Directing the Removal of United States Armed Forces From Hostilities in the Republic of Yemen That Have Not Been Authorized By Congress--Veto

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I begin the bulk of my remarks, I want to take a moment to express my heartfelt condolences to the victims of the shooting on Saturday, in California, when a gunman opened fire in a synagogue during services after yelling anti-Semitic slurs. His heinous attack left a 60-year-old woman dead, the rabbi wounded, a man and an 8-year-old girl with shrapnel wounds.

We have seen so many different houses of worship attacked in recent weeks. Just 1 week ago on Easter Sunday, hundreds of Christian Sri Lankans were massacred in their churches. What happened at the synagogue in California is rooted in the same White supremacist hatred and bile that drove attacks against the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; mosques in New Zealand, and the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston.

We must recommit ourselves today and every day to fighting anti- Semitism and all forms of bigotry in our country and around the world.

Remembering Richard Lugar

Madam President, I also want to share a word on the passing of our friend and former colleague, Dick Lugar of Indiana. Dick personified the Senate at its best--honest, decent, and with an eye for consensus. He represented the kind of thoughtful bipartisanship that is so missing in our politics today. His work on the Foreign Relations Committee-- twice as its leader--made the world a safer and fairer place, whether it was combating proliferation of nuclear weapons, apartheid in South Africa, or world hunger.

His legacy as a legislator and as a man is something for all of us to aspire to. Senator Lugar will be greatly missed.

Mueller Report

Madam President, while Congress was away during the State work period, Attorney General Barr released a redacted version of Special Counsel Mueller's report to Congress and to the American people.

The report documents, yet again, a concerted effort by President Putin to interfere and influence our elections and to assist the current President.

Members of the Trump campaign were aware of, and at times amplified, that foreign influence campaign, including President Trump himself, for the likely purpose of winning a Presidential election. That alone constitutes attacks on our democracy.

Just as alarming was the behavior of the President and his team concerning Special Counsel Mueller's investigation itself. Special Counsel Mueller's report documents a persistent effort by the President to stonewall, thwart, and undermine the legitimacy of the Mueller investigation. The report includes no less than 11 instances during which the President may have obstructed justice.

There is no question that the President engaged in a pattern of intimidation and interference with the Federal investigation. Special Counsel Mueller explicitly states in his report that if he could have exonerated the President on the charge of criminal obstruction of justice, then he would have, but ``evidence about the President's actions and intent . . . prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.''

Also, it appears that the Justice Department's policy against the indictment of sitting Presidents played an important role in the special counsel's analysis. Now the Congress and the American people must grapple with this damning portrait of a President who was dishonest, lawless, and regularly abused the powers of his office.

The House of Representatives is going to pursue hearings. The Senate will hear from Attorney General Barr this week, where he must answer for his mischaracterizations of the special counsel's findings, his outrageously partisan press conference, and, in general, his failure to behave with the impartiality demanded of the Office of Attorney General.

Special Counsel Mueller must testify before Congress to further explain the findings in his report and provide clarity on areas where the Attorney General twisted his words, and Congress must be given access to an unredacted version of the report. Knowing Attorney General Barr's conduct, we cannot trust him to be a clean pair of hands in all of this.

So while many on the other side of the aisle want to move on from these issues, we simply cannot move on. Congress--Democrats and Republicans--must grapple with the facts of the Mueller report. We must defend our democracy, and, yes, hold the President accountable. These are not partisan issues. This is about our country, the sanctity of our elections, and the future of the Presidency.

In the wake of the Mueller report, I have been asked a lot, what are Democrats going to do with the Mueller report? Well, the real question should be, what are my Republican friends going to do with it? Disaster Relief

Madam President, Congress shamefully recessed for the State work period without passing relief for Americans who are affected by natural disasters that occurred recently. This needs to be a top legislative priority over the next few weeks. We are already one-third of the way into 2019, and millions of Americans are still waiting for us to provide necessary funding so they can recover and rebuild from disasters that happened months ago--in some cases, longer than that.

The Democratic position is clear: We support an ``all of the above'' approach that provides relief for every American affected by natural disasters--Americans in the Midwest, Americans in the South, Americans on the West Coast, and, yes, Americans in Puerto Rico.

Everyone knows why Senate Republicans have blocked our proposals, and that is because President Trump has shown a borderline obsessive hostility to the people in Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues have followed President Trump's lead. It has caused us to fail in our responsibility to provide long overdue aid to Americans struggling to piece their lives back together after hurricanes, floods, fires and droughts.

Well, my friends on the other side have had a few weeks to think about it. I sincerely hope we can press the reset button. We have a legislative proposal introduced by my friend Congresswoman Lowey that takes care of all of these disaster victims, and it is ready to go in the House.

So as we get back to legislative business this week, I urge my colleagues to put politics aside. Let's do the right thing. Let's tell President Trump that his obsessive nastiness to Puerto Rico, unfounded by fact, is not going to prevent millions of people in the Middle West, the West, and the South from getting the relief they need. Let's provide disaster relief for every American who needs it.

Infrastructure

Madam President, tomorrow morning, at the Democrats' request, the Speaker and I will meet with President Trump at the White House to discuss the glaring need to invest in our Nation's infrastructure. During the Presidential campaign, Candidate Trump promised a trillion- dollar infrastructure bill. It was one of the few areas where most Democrats, myself included, believed we could find common ground with the President after he was elected.

Unfortunately, it has been over 2 years. The President hasn't proposed anything close to a trillion-dollar investment and has shown little interest in pursuing an infrastructure bill in Congress. Senate Democrats, however, have put together a trillion-dollar infrastructure investment, a real plan that invests Federal dollars not just in roads, bridges, and highways--as important as they are, and they are--but also in schools, housing, electric grids, rural broadband, and green energy.

There are several different ways to pay for such a bill. For example, by reversing only the most egregious giveaways in President Trump's tax bill--those given to the wealthiest of the wealthy--and raising the corporate tax rate a smidge, we could finance the entirety of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

So, while we look forward to an open discussion tomorrow, it is important to remember two things. First, our country has large infrastructure demands. We need to go big and address roads and bridges but also schools, housing, broadband, green energy, and more. Second, we need to remember that since the Republicans have handed out a mammoth tax break to big corporations and the already wealthy, it would be extraordinarily unfair to ask the middle class to shoulder the cost of an infrastructure bill. The Tax Code shouldn't be made any more regressive than it is now in order to pay for an infrastructure bill.

We look forward to our discussion tomorrow, and, hopefully, the President will have an open mind.

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