Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Standing With Our NATO Allies As The 2024 NATO Summit Begins

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on this week’s NATO Summit and the heartbreaking attack by Russian military forces, shooting a missile at a children’s hospital in Ukraine. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

This week, the United States will welcome NATO leaders to Washington for the 2024 NATO Summit.

Western democracy faces perhaps its gravest threat since the Cold War, so this year’s NATO summit comes at an inflection point.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rages on, Putin’s cruelty – cruelty – shows no signs of softening.

We read yesterday – the world read – a heart-breaking and infuriating report: Russian missile strikes obliterated a wing of the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv, killing at least 31 Ukrainians, injuring another 150.  Shooting a missile at a children's hospital that had no military significance? It's vicious, it's nasty, it shows what a scoundrel Putin is.

My heart breaks for those children in hospitals whose lives were taken away in the attack, the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters drowning in grief. Again, this was the largest children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital, where kids who had cancer were going, a place that should be off limits to anyone who is a decent honorable human being, who has at all a heart. Putin has none of that, no decency, no honor, no heart. And it shows you how utterly morally bankrupt Putin’s invasion of Ukraine truly is.

A lot of hard right extremists – led by Donald Trump – tried to kill Ukraine aid earlier this year, but Putin’s attack against a children’s hospital shows why it is essential for America to stand with Ukraine.

They are fighting an evil brute in Russia, and the worst thing America can do is show weakness against Putin or tell Ukraine we will abandon them. I am glad we stepped up earlier this year.

So, as NATO leaders gather in D.C. this week, nothing less than the future of western democracy is at stake. President Biden will bring an unmistakable message to our NATO allies, as well as to our adversaries watching across the world: America will never turn its back on NATO.

My Senate colleagues and I will be honored to welcome the leaders of NATO here at the Capitol this week, as well as President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

We in the Senate will send President Zelenskyy and our NATO allies the same message we have shared from day one: America will never turn its back on you.

The same cannot be said for Donald Trump. Remember, it was Donald Trump who called NATO “obsolete” and said that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to our NATO allies. Amazing. This is the wrong message to send to NATO, with so much at stake around the world. It’s another example of why the MAGA hard-right can’t be trusted to lead on the global stage.

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