Disapproving the President's Proposal to Take An Action Relating to the Application of Certain Sanctions with Respect to the Russian

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I just heard Leader McConnell, my good friend, rail on and on. First, he doesn't agree with Nancy Pelosi on the wall. That is a surprise. Second, he doesn't like the fact that we want to get a vote to open up the government before we move forward on S. 1. We know that. His arguments are getting kind of old and stale.

I will say to the leader, very simply--you may disagree with us: Open the government. Open the government. You can do it, Leader McConnell. All your blaming and flailing isn't going to open the government. We all know Donald Trump is the obstacle here. You know it. I know it. We all know it. The only way to help all the folks who need help is to open the government.

There are a good number of Republicans on your side who have advocated that already. To hold the government hostage, you are losing the argument. You are losing it with the public. An overwhelming majority of Americans think the government should not be shut down over a wall. Even a substantial number of people who support the wall say: Don't shut down the government to get the wall.

We have problems on the border. A lot of Americans don't think it is a crisis that demands hurting our economy and our government.

Leader McConnell, we know you disagree with Leader Pelosi and me on what should be border security. We know you think we should pass S. 1 before we open up the government. Leader, you--you--can open the government. That is what the American people want, and I dare say that is what most of your colleagues want, at least if they talk to you privately.

It seems that every day the Trump shutdown drags on, we read another story about a new way it is hurting our economy. Eight hundred thousand public servants have been without pay, including thousands of veterans who work for the Federal Government. Each one of those Americans has a different story about how the shutdown is hurting them and their families. As nine essential Cabinet Departments remain shuttered, we are learning that the effects of the shutdown are even more widespread and continue to worsen. Yesterday, President Trump's own White House Council of Economic Advisers doubled their projections of how much economic growth is being lost each week during the shutdown.

Let me repeat that. The Trump administration's own economic advisers have just said that the Trump shutdown will substantially hurt our economy--twice as much as they originally predicted. Growth is down. Economic and consumer confidence is down. Billions of dollars have been pulled out of our economy. Some of the leading financial leaders in the country are now saying we might even go into contraction in the first part of this year if this shutdown continues.

Do you think, Leader McConnell, that is benefiting Donald Trump? Do you think, Leader McConnell, that is benefiting the Republican Party, who the Americans know own the shutdown? No. Let's open the government and then debate our differences on border security and whatever else.

Why is our country suffering self-inflicted damage? Because President Trump is using the American government as leverage in an attempt to extract taxpayer money for a border wall he promised Mexico would pay for.

He says: You know, I hear Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity: He promised this in the campaign.

No, he didn't. He promised a wall that Mexico would pay for. He never said once, that I can recall, in the campaign: But if Mexico doesn't pay for it, we will pay for it.

Of course people voted for it--or some, not that many. This is ridiculous. The President makes a campaign promise. He twists the campaign promise around and now shuts down the government so he can show he is keeping not the promise he made but a different one. It would sound ridiculous and absurd if it weren't the reality.

The fact of the matter is that eight Cabinet Departments not named Homeland Security have absolutely nothing--nothing--to do with our disagreements over border security. That is why Democrats have offered, and continue to offer, to reopen the government while we debate border security.

Again, three words for Leader McConnell again: Open the government.

Three words to my Republican colleagues: Open the government.

Three words to President Trump: Open the government.

Then, we can have all the discussion and debating, as we are supposed to do, on these issues where we don't agree.

Democrats have made entirely reasonable proposals. We proposed to open the government by passing Republican spending bills from the last Congress so there would be no controversy. These are not bills the Democrats put together. These are bills the Republicans put together with some Democratic input. Leader McConnell voted for every one of them--every one of them.

As for this idea that he will not move unless Trump agrees, that may have made sense in the first week or two. It makes no sense now because President Trump is adamant, all over the lot, and seems unwilling and unable to tie himself out of his own knots to get the government open. Someone should step in. On our side, we are willing to step in. Where is Leader McConnell? Where are the Republicans?

The American people support passing our bills--bills that we have asked unanimous consent for by wide margins--two to one, including nearly 40 percent of Republicans. Forty percent of Republicans support passing our bills and then debating.

So, Mr. President, even your prized base--a good chunk of it, about a third--is turning away from you on this issue.

When will the President and my Republican colleagues wake up to the hardship being inflicted on so many people across the country? It is time that the Senate act on House-passed bills to open the government.

