “PantsGate” and “PongGate.”
During the Finance meeting on Monday, Rasmussen displayed her new mug prominently for the legislative cameras.
To make sure no one missed it, she then posed on the Capitol stairwell with her mug, again, with the words showing for the camera, and a “busy mom” message.
Rasmussen, who has been the center of controversy since arriving in Juneau this year, is using her past stumbles as a publicity stunt in the Capitol.
The mug refers to a joke that Rep. Zack Fields had made about Rasmussen’s body on the House floor, a joke that is now part of the official record of Alaska history.
That was the PantsGate part, in reference to Fields saying he was buying her a pair of sweatpants to cover up what he perceives as a traffic hazard: Her body.
After that incident in February, Rasmussen gave an emotional statement on the House floor about needing to be respected for her intellect and that she wants to be a role model for all people, including her children.
The PongGate part of the mug refers to a beer party she and others legislators had on Capitol grounds, during which they invited select members of the public, and left a big mess for janitors.
After her participation in the party, she gave an apology on the House floor for her bad judgment, but also said it was no big deal.
It appears it was all theater.
Former legislators, and some current ones, say they feel Rasmussen is disrespecting the institution and advised that she should not add “MugGate 04-23-6-2021” to the list of embarrassments that are associated with her service to the people of Alaska.
Leftists are – at their core – first and foremost – above all else – anti-Israel.
So, it’s no surprise uber-leftist John Kerry leaked classified information to Iran, the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism and Israel’s biggest threat.
Newly leaked audio reveals Iran’s foreign minister admitting Kerry told him about more than 200 Israeli covert operations in Syria while he was secretary of state under former President Barack Obama.
Kerry currently holds a seat on Joe Biden’s National Security Council.
It might surprise you to know Republican U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska was one of the first to take to the senate floor Monday and call for Kerry’s resignation.
“This revelation is shocking and a betrayal of one of our most crucial allies in the world,” said Sullivan.
Sullivan leading the charge against Kerry surprised some after he announced recently his endorsement of his colleague in the senate, Lisa Murkowski, if she ran for reelection.
No one’s ever mistaken Sullivan with leaders like Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or John Neely Kennedy. Unlike these three, Sullivan typically avoids fighting controversial battles where he might catch hell from the liberal media.
But even with Sullivan’s low-key approach, many Alaska conservatives were shocked and infuriated after he described he and Murkowski as a good team.
Many Donald Trump supporting Alaskans couldn’t believe Sullivan would endorse the former president’s chief antagonist. Especially after Alaska’s GOP leaders announced Murkowski would not be allowed to run as a Republican.
Murkowski voted to impeach Trump, refused to approve one of his Supreme Court nominees, and single handily thwarted his attempt to repeal Obamacare. Murkowski voted against the repeal, giving the potential lack of funding for abortion as the reason.
When Sullivan claimed he and Murkowski made a good team, many Alaska conservatives wondered whose team he was on.
But on Monday, on the Senate floor, Sullivan shifted back to conservative mode and went hard after Kerry for leaking classified military information to Iran. Sullivan sounded more like Ted Cruz than someone sympathetic to liberal Lisa.
“It’s unclear why John Kerry would relate such information to the leaders of the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world, said Sullivan.” The secret information was given to one of America’s most sworn enemies undermining the interests of one of our most important allies, the state of Israel.”
It’s hard to say if Sullivan was trying to repair his conservative street cred with Alaskans with Monday’s scorching senate speech calling for Kerry to resign.
Sullivan was getting killed, even on his own Facebook fan page, for endorsing Murkowski.
A couple of days after Sullivan’s praising of Murkowski, a poll was released showing 87% of the state’s Republicans disapprove of Alaska’s senior senator. 63% of all Alaskans are not happy with her.
Sullivan may have miscalculated how unpopular Murkowski is with Alaska conservatives. Especially Trump supporting Alaskans.
Sunday evening, Sullivan showed up for Anchorage mayoral candidate Dave Bronson’s packed campaign event giving a rousing speech endorsing the conservative.
