Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, let me thank my friend from Illinois, Senator Durbin. There has been no more passionate, effective, strong, and consistent voice for the Dreamers, for those beautiful, young people who simply want to become Americans and contribute to America. He will never let this issue rest, nor will we. We are going to do everything we can to help the Dreamers. We hope President Trump finally sees it in his heart to actually get something done. We had a bipartisan agreement. It could have passed. It had some things we didn't like, and it had some things the other side didn't like, but President Trump, in one of the more inept acts in terms of legislating, blew the whole deal. We are going to keep working.

I thank my colleague from Illinois.

Gun Safety

Mr. President, as the Senate debates the banking bill, Americans are wondering if the Republican majority will ever move to take up the issue of gun safety. Tomorrow, thousands of students across the country--awakened students--will participate in a nationwide walkout to demand action. At 10 a.m. in high schools from one end of America to the other, students will walk out for 17 minutes in honor of the 17 who gave their lives at Stoneman Douglas High School, in solidarity. But they are not going to stop there; they are going to keep working and working and working until we get something done.

When the students walk out, what will this Senate, what will this Congress, what will our Republican friends be able to say? Nothing, because we will have done nothing in that time to address gun safety in a meaningful way.

The unfortunate reality is that it seems there is too little courage in the White House to take on the NRA. After sounding the right notes when the cameras were on, President Trump has backed away from everything but the policies to which the NRA gives its rubberstamp approval.

I am still amazed at this. I believe it was on the issue of age that the President criticized Senator Toomey at his televised meeting and told him not to be afraid of the NRA. He said he wasn't.

And what does the President do? He doesn't show one one-hundredth of the courage that Senator Toomey showed on guns.

Senator Toomey and I don't agree on much, and I would have gone further than he did in the checks bill that he and Senator Manchin put together, but he had the courage to buck the NRA.

President Trump, you have no courage to buck the NRA. You talk a good game, and then, when it comes to action, you are afraid to do anything--anything--that gets the NRA upset.

The NRA is so far away from where America is. Over 90 percent of America wants background checks. The NRA and Trump don't. A huge percentage--over 80 percent of gun owners--want background checks-- comprehensive and universal background checks. President Trump and the NRA don't. The majority of Americans want protective orders so that if a family member or a friend or a teacher sees a young person acting like they are angry or upset and might do damage, their gun could be temporarily taken away. Most Americans want that. President Trump and the NRA don't, and neither do our Republican friends. The vast majority of Americans would like a debate on assault weapons--or certainly the majority. President Trump, the NRA, and our Republican majority don't.

Mr. President, why don't you retract what you said to Senator Toomey. Why don't you admit that he had more courage than you? Why don't you say that you are afraid of the NRA, because that is really what is going on here. No one is going to be taken in by nice words spoken in an hour in front of a TV camera when you then back off on anything. Of course, the plan was released Sunday night. They thought, hopefully, that it would get no news coverage, but it is still in the news.

Unfortunately, too many Republicans here on the Hill are in the same boat as President Trump, but not Senator Toomey. They want to appear as though they are doing something for gun safety but are only willing to support the smallest bore policies that the NRA gives a green light to. They say: OK, let's do these small things first; maybe we will do more later.

We all know the game here. Everyone sees what is going on. My friends on the other side don't dare support anything that the NRA opposes, even though the vast majority of Americans want them to. Our friends hope that we will pass something tiny, something small so that they can clap their hands and say they did something on gun violence and move on. The day they want to do something meaningful and real on gun safety never seems to come.

My friend the Senator from Texas--he is a good friend of mine. We banter in the gym almost every morning. I have worked with him on a number of issues. But he comes to the floor every day and says: Let's do the small Fix NICS bill, and then we will see about other proposals. He knows as well as I do that Fix NICS is not even close to enough of a response to the epidemic of gun violence in the country. He knows as well as I do that the NRA is OK with Fix NICS but not universal background checks.

Fix NICS only improves reporting within the existing background check system. The big loopholes that allow so many bad people, felons, and those adjudicated mentally ill to get guns--the gun show loophole, the online loophole--are not touched by Fix NICS.

I say to my good friend the senior Senator from Texas, when you are a doctor and you are sewing up a wound, you don't just do the first stitch and then walk away and say: We did something. No, you have to do the real job to cure the injury. I appreciate that my friend from Texas wants to pass this bill. Democrats support it. I am a cosponsor. But as a response to the spree of shootings in our schools, on our streets, in our churches, movie theaters, nightclubs, concerts, and on street corners every evening, a bill to repair just one tiny little aspect of the background check system is not sufficient.

A policy or an attitude that says that we cannot offend the NRA on anything will never, never, never help ameliorate our problem of gun violence to a sufficient extent.

As my colleague Senator Murphy, Senator Cornyn's coauthor of Fix NICS, has said: ``If we were to only debate the Fix NICS Act, we would be slamming the door in the face of all of these kids who are demanding change.''

He said it perfectly.

Democrats are fighting to make sure that Fix NICS isn't our only response. I hope and pray that my Republican colleagues will find the courage to go beyond what the gun lobbyists tell them is OK and work with Democrats on real and significant gun safety legislation.

Trade

Mr. President, now on another matter, this is a happy moment because many Democrats--certainly I--agree with the Trump administration when they blocked the proposed bid by the Singapore-based Broadcom to purchase the San Diego-based Qualcomm, on national security grounds.

