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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I want to note that we just learned that the Trump administration is getting ready to cut nearly 80,000 employees from the VA. Slashing nearly 80,000 VA staff is a benefit cut by another name. No one should think this doesn't dramatically hurt our veterans who have served us so well.

This staffing cut is a betrayal of our promise to our servicemembers--a betrayal to the promise of our servicemembers. It is going to mean longer wait times, fewer appointments, and ultimately less healthcare for our veterans. It is outrageous.

No one in America bargained for this, and Democrats are going to fight this tooth and nail, working with our veterans service organizations to fight these awful, unfair cuts that take out the desire to give tax cuts to billionaires on our veterans who served us so well. This is just one of the most outrageous things they have done, and there is a long list. Ukraine

Now, another outrageous thing that is happening with the Trump administration is what is happening in Ukraine.

First, I want to thank my colleagues for bringing these five resolutions to the floor. I thank Senator Sanders for taking the lead on this issue, Senators Bennet, Van Hollen, Durbin, Blumenthal, and Welch. Let's start by speaking some much needed truth.

Three years ago, Vladimir Putin brought war and destruction to the people of Ukraine. He started the war, not any mythology that comes from Donald Trump or our Republican colleagues. Vladimir Putin started the war. Full stop.

His tanks and airstrikes have obliterated homes and schools. He is slaughtering civilians as a way to try and win territory in Ukraine. He has kidnapped children. The people of Ukraine did not ask for this war. President Zelenskyy did not start this war. Putin did. That is the truth of this lie after lie after lie that comes out of the Trump administration. This is one of the most egregious.

The people of Ukraine have struggled. President Zelenskyy has led them valiantly, risking his own life, and now the nerve of Donald Trump and others to say Zelenskyy started the war.

Donald Trump is trying to rewrite history and gain favor with Vladimir Putin. He blames Ukraine for starting the war, and now he is shutting off, halting, military aid that Ukraine desperately needs on the battlefield--desperately needs--and we need to restore it.

He has frozen critical intelligence sharing between our countries. He has allowed Putin to launch cyber operations against us, here in the United States. That jeopardizes the privacy of American citizens.

He has frozen intelligence sharing between our countries, and he has brought President Zelenskyy to the Oval Office, only to lecture and insult him in front of the whole world.

Guess who was laughing as he watched. Vladimir Putin.

To side with Putin is to put America at risk. My Democratic colleagues will make that clear over the next several hours. To side with Putin is to betray the values that define America, values our troops have died for in battlefields across the world, from Gettysburg to Normandy, to Iwo Jima.

The Senate must respond. Democrats and Republicans have done so before. I worked with then-Leader McConnell to get Ukraine desperately needed aid. And today's resolutions affirm very basic bipartisan ideas that, hopefully, still remain with our Republican colleagues--that the U.S. Senate stands with democracy, stands with the great people of Ukraine, and against the dictator--the brutal dictator--Vladimir Putin and his war crimes.

History is clear--perfectly clear. Appeasing autocrats is like putting out a fire with kerosene. In the long run, it will only make autocracy more powerful and the citizenry of America less safe. That is why today the Senate must speak in one voice, Democrats and Republicans together, and pass these resolutions.

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