Sullivan sounded like the same conservative he appeared to be during the campaign.
It was like a kick in the gut for many freedom loving Alaskans when Sullivan announced he’d endorse Murkowski. Especially in light of authentic conservative challenger Kelly Tshibaka running.
Sullivan may have endorsed liberal Lisa after Senate President Mitch McConnell of Kentucky did the same. McConnell is the embodiment of the Swamp and has the backing of some of the nation’s biggest donors. For Sullivan to go against McConnell’s wishes could have an impact on his standing with those who financially undergird the Swamp.
But we are at war. With the illegal Biden regime now in control in Washington D.C., Sullivan’s role as Alaska’s senator could not be more central to winning our cold civil war with Democrats turned socialists bordering on full-blown communists.
Sullivan must up his game. He’s a Marine and and we know he’s a fighter. Monday’s bold speech on the Senate floor calling for Kerry to quit is the Sullivan we need for such a time as this.
Sullivan must become more aggressive when battling the villain currently occupying the White House and the forces controlling him. He must put aside personal political ambitions and take a stand against the D.C. swamp.
Our nation is under siege from an enemy within. These Marxists hate capitalism, the free market, free speech, and individual liberty. Their twisted goal of equity for all can only come with the stripping of our freedoms. They must be defeated.
Sullivan needs to use the considerable power given to him by Alaska voters to fight this war, even if it costs him favor with the D.C. Swamp.
Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive radio show in Alaska on Newsradio 650 KENI.
The First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage is ready to welcome congregants back for in-person services, starting this Sunday, May 2. But there’s a caveat: You can only come inside the church if you are vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus.
Pastor Matt Schultz said the indoor service at 11 am will be for those who are vaccinated, or are under 16 years of age and not eligible for a vaccination, or who have a “compelling medical reason for not being vaccinated.”
Those who are not vaccinated can take part in the outdoor serve at 9:30 am, or they can watch the indoor service from their home on their computers via the church livestream, if they prefer.
Both services — indoors and out — will also require advanced reservations, social distancing, and masking. The singing during the service will be prerecorded.
Those wishing to worship at First Presbyterian must make reservations by calling 907-272-6411 or emailing [email protected] no later than Friday at noon.
“I am joyfully looking forward to this, and celebrating this first small, controlled step toward our family of faith meeting together again,” Schultz said.
We could enact the Biden administration’s climate change policies that would shut down whole industries, provide pink slips to millions of American workers during a pandemic with no alternatives in the near term, drastically raise prices on American families, undermine economic growth, decrease energy reliability, diminish our national security and do little or nothing to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
Or we could pursue a worker-oriented energy and climate strategy that would empower American ingenuity, expand good-paying jobs, including union jobs, in all of the critical energy sectors of the U.S. economy — hydrocarbons, renewables, mining, nuclear — make energy more reliable and affordable for consumers, boost our economic and national security, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home and abroad.
Let me highlight a few areas of this better, worker-oriented energy and climate plan that we will unveil in the next few weeks.
First, we need to continue to fully develop our existing lower-emissions resources, like natural gas, at home and export them abroad. Between 2005 and 2019, largely because of the expansion of U.S. natural gas and the dramatic increase in its use in our electric grid, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector declined by 33 percent. During this same period, our economy grew by 20 percent, energy consumption fell by 2 percent, and per capita emissions dropped to their lowest levels since 1950.
In fact, in 2013, President Barack Obama was touting the benefits of natural gas. “We produce more natural gas than ever before — and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it,” he said. “The natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence. We need to encourage that.”
He’s right. Unfortunately, John Kerry and President Joe Biden’s other advisers want to restrict natural gas production and fire the tens of thousands of hardworking Americans in the sector at a time when there are no employment substitutes. This makes no strategic sense.
Not only should we be increasing the use of natural gas here at home, we should also be exporting it — in the form of liquefied natural gas, or LNG — to countries that lack our reserves of this cleaner burning fuel source. The world is craving gas. The market in the Asia-Pacific is particularly strong and exporting to some of these countries — Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India and even China — would be a win-win-win.
