Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, President Trump has kept the government shut down for 34 days, and the pain inflicted on the American people and their government is getting deeper and deeper every day.
Our economy is suffering. First quarter GDP is in the tank. Consumer confidence has fallen.
Our national security is suffering. FBI agents attest that criminal and anti-terrorism investigations are severely constrained. Border patrol, TSA, and hundreds of thousands of homeland security personnel are working under limitations. These people are all part of our security.
President Trump keeps saying that we need the wall for security. Most people disagree with that, but even if we did agree, it is not going to be built for years. Our security is suffering today because of the Trump shutdown. It is so bad that five former DHS Secretaries wrote a letter to President Trump, urging him to end the shutdown without the wall, including his former Chief of Staff John Kelly, a loyal soldier if ever there were one. Kelly knows and they all know that this shutting down of the government for the President's wall, which most Americans believe we should not build, is wrong. The President's former Chief of Staff is telling President Trump that his position on the shutdown is wrong, that his position on the shutdown is a threat to national security--I would argue far more than not building a huge, ineffective wall.
Yesterday, a joint statement from the air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight attendants unions issued a dire warning: ``In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the system will break.''
Mr. Donald Trump, President, if you cared about security, you would open the government now. You are the only one standing in the way. We know most of our Republican colleagues want the government opened. They are, in a positive way, loyal to you and, in a negative way, afraid to buck you, but they all know it. Everyone knows it.
Of course, 800,000 Federal workers are on the cusp of missing their second paycheck--a month's share of pay. Some require the assistance of food banks to get by. That is so disheartening. Hard-working people who just want to help their families have a decent life have to go to a food bank. They did nothing wrong. President Trump is using them as hostages. Here is how callous this administration is. When asked about that fact this morning, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a billionaire, said ``I know they are, and I don't really quite understand why.'' He argues that it is easy for furloughed workers to get a loan.
Those comments are appalling and reveal the administration's callous indifference toward the Federal workers he is treating as pawns. Secretary Ross's comments are the 21st century equivalent of ``Let them eat cake.''
Many of these Federal employees live paycheck to paycheck. Secretary Ross, they can't just call their stockbroker and ask them to sell some of their shares. They need that paycheck.
We need to end this shutdown now. There is only one way to do it. This afternoon, for the first time since President Trump shutdown the government in December, the Senate will have a chance to vote on a bill that reopens the government.
Leader McConnell says that President Trump's bill is the only way to reopen the government. Bull. He claims that our bill will not pass because President Trump will not sign it. Has he ever heard of a veto override? Has he ever heard of article I?
The bill that President Trump has put together can't pass the House and can't pass the Senate, so it has no chance of passing. For Leader McConnell to say the only bill that has a chance of opening up the government is President Trump's bill--where he puts in a $5.7 billion wall, undoes many of the asylum provisions, and is broadly unpopular-- is false. It is just wrong.
The two bills that are on the floor are not equivalent votes. My friend on the other side and some in the media who are being lazy called the two votes ``dueling proposals,'' as if there is one Republican proposal and one Democratic proposal and they are sort of equal. It is just not true.
The President's plan demands 100 percent of what the President wants--$5.7 billion for a border wall plus radical new changes to our asylum system before reopening the government. For the Republican leader to call this a compromise is laughable. There was no Democratic signoff--not from me, not from Senator Durbin, not from any other Democrat. It is a harshly partisan proposal that essentially codifies the President's position that government funding is a bargaining chip.
A vote for the President's plan is an endorsement of government by extortion. If we let him do it today, he will do it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. The whole structure of our government will change, and the chaos that we now see will be magnified.
Even some of my Republican friends have admitted that the President's plan is not a serious offer. A few days ago, my friend from Oklahoma called it ``a straw man proposal.'' I think that says it all. The President's plan is a straw man, not a serious offer. It is merely a way to save face.
The second vote is the opposite. It demands nothing before we reopen the government--nothing. There are no partisan demands, not things we want or we will shut down the government. We don't do that. Only Trump does that, and our Republican colleagues go along. Our proposal allows us to open the government and then, after the government is opened, settle our differences over border security. I know it is not partisan because every single Republican supported the same basic idea just 1 month ago when we voted on it. When President Trump changed his mind and said no, everyone did a sort of 180-degree reversal, including my friend the Republican leader. He knows it.
So the two votes are not the same. They are not flip sides of the same coin. The first vote is harshly partisan and one-sided. The second vote is down the middle and seeks to reopen government and has received overwhelming support from both sides before President Trump said he wouldn't do it. Calling the two votes equivalent is not an attempt to simplify but to mislead.
Nonetheless, in a few hours, we will take these two votes. The Senate will have a chance to say no to the President's hostage-taking, and then the Senate will have a chance to send a clear message that Congress is ready to reopen the government.
To my Republican colleagues, even if you are for the wall--all of those who have said ``I may be for the wall, but I want to keep the government open'' have a chance to do it on the second vote. Let's see how they vote.
Throughout this debacle, I have not heard one good reason why 800,000 Federal employees must be held hostage for us to discuss border security. Democrats are happy to discuss border security under regular order with the government open. We support stronger border security. President Trump believes the best way to do that is an expensive and ineffective wall. We disagree sharply with that, but there is no reason we can't negotiate and figure it out. What we can't allow is the President to hijack our government and hold it hostage every time we disagree over policy, which he will do if he wins this one.
The votes this afternoon are about more than just a shutdown. They are about how we govern in a democracy.
We are allowed to come here and disagree over policy. In fact, our system of government was designed to allow for progress, despite our large and sometimes raucous differences. But when one side--in this case, the President--throws a temper tantrum and uses the basic functioning of our government as leverage in a policy argument, our system of government breaks down. If every President decided to shut down the government when they didn't get a policy from Congress, America would careen from crisis to crisis, an endless spiral of gridlock and dysfunction.
So the votes this afternoon are not about border security. These votes are about ending a manufactured crisis, a self-inflicted wound that is bleeding our country out a little more each day. I hope and I pray that the Senate rises to the occasion.
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