Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I begin, I want to welcome the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who just finished his address before a joint meeting of Congress. His words were timely, particularly his admonition to reject false idols of our time: isolationism, cynicism. He argued that if we were to advance principles upon which both our Nations were founded--as he would say, ``liberte, egalite, and fraternite''--he would say it better than I, of course--and secure the prosperity and security of our peoples in the future, we must seek further cooperation with our allies and engagement with the world. I hope everyone at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue takes President Macron's words to heart.

Madam President, the Senate is considering the nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the next Secretary of State. I must admit that even after his confirmation to the directorship of the CIA, I remained concerned about Mr. Pompeo when he was in the Congress. I talked to him directly. I told him how deeply disappointed I was in how he handled the Benghazi hearings, how partisan they were. I told him some of his comments about minority groups--Muslims in particular--were way over the top. Over the course of his tenure at Langley, I met with him several times after that first meeting where I had given him my views on some of the things I disagreed with in what he did.

I have to say, those meetings were good meetings. He was very candid with me. He is obviously very smart. He is obviously well informed about foreign policy--far more well informed than Secretary Tillerson was when he came to visit me before his nomination hearing. In particular, what gave me some good feeling was that Mr. Pompeo was particularly strong on Russia sanctions, even showing some separation from the President as we met. I began to think Mr. Pompeo was better than my first impression, which has been guided particularly by his very poor performance in the Benghazi hearings. Then, he was nominated for Secretary of State. That is a whole different ball game. Anyone nominated for such a critical security position deserves the most careful and thoughtful scrutiny.

With that in mind, I met with Mr. Pompeo privately, where I interviewed him on foreign policy. Frankly, on many issues, our views were not the same. He was far more hawkish than I prefer our diplomat to be. Frankly, my views were probably, on this issue, a little closer to the President's, who remembered, as I do, that in Iraq, we spent over $1 trillion and lost close to 5,000 of our bravest young men and women, and Iraq doesn't seem much better off today than it was then.

My view was that he was too quick to recommend strong military action when diplomacy might do. At the same time, I believe the President should get to pick his team. President Trump wanted a more hawkish Secretary of State--it would be concerning to me, but it is his decision--and Mr. Pompeo answered my questions with the same candor and forthrightness as in our previous meetings.

I thought I would wait for his hearing--because speaking in public is different than speaking privately to a Member of the Senate--before making the decision. At Mr. Pompeo's hearing, I became very disappointed. First, the President has shown in word and deed that he often directs foreign policy by impulse--erratically, inconsistently. The fact that we are contending with several hotspots in the world-- North Korea, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Russia--means we need someone in the State Department who not only prizes the value of diplomacy but is willing to check the President's worst instincts. Unfortunately, Mr. Pompeo's testimony--and, of course, public testimony is the real test--did little to convince me that he would be a strong tempering influence on an often erratic President. He didn't convince me that he would be the kind of Secretary who most of us believe Secretary Mattis is, who is able, successfully, to check the President when the President may go off base. Even more disappointing was Mr. Pompeo's tepid responses to questions about his commitment to bedrock principles such as rule of law.

As important and difficult as our foreign policy decisions are, the Nation is facing a great test. The President seems to tempt rule of law in America when it comes to the investigation of whether there was collusion between his administration, his campaign, and Russia. An investigation to look into this--to look into Russian interference in our elections and whether there was participation of the President or members of his campaign or administration--is vital to the bedrock of America. Even worse is if a President says: I can undo this investigation one way or another; I can thwart it.

He is already trying to intimidate it, but fortunately Mr. Mueller is not the type who is intimidated, and Mr. Rosenstein does not seem to be either. These questions were crucial. A key position like Secretary of State should be able to speak out on this kind of issue because America is recognized throughout the world as the country that most prizes rule of law. If our Secretary doesn't speak out strongly against this, it is not only bad for our country but not good for his ability to do his job around the world. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed.

Mr. Pompeo responded, when put to this question as to whether he would stand up to the President, whether he would resign or otherwise protest the President's actions that would undermine the rule of law-- his answers were weak. He did not say he would resign if the President fired Mueller or Rosenstein. To me, a Cabinet officer should do that. He did not even unequivocally state that he would publicly urge the President not to fire Mr. Mueller. That was not good enough, but I thought I again owed Mr. Pompeo a direct discussion because he is a talented man, and the President does deserve the benefit of the doubt.