The President, we know, is inflexible. He is ``proud,'' as he said, to have shut down the government. He is, amazingly--never seen a President like this--impervious to the pain and suffering of Federal workers and the American people. He makes stuff up: Oh, the Federal workers want the wall. Who? Two people who are on FOX News all the time who are part of a Border Patrol union? That is it, not the average worker.

The President has refused all entreaties to open up the government by Democrats and Republicans, like my friend Senator Graham--one of the President's biggest allies in this Chamber.

His deputies are hardly even empowered to negotiate with the Hill since President Trump retracts their offers almost as soon as they are made. Everyone--everyone--can see how fruitless it is to try and negotiate with this President at the moment.

My friend Leader McConnell is the one who can break the impasse. He has declared before that ``he is the guy who gets us out of shutdowns.'' He was proud of that. I wish he were still proud of it.

I think we are all ready for that, Leader McConnell, because so long as Leader McConnell hides behind the President and the President's absurd and destructive shutdown strategy, the Senate will be unable to vote on broadly popular legislation to reopen the government.

The longer Leader McConnell allows this to continue, the more he and Republican Senators will be tied to the President and the President's disgraceful tactic of government by extortion. Russia

Mr. President, last night, the Senate voted to proceed to the resolution to disapprove the Treasury Department's plans to relax sanctions on Russia, and 11 Republicans--I am proud of that, proud of them--joined with every Democrat to advance the resolution, which will face a cloture vote today. Two or three more Republican votes will ensure cloture is invoked and the passage of the resolution achieved. So I would like to make a direct appeal to my Republican friends who are wondering about this.

This resolution is about a very simple thing. Do you believe America should take a tough line on Putin or do you think we should go easy on Putin and his cronies? From where I am standing, that is an easy choice.

The past half decade has seen Putin expand his malign activities around the world, from invading Ukraine and Georgia to annexing Crimea, to propping up the brutal Assad regime in Syria, to directing nerve agent attacks on foreign soil.

Russian intelligence has tried to destabilize Western democracies at every opportunity--France, England, many other European countries, and most obviously here in the United States. As proof positive, they go online, they try to sow dissension in America, this beautiful country.

As Leader McConnell said yesterday--confusingly, before voting against the resolution--``We have long seen Vladimir Putin for the KGB thug that he is.'' Those are strong words but accurate.

In the face of this global assault on Western democracies, of course we have seen that the Trump administration has been shamefully and suspiciously weak on President Putin. The President has avoided criticizing Putin at every turn. When asked about President Putin's brutal tactics against his opponents, President Trump demurs.

When this body, near unanimously, passed the Russian sanction legislation, President Trump contemplated vetoing it.

When President Putin told President Trump he didn't interfere in our 2016 elections, the President reportedly said: I believe you.

Last weekend, we learned that President Trump has expressed a desire to withdraw from NATO this summer--the past summer is when he expressed the desire. That is Putin's dream--Putin's dream. All the advice of our military and diplomatic leaders were against it. Somehow, the President wants to do it, and who benefits the most? Putin. Who loses the most? The West.

Now, with this proposed sanctions relief, we have another example of President Trump trying to lighten the burden on Putin's oligarchs. We should not allow it.

For a very long time, the Republican Party predicated its foreign policy on taking a tougher line against Russia and Putin. In so many campaigns for President, we Democrats were accused of not being tough enough on the Russians. I have always felt we have to be tough on the Russians, but it seems acquiescence to the President, a fear of breaking with the President, has held back too many of my Republican colleagues from supporting this resolution.

The resolution, just to repeat, is sort of--I know Treasury made an effort, although I don't have much faith in the strength. I think the Secretary of Treasury is an intelligent man, but he never stands up to Trump, and I don't have any faith in his strength in standing up this time. So if Trump wanted a weakened resolution because maybe Putin or the Russians wanted it, that is what we have here.

Forty-five percent control is not--45 percent ownership, which is what this does, takes Deripaska out of this? Forget it. Then add to his 45 percent the 7 percent the in-laws own, that the large percentage that Russian banks--controlled by Putin--own, the control is just as tight as it was before. The people who were put in charge have close relationships with Russia. This is not a strong resolution. It is slightly less than a joke--slightly less than a joke.

So I hope some of our colleagues will come around. This is all about America, the West, the stability of our Nation, and if Putin thinks he can manipulate our country and manipulate the President and too many of my colleagues who have always been strong against Russia go along, what is he going to do next? What is he going to ask President Trump to do next, and what will President Trump do?

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