Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the Mueller report, released earlier this month, was divided into two sections. One is detailing the concerted and coordinated effort by President Putin to interfere in our Presidential election, an effort the Trump campaign welcomed and at times amplified. It also included a second section, which laid out a pattern of dishonesty and interference with a Federal investigation by the President and his team.
Now, today I want to focus the Senate's attention on the first half of the report: the coordinated effort by President Putin to interfere in our elections, which is an unbelievable thing, a threat to our democracy, and something every American should be concerned about.
Though we have long known about President Putin's interference in the 2016 elections--we have all known about that--the conclusions of the Mueller report demand a vigorous response by this Congress to ensure that Putin pays a significant price for his actions and that Putin and other adversaries will not consider a similar action in the 2020 election cycle. What occurred in 2016 was nothing short of an assault on our democracy and an attack on our most revered traditions. It was the kind of foreign influence feared by the Framers and warned about in the Federalist Papers. It is the very reason we have an emoluments clause in our Constitution.
Even so, President Trump and his administration met these attacks with apathy. The President has routinely sought to undermine and weaken efforts by this Chamber to sanction Russia. The Treasury Department recently cut a deal to reduce sanctions on the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Just last week, the Times reported that then-Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen was told to not even mention election security in front of the President, even though she reportedly considered it one of America's highest priorities as we head into 2020.
In the face of the administration's disturbing indifference, it is clear the Senate must act. In the past, this body has proudly come together, bipartisan, to pass sanctions on Russia. We have not done enough yet to hold the guilty parties of 2016 accountable, and we must do more to ensure that a foreign power cannot meddle in our elections ever again. With that in mind, I have three proposals for my colleagues to consider.
First, we should pass additional sanctions against President Putin, his cronies, and other adversaries considering similar malign activities. There are multiple bipartisan sanctions bills awaiting action, including the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, called DASKA, and the Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act, the DETER Act. I would urge the chairmen of those committees to take up those bills and send them to the floor, where Leader McConnell should bring them up for serious consideration.
Second, we should commit serious--and I mean serious--resources to election security. FBI Director Wray and other intelligence officials have testified that 2016 was not an isolated incident. Foreign powers will try again to interfere in our elections, they posited, in 2020 and beyond. Director Wray--and this should trouble every American--called 2018 a dress rehearsal for our adversaries. It might not just be Moscow next time. It could be Beijing, Tehran, or Pyongyang. If our elections are susceptible to foreign influence, our democracy is at risk.
We know--we know right now--that another foreign influence campaign is coming, and if we don't take steps to secure our elections, it would be astonishingly irresponsible. In fiscal year 2018, we were able to allocate $380 million in funding through the appropriations process for States to harden their election infrastructure and help improve election administration. I thought this was very important and pushed hard to get it in that budget, that appropriation. Unfortunately, though, in fiscal year 2019, our Republican colleagues blocked us from allocating more funding to the States, despite overwhelming demand. Why? Why would Republicans want to not stop Russia or someone else from interfering in our elections? It is befuddling. Make no mistake, though, Democrats will push for more election security money in the upcoming appropriations process.
We should also take up the bipartisan Secure Elections Act. Ranking Member Leahy and Ranking Member Klobuchar are the leaders on this issue, and I hope their diligence will pay off once again.
Third, we must hear from the intelligence and defense community about the coming threats of 2020. So today I would like to request that Leader McConnell--I am officially requesting him to schedule an all- Senators classified briefing with the leaders of the Departments of Homeland Security, FBI, and the Cyber Command to inform Senators about the threat of foreign interference in the 2020 election cycle. We must be very aware of these threats and take immediate steps to avoid the repeat of 2016.
The Senate can do these three things quickly, and each one of them should be bipartisan and noncontroversial. There are no doubt other ideas and legislation along these lines we should consider, but this is a place to get started. I look forward to having discussions with my colleagues about these items in the coming days. Senate Legislative Agenda
Madam President, Leg Graveyard. Now, on another and related matter, the three items I just mentioned are examples of the things that the Senate could--could--be doing in a bipartisan way to address a serious challenge. I hope the Republican leader sees the value in pursuing them because so far this year the Republican leader has shown little interest in pursuing meaningful bipartisan legislation.