It would continue to create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for American workers, deepen our country’s security ties with Japan, Korea and Taiwan and increase our advantages over China. Importantly, it would also dramatically decrease global emissions, as U.S. LNG could displace Chinese and Indian coal and cut emissions in half.
Second, to support the renewable energy industry, we need to build out our renewable energy and manufacturing sectors. Together with our allies, we can grow these sectors using environmental and labor standards that are second to none, paying our workers prevailing wages and no longer empowering countries, like China, that actually use forced labor to make renewable energy technology, like solar panels, that the United States imports.
For instance, critical minerals are vital to many alternative energy and transportation technologies, like batteries and solar panels. The problem? China controls nearly 80 percent of these resources. As it stands, every battery produced for electric cars and every house that we equip with solar panels invariably strengthens China and massively increases our trade deficit with them. And because China and other countries have some of the world’s worst environmental standards, this mineral production could actually increase global CO2 emissions.
We have many of the natural resources necessary to produce our own alternative energy technologies, but we lack the industry to produce and refine these products. Further, manufacturing and production are held back by a protracted and inefficient federal permitting system. Domestic development of our natural resources and infrastructure projects can take 10 years or more, resulting in reduced investment.
By incentivizing the production and refining of domestic minerals, and streamlining our permitting process, the U.S. can become a dominant player in the renewable energy market, limit the hold our geopolitical foes have on supply chains, empower the American worker and reduce emissions.
We also need to support U.S. innovation for battery storage technology, develop substitutes for certain scarce critical minerals, bolster microgrids for rural electrification, advance small nuclear reactors and support carbon capture technology efforts, among other innovations.
Some of those elements are already at hand. I’ve introduced the Rebuild America Now Act to ensure our permitting process does not unnecessarily delay projects and give competitors like China huge strategic advantages. The USE IT Act, passed last Congress, would reduce barriers for the development of projects and support carbon capture and direct air capture research. We can also provide stable private sector incentives, invest more in the Department of Energy and our national lab infrastructure, and offer additional incentives to encourage research and development that will advance our energy technology into the next age.
Finally, we cannot enact policies that put thousands of Americans out of work during a recession, as the Biden administration continues to do. Biden’s energy plan promises “a clean energy revolution that creates millions of unionized, middle-class jobs.” While this sounds great, it’s just not true.
The average annual pay for workers in the oil and gas industry is significantly higher than those working on alternative energy. If we want the energy transition to build up the middle class and not leave skilled workers behind, we must pursue policies that build on and expand job opportunities in all sectors of the U.S. economy — oil and gas, nuclear, wind and solar, and mining.
Our energy resources provide America with an incredible strategic advantage. Through innovation and the strength of our workers, the United States has once again become the world’s No. 1 producer of oil, natural gas and renewables in the world. We can, and we should, use these resources as a bridge to the technologies that will create a cleaner energy future, not unilaterally restrict production of American energy and hand workers in these critical sectors pink slips, as the Biden administration is now doing.
We can begin that work now by continuing to lead on energy production and lowering emissions, strengthening our economy and our national security, and ensuring that hardworking Americans are not being forced to sacrifice their livelihoods.
Sen. Dan Sullivan is a Republican representing the state of Alaska. He is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works and Commerce committees. He previously served as Alaska attorney general and commissioner for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and as assistant secretary of State for economic, energy and business affairs in the George W. Bush administration.
Today on the Senate floor, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan called for the resignation of President Joe Biden’s Special Climate Envoy John Kerry.
Allegations have been made in an interview leaked to the media that Kerry, while Donald Trump was president, disclosed more than 200 secret operations conducted by Israel against Iran, one of the most dangerous sponsors of terrorism.
“If true, this revelation is shocking, and a betrayal of one of our most crucial allies in the world,” Sullivan said, having just flown back to D.C. from Alaska. What the foreign minister alleges is that Kerry leaked classified information.
“It’s unclear why John Kerry would relay such information to the leaders of the largest sponsored terrorism in the world,” he said. “The secret information was given to one of America’s most sworn enemies….undermining the interests of one of our most important allies, the state of Israel. If this is true, John Kerry needs to go,” Sullivan said.
