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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you to my friend Senator Kaine of Virginia for his good words, and I thank Senator Padilla for organizing this floor block, and all of my colleagues who have come to the floor today. I see Senator Peters is waiting.

Why are we here to speak on this difficult and somber day? Because 5 years ago today, down to this very hour, the temple of democracy was turned into a snake pit of mob violence. Its windows were smashed. Its offices vandalized. Lawmakers and our staffs--everyday citizens who love their country and work here every day--hid beneath desks and feared for their lives.

Nearly 140 police officers were injured as 5 people lost their lives. It is like yesterday to me. I was sitting right at this desk. I had just known on January 5, the day before, that I was becoming majority leader because we had won the seats in Georgia. And I am sitting there and looking at something, and all of a sudden, I feel a hand on my collar. It was Michael Lanczycki, the head of my security team. He said: You are in danger. We have got to get out of here. I looked up at my desk, and I saw Pence being rushed off the platform.

We went out the door. We made a right turn. We opened another door, and we were within 20 feet of these hooligans, one of whom recognized me and said: Let's get him.

Because of the bravery of the Capitol Police officers, nothing bad happened to us, but it was a horrible day. Five years later, I want to thank my detail, but all the members of the Capitol Police, the DC Police, our servicemembers, and all the first responders who helped us. You are heroes. On that day, you were the first line of defense for democracy--the first line of defense for democracy.

And it is shameful and cowardly today that the Trump White House has tried to rewrite history. Countries fail when they don't learn from their history, and yet to blame the Capitol Police force for creating violence is sickening. How could they do this? On the one hand, they say they love police officers, but right here they blame those here.

They were our heroes, the Capitol Police officers. And the only ones who caused violence were the rioters, egged on by Trump. So we thank our heroes. We also mourn those who perished in the days and weeks and months after the attack, especially the first responders.

And, of course, the anniversary here on January 6 comes at a bitter and complicated moment. Donald Trump is now back in office. How we could have let somebody who did this, hidden by all the propaganda and lies that he and his allies in the media and his allies in politics propagated, is just incredible. It is confounding. It makes you worry about democracy.

His pardons make a mockery of the rule of law. And on his very first day, he pardoned every single convicted insurrectionist--very first day as President.

That speaks loudly as to who Donald Trump is, the lowness of his character, the lack of any honor. And, sadly, too many of our Republican colleagues remain silent in the face of this obvious evil. Too many have tried to rewrite history. Too many are trying to turn the criminals into martyrs. We were here. I heard one of them say it was a tourist excursion. We were here. It was no tourist excursion. It was no tourist excursion at all.

And while the insurrection lasted just a day, the attack on democracy lives on. There are people, young people here, who may be susceptible to the same kind of propaganda because they think it happened once and the people who did it were heroes and were pardoned.

So this is dangerous, not only at this moment but in future moments and days and months and years ahead.

And that fight against democracy lives on in the threats against free and fair elections; the threats against workers--election workers, poll workers; threats live on in Donald Trump's very own Justice Department, which has tried to get its hands on State voter data, and it has abandoned any fight against voter discrimination.

And, of course, Donald Trump continues to plug in election deniers within the people's government. He makes them heroes. It is making night day, turning black into white, white into black.

The attacks are not over but neither--I want to assure the American people--is our fight to protect the democracy we love. The way forward is clear: We must speak the truth. We must fight the lies. We must never relent on speaking what happened on January 6 in the face of the hurricane of lies that comes from Donald Trump and, particularly, so many of his media allies.

To protect democracy, to speak the truth, to reveal and expose the lies, this is our moral obligation as Members of this institution and as citizens of this democracy.

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