With over a year and a half left in Congress, Leader McConnell has turned this Chamber into a legislative graveyard, and without a shred of irony, he has proudly bragged that he is the Senate's Grim Reaper. Is that what the American people want? They urge us to work together in a bipartisan way, but Leader McConnell takes all the bills that have passed the House, puts them in his drawer, and spends his time simply doing nominations.
We are one-quarter of the way through the year, so let's do a quick quarterly review. Our colleagues in the House have been busy. In 4 months, over 100 pieces of legislation passed their Chamber. Here are some of them: Legislation to oppose the lawsuit that would eliminate protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. Who is opposed to that? Leader McConnell is. Legislation to reform our democracy and improve elections, restore voting rights, and get the money out of politics; legislation on paycheck fairness so women are treated equally to men; commonsense background checks for which 98 percent of Americans support; upgrades to the Violence Against Women Act; legislation to restore net neutrality; and despite the fact that the President shut down the government for over a month, these bills have passed the House, most every one of them, with bipartisan support. These aren't partisan bills. They are commonsense proposals to help the middle class solve our country's basic problems.
The Republican leader told the American people that under his leadership, the Senate would debate and vote on issues of the day no matter if his party supported them. Yet not one, not one of these bills has come to the floor of the Senate--not one. Not one has been debated in the Chamber. These are the bills. If the Republican leader doesn't love every aspect of one of these House bills, fine, we are not saying take them or leave them. Let's have a debate. Let's have amendments. At least let's try to compromise on language that can get through both Chambers.
What has the Senate been doing instead? Leader McConnell has wasted precious time on basically two issues, ``gotcha'' votes like a stunt on climate change and Republicans' cynical attempts to limit women's reproductive health choices. The remainder has been spent on approval of alarmingly unqualified nominees to executive agencies in the judiciary.
What are we doing this week on the calendar? Not one piece of legislation, just nominees. Next week could probably be more of the same. So over the next 2 years, the Republican Senate is in danger of becoming little more than a staffing agency to the administration's radical nominees. That is a tragedy because at the start of this Congress, the American people sent a clear message. They wanted us to work together on legislation in a bipartisan way. The American people voted for action: action on healthcare, action on prescription drugs, action on climate change, and gun safety. Poll after poll shows that these issues are on the minds of Americans. Substantial majorities, Democrats and Republicans, supported them. We cannot, simply because we have a divided government, allow this entire Congress to go by without making meaningful progress on these issues. This is not good for the country, certainly not good for the Senate or the Republican Party and the incumbents in those Chambers. The American people cannot afford to have Leader McConnell turn one Chamber of their government into a legislative graveyard for 2 full years. We hope he will realize the folly of this both substantively and politically, and maybe we will start doing some real work. Economic Growth
Madam President, finally, on the economy, that is one area that deserves our attention, although you wouldn't guess it if you were listening to President Trump. President Trump repeatedly brags about low unemployment numbers and a rising stock market--two trends that actually began long before he took office. President Trump should say ``Thanks, Obama'' for handing him an economy that was well into recovery from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But what the President has done since taking office has been to tilt the playing field to allow most of the benefits of this recovery to flow to those at the very top. He can brag about GDP numbers, but when most of the wealth is going more and more to the highest level of people, it doesn't benefit enough people.
President Trump has consistently weakened programs that help middle- class Americans afford healthcare. He has rolled back critical worker and consumer protections and rammed through a tax bill that gave egregious giveaways to big corporations. Instead of the wealth trickling down, corporations have spent the lion's share of their new profits on corporate stock buybacks, which benefit shareholders and the CEOs--most of them very wealthy--not average Americans or workers.
If the economy is so strong, why is it that 4 out of 10 Americans can't afford a $400 emergency expense? Why is it that income disparity grows, with the middle class left holding the bag? Recent polls confirm--and this should be a watch word, Mr. President--Americans don't believe the Trump economy is working for them. In a recent ABC poll, most Americans see the Trump economy as primarily benefiting those who are already in power, those who are already wealthy. According to Monmouth, most Americans say the economy hasn't benefited them much, if at all.
To simply brag about large macro numbers but not look at the effect on the average person who is making $40-, $50-, $60,000 a year--that is wrong. That is not helping them. The group who believes the economy is benefitting them the most is making over $100,000 a year. God bless them, but we ought to be working to spread economic benefits to the middle class.
Despite the President's trumpeting of self-selected economic data, the bottom line is this: The Trump economy is working OK if you are already doing quite well, but it is not doing enough--not close to enough--for working America and the middle class.
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