STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor on what is now day 19 of the Trump shutdown--an epic Presidential temper tantrum that forces the rest of us to, once again, plead with the President to stop hurting the American families he promised to represent. This time, it is because President Trump marched our country right into a government shutdown, paralyzing Federal Agencies and preventing them from carrying out the most basic government functions.

What does this government have to show for it? Eight hundred thousand hard-working Americans, some off the job and some still asked to come in. Their bills are mounting and no money is coming in. That includes the air traffic controllers in my home State of Washington who wrote me letters. They don't question whether they will keep showing up to do the job they love--a job that keeps the public safe--but they have no idea when they will get their next paycheck. That means stress, stress about providing for their families, stress about being able to pay their mortgages, pay for preschool, pay down post-Christmas bills. They are forced to bear the brunt of this Trump shutdown.

It is not just Federal workers. Thousands of senior citizens and individuals with disabilities are facing possible eviction as HUD scrambles to figure out how to make housing payments. Our national parks, the crown jewels of our country, are no longer adequately maintained for public use, while the small businesses right outside the parks that rely on visitors, like those outside Mount Rainier National Park in my home State of Washington, are feeling the pain and cutting back on staffing. Our farmers and our tree fruit growers are unable to get their applications processed through the shuttered Farm Service Agency. Millions of low-income families are now unsure if they will receive the help they need to put food on the table for their children in the coming weeks.

I could go on, but I don't need to. With each passing day, it is very clear just how much this Trump shutdown is hurting families in every community in every State of our country, and no prime time address or fearmongering trip to the border is going to change that reality.

To President Trump, I say: Enough with the tweets, enough with the fact-twisting. It is time to stop playing politics and finally agree to end this shutdown that you began. Stop trying to bully your way out of this mess.

To my Senate colleagues, I say: In case it is not crystal clear, ending this nightmare is not complicated. Three weeks ago, in this very spot, we passed a bill that kept the Federal Government open without funding Trump's wasteful wall, the one he promised Mexico would pay for. That bill was very simple. It was all about keeping our government open and avoiding a completely unnecessary crisis.

Democrats supported the bill. Republicans supported it. In fact, it passed unanimously because we know the people we represent have no interest in elected officials playing games with their lives and livelihoods.

Now the Democratic House has followed suit. They have passed a bill that will do the same thing. Yet that simple solution--keeping our government funded, on schedule, and without interruption--has been stopped in its tracks by President Trump, who apparently sees no problem with keeping the government shut down for months or even years, as he said, all to fulfill a shallow campaign promise that everyone knows will do nothing to truly address our broken immigration system and keep our country safe.

What we have here is a crisis of the President's own making, from top to bottom. I, for one, find it simply outrageous that instead of searching for real solutions or working with Congress in good faith, the President is dug in and demanding American taxpayers bail him out to save face.

Members of this Congress were elected to make decisions that help the American people. We were not sent here to provide cover for the President.

I urge my Republican colleagues to make it your priority to work with us to fund our government and end this completely unnecessary crisis.

This started out as a Trump shutdown, but with every day that passes that the Republican Senate will not act, Republican leaders take more and more ownership, along with every Republican Senator who supports them.

Some Republicans in the Senate are already standing up, and I commend them. They want to work with us to stand up to President Trump and to end this shutdown, and they would like the opportunity to vote to do just that, but not enough yet, and the clock is ticking.

I say this to Republican leaders: Work with us to restore certainty to the American people--from the hundreds of thousands of Federal workers who are being forced to forgo their paychecks to the small business owners, to the farmers, to the seniors and low-income families, to the air traffic controllers and all those people whose lives are being unnecessarily thrown into chaos and who deserve a fully functioning government.

The President of the United States may be throwing a tantrum and playing political games, but the people we represent and our country as a whole deserve a whole lot better.

Thank you.

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