Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On President Trump’s Brazen And Dangerous Attempts To Bulldoze Through The Rule Of Law

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on President Trump’s brazen and reckless attempts to ignore the rule of law and pass the far-right MAGA agenda . Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

In his first three weeks in office, Donald Trump has waged a scorched earth campaign against the rule of law.

Now, we all know, Donald Trump of course won the election last November.

And, as we all know, of course, he campaigned on a platform to cut back large parts of the government.

But nothing in the constitution – nothing in our grand tradition of American separation of powers – allows Donald Trump to break the law in order to achieve those goals.

Let me repeat that: Donald Trump campaigned on cutting back the government – that's true. But he is not allowed to break the law to achieve those goals. That is not how America works.

You campaign, you put your ideas forward, and in this case, Donald Trump won. But he did not campaign on breaking the law, and the American people don't want him to break the law.

The reason we have a system of checks and balances is so that even when one side wins an election, there's a check, there's a balance. That's what America has been all about for over 200 years, and at this point, Donald Trump is trying to break that tradition in area after area after area.

And so, the courts have begun to speak, and their message is very simple: the law is not optional, not even for a president of the United States.

Yesterday, at least five rulings were handed down in federal courts against the president’s brazen conduct in office – court decisions against his attempt to freeze trillions in federal funding at OMB, court decisions against his cruel decision to stop billions in medical research funding through the NIH, court decisions against his unlawful attempts to hollow out the federal workforce regardless of the job they do.

To be sure, these decisions – these five decisions and many others like it, I think there are over fifty – are all temporary, preliminary, and it’s one step in a long, long process that will play out in federal court.

But the trend is clear: Donald Trump is not free to bulldoze his way through the rule of law.

He is an executive, not a monarch, and he swore an oath to faithfully execute the duties of his office.

And when the courts speak, Donald Trump must accept their judgments and honor the constitution.

Now, there are some on the hard-right who think Donald Trump should ignore the courts.

Even the vice president seems to suggest the courts can’t “control” the powers of the executive.

With respect to the vice president, the issue here isn’t the courts trying to control the president – it’s the president trying to control the law. He wants to decide for himself what the laws are, which ones should be applied, which ones shouldn’t, and what they mean.

Congress makes the laws, courts interpret our laws. We all learned that in grade school, that’s how checks and balances work in a constitutional republic.

Donald Trump does not reign supreme.

When the courts speak, the president must adhere to their judgments. That is what his oath demands.

The courts will be an important venue for holding Donald Trump accountable whenever he breaks the law and breaks his promise to the American people.

It’s one tool in the toolkit for how Democrats – and all Americans who care about the rule of law – will make sure that Donald Trump does not break the law and do just what he wants.

Our courts will be just one resource of several, but they will be among the most important.

And as we’ve seen already, they are a critical front in the struggle to uphold the rule of law and prevent America from sliding into utter lawlessness.

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