Terminating the National Emergency Declared to Impose Duties on Articles Imported From Canada

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this issue.

President Trump's new tariffs are not ``Liberation Day''; they are ``Obliteration Day.'' They are going to be remembered as something that raised taxes on every American consumer, had foreign countries then attack businesses all across our Nation, all without a plan from President Trump to have an end game.

President Trump is just making this up, and we are going to have to wait to see how he responds when Europe attacks us, when Canada attacks us, when Asian countries now attack us. He is inviting an attack upon the American economy even as American consumers have to pay higher taxes.

So we are just at the dawn of the equivalent of an all-out war--trade war--with every other country in the world. And who is going to pay the price? American workers and American taxpayers. They are the ones who are going to pay the price. Federal Judges

Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about the outrageous calls we have been hearing to impeach Federal judges who have ruled against Donald Trump. That is right. Donald Trump and his extremist MAGA supporters think that if a Federal judge dares to rule against the President, that judge should be impeached.

Recently, Trump tweeted that Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the Federal district court here in Washington, DC, should be impeached because he ruled against Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador without any due process.

Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has been on the losing side of several recent judicial decisions, has referred to Federal judges as ``evil'' and called for ``a wave of judicial impeachments.''

In the other body, MAGA extremists have taken up the cudgel and filed Articles of Impeachment against Federal judges who have ruled against the President, and then they receive political contributions from Elon Musk for doing so.

Just last week, Speaker Johnson even suggested eliminating entire Federal courts because their judges have dared to rule against Donald Trump. These calls for the impeachment of judges and elimination of courts are just the latest in salvos in a broad attack on the courts, on lawyers, on the rule of law by the President and by his allies.

I come to the Senate floor today to condemn this dangerous and un- American onslaught against the judiciary and legal profession and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to speak out against it. Federal judges confirmed by the Senate and given life terms under the Constitution during good behavior are not like contestants on ``The Apprentice.'' You don't get to fire them because you don't like the way they are doing their job.

The President and his acolytes don't seem to understand this. With each call to impeach judges, they disregard and disrespect the Constitution; its separation of powers; its checks and balances; and its establishment of three coequal branches of government--one of which is a judiciary whose principal job, as the Supreme Court explained more than 200 years ago in Marbury v. Madison is to ``say what the law is''--to say what is constitutional--and that is precisely what the courts have been doing.

Since retaking office, Donald Trump has issued a series of Executive orders that are blatantly, patently, and obviously unconstitutional and illegal. Trump's arrogant belief that he can supersede the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress with an Executive order has spawned more than 100 lawsuits against his administration.

Federal judges across the country, judges appointed by Democrat and Republican Presidents alike, including Donald Trump himself, are doing the same job that judges have done in our country for centuries. They are interpreting statutes, making legal determinations, and upholding the Constitution of the United States.

They are moving swiftly to hear cases and, for now, preventing some of the most egregiously unlawful Trump policies from taking effect: revoking birthright citizenship, blocked; freezing all Federal funding, blocked; pulling down public health websites, blocked; capping funding for critical health research at the National Institutes of Health, blocked; denying gender-affirming healthcare to transgender youth, blocked; allowing Musk unbridled access to Social Security data, blocked; clawing back funds appropriated by Congress and obligated to my National Climate Bank, blocked by a Federal district court judge. And the list goes on and on and on--blocked, blocked, blocked, blocked.

In these cases, like any others, if the losing party disagrees with the judge's decision on what the law is, they can appeal it. What they shouldn't do is to call for the extraordinary step of impeaching the presiding judge. That is a remedy the Constitution reserves for only grave ethical or criminal misconduct.

That is why John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States, was compelled to issue a rare public statement after President Trump called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg.

Without referring to the President directly, the Chief Justice nonetheless rebuked him, explaining that ``for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement'' and ``the normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.''

Unfortunately, the MAGA extremists calling for impeachment of judges or the elimination of the courts don't care about this, the Constitution, centuries of judicial norms, the rule of law. They only care about one thing: fealty to Donald Trump.

The baseless calls for Chief Judge Boasberg's impeachment confirm that. This is a judge who was a Yale Law School graduate, who cut his teeth as a successful homicide prosecutor, who was first appointed to the bench by a Republican President more than 20 years ago, who was confirmed to the Federal bench in a 96-to-0 vote, and who was named by Chief Justice Roberts to a seat on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court where he served a 7-year term, including as the court's presiding judge.

Yet this is the judge, widely respected throughout the judiciary and legal profession, who President Trump calls a ``radical left lunatic, a troublemaker, and an agitator.'' That is Trump talking about Judge Boasberg just because he ruled against the administration in a preliminary decision, which by the way, a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld on review.

So while Trump's ad hominem attack on Judge Boasberg was typically baseless, it and other attacks like it leveled against other judges are no less dangerous. They have given rise to increased threats against judges--a ``significant uptick'' as Chief Justice Roberts put in his report on the Federal judiciary at the end of last year.

Indeed, according to the Chief Justice, U.S. Marshals Service data showed a tripling of hostile threats and communications directed at judges over the previous decade.

Recently, judges have also experienced the swatting of their homes, the delivery of pizzas to their homes--actions intended to send a message: We know where you and your family live, where your children are. So reach the result which we want. Be afraid, be very afraid.

This is wrong. Very wrong. It is dangerous. It is intended to pressure judges in their decision-making that puts lives at risk. It deserves the strongest possible across-the-board condemnation by all Senators and all Americans.

Instead, my Republican colleagues have been awfully quiet, fearful of upsetting President Trump, who has followed the ``Godfather,'' part 1, playbook and made them an offer they can't refuse--a primary opponent if they just don't go along.

Finally, I have a few words about Donald Trump's unprecedented Executive orders targeting law firms and individual lawyers who have litigated against him. These orders have suspended security clearances, canceled government contracts, barred employees from Federal buildings, and erected other obstacles that prevent lawyers from representing their clients.

Trump has even directed the Department of Justice to seek sanctions against attorneys who file frivolous lawsuits or engage in vexatious litigation against him.

So with Donald Trump coming after lawyers and law firms, it is gut- check time for law firms in our country, especially the big law firms that the President has targeted for revenge and retribution because of their lawyers daring to do their jobs and representing clients in cases against him.

I commend those firms like WilmerHale, like Jenner & Block, who are standing up, who are fighting back. And we need all law firms to stand up to this administration and to continue to stand up for the rule of law. And those that don't, especially those that seek to appease and accommodate the President out of fear their bottom line will suffer-- grave risk, grave harm to our liberties will, in fact, depend upon the lawyers who take difficult and unpopular cases, often against the government, and zealously represent their clients in those matters.

I will conclude with this: The attacks on our judiciary, the calls for the impeachment of judges, and the attempts to intimidate and retaliate against lawyers who dare to stand in defense of the Constitution are not just an assault on individuals, they are an assault on the very foundations of our democracy.

The courts are not pawns in a political game. The rule of law is not up for negotiation. If we allow this dangerous precedent to take root, if we tolerate threats against judges and lawyers fulfilling their constitutional duties, we set the stage for the erosion of the checks and balances that have safeguarded our Nation for over two centuries.

This is not about protecting one man. This is about protecting the principles that ensure justice and fairness for all Americans. It is time all of us as a nation to rise above partisan interests and defend what makes us strong; our commitment to the Constitution, to the independence of the judiciary, and to the rule of law. I urge my colleagues--all of my colleagues--and every American to stand with me in defending these sacred institutions, not for our political health but for the health of our democracy itself.

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