During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) blocked a bill introduced by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) calling on the Department of Defense to not rename a boat named after gay rights activist and Korean War veteran, Harvey Milk.
Category
đ
NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President.
00:02Senator from California is recognized.
00:05The U.S. Navy has developed many traditions over its centuries of existence.
00:10Among them is the method of naming its ships.
00:13Most, though not all, aircraft carriers are named after U.S. presidents.
00:18The USS Truman, the Eisenhower, the Ford.
00:22Nuclear submarines are named after states.
00:25The Virginia class and the Ohio class, for example.
00:29The Navy is now partway through building its newest class of fleet replenishment oilers.
00:35These are the ships that resupply fuel to the rest of the Navy fleet
00:39and the aircraft operating on board those ships.
00:42These are the John Lewis class.
00:45I am immensely proud to have been a colleague of Congressman John Lewis
00:50in the House of Representatives,
00:52where I served alongside him from 2000 until his passing in 2020.
00:57I was lucky enough through our shared service to consider him a friend.
01:01He was just a wonderful, genuine, heroic, brave, courageous, upbeat individual.
01:10I never saw John Lewis have a bad day.
01:13I never saw him less than optimistic, anything other than optimistic about the future of our country.
01:19And I have another source of pride.
01:22The state of California, home to General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, NASCO,
01:29is where the Oilers are being built.
01:32The ships in this class are, in addition to the John Lewis,
01:36named after California Governor and Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren,
01:40Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and Navy Lieutenant Harvey Milk, the San Francisco gay rights pioneer.
01:47Four more ships are under construction.
01:50The USNS Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
01:57The Harriet Tubman and Dolores Huerta are under contract.
02:01The Navy reports that the next two ships in the class will be named after Joshua Goldberg and Thomas Parham.
02:09The Navy has seen fit to honor these civil rights icons,
02:12who spent their lives fighting for the rights of the American people by naming ships in their honor.
02:18We learned this week, however, that the Secretary of Defense does not share the view
02:25that these leaders are worthy of the honor of recognition that the Navy has bestowed upon them.
02:31According to a statement from a spokesman,
02:34it is better to name defense installations and assets that are more aligned with, quote,
02:40the warrior ethos, whatever they mean by that.
02:43The Secretary of Defense, who testified at his confirmation hearing,
02:47that today constitutes the most dangerous moment we have been in since the end of the Cold War
02:56and possibly since World War II, that Secretary of Defense is spending his time ordering department officials
03:03to remove the name of Harvey Milk from the second oiler in the John Lewis class of ships.
03:09Other ships may be similarly renamed.
03:12Harvey Milk joined the Navy as a diver after graduating from college and saw action in the Korean War
03:19while serving on a rescue submarine from 1952 until 1954.
03:25He was forced to resign with an other than honorable discharge rather than being court-martialed for being gay.
03:31In 1977, he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as the first openly gay official in the country.
03:38And on November 27, 1978, Milk was tragically shot by a fellow supervisor, Dan White.
03:48As many senators know, our former colleague, Dianne Feinstein, in whose seat I am now deeply honored to serve,
03:55was the first to find Harvey Milk's body after it had been shot to death
03:59and to whom the job of holding San Francisco together then fell.
04:04Dianne Feinstein was a co-sponsor of the USNS Harvey Milk with her name welded into the hull.
04:11One wonders if the Secretary of Defense will try to remove that as well.
04:16I suspect it is no coincidence that the Pentagon released the news of the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk
04:23at the beginning of Pride Month and while Washington, D.C. hosts World Pride.
04:29You can draw a straight line between the Department of Defense and this administration
04:33removing Jackie Robinson from its official site and it's terminating the first woman to lead the military services
04:40and a well-respected African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all without cause.
04:47I don't understand how these removals promote the warrior ethos.
04:52I don't understand how it promotes the warrior ethos to rename the military installation Fort Bragg
04:58using the fig leaf that it is now named for a different person of that name than the Confederate general
05:06for whom it is really connected.
05:08Engaging in such duplicitous word games seems more weak than warrior.
