Floor SpeechNeutral2026-04-22

DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS--Motion to Discharge

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Context

On 2026-04-22, Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) delivered a floor speech titled "DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT" in the Senate. The speech addressed healthcare and also covered taxes, foreign policy. It referenced legislation including S1890, S1902, S1891, among other bills.

Full Text

DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS--Motion to Discharge

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 71 (Wednesday, April 22, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 71 (Wednesday, April 22, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S1890-S1902] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS--Motion to Discharge Ms. BALDWIN. Pursuant to section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 114 to direct removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: Motion to discharge, S.J. Res. 114, to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin. Ms. BALDWIN. I know of no further debate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate? Vote on Motion to Discharge The question is on agreeing to the motion to discharge. Ms. BALDWIN. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Grassley), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick). Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) is necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 51, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 88 Leg.] YEAS--46 Alsobrooks Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Cantwell Coons Cortez Masto Duckworth Durbin Gallego Gillibrand Hassan Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Kaine Kelly Kim King Klobuchar Lujan Markey Merkley Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Paul Peters Reed Rosen Sanders Schatz Schiff Schumer Shaheen Slotkin Smith Van Hollen Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden NAYS--51 Armstrong Banks Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Britt Budd Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cotton Cramer Crapo Cruz Curtis Daines Ernst Fetterman Fischer Graham Hagerty Hawley Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Johnson Justice Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall McConnell Moody Moran Moreno Murkowski Ricketts Risch Rounds Schmitt Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Sheehy Sullivan Thune Tillis Tuberville Wicker Young NOT VOTING--3 Grassley McCormick Warner The motion was rejected. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Louisiana. Tribute to Tony Hanagan Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am going to give you a name: Tony Hanagan. As we all know--not necessarily everybody outside this Chamber--Tony is a senior floor assistant. I will come back to what that means in a second. Tony is leaving us for the private sector. Under the ethics rules, he can't tell us where he is going. I think it is a startup, but I am not sure. I think part of his job responsibilities--not exclusive because I don't know because he can't talk about it--will be ``congressional relations.'' I have strongly encouraged him to ask the startup to define very carefully what they mean by ``congressional relations'' in light of what has been going on around here. Though we kid him a lot--I will come back to that too--Tony is very smart. He is a graduate of William & Mary. I am sure there are some dummies at William & Mary, but I have never met one coming out of there. It is a great school. He has also spent time at the Wharton School, studying their model budget project. He has worked his way up as a member--as basically a Senate advisor. And let me explain a little bit of what Tony and his colleagues do. You see these two doors back here, this one and this one. This one leads to what we call the Democratic cloakroom. This door leads to what we call the Republican cloakroom. Now, that is where Senators go to cuss and to tell each other lies, but it is not the only purpose of those. Supposedly, we can go back there and relax and when someone isn't around--and sometimes when they are around--and make fun of people. But there are members of our staff who have desks back there, and not every member of our staff has a desk back there. Some are close by. What do they do? They make this place run. For one thing, they understand the rules or claim to. No living human being, at least not in the U.S. Senate with a beating heart, understands the Senate rules. I am not saying no one understands them. I am just saying nobody in the Senate does. They say they do. They lie like fish swim because to understand--you don't only have to understand the rules; you have got to understand all the precedents. The first 6 months I got here, I said: You know, I am going to learn the rules. I read about Lyndon