Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I thank my colleague and friend from Tennessee for deferring.

First, on Donald Stewart, I know Leader McConnell talked about him. Everyone is going to miss him here in the Senate. He was truly somebody whom everyone liked. He always had a great sense of humor and a big smile. He served his boss, Mitch McConnell, extremely well, but he never let that get in the way of being friendly and working with the other side. He is somebody we will all miss. I enjoyed my interactions with him a great deal. I think that is probably true of just about every Member here.

We wish Stew the best and thank him for serving this body so long and so well.

H.J. Res. 46

Today, Madam President, the Senate will vote on the resolution to terminate the President's declaration of a national emergency. This is not a normal vote. What we are doing here today--this is not a normal day. It is not your typical vote on an appropriations or authorization bill. It doesn't concern a nomination or an appointment. This will be a vote about the very nature of our Constitution, the separation of powers, and how this government functions henceforth.

The Framers gave Congress the power of the purse in article I of the Constitution. It is probably our greatest power. Now the President is claiming that power for himself under a guise of an emergency declaration to get around a Congress that repeatedly would not authorize his demand for a border wall.

The President has not justified the emergency declaration. You would think in a moment like this, when there is not a war, when there is not an immediate disease, or when there is not a disaster--that is when we had other declarations. They don't need an elaboration, but this one would. But the President hasn't done that. He simply said he ``didn't need to do this.'' That is amazing, folks, my colleagues. The President said he didn't need to do this, and yet he is declaring an emergency. It is a direct contradiction of his own words.

Everyone here knows the truth. Democrats and Republicans know the sad truth. The President did not declare an emergency because there is one; he declared an emergency because he lost in Congress and wants to get around it. He is obsessed with showing strength. He couldn't just abandon his pursuit of the border wall, so he had to trample on the Constitution to continue his fight. That is not how this democracy is supposed to function. That is not how this democracy has functioned. I have never seen it, where, out of anger and out of a desire to win the fight regardless of the consequences, a President would do this.

The President has not laid out where he plans to divert funds from, though we know it is going to be from our military--from the men and women serving us and from the things they need.

Senators who vote against this resolution this afternoon may be voting to gut funding for a military installation in their State or for a cut to military pay and military pensions. How could they do that?

Most importantly, President Trump has shown zero understanding of what his emergency portends for the separation of powers in our democracy. The President seems to regard the government, not just the Justice Department, as his own personal tool to do whatever he wants, whether it is in the private sector or the public sector. We have never had a President like this.

We have had lots of Presidents with lots of foibles, but none of them seem to equate their own ego with the entire functioning of the government of the United States, except this one.

We can't succumb to that. It is our job here, in Congress, to limit executive overreach, to defend our core powers, to prevent a President--any President--from ignoring the will of Congress every time it fails to align with the will of the President. That is what the balance of powers is. That is what checks and balances is. That is what every one of us learned in second grade civics class.

All that teaching in the second grade civics class seems to be lost on so many of my Republican colleagues in blind obeisance to this President, no matter what the consequences.

This is not an issue of the wall. It goes way beyond that. We have had our fights and disputes on the wall for several years here. However you feel about our policy on the southern border and however you feel about the President, Senators should vote yes on the resolution to terminate the emergency declaration.

This resolution is about more than this President. It is about the Presidency now and on into the future.

It should not be difficult for any of my Republican colleagues to take this vote. Conservative principles would demand it, and some of the true conservatives, like Mr. Lee, yesterday, understood that logic. Conservatives have always feared an agglomeration of power in any branch of government, but particularly in the executive branch. The conservative movement has been designed to reduce the powers of the Federal Government. That is why they are for lowering taxes so much.

All of a sudden, again, because President Trump simply wants it, they say: Let's abandon those principles and vote to change, fundamentally, the way the balance of power works--shame.

If conservatism today is to mean anything, self-branded conservatives should vote to terminate the resolution. Deep-seated principles like that shouldn't take a back seat to the politics of the moment. They should not be abandoned just because the President shares the same party.

Now, let me speak from the heart to my Republican colleagues. I know that President Trump is extremely popular among Republicans for many reasons. I know he commands the vast majority of the Republican Party, and I know that the President never shies away from threatening, bullying, or publicly castigating members of his own party if they refuse to do what he wants.

So, I realize this. It is a much more difficult vote for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to take than for those of us who are Democrats. I would say to them, and I would say to every Republican: There are times when loyalty to America, to our Constitution, to our principles, and to what has made this country great should lead Members to rise above and rise to the occasion.

I hope and I pray that this moment is one of those times when Members choose country over party and when Members rise above politics for the sake of fidelity to our constitutional principles and to this great United States of America.

