Georgia Sen. David Perdue on Monday
called out President Barack Obama, saying he had abused his executive powers, weakened the nation at home and diminished America's standing in the world.
It was the first Senate speech for Perdue, a freshman Republican elected in November.
During much of last year's campaign, polls suggested that Perdue, a businessman, faced an uphill struggle to defeat his Democratic opponent, Michelle Nunn (daughter of the very popular ex-Sen. Sam Nunn) and keep the Senate seat in GOP hands.
At best, it was said that Perdue would fall short of 50 percent of the vote and face a runoff election against Nunn. In the end, he received 53 percent of the vote, winning the election by about eight percentage points at the end of a long campaign in which he emphasized his differences with the Obama administration, criticizing what he said were its weak efforts to combat terror around the world and high-tax, high-spending policies at home.
"I rise today because I believe our republic is in grave danger," Perdue said Monday evening.
He stated that "unbridled use" of executive power and regulatory mandates have "basically allowed this president to run the country without Congress for the past six years."
He quoted liberal-leaning
constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, who has criticized Obama for abusing his executive authority.
"According to Professor Turley, what we are witnessing today is one of the greatest challenges to our constitutional system in the history of the country," Perdue said.
He blasted the administration's framework agreement with Iran which will permit the Islamist regime to build nuclear weapons after a temporary, decade-long freeze, saying it would endanger international security.
"A nuclear Iran whose leaders are committed to the death of Israel and America would spark an unprecedented wave of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and potentially worldwide," he said. "Under no circumstances can we allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state not now, not in 10 years, not ever."
Perdue also warned that the administration's reluctance to combat terror abroad could lead to a future attack on U.S. soil,
The Washington Free Beacon noted.
"After battling terrorism for the past 14 years, and fighting two major wars with thousands of American lives lost and billions spent, we still face terrorist threats from jihadist Islamic groups who openly vow to do us harm," he said. "We face a tough choice: deal with them over there or wait and deal with the consequences here at home."
Major military spending cuts have jeopardized America's ability to protect itself and its allies, Perdue said.
"New asymmetric threats combined with traditional symmetric challenges create unprecedented demand on our military at the very time that this administration has reduced military spending to the point that we are about to have the smallest Army since before WWII, the smallest Navy since WWI and the smallest Air Force ever," he said. "This is simply unacceptable."
While saying he was honored to serve in a line of other distinguished Georgians, Perdue also made clear that he had in some ways been unimpressed with what he has seen in the Senate thus far,
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted.
"There is not enough sense of urgency in tackling this skyrocketing debt," he declared. "There are no innocent parties up here. Both sides have pushed us to the brink, contributing to the unsustainable level of debt we face today."