OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

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Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 18, 2023
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, over the past week, Democrats and Republicans have made important progress toward an agreement on the national security supplemental. While the job is not finished, I am confident we are headed in the right direction.

I want to thank all the Members and staff from Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, and the White House who worked through the weekend to get us closer to an agreement. I can imagine that they are tired after working nonstop, coming into the office early in the morning and working furiously into the evenings. With the holidays around the corner, they are sacrificing time with family, with their kids, and have to put travel plans on hold to get this done.

I salute my colleagues and staff for their excellent work, and I am encouraged by the progress we made over the weekend--significant progress--and I urge them to keep going.

Now, we all know this is extremely difficult work--among the most difficult things we have done in recent memory. Everyone knows that something should be done to fix our broken immigration system, but we can't do so by compromising our values. Finding the middle ground is exceptionally hard, and both sides must accept that they will have to make concessions. And it is going to take some more time to get it done. But we must succeed. Democrats remain committed to working with our Republican counterparts to reach an agreement.

As these negotiations continue off the floor, we must also finish the job on confirming military promotions and other nominees. In past years, these four-star generals would have been swiftly appointed to their posts. But this year, one Senator--the Senator from Alabama--has broken decades of bipartisan tradition by placing blanket holds on these highly qualified and dedicated nominees.

While I am glad the Senator has relinquished his holds, I am disappointed it has taken this long, and we will still need to confirm the last few of these nominees before the end of the week.

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