In conclusion, on this issue, this is not an everyday moment. This is not just about going along with this President or that one. This is a red-letter day in the history of how the U.S. Government functions. The judgment of our Founding Fathers and the judgment of history weighs upon this vote. Tariffs

Madam President, the trade negotiations with China are moving forward, and I continue to have concerns that President Trump will accept a weak deal for the sake of a headline. Apparently, I am not alone. President Trump's former top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, told a podcast that the President is ``desperate'' to reach a trade deal. He also expressed deep skepticism that the administration would be able to stop the Chinese from stealing intellectual property and hold the Chinese accountable.

I hope Gary Cohn is wrong. The President, to his credit, was not desperate for a deal in North Korea and stood up to Kim Jong Un and looked strong for that. I hope he realizes that, as he negotiates with someone with even more consequences at stake for the long run of America--President Xi--and with a country that can do far more harm to our country, ultimately, in the long run.

Ambassador Lighthizer has said that there are still major issues left to be resolved. If that is the case, President Trump should not be pressing for a quick solution. The Chinese are more desperate for a solution than we are, although, obviously, some harm has been created to bring the Chinese to the table with tariffs.

The Chinese are desperate, and it is like they are ahead in the seventh inning, and then you say: I quit the ball game; I lose.

Don't do that, Mr. President. The tariffs you have imposed, at some political cost, have brought China to the table and given us the first opportunity in decades--in decades--to make the Chinese reform so they don't take total advantage of American workers and know-how. Soybean purchases and promises to import more American goods are not sufficient if we don't win concrete concessions on major issues.

If President Trump caves to China for the sake of soybean purchases, he would be trading America's future, literally, for a hill of beans. We want to help the soybean farmers. We want to help everybody else, but not at the expense of the future viability of jobs and wealth in America.

My message to President Trump is the same one I mentioned to him and I gave to him before he met with Kim Jong Un: Don't back down.

The President should be proud that he stood up to North Korea and walked away. He will be proud if he does the same with China, unless President Xi makes enduring, verifiable reforms of China's economic and trade policies, because the odds are high that if the President walks away from a weak deal, he will be able to get a much better deal down the road.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. President.

Today, the Senate will vote on the resolution to terminate the President's declaration of a national emergency.

Let me begin with a quotation.

Revelations of how power has been abused by high government officials must give rise to concern about the potential exercise, unchecked by the Congress or the American people, of this extraordinary power. The National Emergencies Act would end this threat and ensure that the powers now in the hands of the Executive will be utilized only in a time of genuine emergency and then only under safeguards providing for congressional review.

Let me repeat that. ``[T]he powers now in the hands of the Executive will be utilized only in a time of genuine emergency.'' That is from the special committee report on the National Emergencies Act, which was passed decades ago.

The bottom line is very simple. We all know the other arguments--that this is not an emergency. The President himself said so. He said he didn't have to do this if he didn't want to. In previous emergencies, it was either apparent, like 9/11, or it was a disease or some other immediate disaster, and there was a long explanation as to why. We have gotten no explanation as to why this is an emergency.

The second reason, of course, is the money that might be taken away from the military--our brave men and women in uniform not getting the dollars they need--for this wall.

The third, of course, is that the President couldn't get his way through Congress even when we had 2 years of Republican leadership in the House, Senate, and White House, couldn't get his way this time, and is now simply going around Congress to declare an emergency.

But those reasons pale for the most important reason. This is a momentous day. The balance of power that the Founding Fathers put in place, so exquisitely designed, has served this Nation extremely well for over two centuries. That balance of power was in large part motivated by the fear of an overreaching Executive. The patriots had just fought King George. They knew what it was like to have an Executive who would go too far, and they put in precautions to make sure that didn't happen.

Today, we are being asked, in a way that we haven't been asked in decades, maybe even longer, to change that balance of power. And make no mistake about it--it will set an awful precedent for the future, no matter who is President. It will change it. If a President can invoke an emergency because he didn't get his way or she didn't get her way, without real cause, without a real emergency, woe is our Republic in many ways--the ways the Founding Fathers feared.

I know this is a very difficult vote for my friends on the other side of the aisle--much more difficult than ours. We all know that the President is extremely popular in the Republican Party for maybe a few good reasons--I would say mostly bad, but he is. We know that he has been vindictive, contemptuous, calling out people who oppose him. So it is not an easy vote. I take my hat off to those Members on the other side of the aisle who have let principle rise above party, who understand what the Constitution requires this afternoon and have agreed to vote against this emergency.

I would plead with those others who haven't made up their minds to look at this moment in history. This is not an immediate moment. You can be for the wall or against the wall, you can think that what we are doing at the southern border is inadequate, but that issue pales before the issue before us; that is, how far an Executive can reach when Congress does not want to do what that Executive wants.

This is a crucial moment. This is a moment historians will look back on. This could be a moment that changes the fundamental balance of power in our government. So I would ask my colleagues--I would really plead with my colleagues. I understand the politics are difficult--much harder for you than for me--but our Nation, our Constitution, the beauty of this government demands that we rise to the occasion this afternoon. Please join us in rejecting this emergency and keeping our government with the same balance of power that has served us so well for two centuries.

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