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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on Monday evening, reports came out that Rupert Murdoch, owner of FOX News, acknowledged in a deposition that hosts of the network promoted the false narrative that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Asked if he could have stepped in to prevent this, Mr. Murdoch acknowledged that he could have but chose not to--he could have stepped in but chose not to--and expressed regret for not doing so.

To this day, several FOX News hosts continue promoting the Big Lie. They keep spreading the Big Lie despite mounting evidence that, behind the scenes, many top hosts and executives at FOX have recognized that the stolen election narrative is entirely bogus. Nevertheless, they continue broadcasting it all the time.

This morning, Leader Jeffries and I wrote a letter to Mr. Murdoch demanding that he do what he should have done a long time ago: Order Tucker Carlson and other hosts on FOX News to stop spreading lies about the election. They need to stop giving a platform to dangerous and entirely unfounded conspiracy theories that eat at the wellspring of our democracy, and they need to admit on the air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent and destructive behavior.

Sadly, too much damage has already been done to our democracy. A significant segment of voters--by some measures, as much as 30 percent of the electorate--still do not believe that the 2020 election was legitimate. What FOX News hosts have done is flat-out dangerous-- dangerous. When people doubt that elections are on the level, that is the beginning of the end of this wonderful democracy because elections are our wellspring. They are the core of what the Founding Fathers set up. It was the great novelty of the Constitution that has spread around the world.

When conspiracy theories like the Big Lie are allowed to grow, violence can ensue, as we all saw for ourselves on January 6.

Mr. Murdoch's testimony is all the more alarming after Speaker McCarthy is reportedly allowing Tucker Carlson to review highly sensitive security camera footage of the events surrounding the violent January 6 insurrection. Sharing that footage is a grave mistake that risks emboldening the supporters of the Big Lie.

Mr. Murdoch, FOX News executives, and hosts all have a choice--a very important choice: They can continue broadcasting lies about our elections and further erode trust in our democracy or they can admit their mistake, start telling the truth, and move beyond this shameful chapter in their company's history by coming clean with their viewers and with the American people. We hope Mr. Murdoch heeds our call. The survival of our democracy is too important. Railway Safety Act of 2023

Mr. President, on the new bipartisan bill, later today, a bipartisan group of Senators, including Senators Brown and Vance of Ohio and Fetterman and Casey of Pennsylvania--a bipartisan group--plan to introduce the Railway Safety Act of 2023.

In the aftermath of the terrible accident in East Palestine, this is precisely the kind of proposal we need to see in Congress--a bipartisan rail safety bill, one that includes provisions relevant to the accident that happened a month ago.

I salute them for this fine bipartisan effort and commit to them that I am going to work with the sponsors of the bill to move this bill forward. We should pass it--a bipartisan bill--here in the Senate and hopefully in the House. I will do whatever I can to make sure that happens.

The bill is as smart as it is necessary. It includes provisions to increase safety protocols for trains with hazardous materials, new requirements for crews operating trains, and increases the fines that can be imposed on rail companies that engage in reckless behavior.

We must do more because an accident like the one in East Palestine didn't come out of the blue. On the contrary, the Chair of the NTSB said the Norfolk Southern derailment was 100 percent preventable. The fault here lies with rail companies that spent years lobbying to slash crucial safety regulations intended to keep people safe. It has created a dangerous culture where the profit motive is king above all others, even above the need to keep people safe.

There are countless small towns just like East Palestine across America with rail lines running through them. In my dear State of New York, there are lots of them, particularly in Upstate. They are all at greater risk when rail giants work together to slash safety, slash worker compensation, and place shareholder returns above everything else.

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