Johnson who supposedly sat here and learned all [[Page S1891]] the rules and outsmarted all his colleagues. I don't believe that. But anyway, he probably knew more than I did. God rest his soul. But after 6 months, here is my conclusion: I don't know if I can learn the rules and all the precedents, and by the time I do, they will have changed. And someday, I am going to die, and I don't want on my tombstone ``Kennedy understood the Senate rules.'' So I gave up. I quit. No mas. And so now, when I want to understand the rules, I talk to a member of our staff, like Tony, or some of my colleagues, and so do most of my Senate colleagues on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. Now, our staff could be lying to us because we don't know any better. They could make this stuff up, but I don't think they do. I have never seen Tony make it up. A couple of times, I thought I had caught him, but he turned out to be right, and that is important. But it is more than just an understanding of the rules. It is more than Tony's job and my colleagues' job who are our advisers--it is more than just learning the rules because the rules look like they were designed by a heroin addict with a socket wrench. We don't know how to get things done, so we go to our advisers and say: Tell me how to do this. And they are really good at that. Tony is really good at that. I know sometimes the questions are so esoteric and so bizarre, I can tell from their eyes that they want to look at you and say: You are not the stupidest person I have ever met, but you had better hope the stupidest person I have ever met doesn't die. But they never do that. They always say: OK. You know, you can try it that way, but here is the downside of it, and with all due respect, there is a better way of doing it, and you might consider this. Frankly, I mean, our Parliamentarian--I see her here. She does understand the rules, and she is pretty good at helping you too. She has got lines she can't cross because she doesn't work for Senate Republicans or Democrats. But this is what Tony does and the other staff members, and they make this place run. They are not responsible for the fact that the Senate only works when everybody isn't crazy at the same time, and they are not responsible for the fact that sometimes it takes us weeks, months, even years, to get nothing done. Doing nothing--it can be frustrating. Doing nothing is very hard because you never know when you are finished. But they make this place run, and we are going to miss Tony. Now, we make fun of Tony. It is all in good fun. There is a big mirror back in the cloakroom. I think it is an antique mirror. That is what they tell us. Sometimes we will--I have done it, but others, I think, have too. Sometimes we will write little notes to the majority leader--we used to do it with Mitch, and now we do it sometimes with Thune--and sign it ``Tony,'' and, of course, they all have a heart attack. Tony keeps a couple of pairs of shoes under his desk, and probably about once a week, some of us take at least one of the shoes and hide it, and he is ready to go home at whatever--11 o'clock, 12 midnight-- and he can't find his shoe. Max, who works with him back there--his job is to eventually, after he spends an inordinate amount of time and he gets really close to the point that he has no more firetrucks to give and is going to start telling everybody what he thinks--Max will tell him where the shoe is. I have got some other stories about Tony, but I just can't tell them because there are probably some children listening. But anyway, you will read about Tony someday in the Wall Street Journal, and it won't be because he went ``Eric Swalwell''; it will be because of his financial success. And we are going to miss him, but I can't blame him. He is already picking out the color of his new Mercedes. The Presiding Officer knows the Mercedes-Benz. If you have any advice for him, like the best one that deflects heat, you might want to talk to him. He may want to just buy two, OK? But anyway, we are going to miss Tony, and I wanted to say that, and I am sorry I can't tell you all of the ``Tony'' stories. They are legendary. But, Tony, you have just been awesome, you and all of your colleagues, and we never talk about them enough. I just want to say thank you. And my final words: Peace out. (Applause.) The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Major Richard Star Act Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we are at a critical moment. It is a crossroads for the American people. The President is waging a war of choice. It is really a war of impulse, a war of whim and illusion without the support of the American people and without approval from the U.S. Congress, representing the American people. Meanwhile, the costs of food and fuel--gasoline at the pump and produce at the grocery store--all have soared. Healthcare is unaffordable. Gas prices are going to continue to skyrocket. The Secretary

