During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) delivered her first speech in the Senate.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, Senator from Florida, good afternoon.
00:16I rise today in the Senate chamber for the very first time as a United States senator
00:22to address a topic.
00:24Unfortunately, that has become important to so many states, so many communities, so many
00:29families across this great nation.
00:32Before I became a United States senator and one of your colleagues, I was the Florida
00:37Attorney General.
00:39For the past six years in that position, I made it my mission every day to fight against
00:45the opioid crisis and put poison peddlers that sought to do harm to our families behind
00:52bars.
00:53As many of you know, fentanyl now kills more Americans than any other drug by far, and
01:05it is the leading cause of death for working age and fighting age men and women.
01:11It is also the cause of death of infants and children that are exposed to the substance,
01:19and that number is increasing exponentially.
01:24Florida is no stranger to the opioid epidemic.
01:28We suffered from a pill mill crisis, and we had to address that by tightening our laws
01:33and making sure people had access to help.
01:38Following that, we saw a surge of fentanyl pouring into our country and people overdosing
01:45from that drug.
01:48Fentanyl now claims 70,000 lives a year.
01:55It is the deadliest drug our nation has ever encountered, and that is why it is vital that
02:02we continue to not lose focus, that this is the deadliest thing facing our men and women
02:09right now.
02:11This is our challenge.
02:12We cannot be distracted, and we have to stop this drug from coming across our borders and
02:19into our communities, and that is why we have to continue to provide law enforcement the
02:25tools that they need to get this drug off our streets and make sure we're providing
02:29life-saving medications like naloxone to first responders and that people that are struggling
02:35with addiction know where to get help.
02:38After four years of a wide-open border and free rein given to drug cartels to smuggle
02:43illicit substances into our country, it is no surprise that our nation was flooded with fentanyl.
02:51In Florida, we fought back despite this surge.
02:54Our law enforcement officers were up for the task.
02:57Our leaders gave us additional resources.
03:00Florida led the nation in fentanyl seizures.
03:04I, back in 2003, called for the cartels to be labeled foreign terrorist organizations.
03:11President Biden ignored our calls.
03:14I called for the border to be closed and then head of DHS to be fired for allowing drug
03:19smugglers and countless amounts of fentanyl to flood our country.
03:23Those calls were also ignored.
03:26So Florida took Biden to court.
03:30First, when he stopped deporting those here illegally, committing serious felonies against
03:37our citizens, we took him to court.
03:41And then when he started welcoming in and paroling everyone into the nation that was
03:47barely vetted, we took him to court and we won.
03:51We also sent Florida law enforcement to the border to slow down the flow of drugs.
03:55We ramped up interdiction efforts with Florida Highway Patrol and Florida Department of Law
03:59Enforcement.
04:01We fought back with everything that we had.
04:04The death and destruction caused by illicit fentanyl started to decline.
04:09We started to see hope.
04:11Before I left the Attorney General's office, Florida reported two straight years of reductions
04:15in the number of drug-related deaths.
04:18According to a recent FDLA Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons by Medical District Examiners
04:23annual report, fentanyl deaths in our state of Florida dropped 10 percent.
04:29This rate of decline is well ahead of the national average, which declined by about
04:33two percent during the same time.
04:36Still thousands across our nation are dying, tens of thousands, and we cannot take our
04:41eye off the ball.
04:43While we've had success in Florida, we must push forward across the rest of the nation
04:49to deliver accountability and protection to the American people.
04:54Florida has always been a leader in law and order, and we've understood the danger presented
04:59by fentanyl.
05:00We understand that many Americans take this deadly drug not even knowing that it is in
05:05something else they are ingesting, within counterfeit pills.
05:09We classified as fentanyl as a Schedule I controlled substance back in 2017.
05:14This allows easier prosecutions for these types of cases.
05:19It is time that the federal government follow the requests and the pleas of national law
05:24enforcement organizations, including the DEA, that is calling for fentanyl and fentanyl-related
05:30substances to be scheduled permanently as Schedule I controlled substance.
05:36When I got to Washington, one of my first actions was to join the HALT Fentanyl Act
05:40as a co-sponsor.
05:42As Attorney General, I led other states in calling on Congress to pass this bill.
05:47And now, as Florida's newest United States Senator, I will work tirelessly to make sure
05:53this gets done.
05:54I'm so proud of my Senate colleagues.
05:57Last month, we passed the HALT Fentanyl Act through the Senate, and now it is in the hands
06:02of the U.S. House.
06:04This bill will ensure federal agents and prosecutors have the tools they need to send a strong
06:08message to drug traffickers.
06:11If they continue to bring poison into our country, they will be held accountable.
06:17That has always been the case in Florida, and I am so proud of my friend and predecessor,
06:24former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is taking this fight directly to the cartels.
06:31The American people gave our great President, President Trump, a mandate last November.
06:36That was to restore law and order, make sure people were held accountable for their crimes.
06:41We believe, as a Floridian, the first Floridian president in our nation's history, that he
06:48is going to take that approach that we've had in Florida to the rest of the nation.
06:54While my calls for a closed border and a declaration of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
06:59fell on Biden's deaf ears, it is no surprise that President Trump immediately got to work
07:06on this.
07:07On day one, he closed the border.
07:09We've seen a 93% drop in illegal crossings since then.
07:14Turns out we didn't need a new law.
07:16We needed a new president.
07:19As one of his first acts, he declared the cartels foreign terrorist organizations.
07:26I am incredibly excited to work alongside my new Florida Senate, or U.S. Senate colleagues,
07:33and President Trump as we begin to make America safe again.
07:38And this includes voting based on priorities that will make our communities and families
07:45safe.
07:46We have a great opportunity in Washington right now to fight this crisis instead of
07:51fueling it through unlawful immigration policies.
07:55Now we need to do our part.
07:57We need to urge the U.S. House to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act and get it to the president's
08:02desk as soon as possible.
08:05Mr. President, thank you, and I yield the floor.