05:13The United States Senate should not stand by silently while US civil rights icons
05:18from John Lewis to Cesar Chavez to Dolores Huerta to Harriet Tubman are erased from the Navy
05:25just as the Pentagon has erased so many other figures from American history on its websites.
05:32And so today I offer a simple resolution with my California colleague Alex Padilla.
05:37It says that the Senate believes it is important and worthwhile to honor civil rights leaders by naming ships after them
05:44and expresses the Senate's view that the Department of Defense should not seek to remove these names.
05:51Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding Rule 22, I ask unanimous consent
06:01that the Senate proceed to consideration of SRES 264 submitted earlier today,
06:08that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made
06:14and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
06:18Is there objection?
06:20Mr. President.
06:22Yes.
06:23Senator from North Carolina.
06:24Mr. President, preserving the right to object, the naming of naval ships is a long and proud naval tradition
06:30that goes back to America's first frigates commissioned by Congress.
06:33Then as now, the naming of a ship is not just a top-down affair.
06:38It demands the input and consideration of the journeymen and women who constructed her,
06:43as well as her prospective crew and captain, right down to the lowest-ranking sailor.
06:49Those individuals are known in naval tradition as plank owners, and that title brings with it an honor that they were the first to sail aboard a ship that will serve our country for generations.
07:02That is an honor that transcends political partisanship and differences of opinion, and it belongs to the sailors.
07:09It's no secret that the last administration took a top-down approach to the naming of our newest class of USNS Oilers.
07:16In doing so, they broke with important naval customs and traditions, and they robbed the USNS plank owners of the chance to name these vessels after what mattered most to them.
07:28It's true that civilian leaders in Congress and the White House have always had a say in ship naming as well.
07:35George Washington selected the names of our first six frigates, but he did so from a list provided by the plank owners, the ship's crew, and captains.
07:45Navy tradition, like the name of a ship, lives in the hearts and minds of every sailor, and these traditions are vital to preserving the morale and fighting spirit of our forces.
07:57Resetting the stage is not a political issue. It's bringing things back in line with naval custom and tradition.
08:04It will allow the Secretary of the Navy to consider the input of new ship plank owners so that he can name this class of ships after the things that matter most to America's sailors.
08:16For these reasons, I object.
08:19The objection is heard.
08:21Mr. President, I appreciate the comments.
08:23Senator from California is recognized.
08:25Thank you. I appreciate the comments of my colleague.
08:28Past presidents and secretaries of the Navy have named these ships.
08:32They have named them after civil rights leaders, John Lewis, Thurgood Marshall.
08:37Joshua Goldberg, who lived from 1896 to 1994, was drafted into the Russian Army in World War I, emigrated to the United States,
08:46and became the first Jewish rabbi to volunteer for naval service in World War II, rising to the rank of captain.
08:53Thomas Parham, who lived from 1920 to 2007, was ordained in 1944, and served in shore assignments during World War II, and then returned to active duty as a chaplain during the Korean War, serving in Japan, and becoming the Navy's first African American sailor promoted to captain.
09:12These are inspiring people.
09:14Honoring them by naming ships after them tells young people that the United States welcomes them, all of them.
09:21Naming ships may fall to the executive branch, but I think Congress, with its constitutional duty to raise armies and navies, has an important role to play.
09:30Even so, this resolution, all it does is express approval of the existing names.
09:37It does not force the Navy to keep them, but it says that the individuals that have been named are worthy of that honor and distinction, and I would urge my colleagues to support the resolution.
09:51I think Congress should send him to the principal team an awardwendalist and×פes yourselves.
09:54If you look back for some Glas groomers from insulation in your ěę°ě, you will have something to strengthen the city budget.
09:56You will have something new and then we do have an idea of what you think along these years is,
09:58surprising for that it is that at some point a Qi ě¨ is the only law that thou englo paĹstwoITz.
10:00Thank you so much for behalf of our collegiate working estate own 196 a disproportionationŃŃ.
10:01Thank you too much for our part and our�ney F lav Munich is also OK.
10:02I'm eatery Tardynap.
10:03We allated Benediotib Cobham, but we're doing so much harder.
10:04That's the entire part while we know narrowing it out on German resolution.