Housing for the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, yesterday, for the second time in less than a week, Republicans were given the opportunity to fund TSA and to also fund FEMA, to stand up for our Coast Guard, and to make sure core DHS operations are funded while negotiations on ICE and Border Patrol continue. And for the second time in less than a week, Republicans said no. Well, we are giving them another opportunity later this morning-- another opportunity to end their blockade of TSA. We are giving Republicans the opportunity to end their blockade of FEMA. We are giving Republicans the opportunity to end their blockade at CISA and to end their blockade at Coast Guard and much else.

The bottom line is very simple. It is easy. You don't have to follow politics very closely to see it. Democrats are ready to fund TSA; Republicans are blocking it. Democrats are ready to fund CISA; Republicans are blocking it. Democrats are ready to fund FEMA and Coast Guard and most of DHS operations. We will give Republicans a chance--a chance--to say yes.

We all know that we do not have agreement on how to deal with ICE. We know, very simply, that Democrats just want ICE to behave like any police department in America and use warrants and not wear masks, but we don't have to tie that disagreement up and use people at the airports and American citizens as hostages and say: We are not going to fund FEMA; we are not going to fund TSA unless you give in to our unreasonable and unpopular demands on reforming ICE. So we are going to offer these bills one at a time and see where our Republican colleagues go.

We know the American people are on our side. We know that the only thing Republicans need to do is stay out of the way and these programs will be funded today and problems at the airports will go away.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I will.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I am well aware, but that hasn't worked. What can work--

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Mr. SCHUMER. No, no. I--

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Mr. SCHUMER.--am not yielding back.

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Mr. SCHUMER. The bottom line is, Democrats are ready today. America, watch. We will have Members on the floor saying ``Let's fund TSA'' with no other preconditions. What will Republicans do? They are going to see Republicans get up and block it. It is that simple.

Now, my friend--sometimes--much of the time.

My friend, the Republican leader, says: Well, we will only do it if you go along with what we want on ICE and what we want on Border Patrol--highly unpopular and wrong. So who is standing in the way, America? Look at it. We are not putting any preconditions on funding TSA. The Republicans are. And why?

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Mr. SCHUMER. I will not yield.

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Mr. SCHUMER. No. In a minute.

Why? Because Republicans are in obeisance to Donald Trump's insistence on having these marauding forces of ICE go through our cities. We saw what they did in Minneapolis. We saw what they did in Los Angeles. We saw what they did in other places. Americans don't like it. Trump's numbers have suffered.

And so it is simple: Don't attach preconditions, fund TSA, fund CISA. You will have that opportunity in a few hours. And if you get up and block it and say ``We will only do it unless,'' Americans will know who is to blame.

I yield.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Would my colleague--

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Mr. SCHUMER.--yield for a question?

Will he support, without any Republican blocking it, a straight motion to just deal with TSA and get it funded while we are trying to work out these negotiations? Will he support that? No ands, ifs, or buts; no preconditions, no keep negotiating on ICE but just get it done. Will he support that?

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Mr. SCHUMER. Reclaiming my time. I rest my case. What the leader is saying is he will only fund TSA if we will continue to fund--for a short time, for a long time--ICE and Border Patrol, which he knows is gridlocked, which he knows we don't agree with, and so it is clear. He has made it clear.

Just fund TSA. That is it. He has a lot of rigamarole attached to funding TSA: but do this, but do that, but do this.

You can't win the argument, Leader. It is simple. We are being clear. We are being concise.

So the question is very simple. I say to my Republican friends: Support the legislation that is coming on the floor today. And if you do, TSA is funded like that. Every Democrat is for it. My guess is, half to three quarters of the Republicans are wishing they would be for it, but their leadership is insisting on attaching preconditions on ICE negotiations and Border Patrol negotiations.

So all I say to my Republican colleagues: Stop the speeches that you care about TSA. Don't talk the talk. Walk the walk. Let the legislation that we are proposing go forward without blocking it, and TSA will be back to work; our lines at the airports will be gone; and then we will have legislation on CISA.

Don't talk to us about the need for safety and then block legislation that allows CISA to go through. That is hypocrisy. Just let it go through. And I know that our Republican leadership knows that we have the high ground here, knows that the people are on our side.

And why do Republicans do this? Why won't they budge to give an inch on ICE, which is highly unpopular, and even the President has said hasn't done things right? That is the mystery, but it is probably because some in the rightwing insist. And we know that the hard right runs this party, and that is why they are doing so poorly with the American people right now. That is why we Democrats are on the ascent-- because we are with the American people and the American people say: Fund TSA now, and you can debate ICE.

