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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Well, first, thank you. And I do have a question for you. I want to commend you for your fortitude and your strength on a subject that is so important to the future of this country--not only for our generation but for our grandchildren. We need a democracy.
And my question is this: In many authoritarian regimes there are many characteristics, and we see a lot of this happening in Hungary, in fact, with Orban. Orban has had his friends take over the media. Orban has used the prosecutorial authorities as a weapon, as Trump has turned our whole Justice Department into an attack dog to go after his enemies and help his friends.
And we see this in so many other countries. Now there are many people in the United States that say it can't happen here, and our roots of democracy are stronger and deeper, certainly, than Hungary's, but the danger is real.
And could my friend--and I respect what he has done all night. Could my friend just elaborate on the question: It is different here, but why can we not be complacent when we have seen what happens in other countries like Hungary, like Turkey, and, of course, in even more severe dictatorships?
When people say it won't happen here, why should we--even though we are different, why should Americans from every political corner-- Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative--be fighting this authoritarian rise in this country, led by Donald Trump, who, as you said, wants to be King?
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Mr. SCHUMER. Right.
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Mr. SCHUMER. Right.
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Mr. SCHUMER. Right.
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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague for that really right-on-the-money exposition on this.
I would like to ask one more question related to the first. Supine Congress. Our Republican colleagues seem to just do whatever Trump wants, and we hear lots of mumbling and grumbling: We don't like it. But I hear from some of them saying to me: It wouldn't make a difference if I spoke up.
Does my colleague from Oregon agree with them that it wouldn't make a difference? If Republicans--whether it is the leadership in the House or Senate or a large number or even a decent number of Members--spoke up against the kind of authoritarian direction that Trump is taking, does my colleague think it wouldn't make a difference, as they say, or does he think it would?
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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague. I do.
I thank my colleague from Minnesota for her excellent back-and-forth with the Senator from Oregon.
Thank you for doing this.
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Mr. SCHUMER. I had a few questions earlier this morning of my great colleague, and, once again, his strength, his indomitability, and his caring about this democracy, which we all know is at risk, is just amazing.
And so my question relates to something he touched on before in his discussions with our great Senator from New Hampshire.
There are so many ways this administration is trying to rip apart democracy, and one of them you mentioned a minute ago is the threatening of media to just do what Trump wants.
And the man who is the head of the FCC seems to be an instrumentality of that. Trump has said: Things they say I don't like should not be put on the air. And they have held over the heads the broadcast licenses of some of our great media companies.
In other ways, they are getting some of their friends to take over some of our media companies. And isn't one of the greatest blows to democracy, I would ask my colleague--one of the greatest blows to democracy is when we don't have a fully free press, and has it been a hallmark of so many of the countries that he has mentioned that are autocracies or absolute dictatorships to have no free press, so no information can come out, and doesn't that dramatically hurt the American people when government is shielded and can do whatever it wants and hurt as many people as it wants because you don't have a free press? Shouldn't it really frighten every American that this is a large step on the road away from democracy toward tyranny and toward authoritarian government?
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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague, once again, a great answer, freedom of the press is at risk, and if freedom of the press is at risk, so is our entire democracy.
I see my colleague from Massachusetts has come, and I know she will have some excellent, thoughtful, and perceptive questions. So I will yield back to my friend.
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