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Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I, too, rise today to defend the principles at the core of our democratic Republic that we are a government of laws and institutions, not of individuals; that no billionaire has more rights than any worker, and that no President has more rights than any citizen of our country; that we are a government of three coequal branches, providing checks and balances on each other. And bottom line: That no one is above the law.

Yet as we stand here today, the Trump administration is clearly openly laying the groundwork to reject all of these principles. They are operating under their idea that the President, his Cabinet of loyalists, and an unelected billionaire adviser can simply ignore the law or courts in rulings that they disagree with.

Earlier this month, Vice President Vance claimed that ``if a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use his or her discretion as a prosecutor, that's . . . illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.''

That is the Vice President. At the same time, President Trump's seeming co-President, Elon Musk, has repeatedly called for the impeaching of judges who rule against Donald Trump's attempts at power grabs. And now President Trump himself has said:

He who saves his Country does not violate any law.

Historians may recognize this quote because it is widely attributed to Napoleon, a man who became a dictator and who abolished the French Republic at the time. Seems to me pretty clear that is precisely the example that Donald Trump is looking to. And it should alarm all of us.

When I think about just how much of Donald Trump's life has been spent staring at the four walls of a courtroom--yes, from the inside, folks, the four walls of a courtroom--maybe you can understand why he may want to do away with the courts.

But the Judiciary does not work for Donald Trump. It is a separate, coequal branch of government. The courts, colleagues, work for the American people. And so far, they have served the American people by pausing many of the President's blatantly illegal Executive orders and overreach. But that is why he is continuing to target the courts.

Colleagues, I am one of the few nonlawyers to serve on the Judiciary Committee. And at times, I get to bring a different perspective to our deliberations and our debates. I will defer to my colleagues to maybe cover some of the legal history or case law that applies here. But for Americans watching from home, here is how I can boil it down.

Let's ask ourselves: Do you believe the President can simply ignore the law? Do you believe that the President should be all-powerful? Do you believe that if you have to follow the law, then the President of our country should have to follow it, as well?

The answers should seem very, very obvious. For years, we have known that if a President did try to push the boundaries of what is legal and what is not, we could count on an independent Department of Justice to enforce court rulings. But over the past few weeks, what we have seen in the Judiciary Committee is nominee after nominee appear before us and refuse to simply commit to upholding the law. They claim, one after another, that they respect the Constitution and stand for the rule of law. But when given specific examples of what would you do, not if, we have seen a President in his first term and already in this term suggest those he appoints to not follow the law--they refused to commit.

That dynamic, colleagues, is unprecedented, and it is dangerous. And it is also the result of an administration that demands applicants pass a loyalty test to get their job in the first place. And it has brought us dangerously close to a constitutional crisis. A President feeling unconstrained by the courts, by the Constitution, and the rule of law is no President at all. It is a power-hungry, wannabe King.

Last night, President Trump, in his address, had an opportunity to unite or at least genuinely try to unite the country and affirm his commitment to the rule of law. Sadly, I am not surprised that he refused to do so. But this morning, we also saw the Supreme Court cite against the Trump administration and affirm a lower court's order that the administration stop their unlawful freeze on foreign aid--one of the many, many challenges working its way through the judiciary.

So the question now becomes: Will Donald Trump listen, and will Republicans in Congress demand that he uphold the law?

So what we are asking of our Republican colleagues today isn't anything radical. It is the fundamental principle that men and women dedicated to themselves nearly 250 years ago in the founding of our Nation, that we shall be ruled of, by, and for the people; not of, by, and for a King or dictator.

To our Republican colleagues, all we ask is this: Stand up. Stand up for the rule of law. Stand up for the Constitution. And stand up for our country.

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