Executive Session

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, this morning's New York Times contained a stunning report that President Trump's top national security aid had been presented with a plan that would ``send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons''--120,000 American troops in the Middle East. This report is completely baffling and incredibly alarming.

What is the strategy here? The administration just began a maximum pressure campaign of sanctions against Iran to squeeze its economy. Doesn't it make sense to see if your policy is working before preparing for potential troop deployments, particularly in such large numbers? Six months ago the President was trying to pull U.S. forces out of the Middle East entirely, against the advice of many in our defense and diplomatic communities. Now his national security team is reviewing plans for war?

Meanwhile, President Trump has not laid out what his plans are, what his long-term strategy in the Middle East is, or even given a speech about Iran. So why on Earth are his advisers discussing plans to entrench U.S. ground troops in the Middle East for who knows how long? It seems that hardliners in the administration are pushing the conversation in a very dangerous direction, and I am very concerned.

U.S. foreign policy depends upon the stable execution of a consistent policy, but all too often the Trump administration has seemed capable of neither stability nor consistency. The erratic behavior of the President and the chaos he instills in his administration has led to numerous blunders at home and abroad. We should all hope that this report is just that--another blunder--and not the beginnings of a rush by the President's hawkish advisers to heighten military tensions with Iran.

There are many questions for the President, but here are two. Why do we need more troops in the Iran area right now? Why? And why such a large number--120,000, which is as many as the total number of troops we have had in Iraq at significant times.

Puerto Rico

Now, there are a lot of Americans still waiting at this point for Puerto Rico and the disaster bill. A lot of Americans are still waiting for the Senate to put politics aside and help them piece their lives back together from natural disasters last year, from wildfires to floods, from tornadoes to hurricanes. Because of climate change, our weather is different--considerably different--and Americans are paying the price. We are also paying the price for not taking leadership on climate. But now I am here to discuss this relief package. Throughout our discussions here in Congress about the relief package, Democrats have maintained that it must include relief for all Americans affected by disasters last year, not just those Americans who live in the West and Midwest or South, but also the 3 million citizens living in Puerto Rico. It is not a zero-sum game. It is not that if you help Puerto Rico you would not be helping Florida or Iowa. You can help them all, and that is what Americans have always done.

But there is some good news. I must say that I am encouraged that Republicans are starting to realize that we cannot leave Puerto Rico out. It may not have happened had Democrats not insisted all along that Puerto Rico be included, but our Republican friends are beginning to realize that if Puerto Rico is not in the package, no package will pass. As for their intransigence and obeisance to President Trump, when he came in out of the clear blue one day and bollixed up the package that had been carefully worked out between the Democrats and Republicans by insisting that no aid to Puerto Rico be in the package, it is clear to our Republican friends that is not working, and I am encouraged that Republicans have moved into our direction when it comes to disaster in Puerto Rico. I hope that we can find agreement soon and put this totally unnecessary political fight behind us and finally deliver relief to disaster-stricken Americans, wherever they may be.

Healthcare

Madam President, 133 million Americans under 65 years of age are living with a preexisting condition of some kind. Right now, because of the laws on the books, insurance companies cannot charge those Americans more or deny them coverage simply because they have a preexisting condition. That is a great thing. That is something Americans longed for before these protections became law.

But, unfortunately, that could all change and go away if the lawsuit against our healthcare law brought by Republican attorneys general and supported by the Trump administration succeeds. It would deprive health coverage for tens of millions of Americans and risk denial of coverage or exorbitant premiums for up to 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions. That scale of cruelty is so large that it is almost unimaginable--to tell 133 million Americans that you will not get protections if, God forbid, you have an illness and your insurance company wants to cut you off. Yet those are the practical consequences of the lawsuit that the Trump Department of Justice continues to support. While that lawsuit is a fundamental threat to our country's healthcare system, led by President Trump and supported by just about every Republican in this Chamber, the Trump administration has also spent much of the past 2 years sabotaging and undermining healthcare at every turn.

As for this ideology that the government should not help people who have healthcare problems, well, about 90 percent of all Americans do not agree with that, but somehow it is dominant in the White House and dominant in the Republican Senate. Last week the House passed legislation that would reverse the Trump administration. It is good that the new majority in the House is taking action.

Later this week the House is poised to pass another package of legislation to further protect preexisting conditions and help Americans sign up for quality health coverage. But so far none of the bills that protect Americans' healthcare have received any attention from the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, and that is a shame--a real shame.

Leader McConnell has slowly but surely been turning the Senate into a legislative graveyard, where even the most consequential and noncontroversial legislation gets buried indefinitely.

Just take the House-passed legislation on preexisting conditions as an example. This is extraordinarily popular with the American people. A Kaiser poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans do not want the courts to overturn protections for preexisting conditions. I don't think any of my colleagues would argue on the merits that we should go back to a healthcare system where insurance companies could discriminate against a child with cancer. In fact, several of my Republican colleagues who recently won reelection ran ads explicitly saying they were for protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. So why will the Republican leader not commit to at least putting up legislation to do that? I hope it is not because my Republican colleagues want to be able to say one thing and do another. I hope it is not because of the influence of dark money. I hope that is not why. So I would say to the leader: Do not throw healthcare legislation into the legislative graveyard. Do not throw the healthcare of the American people into the legislative graveyard.

The American people are worried about rising costs and declining quality. They are worried that if they are sick, they could wake up any day and no longer have access to healthcare. That is a very real threat that millions of Americans face under the Trump administration. Healthcare was the No. 1 issue for most Americans in the last election. We should be doing something to protect American families from the Trump administration's effort to undermine healthcare. I understand that my Republican colleagues do not want to cross the President, but this issue is too important to too many American families to remain silent, too important for our Republican colleagues not to go to their leader--especially, those colleagues who campaigned for preexisting condition protections--and tell the leader that we must bring this legislation to the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source