APPLAUDING PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY'S ADDRESS IN DAVOS

On 2026-01-22, Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-9) delivered a floor speech titled "APPLAUDING PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY'S ADDRESS IN DAVOS" in the House. The speech addressed immigration and also covered healthcare, the economy.

APPLAUDING PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY'S ADDRESS IN DAVOS

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 15 (Thursday, January 22, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 15 (Thursday, January 22, 2026)] [House] [Pages H1343-H1346] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] {time} 1850 APPLAUDING PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY'S ADDRESS IN DAVOS (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. Kaptur of Ohio was recognized for 30 minutes.) Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, please allow me to begin by applauding President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on his exceptional and historic remarks in Davos, Switzerland, earlier today. I heard an astoundingly unapologetic plea by a new world leader whose remarks resounded across our globe as he championed the cause of liberty in our modern era. Despite his own nation being bordered by tyranny, on almost all sides, rooted in Russia and all of its repressed client states, he raised his valiant voice strong and clear before the free world's leaders. They all know that today's spider web of tyranny is spinning and stretching its ugly net from Russia to Brazil, India, North Korea, and South Africa, seeking a global necklace of repression and domination. Yet, at Davos today stood the unvanquished, courageous leader of the poorest and most embattled nation in Europe. On behalf of his valorous people, he delivered his eloquent plea. Bravo, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. You singlehandedly challenged the scions of the global order. Your firm supplication and urgent request for liberty were extraordinary, rising far above global niceties. You delivered the raw choice, as our own Nation's Founders did: Liberty or tyranny? Your clear invitation for these leaders to choose forward hangs in the balance, and your plea is historic, passionate, soulful, inspiring not just world leaders but people everywhere as they weigh recalibrating the dial for liberty. It is your voice that history will remember, rising to energize our world forward from inside the grim, fierce cauldron of struggle that is Ukraine. For any freedom lover to miss your message would be a tragedy, for if your words, coupled with the ongoing martyrdom of your people, do not give rise to crescendos of applause and recommitment, then will liberty cede its worth to dictators, charlatans, plunderers, and fools? Your call is to bold leadership from a new generation of freedom lovers. Let us all rise to answer that call. Freedom means never surrender. Bravo, Ukraine. Bravo, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. You inspired freedom lovers across our globe. JD Vance Visits Toledo Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, on another front, today, Vice President JD Vance traveled to Toledo, Ohio. He came to talk about the Trump administration's so-called record to bring jobs and help grow manufacturing in our region. This came as quite a surprise to me. Indeed, his words were empty because his administration's reckless tariffs and disastrous trade wars have increased manufacturing job losses not just in our region of Ohio but across our Nation. The Wall Street Journal documents that, over the last year, manufacturing [[Page H1344]] unemployment has risen in our country by 68,000 more unemployed workers. You can't Make America Great Again unless you restore American manufacturing on our home soil. The Trump administration's reckless tariffs and disastrous trade wars are straining the pocketbooks of our workers, farmers, and consumers. Prices keep rising for everything--food, housing, utility bills, lumber, and cars. This is true across the entirety of our northwest Ohio region, in both urban and rural communities. Vice President Vance says he is now interested in lowering drug prices, but his party consistently voted against those efforts, which were championed under a prior Democratic administration. I know because I voted to help cap insulin costs at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare. I voted for prescription drug negotiations that are saving seniors thousands of dollars as we speak here tonight. Unsurprisingly, the Vice President avoided discussing the awful, unwise decisions by his administration to rip away almost $150 million from the city that he was in by taking away $45 million from the Libbey Glass Company to purchase two new glass furnaces that were to compete against Chinese, Mexican, and French producers. We are known as The Glass City. He took it away. He didn't bring us anything; he took it away. The money evaporated. Even though Congress had passed it--it had all been vetted and everything--they took it away. That hurts a manufacturing company which is a lodestar company in our community. Then, his administration canceled--are you ready for this?