-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, the Senate will hold votes on two pivotal Cabinet nominees. First, we will vote to advance the nomination of John Ratcliffe to serve as CIA Director. I will respectfully vote no, not because of our political difference, which, of course, exists, but because I am deeply worried that Mr. Ratcliffe will be unable to stand up to people like Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard, who are known to falsify intelligence.
As CIA Director, Mr. Ratcliffe will have to make decisions based on intelligence and fact. There may be no Agency more important than the CIA that has to be fact based. Sometimes, these facts will lead to inconvenient conclusions for his superiors and the President. It is in those cases where truth--not fiction, not ideology--must prevail, and I have my doubts that Mr. Ratcliffe will be able to hold firm.
Most troubling about Mr. Ratcliffe were the answers I got from him about Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump's nominee to serve as Director of National Intelligence. If confirmed, Ms. Gabbard would oversee the CIA and our entire intelligence community, and I think she would be colossally disruptive for American security.
If there is anyone who hasn't been fact based as you have listened to her statements over the years, it is Tulsi Gabbard. She seems to make things up out of thin air. No one could be worse in a position of DNI than someone who doesn't believe in facts.
So I told Mr. Ratcliffe he should urge President Trump to drop her nomination. If he really cares about the CIA and its integrity, he couldn't report to somebody like Tulsi Gabbard in good conscience. She is simply too risky.
Ms. Gabbard has a whole history of spreading falsities, cheering America's adversaries, and, if confirmed, I am worried she will push false intelligence for political ends. Those are precisely the moments Mr. Ratcliffe will have to hold firm, reject what she says, and go to the President and speak truth to power.
His answers to my questions about that were unsatisfying. So I am voting no because it is such an important position.
Now, on the Hegseth vote, today the Senate will vote to advance one of the most unqualified, erratic nominees for a major position we have ever seen in America. No position in the Cabinet carries the weight, the responsibility of Secretary of Defense.
The Secretary of Defense is in charge of keeping us safe and keeping the men and women in our Armed Forces and the civilians safe. So you need someone who has a steady hand. You need someone who has had experience in this kind of stuff. You need someone who, when he shows up to a meeting, you are sure that he knows all the facts and is going to be able to conduct himself properly.
If there is any Cabinet that should be universally trusted and uncontroversial, it is the Secretary of Defense. Unfortunately, Mr. Hegseth is neither. He is neither trusted nor free of controversy, and I will strongly vote no.
I want my colleagues to think about how absurd it is that this nominee has even made it to the floor. It is a shame that that has happened. We are being tasked to trust our Armed Forces to a man with a history of erratic behavior. One of the kindest words that might be used to describe Mr. Hegseth is ``erratic,'' and that is a quality you don't want as head of DOD.
He has a history of excessive drinking, of alleged domestic abuse, and zero experience leading a large organization of any kind.
The new allegations that came out yesterday are even more troubling. And people say: Well, how do we know they are true? Well, first, the person who did it has no strike against her; but, second, it just corroborates in an even worse way of what we have known about Hegseth in the past. He has a clear problem of judgment, as you have seen by his statements. It is like saying your heart surgeon has twitchy hands, but I will let him do surgery on me. No one would do that.
How on Earth can America entrust our safety and security to a man who has allegedly shown up to work and other events inebriated? What if he shows up inebriated during a crisis? What is going to happen? This is dangerous.
If confirmed, he would be in charge of a workforce of over 3 million people, a budget of 850 billion. Where in his history does it show he is capable of doing that? And what if his erratic behavior spills over to his job at the Pentagon, a high-pressure job? And when people are having this behavior, usually high-pressure jobs make them more, not less, erratic.
What mystifies me so much about Mr. Hegseth's nomination is that there are so many other conservative defense leaders that President Trump could have nominated--people I wouldn't agree with, maybe, ideologically, on some of the issues that affect Secretary of Defense but people who would be capable of running the department. I know there are plenty of Republican Senators who would instantly make a better option than Mr. Hegseth.