“We know now that former secretary of state John Kerry isn’t merely a critic of Israel; he is an adversary. In leaked audiotapes obtained by the U.K.-based Iran International, as reported by the New York Times, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a supporter that the former secretary of state had informed him about “at least” 200 covert Israeli actions against Iranian interests in Syria. Zarif listened to this information in “astonishment.”
“It’s predictable, perhaps, that the Times glides over this remarkable exchange in a single-sentence paragraph that is submerged near the bottom of the piece,” Harsanyi wrote in a story that is behind the news organization’s paywall.
According to the New York Post, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in the leaked recording obtained by the New York Times and Iran International that the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s supreme leader kept him in the dark about government negotiations and military operations. Instead, he was being briefed by Kerry about Israel’s operations.
“It was former US Foreign Secretary John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria,” Zarif said in the audio recording, which was not supposed to be published until August, after Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani leaves office.
The complete transcript of Sullivan’s remarks on Monday, April 26:
Mr. Sullivan:Madam President, I rise today on the Senate floor to call for the resignation of John Kerry as a member of the Biden Administration’s National Security Council. Now, Madam President, I don’t do this lightly. As a matter of fact, in my entire time in the Senate, I’ve never called for anyone’s resignation – Obama-Biden administration, Trump administration, Biden administration now. Trust me, I’ve been tempted, particularly when some in government have tried to hurt my state. A lot of that is going on right now with the Biden administration. But his record, John Kerry’s record, of undermining working families and working against American national security interests is too much to bear. He needs to go.
Today, I’ve heard such disturbing news, Madam President, that, if true, it should absolutely result in John Kerry either being fired or resigning. Enough is enough. Why am I saying this? Madam President, first, he’s killing jobs. Arrogantly killing American jobs. That’s a fact. He’s putting hard-working Americans, particularly in the energy sector, the great men and women who make our country strong, by developing oil and gas resources, a lot of my constituents, in the name of climate goals, he’s putting them out of work.
He’s going to Wall Street saying don’t finance these projects anymore. That’s what reporters are saying. On these issues, I completely and adamantly disagree with the arrogant way, frankly, the callous way he talks about people needing to move on to better jobs. But, for this issue alone, I wouldn’t be calling for his resignation. T
his is a major difference in the Biden administration’s policies and priorities with regard to the American people. I think it’s going to really come back and hit this administration hard because the vast majority of Americans don’t agree with putting people out of work, energy workers out of work, during a recession and a pandemic. But that’s going to be decided in the voting booth, in the elections. The American people will ultimately decide on whether arrogantly putting thousands and thousands of energy workers out of work right now is a good idea in the name of these climate goals.
He’s also been a strong appeaser of countries that threaten ours. Let me take you back to 2015. I was a brand-new U.S. Senator. President Obama, President Xi Jinping are meeting in the Rose Garden. President Xi, of China, tells the President of the United States and the American people, “No, we’re not going to militarize the South China Sea. We won’t do it.” Of course, the Chinese Communist Party was not telling the truth to the President of the United States and the American people. They started to do this already, militarizing one of the most important sea routes in the world.
Many of us here in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, said we need to stand up for our interests. We need the U.S. Navy to do freedom of navigation operations. The Secretary of Defense wanted to do this. The admiral in charge of the INDOPACOM area of responsibility wanted to do this. But we now know, in principals meetings, we delayed doing this for almost three years because John Kerry said we don’t want to get the Chinese mad or they’ll go back on their Paris climate deal and commitments, which, by the way, are way out in the future. This is true. This is true. This happened. And, again, in my view, this bordered on treacherous if not treasonous.
I didn’t call for his resignation then. I certainly was mad about it. By the way, a lot of people in the Obama administration were mad about this, including the secretary of defense. We lost a lot of time. It certainly makes me nervous that John Kerry is out in Beijing again. What kind of deal did he cut this time with China, the Communist Party of China who won’t keep any commitments? But, again, that wasn’t a call for resignation.
