Yesterday CNN reported that President Obama released four Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) prisoners to Saudi Arabia.

With weeks left before the end of his presidency, he continues his irresponsible campaign promise to close Gitmo.

Here’s why this is a problem – former detainees have returned to the battlefield and are responsible for the deaths of Americans. This is a threat to our national security.

I’ve supported continued efforts to block the administration from closing this facility. It’s well-equipped to house these dangerous prisoners and we cannot trust that the countries to which these detainees are transferred will monitor them to ensure they don’t return to the battlefield.

I look forward to working with the next administration to ensure Gitmo continues to be a place where we detainee dangerous people who are intent on endangering our American way of life.

When I ask Arkansans what frustrates them about the direction of our country, the most common response I hear is that “Washington does not listen to us.”

Obamacare is a perfect example of how Congressional Democrats and officials in the White House, who claim they know better than hardworking Americans, refuse to listen to the concerns of the American people.

From the beginning, the President pushed Obamacare down the throats of Americans with no concerns about the negative effects it would have on them.

President Obama promised his approach would lower health care costs. The truth is, there is absolutely nothing in Obamacare that drives down costs. In fact, health care costs continue to rise since his signature initiative became law and Americans are set to see an even more dramatic hike in their premiums in the coming year.

The Obama administration has confirmed this week that health insurance premiums sold through Obamacare will see double-digit increases—an average of a twenty percent-plus surge—in 2017. This is not, as the President has billed it, “affordable care.”

Rather, this massive spike in premium costs is further evidence that Obamacare is failing. It’s collapsing under the weight of its own massive bureaucracy. Nothing in this law will contain healthcare costs, but that has not stopped the President and Senate Democrats from attempting to double down on failure by expanding Obamacare.

Competition is how you lower costs. We need to allow Americans to shop across state lines for their health insurance like they can for their automobile insurance, allow small business owners to pool together to purchase group insurance at a lower rate and introduce portability to the market to ensure that hardworking Americans don’t have disruptions in their coverage when they change jobs.

These free market approaches—along with an expansion of health savings accounts and tort reform to eliminate the practice of defensive medicine—are how you drive down the cost of care.

The President got his way over the vocal objections of millions of Americans. His way has made our health care crisis worse. Let’s turn to the free market to fix the mess Obamacare has created.

This week, Senate Democrats once again blocked a bill that would have provided $1.1 billion to combat the Zika virus and they also again filibustered the Defense Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017. This is the third time that Democrats have blocked funding for the Zika crisis and have refused to move forward on critical funding for our nation’s defense.

Both bills are vitally important right now. The Zika funding is urgently needed to provide resources to those who can research and study the virus, and the funds for defense because that is Washington’s first responsibility.

Zika was first discovered in 1947, and until recently was not taken seriously as outbreaks were small and sporadic with little known adverse effects. What was once a disease confined along the equator has quickly become a global health threat that has been determined to cause birth defects including microcephaly, a neurological condition which results in a child being born with an abnormally small head. 

The spread of the Zika virus is a serious problem and now is the time for Congress to act by providing additional funding for health organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the virus and its transmission. The more we learn about Zika and its transmission the more alarming this public health crisis becomes, which makes the actions by Senate Democrats even more difficult to understand.

Democrats are blocking the bill because they are unhappy that Planned Parenthood is not receiving funding as part of the package to provide resources to health care agencies and providers to prevent the spread of the virus. This is another partisan, ideological obstruction that is not grounded in the facts. My colleague, Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina, wrote a good piece for Fox News dismantling that nonsensical argument.

CDC Director Tom Friedan has said that the agency is almost out of money to continue to researching the virus. That Senate Democrats have continued to oppose the funding is just another example of the antics they are willing to engage in during an election year.

As is the Senate Democrat’s ongoing filibuster of the Department of Defense Appropriations bill. This is especially troubling because failure to adequately fund our nation’s defense puts us at great risk. At a time when ISIS and other radical terrorist groups are openly waging war against the United States and our allies, we need to be working together to ensure that our national defense is funded and capable of protecting us.

The Senate Democrats' decision to filibuster the defense spending bill is especially troubling considering that Sen. Harry Reid just last week stated that Democrats should curtail use of the filibuster should they win the White House and control of the Senate. Sen. Reid and the Democratic Caucus are engaging in political posturing while Americans are facing tremendous threats to their health and well-being.