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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, in his first 3 weeks in office, Donald Trump has waged a scorched-earth campaign against the rule of law.

We all know that Donald Trump, of course, won the election last November, and as we all know, he campaigned on a platform to cut back large parts of the government. But nothing--nothing--in the Constitution, nothing in our grand tradition of American separation of powers allows Donald Trump to break the law in order to achieve those goals.

Let me repeat that. Donald Trump campaigned on cutting back the government. That is true. But he is not allowed--not allowed--to break the law to achieve those goals.

That is not how America works. You campaign. You put your ideas forward. In this case, Donald Trump won. But he did not campaign on breaking the law, and the American people don't want him to break the law.

The reason we have a system of checks and balances is so that even when one side wins an election, there is a check, there is a balance. That is what America has been all about for over 200 years. At this point, Donald Trump is trying to break that tradition in area after area after area. So the courts have begun to speak, and their message is very simple: The law is not optional, not even for a President of the United States.

Yesterday, at least five rulings were handed down in Federal courts against the President's brazen conduct in office: court rulings against his attempt to freeze trillions in Federal funding at OMB; court decisions against his heartless, cruel decision to stop billions in medical research funding through the NIH. Courts have ruled against his unlawful attempt to hollow out the Federal workforce regardless of the job they do.

To be sure, these decisions--these five decisions and many others like it; I think there are over 50--are all temporary, preliminary, and it is one step in a long process that will play out in Federal court. But the trend is clear: Donald Trump is not free to bulldoze his way through the rule of law. Donald Trump is not free to bulldoze his way through the rule of law. He is an executive, not a monarch. He swore an oath faithfully to execute the duties of his office, and when the courts speak, Donald Trump must accept their judgments and honor the Constitution.

Now, there are some on the hard right who think Donald Trump should ignore the courts. Even the Vice President seems to suggest the courts can't ``control the powers of the executive.'' With respect to the Vice President, the issue here isn't the courts trying to control the President; it is the President trying to control the law. He wants to decide for himself what the laws are, which ones should be applied, which ones shouldn't, and what they mean.

Congress makes the law. Courts interpret the law. We all learned that in grade school. That is how checks and balances work in a constitutional republic. Donald Trump does not reign supreme. When the courts speak, the President must adhere to their judgments. That is what his oath demands.

The courts will be an important venue for holding Donald Trump accountable whenever he breaks the law and breaks his promise to the American people. It is one tool in the toolkit for how Democrats and all Americans who care about the rule of law will make sure that Donald Trump does not break the law and do just what he wants. Our courts will be just one resource of several, but they will be among the most important, and as we have already seen, they are a critical front in the struggle to uphold the rule of law and prevent America from sliding into utter lawlessness.

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