Madam President, the straw that broke the camel’s back came out today, and it’s the reason I’m up here calling for John Kerry to resign. It is a tape that was leaked of an interview with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Zarif. First, some background. Zarif was being interviewed by an economist and journalist who is an advisor to Mohammad Khatami, the pro-reform cleric who served two terms as Iran’s president. An edited version of this interview was intended to be made public only after Iran’s president left office in August, but it was leaked.
Zarif, according to reports, says many interesting and telling things in the tape. One, for example, that, in my view, the rightful killing of General Soleimani, the Quds Force commander, in January of 2020, when he was in Iraq looking to kill more American soldiers, Zarif said this “was a major blow to Iran, more damaging than if it had wiped out an entire city in an attack.” That’s what a lot of us were arguing at the time and that, unlike what John Kerry has been telling the public, when negotiating the Iran nuclear deal in the Obama administration, it is the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, not Zarif, who calls the shots in Iran. That’s all on the tapes.
But, Madam President, the most disturbing part of the interview that was leaked was when Zarif said that John Kerry told him, the Iranian foreign minister, about covert Israeli actions against Iranian interests in Syria. Now, think about that. According to news reports, Zarif is heard saying, “It was former U.S. Foreign Secretary John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria.” That’s Zarif saying John Kerry told him that. Classified information about one of our most important allies in the world – Israel. Zarif said, “He listened to this information from Secretary Kerry in astonishment.”
Now, Madam President, when I read this today, I was astonished as well that a former secretary of state, now a member of President Biden’s National Security Council – wasn’t confirmed for that, by the way, by this body – would reveal the secrets of one of our most important and enduring allies in the region to an avowed enemy, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, a country that was responsible for the killing and wounding and maiming of thousands of American service men and women, whose leaders have the blood of American soldiers on its hands. He’s telling them that information.
Madam President, it’s unclear why John Kerry would relay such information to the leaders of the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, but here’s a guess. During the Trump administration, after that administration pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, which John Kerry negotiated and, by the way, the bipartisan majority of U.S. senators in this body were against, were against that deal, John Kerry started to freelance. He admitted to meeting with Zarif in 2018 to try to salvage the nuclear deal. In other words, he was likely acting and working against the previous administration, the elected administration of the Trump administration, and many of us here in Congress who applauded when we pulled out of the JCPOA. Madam President, I’d like to submit for the record an article written today by the National Review titled, “John Kerry, Enemy of Israel.”
The beginning of this article says, “Let’s pause to reflect on how monumentally stunning it is that the former U.S. secretary of state allegedly tattled on Israel to Iran.” It goes on to say “a high-ranking American official would feel comfortable sharing this kind of classified information with an autocratic adversary, a government that’s murdered hundreds of Americans, regularly kidnapped them, interfered with our elections, and propped up a regime that gases its people, about the covert actions of a longtime critical American ally.”
“What else did Kerry tell Zarif?” this article asks. Press reports don’t say, but, Madam President, if this is true, if John Kerry told the leaders of Iran about issues relating to our most critical ally in the region, Israel, who Iran has repeatedly said they want to wipe off the face of the Earth, if he did this, he needs to resign. If he did this with the intent of undermining the current President of the United States, at the time President Trump, and the members of this body, he needs to resign.
Madam President, he is a member of the current administration’s National Security Council. It’s become clear, Madam President, that our adversaries, whether Beijing or Iran, like it when John Kerry is in charge of foreign policy and national security. Why? Because they know how to use him to their advantage. And our allies fear him. Why? Because they know his judgment is off on so many issues. So, too, do America’s working families.
We need to look into this. If this is true – if this is true, I certainly hope other members of this body, Democrats and Republicans, will join me in calling for the resignation of John Kerry. Enough is enough. The red line that was crossed, if this is true, revealing secret information to one of America’s most sworn enemies, with the blood of thousands of American military members on its hands, undermining the interests of one of our most important allies, the state of Israel, if this is true, John Kerry needs to go. He should resign or he should get fired by the President of the United States.