Referenced legislation: SCONRES33, SCONRES33, SJRES114

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DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS--Motion to Discharge Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 71 (Wednesday, April 22, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 71 (Wednesday, April 22, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S1890-S1902] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES WITHIN OR AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS--Motion to Discharge Ms. BALDWIN. Pursuant to section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 114 to direct removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: Motion to discharge, S.J. Res. 114, to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin. Ms. BALDWIN. I know of no further debate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate? Vote on Motion to Discharge The question is on agreeing to the motion to discharge. Ms. BALDWIN. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Grassley), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick). Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) is necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 51, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 88 Leg.] YEAS--46 Alsobrooks Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Cantwell Coons Cortez Masto Duckworth Durbin Gallego Gillibrand Hassan Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Kaine Kelly Kim King Klobuchar Lujan Markey Merkley Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Paul Peters Reed Rosen Sanders Schatz Schiff Schumer Shaheen Slotkin Smith Van Hollen Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden NAYS--51 Armstrong Banks Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Britt Budd Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cotton Cramer Crapo Cruz Curtis Daines Ernst Fetterman Fischer Graham Hagerty Hawley Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Johnson Justice Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall McConnell Moody Moran Moreno Murkowski Ricketts Risch Rounds Schmitt Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Sheehy Sullivan Thune Tillis Tuberville Wicker Young NOT VOTING--3 Grassley McCormick Warner The motion was rejected. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Louisiana. Tribute to Tony Hanagan Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am going to give you a name: Tony Hanagan. As we all know--not necessarily everybody outside this Chamber--Tony is a senior floor assistant. I will come back to what that means in a second. Tony is leaving us for the private sector. Under the ethics rules, he can't tell us where he is going. I think it is a startup, but I am not sure. I think part of his job responsibilities--not exclusive because I don't know because he can't talk about it--will be ``congressional relations.'' I have strongly encouraged him to ask the startup to define very carefully what they mean by ``congressional relations'' in light of what has been going on around here. Though we kid him a lot--I will come back to that too--Tony is very smart. He is a graduate of William & Mary. I am sure there are some dummies at William & Mary, but I have never met one coming out of there. It is a great school. He has also spent time at the Wharton School, studying their model budget project. He has worked his way up as a member--as basically a Senate advisor. And let me explain a little bit of what Tony and his colleagues do. You see these two doors back here, this one and this one. This one leads to what we call the Democratic cloakroom. This door leads to what we call the Republican cloakroom. Now, that is where Senators go to cuss and to tell each other lies, but it is not the only purpose of those. Supposedly, we can go back there and relax and when someone isn't around--and sometimes when they are around--and make fun of people. But there are members of our staff who have desks back there, and not every member of our staff has a desk back there. Some are close by. What do they do? They make this place run. For one thing, they understand the rules or claim to. No living human being, at least not in the U.S. Senate with a beating heart, understands the Senate rules. I am not saying no one understands them. I am just saying nobody in the Senate does. They say they do. They lie like fish swim because to understand--you don't only have to understand the rules; you have got to understand all the precedents. The first 6 months I got here, I said: You know, I am going to learn the rules. I read about Lyndon Johnson who supposedly sat here and learned all [[Page S1891]] the rules and outsmarted all his colleagues. I don't believe that. But anyway, he probably knew more than I did. God rest his soul. But after 6 months, here is my conclusion: I don't know if I can learn the rules and all the precedents, and by the time I do, they will have changed. And someday, I am going to die, and I don't want on my tombstone ``Kennedy understood the Senate rules.'' So I gave up. I quit. No mas. And so now, when I want to understand the rules, I talk to a member of our staff, like Tony, or some of my colleagues, and so do most of my Senate colleagues on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. Now, our staff could be lying to us because we don't know any better. They could make this stuff up, but I don't think they do. I have never seen Tony make it up. A couple of times, I thought I had caught him, but he turned out to be right, and that is important. But it is more than just an understanding of the rules. It is more than Tony's job and my colleagues' job who are our advisers--it is more than just learning the rules because the rules look like they were designed by a heroin addict with a socket wrench. We don't know how to get things done, so we go to our advisers and say: Tell me how to do this. And they are really good at that. Tony is really good at that. I know sometimes the questions are so esoteric and so bizarre, I can tell from their eyes that they want to look at you and say: You are not the stupidest person I have ever met, but you had better hope the stupidest person I have ever met doesn't die. But they never do that. They always say: OK. You know, you can try it that way, but here is the downside of it, and with all due respect, there is a better way of doing it, and you might consider this. Frankly, I mean, our Parliamentarian--I see her here. She does understand the rules, and she is pretty good at helping you too. She has got lines she can't cross because she doesn't work for Senate Republicans or Democrats. But this is what Tony does and the other staff members, and they make this place run. They are not responsible for the fact that the Senate only works when everybody isn't crazy at the same time, and they are not responsible for the fact that sometimes it takes us weeks, months, even years, to get nothing done. Doing nothing--it can be frustrating. Doing nothing is very hard because you never know when you are finished. But they make this place run, and we are going to miss Tony. Now, we make fun of Tony. It is all in good fun. There is a big mirror back in the cloakroom. I think it is an antique mirror. That is what they tell us. Sometimes we will--I have done it, but others, I think, have too. Sometimes we will write little notes to the majority leader--we used to do it with Mitch, and now we do it sometimes with Thune--and sign it ``Tony,'' and, of course, they all have a heart attack. Tony keeps a couple of pairs of shoes under his desk, and probably about once a week, some of us take at least one of the shoes and hide it, and he is ready to go home at whatever--11 o'clock, 12 midnight-- and he can't find his shoe. Max, who works with him back there--his job is to eventually, after he spends an inordinate amount of time and he gets really close to the point that he has no more firetrucks to give and is going to start telling everybody what he thinks--Max will tell him where the shoe is. I have got some other stories about Tony, but I just can't tell them because there are probably some children listening. But anyway, you will read about Tony someday in the Wall Street Journal, and it won't be because he went ``Eric Swalwell''; it will be because of his financial success. And we are going to miss him, but I can't blame him. He is already picking out the color of his new Mercedes. The Presiding Officer knows the Mercedes-Benz. If you have any advice for him, like the best one that deflects heat, you might want to talk to him. He may want to just buy two, OK? But anyway, we are going to miss Tony, and I wanted to say that, and I am sorry I can't tell you all of the ``Tony'' stories. They are legendary. But, Tony, you have just been awesome, you and all of your colleagues, and we never talk about them enough. I just want to say thank you. And my final words: Peace out. (Applause.) The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Major Richard Star Act Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we are at a critical moment. It is a crossroads for the American people. The President is waging a war of choice. It is really a war of impulse, a war of whim and illusion without the support of the American people and without approval from the U.S. Congress, representing the American people. Meanwhile, the costs of food and fuel--gasoline at the pump and produce at the grocery store--all have soared. Healthcare is unaffordable. Gas prices are going to continue to skyrocket. The Secretary Referenced legislation: SCONRES33, SCONRES33, SJRES114