Is Pete Hegseth really the best the Republicans have to offer? How low--how low--has this party come in making him the nominee? I don't believe he is the best. I don't believe he is close to the best. I would be voting, with complete conviction, no. Given his history confirming Mr. Hegseth is, simply put, a risky roll of the dice that Americans cannot afford, especially in such an important position.
Another of these pantheon of just awful nominees--not all of them are awful at all, but some are, too many are--is Russell Vought. With his nomination to be OMB Director, Donald Trump has made it official: Project 2025 is coming to the White House. The man who was the chief cook and bottle washer for 2025, who pushed it, who endorsed it, is now in one of the most powerful and sensitive positions in the government, OMB, which has a say over all government programs.
Golden age? It is sure not going to be a golden age for the American people if Mr. Vought becomes the head of OMB. It is one of the most important Agencies in the government. They oversee every Federal Agency, every town, every locality. Every family is going to be affected. You want to get your drug prices lowered? Vought doesn't like that; look at 2025. You want to feed hungry kids? Vought doesn't like that; look at 2025. You want to preserve and expand $35 insulin? Vought doesn't like that. You want to make the tax system fairer and not have tax cuts for the very wealthy but help the middle class with tax breaks? Vought doesn't like that. He wants it to go to the wealthy.
I asked him--he was in my office yesterday--I asked him: What part of 2025 would he disagree with? He couldn't point to a single one. In this panoply of awful proposals, he couldn't name a single one he didn't like.
He is also a proponent of impoundment of funds. It may be unconstitutional, but it could cause real damages as the cases would go through the courts when he sued for it. And that means he can pick what he doesn't like and just end it, even if Congress has lawfully voted for it in a bipartisan way.
So this man would be devastating to the families of America if he got into office. I hope my Republican colleagues will look at his record and vote against him. Nobody can claim to be pro-worker and then vote for Russell Vought. Executive Orders
Mr. President, on the EOs and the GOP agenda, the more people look at President Trump's Executive orders, the more obvious it becomes that no golden age is coming to America, unless, of course, you are very rich, well-connected, or own a drug or oil company. With the ferocity of a bulldozer, Donald Trump has spent his first few days in office dismantling decades of progress that help working people, help middle- class families, help people afford healthcare.
There are many Executive orders signed by the President that have flown under the radar but, nonetheless, also have proved devastating.
He has halted, for one, leasing for wind energy projects in the outer continental shelf, putting at risk billions of dollars of investments and killing good paying jobs in the United States, in my State of New York out on Long Island, particularly.
He thinks he can cut them off. Of course, we are going to fight that, and people will fight it in the courts. But President Trump yesterday was out there touting a new program, a new proposal, by some foreign investor to create more energy because we need it. But in his EOs he says: No clean energy, no offshore wind. Is that ridiculous?
It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is talking out of both sides of your mouth. It is one hand doing one thing, and another hand doing the opposite. It is devastating--devastating--and we are going to fight that proposal tooth and nail because it is so important to New York, to Long Island, to America.
He has repealed the Biden-era policies that make it easier for Americans to enroll in the ACA; 20 million Americans pay less for healthcare. That is in the Executive orders; get rid of it.
And in his first week in office, he has killed policies that provide a year of postpartum care for low-income moms in Medicaid. How is that the idea of a golden age?
Here in Congress, it is the same story with our congressional Republicans. They continue to dedicate the lion's share of their energy into fighting the best ways to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax cuts for the ultrarich.
But I want to leave my Republican colleagues, who are now talking about budget and debt ceiling and all of that, with a thought, food for thought. All this planning and agonizing about one bill or two bills is a side show. Eventually, it is going to be clear they can't pass anything without Democratic help. Republicans have spent their entire time talking among themselves about tax breaks and radical budget cuts when they should be spending more time with Democrats talking about bipartisan policies that do not prioritize the ultrawealthy. Thus far, at least, Republicans haven't even pretended to be bipartisan.
Instead of indulging their hard-right ideology of tax cuts for the ultrawealthy, Republicans should put the needs of ordinary Americans first. Make it a golden era indeed, but for the middle class and working people, not for the powerful and privileged. We look forward to them coming and working with us on these issues.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source