Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, today I wish to start off by just sharing a few words about our former colleague, Senator Fritz Hollings--Ernest F. Hollings, to be precise--of South Carolina. He passed away this weekend at his home in Isle of Palms.

With Fritz Hollings, the people of South Carolina, the Senate, have lost a giant. Hollings was the longest serving junior Senator in American history--behind, of course, Strom Thurmond--representing his constituents for 38 years in the Senate.

Before that, he was a Governor, State legislator, and World War II veteran. Public service was his life's calling. He championed education reform, increasing teachers' pay, a national voice in the fights against hunger and poverty.

He was brought up in the old Jim Crow days, with a great deal of segregation, but as he went through South Carolina, he realized how terrible that was and began to move in the opposite direction.

He was an original. You could always go over to Fritz Hollings. Even when I was a younger legislator, he would pay attention, and he would have something very interesting to say.

Everyone talks about the days of blow-dried, look-alike Senators. Fritz Hollings certainly wasn't one of them. He was an original, and we were all much better for it.

So Fritz, we will miss you, and our thoughts go with your family, as do our prayers and well wishes. Disaster Relief for Puerto Rico

Now, on another matter, Puerto Rico. Last week, Senator Leahy and I offered this Chamber a chance to pass a natural disaster funding package that would have addressed everyone's concerns in the Senate.

The ``all of the above'' solution we presented contained $16.7 billion in relief for all Americans affected by natural disasters. I would add, I see my two friends from Iowa on the floor today, one in the President's chair, one ready to speak. That would have included far more money for the Midwest than the Republican bill because the Republican bill that was on the floor, while it added 2019 to disaster relief, didn't add in any more money despite the devastation in Iowa and Missouri and Nebraska.

Well, our bill added an additional--an additional--$2.5 billion in funding for the disasters of 2019, and the vast majority of that would go to Iowa, to Missouri, and to Nebraska, but it also provided much needed aid for the people of Puerto Rico and other territories. They need the help, too, and they are Americans citizens as well.

Let's face the music, folks. Everyone knows what is going on here. Democrats and Republicans had agreed, as we always do, when there is a disaster, we help. The original bill that was put together had aid for Puerto Rico, as well as aid for the other areas of disaster. The original bill was put together before the Midwest so it didn't have that.

What happened? Is it that somehow our Republican friends from the Midwest and elsewhere thought Puerto Rico didn't deserve the aid? No; President Trump went to a Tuesday lunch, banged his fist on the table-- figuratively, I suppose--and said: I don't think any aid should go to Puerto Rico.

Did our Republican friends, especially those from States with disasters and who needed the aid, say: No, no; we are not going to do that; we are not going to let you divide us? No; they went gamefully along with it, hurting their States.

We all know that if there is no real aid for Puerto Rico, the House will not pass the bill. We in the Senate on the Democratic side do not want to hold Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and the other States, Florida, Texas, Alabama, that are getting the aid hostage for what we want, and our Republican friends shouldn't hold Puerto Rico hostage for what they want.

This grand tradition seems to crumble here day by day, minute by minute, of helping States that need help; that when one American is hurt in one area, Americans in every other area come together and say: We are going to help. That is why we have disaster aid because the enormity of a tornado or a wildfire or a hurricane--the taxpayers of that State can't afford to do it all themselves. So citizens throughout America have had, in effect, a compact that says, when one area is hurt, we all come together.

Look, I suffered a little from that when New York had Sandy. We had some of our Senators from the very States--from the very States--that now are requesting aid say: Don't give aid to New York for Sandy. I have never done that. I have always been for aid to States that are far away from New York and just have Republican representation. We don't do that here--until now. Until now.

So I would say to all of my friends on the other side of the aisle, there is a way out of this--provide the aid that originally Senators Shelby, a Republican, Leahy, a Democrat, agreed on. Don't let Donald Trump's nasty temper tantrum somehow about Puerto Rico get in the way. Do the right thing, and he will sign the bill. We know he will sign the bill. He is not going to stop aid for Texas or Florida or Iowa or any other State because this body and the House have put in aid for Puerto Rico.

Let me just mention, just as the people in the Midwest are suffering, people in Puerto Rico are suffering. That island has had a slower recovery from a storm of greater magnitude than any others we are talking about.

So we need to vote on this legislation. It is not an either-or situation. To say you are putting $600 million in food stamps for Puerto Rico so people will not starve, when they are not getting the same aid everybody else gets--CDBG, FEMA--that is not right, that is not fair, and that figleaf will not cover up the real motivation of President Trump, which, unfortunately, I don't think most of our Republican colleagues agree with, but they go along with. Everyone is afraid on the other side of anything President Trump does--right or wrong. Unfortunately, he is wrong far too often.

Puerto Rico needs aid so they can rebuild. They need the food aid, but they need more than that. Trump wanted to cut out all of it. Someone on this side said: Well, you have to at least do food aid. He said: Well, I will do that and nothing more. That is not right. Should we do food aid just for every State? Should we do food aid just for Texas or just for Florida or just for Iowa? No rebuilding? Let all of those houses and homes and factories and stores suffer? No. We wouldn't do it for those States. We shouldn't, and we shouldn't do it for Puerto Rico.