There has been a debate on ICE. We believe we are right. We believe something as simple as warrants should be used by ICE when you bust into someone's house. We believe, simply, that ICE agents should not be masked when every police department and sheriff's department is identified, and the American people are with us.

But we don't even have to debate that today because what Republicans are doing is insisting that we don't change a thing about ICE before we move forward on TSA. That is wrong. That is using the American people as hostages. And we are not going to do it.

And I remind my Republican colleagues, we are going to be back here again and again, winning this debate and eventually winning the American people, which will say to you folks on the Republican side: You had better stop this blockade of TSA and CISA, of FEMA, and of the Coast Guard. You had better stop using them as hostages until you get your way on ICE and on CBP, where you are out of touch with the American people.

Oh, no, I don't yield the floor. I have a few other subjects I might like to touch on. There is so much to talk about. Donald Trump and the Republicans are screwing up America in so many ways. So let's talk about Iran for a minute. Iran

Mr. President, as the war on Iran continues, Donald Trump does what he usually does: He lies. He is lying to the American people.

According to public reporting, preliminary intelligence reports suggest, tragically, that American operations may have been involved, unfortunately, in this horrible missile strike on the all-girls elementary school in Iran on the first day of the war. And when Donald Trump was asked about those reports, what did he say? He said: Well, I don't know about that.

That is ridiculous, and it is an obvious lie. Donald Trump is the Commander in Chief, and he expects us to believe that he has no clue about intelligence regarding a horrific attack on a school several days after it occurred.

The vast majority of Americans, obviously, won't believe Donald Trump. They know he is an inveterate liar. He lies daily. They will know when he says he didn't know about this report--of course he did. But there might be a handful of Americans who still might believe the guy, who still don't understand that he is an inveterate liar.

And so think about that. He is saying he has zero clue about a basic intelligence report regarding this strike. If he didn't know about it 2 or 3 days later, when all of America did, and he is not lying, which I believe he is, then what chaos--what is going on in this administration? The Commander in Chief, on something that affects policy while we are at war, says he doesn't know about it? That talks about the chaos and confusion that have taken over this administration--the idea that something is all jumbled up in the White House, that there is no information flow to the President on something so important.

So either Donald Trump is lying when he says he knows nothing about the school bombing intelligence findings--he gets these reports every day--or he is dangerously uninformed, which says his staff is really screwed up.

Equally unacceptable is Donald Trump's apparent miscalculation when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. In the early days of this war, Donald Trump bragged that victory would come easily. ``We are going to win shortly. No time. No problem.'' But now, after the United States has damaged so much of Iran's infrastructure, the new radical Supreme Leader is focusing on the one point of leverage Iran has always had over the world's economy: the Strait of Hormuz.

A few moments ago, in his first public comments, the Supreme Leader Khamenei, who is even worse than his predecessor, his father, said Iran will continue to block the Strait of Hormuz. Freeing it could, potentially, America, require boots on the ground.

How did Donald Trump not see this coming? How did his planners not see this coming? This is the one bit of leverage Iran has. Of course, we knew they were going to use it. They have used it in the past. A college student with a basic understanding of geopolitics could tell you that Iran's greatest leverage is this narrow passage through which a huge share of the world's oil must travel. And now 13 days as we are into the war--I believe it is 13 days--the administration is scrambling to contain the damage and deal with rising oil prices. And Donald Trump, just by saying, ``Oh, the war is going to end soon,'' you are not going to fix the shortage of oil or fertilizer or other products in America.

After I said for days that he should, Donald Trump finally announced that he is tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He should have done it sooner. But in any case, even this decision was marred by chaos and confusion. It caught our allies completely off guard because for days it seemed Trump would hold back.

There is such disorganization and chaos when we are in a war. We can't afford chaos in a war. I don't know of any other time America went to war and things were so chaotic.

There is not a single strategic decision that Trump has made in this war that was not born from chaos, confusion, misinformation, and lies. And there is nobody--nobody--up there in the White House around him willing to stand up and tell him when he was wrong. In his first term, Trump had Kelly, Trump had Mattis--people who had courage, who had backbones, who had military backgrounds--and they told him the truth. He eventually fired them for telling the truth, but they told him the truth.

Where is the truth teller now? No one is there, and America is paying the price, unfortunately, in lives, in the eight brave troops we lost, in fortune--they said the first 2 days or the first week of the war cost $11 billion; we could fix a lot of healthcare with that $11 billion--and in strength.

This has gone too far, with too much chaos, too little thought, and it is hurting America.

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