So I called him into my office for one private meeting, one final meeting. I asked him pointedly whether he would be able to simply say publicly, before we voted on him, that the President shouldn't fire Special Counsel Mueller. I asked him what he would do if the President fired the special counsel or Mr. Rosenstein. His answers were extremely insufficient. I also asked him if he would be willing to recant or undo some of what he had said about Muslims, Indian Americans, LGBTQ Americans, and women's rights now that he was in line to be our Secretary of State and had to deal with countries that might be affected by his remarks. Again, he demurred. When he left that meeting, I emerged with a clear conscience in that a vote against Mr. Pompeo's nomination was the right thing to do.

I still believe a President deserves his team and that disagreements on policy alone are not sufficient reasons to reject a nomination, but I gave Mr. Pompeo the benefit of the doubt and three chances to answer the questions I thought were extremely important to assuage my broader concerns about his nomination. He did not answer those questions in any way that was satisfying. So, with a clear conscience, I will be voting against his nomination.

Let me be clear. This is not about politics. This is not about denying the President his team just for the sake of it. It is about the role of Congress and, frankly, the Cabinet to provide a check on a President who might go off the rails and undo the respect for the rule of law, the tradition of the rule of law, that we have had in this country for so long.

It is my view that the next Secretary of State, in this unique moment of history, with a President who seems to behave erratically and with little regard, oftentimes, for our Nation's history, a President who tests our constitutional order, must be willing to put country first and stand up for our most sacred and fundamental, foundational values-- for the rule of law, for the idea that no person, not even the President, is above the rule of law.

Unfortunately, Mr. Pompeo, in these very difficult and troubled times, didn't meet that test as much as I wish he had. I don't doubt that the President could nominate someone with the right experience, the right values, and the right commitment to our core, national principles to earn my vote to be Secretary of State, but I do not believe Mr. Pompeo has those qualities so I will be voting no on his nomination.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I share that goal. But, respectfully, the legislation they are proposing, I believe, would undermine and potentially threaten important programs administered by the Federal Government.

As my friend from Missouri has stated, it is already required under the law, but it is such a cumbersome thing to do that for 7 years they have not published an inventory, not because it is lacking the provisions in the bill proposed by my colleagues but because it is virtually impossible to do in the way that you would do it in other far more different and simple things--in a factory that makes widgets.

This bill would go further and make it even more difficult to publish the inventory they already haven't been able to publish. Neither the Director of OMB under President Obama nor the Director under President Trump has complied with the existing law.

I further have serious objections with the reporting requirements. How can an agency, for instance--and this would happen on a thousand occasions under this law--quantify the number of individuals who benefit from the Community Development Block Grant Program? If one neighborhood is revitalized, maybe it benefits the neighboring neighborhoods. What if they put that number in, and the OMB Director says: Oh, no. That is all wrong. There is no way to do that.

How about this: Is there a threshold to the number of people that is too many to administer a program that helps disabled Americans get appropriate schooling or access to healthcare? These types of questions could fill volumes and volumes. There is no good answer to them, there is no clear answer to them, and this law will not make it any easier to discern which programs are working and which programs are not.

I have a great deal of worry, particularly, to be honest, with Director Mulvaney. If you saw the budgets that Director Mulvaney has submitted to this Congress--he has eliminated just about every potential program. He is a scourge. He was one of the 10 most conservative Members of the House when he was there. He eliminated programs necessary in my State to keep the Department of Defense going, to help our nuclear weapons stay strong. He zeroed them out; he didn't just cut them. Can you imagine if he got his hands on this? He would use this bill not for the purposes my colleagues intend but to basically hold back money, punish, and in other ways delay very necessary programs that 90 to 95 percent of this Congress agrees to. I am concerned that this legislation, left to the implementation and oversight of a man so hostile to government services up and down the line, whose budgets have been dramatically and repeatedly rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike in the House and the Senate, would be used for ill, not good. The potential downside to this legislation far exceeds the potential upside, dramatically.

I cannot in good conscience support a bill that would give Mr. Mulvaney more tools to slash Federal programs that almost every American would agree serve the public good.

In conclusion, I support the goal of this bill, which is to provide more transparency to taxpayers, but I believe it will not. It will confuse things, delay things, provide more layers of bureaucracy, not less, and can well be used by someone who believes in slashing programs of all kinds to delay them, fail to implement them, and not deliver the services that so many Americans need. I strongly object.

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