Let me say this unequivocally: President Trump and his administration made the right decision on blocking Broadcom from taking over Qualcomm.

We all know that China has been rapacious about trade and very smart. They look for places where they can steal our best technology. They develop it there in China and keep us out of their markets and then try to flood the world with their products, sometimes dumping them. China has been rapacious about trade. Frankly, in my opinion, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration did enough. President Trump has a much better attitude.

One particular area of concern is how frequently foreign companies have sought controlling stakes in cutting-edge technology companies like Qualcomm. Qualcomm has done a great job, and they are leading the world in developing the 5G system. We need to preserve that as Americans because it has both economic and national security concerns.

As China seeks dominance in the semiconductor and wireless industries, the United States must be wary of attempts to acquire U.S. leaders in these industries. As to a foreign-controlled Broadcom, I don't know what the links are between Broadcom and China. I suspect there may be some, but China could move to take it over and, poof, the dominance that we would seek in 5G technology developed here would go away. It is a national security concern and an economic security concern.

We Democrats believe that the CFIUS model should extend not just to national security but to economic security. When China attempts to steal our best technology by buying American companies--whether it is robotics, AI, or chips on Qualcomm--we ought to block it.

China doesn't play fair. Lifetime President Xi hopes to dominate in the crown jewel of America's industries--the tech industries and others, where we dominate because we have been so good because we have taken immigrants, Mr. President, from around the world, and they helped develop these great things. We have to be wary of China--wary of China. To his credit, President Trump is more wary of China than the last five or six administrations, and I am glad he is. I am glad his administration is. It is just almost too late, but it is not yet.

It is no secret that President Trump and I share similar feelings on the issue of trade, particularly when it concerns China. I have often been critical of this administration--like I have been of previous administrations--when it fails to follow through on the President's rhetoric or misdirects its policies.

The recent steel and aluminum tariffs are an example of how the administration has the right instincts but bad execution. If properly calibrated, tariffs could be an effective tool to rein in China. China certainly dumps and has sought dominance in the steel and aluminum industries. Instead of targeting heavily subsidized Chinese steel and aluminum, the President has put in place across-the- board tariffs that would hurt many of our domestic industries. There was an article today about a Missouri ball bearing company that doesn't know where it is going to get its steel from. It hurts allies like Canada.

Canada makes its own steel and aluminum. We have a trade surplus with Canada. Putting Canada in the same boat as China is a huge mistake. That is why these tariffs--and I support the thrust of them--should have been more carefully targeted.

In contrast, the action on Qualcomm is targeted and effective in terms of protecting U.S. industry, and I urge the Trump administration to do more of these things. They will fill a hole that previous administrations failed to fill. Russia Investigation

Mr. President, finally, on Russia, we all know that the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee has ended its investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 elections. The House Republican majority on the Intelligence Committee has so discredited itself.

The report makes several assertions that are contradicted by already well-known facts. It says that Russia had no preference for Donald Trump in the 2016 elections. Remember, it is not just the intelligence community's assessment that the Russians were trying to elect Trump, but an independent grand jury--nonpolitical--in the special counsel's investigation concluded the same thing on the basis of evidence independently acquired and presented by the special counsel. By saying they disagree with the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, Speaker Ryan and Chairman Nunes are closer to Putin's view than the view of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the DNI--people in the administration.

It seems that there are no lengths to which Chairman Nunes and Speaker Ryan will not go to protect this White House, even when it damages America's security.

After Chairman Nunes's midnight run to the White House, his partisan memo, fake memo, and fake scandals about unmasking FBI text messages, no one should take this report seriously. I would say, to the vast majority of Americans, Chairman Nunes has discredited himself. He is much more of a partisan operative than a representative helping America be secure.

The House Republican majority has never taken this investigation seriously. From the very beginning, they have sought to distract and kick up dust. They have shown time and again that they are willing to put party before country--something our Founding Founders warned against. They are willing to twist facts and ignore evidence about a foreign power attacking our democracy because it might cause political damage to the President. It is a shocking and shameful abdication of duty.

In my judgment, Chairman Nunes, you and your committee have made a shocking and shameful abdication of duty to America. A congressional party that is wholly subservient to the political interests of the President is failing fundamentally to fulfill its constitutional obligation. Congress is supposed to be a separate, equal branch of government. Read the Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. One of the main purposes of Congress was to check the power of the executive branch. Our Founding Fathers feared an overreaching executive branch, as I know my friend from Nebraska knows, because he cites these things. That responsibility doesn't fall only on one party. It falls on all of us.

That is why there has been a history of bipartisanship and cooperation on the Intelligence Committees, where the vital interests of the Nation are at stake. That has been the case through the years. Until Chairman Nunes seemed to get ahold of this, that tradition was a grand one and a good one. Now that tradition has been discarded by House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee through this embarrassing episode that will historically go down as one of the lowest moments of any committee's actions in Congress.

Let me say pointedly to my colleagues that the Senate Intelligence Committee has been quite different than the House Intelligence Committee. I salute both Chairman Burr and Ranking Member Warner for trying to run things in a different way. Let us hope that the Senate Intelligence Committee does not go the way of the House and continues its bipartisan cooperation to get to the bottom of this mess. That is because we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 and to report those findings in an unbiased way. If the House isn't going to do it, the Senate must.

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