So then we decided to compromise even more. There is $20 billion of aid already for Puerto Rico that hasn't been allocated. The President, in his nastiness to the people of Puerto Rico--citizens, they are American citizens--refused to allocate that money.

Well, Senator Leahy then said: Let's just take $8.3 billion of that and free it up. Our colleagues will not even do that.

So when the American people want to know what is holding up this bill, when the people in the flooded areas and the areas that have been hit by wildfires and hurricanes want to know what is holding it up, it is Donald Trump picking one part of the country and saying: ``I don't want to give aid to them,'' and too many--just about every one of our colleagues, at least thus far--going along.

Elections have consequences. The House is now Democratic. It is their strong view that we ought to give aid to Puerto Rico. It is a view I share, but if we don't do the right thing in this body, where we have a tradition of coming together, and you say President Trump will not sign something, when he originally had nothing to do with putting together this bill, we are all going to be stuck for quite a while. We are all going to be stuck for quite a while. Let us in the House, in this body, the Senate, come to a compromise that satisfies the Midwest, that satisfies the hurricane States of Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, that satisfies Texas, and get moving. That is what we should be doing.

This idea that we are holding up this bill, when the House wouldn't pass it anyway; the idea that we are holding up this bill, when we know the history that President Trump went into that lunch and changed everything around in the nasty way that he can't even explain--uh-uh; that is not going to fly. That is not going to fly. Resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen

Madam President, on Secretary Nielsen, Kirstjen Nielsen submitted her resignation as the Secretary of Homeland Security. When we look back at this moment, I think we are going to remember Secretary Nielsen's tenure as a cruel chapter, in which the Agency followed through on President Trump's worst impulses. Those include advocacy for Trump's ineffective and expensive wall; her support for the longest government shutdown in history that didn't produce anything for President Trump; most regrettably, her full embrace of the child separation policy, leading to thousands of children being ripped away from their families.

Some say Secretary Nielsen argued inwardly against some of these. Well, she should have left a long time ago. She shouldn't be advocating for policies that are so, so wrong. Maybe it is better, maybe it is worse if she knew they were wrong, but it is not good, no matter what.

Through it all, in fact, she continuously misled the American public, even insisting once that ``we do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.''

Well, that was just absolutely false, and Americans from every part of the country were just appalled by that. In fact, some people say one of the reasons the House went Democratic is a lot of suburban Republican women didn't like that policy, as they shouldn't have. So it wasn't even politically as smart as maybe President Trump thought it was.

Despite Secretary Nielsen's advocacy for the wall, for her support of the shutdown, her embrace of the child separation policy, which she always misled Americans about, she still wasn't radical enough for President Trump.

As NBC News reported this morning, President Trump has urged for months that his administration reauthorize the awful practice of separating little, tiny children and babies from their parents.

This is further proof that the President is kowtowing to the worst instincts of people and to the conservative, hard-right, and extreme voices in the Republican Party, with no or little regard for our national security or the ability to function efficiently.

What he has done by these constant firings, the constant change of policy, has simply created chaos at the border. Nobody knows what the policy will be from day to day and week to week and month to month. He doesn't tell the top people in his departments that he has changed his plans.

He fired, evidently, Mr. Vitiello, without even Secretary Nielsen knowing about it.

This erratic, nasty style of governing is not solving any problems at the border, and the more problems and chaos there is, the more people are going to see it is President Trump, as President, can't solve this problem, despite his rhetoric, where he appears tough but doesn't solve the problem. Dismissal of Secret Service Director Randolph Alles

Madam President, on the Secret Service Director's dismissal, this brings me to my final point.

Just a few hours ago, the White House confirmed that it has now also asked that Secret Service Director Randolph Alles step aside. His departure comes in the midst of recent reports about potentially serious security vulnerabilities surrounding President Trump, particularly at Mar-a-Lago. That is why the outgoing Secret Service Director must testify before Congress as soon as possible about the potential security vulnerabilities at Mar-a-Lago, vulnerabilities that involve a Chinese national arrested with malware on her person and other threats.

The public and Congress need to know the extent to which adversarial governments like China are attempting to infiltrate and conduct electronic surveillance on classified conversations or other information regarding national security at President Trump's properties. The President and the White House staff may like to treat hiring and firing in the administration as some kind of reality TV show or parlor game, but to the American people, this has real-life consequences.

This is about national security, security at our airports, responding to national disasters, including our efforts to fight international cargo carrying drugs like fentanyl. That is why it is urgent to get to the bottom of this and why the outgoing Secret Service Director must testify as soon as possible.

Now, all three of these comments--what is happening in Puerto Rico, what is happening with the Department of Homeland Security, and now the Secret Service--indicate just the chaos that seems to be overwhelming this administration.

President Trump's policies, if he has them, switch from day to day. He is erratic. He seems to get emotional. He pushes out whatever is on his mind that day no matter its consequences, and this country is floundering. There is a lot of rhetoric and not much else.

All these people leaving in very important positions--the President undercutting them, not calling them into the office and having a discussion, but tweeting and ranting. I have never seen America governed like this--never.

And I don't care what your political affiliation is. I don't care if you are a liberal, moderate, or conservative. What is happening in this White House--as it fails to lead this country and does seem something like a TV reality show--is hurting us. It is hurting us and hurting us badly, and I hope we can get some bipartisan efforts to do things about this and to speak up about it.

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