--$57 million more for another manufacturing company, Owens-Illinois, which competes globally. Then, if that wasn't enough, they canceled over $16 million for our local Kraft Heinz facility in the agricultural sector to compete against foreign products. Another $28.5 million was taken away from our region via rescissions over the summer for major repair work in the heart of our city on Front and Main Street, on the side of the river that he traveled to. The streets he rode over should have been repaved, but they took away the money. He didn't mention them because he helped cancel them. That is over $146 million that would have helped to invest in new possibilities to modernize our entire region. Those investments were critical to American manufacturing, with new-age furnaces and technology, not only to compete with foreign glass producers but also to help reduce emissions here at home for the people who work in those plants and to make work safer for our workers. How would you like to sit in front of a 98-degree furnace all day long? Now, the administration has announced plans to eliminate $14.6 million in Ohio from the Ohio Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which has launched dozens of small and midsized regional food businesses driven by the creativity of our people. The U.S. Department of Commerce used to care about those businesses, the small, creative new launches, like Willy's Fresh Salsa, which just got into Winn-Dixie. That was invented by a gentleman who came from Toledo. There is also Gertie's Premium BBQ Sauce. That is a product on our shelves created through that program to create wealth, opportunities, and jobs. So many more, dozens and dozens of these companies, have been created, and jobs. Why destroy something that is working? Can somebody tell me how else do we sprout and grow our local economies? I thought when the Vice President said he was coming to Toledo, he might help announce the $20 million in Department of Transportation RAISE funds, which had been awarded to improve connectivity in Toledo's heart, in our Junction neighborhood, in the downtown, in the heart of our city on both sides of our Grand Maumee River, but that announcement never came. If this administration really wants to help Toledo, they better stop driving backward. Mr. Vice President, can you please bring our check which the administration owes us? All of these awards were passed by Congress, authorized, appropriated, and signed into law. Our community should never be shortchanged. Our taxpayers send their dollars here. They have a right to get them back. Our people work too hard for a living. We need to respect them, and we need to build our communities forward, not backward. Year-round E-15 Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I now turn to a very important issue that arose today because of something that happened with Speaker Johnson. America's farmers are hurting. They need every bit of help Congress can deliver. So do truckers and working families paying more for groceries and at the pump just to haul goods, get to work, and move around their communities. Prices are going up, not just in America's heartland, but across our great country. {time} 1900 Republican leadership today had a chance to authorize year-round E15, a commonsense blend of ethanol and gasoline, but guess what. They walked away from it again. Instead, and I can tell you this for the farmers I represent, half their income comes from raising grains that go into fuels. Without that market, they wouldn't exist. This is serious business for agricultural America, and instead, Speaker Johnson has set up another delay, a council set to report back within another month on next steps. Next steps on what? We want to make E15 year-round. That is not too complicated. That may sound like progress with another task force, but we don't really need it. Farmers want E15 year-round. They can't keep punting our farmers up field. The time to act is now. The solution is within their hands. Why did they delay? Let's hope this process the Speaker has now set up for another month or 6 weeks is not just another fig leaf for more delay. Year-round E15 sales protect our small refineries, too. Can Congress achieve this so-called compromise? Ohio farmers and refiners are already hurting. Let's stand up for biofuels and for our farmers. Surely, the hardworking farmers across all of the counties I represent would benefit. What America makes and grows, makes and grows America. Let me just say to the Speaker, ``please, shake a leg.'' Honoring Steven D. Fought Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I will move on now to remember someone that was an extraordinary American. It is my great privilege, Mr. Speaker, to offer deepest gratitude on behalf of Ohioans and Americans as we recognize the life of an honored and indefatigable public servant in the truest sense. Steven D. Fought was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, on June 2, 1954, and passed recently at 71 years young. He passed from this life after a truly valiant final fight, on January 10, 2026, in Nebo, North Carolina, surrounded by his beloved family. Steve was a precious and trusted friend, a brilliant adviser and public servant, incorruptible, compassionate, acerbic, and funny all at the same time, with a twinkle in his eye, you can just see it, and heart