Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Announcing The Senate Will Vote This Week On Moving Forward With The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the clear contrast between MAGA Republicans and Democrats. Senator Schumer also announced a cloture vote this week on the motion to proceed to the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
It has become clear over the last few months that too much of the Republican Party has been taken over by MAGA Republicans, who are now dominating the party and Republicans in the Senate, moving the party away from things it has often stood for in the past.
The contrast has become clear: Democrats, for instance, want to codify a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body into federal law.
But MAGA Republicans, want to take away women’s rights by pushing national abortion bans, jailing women and doctors for carrying out abortions, even pushing bans with no exceptions for rape or incest.
In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, MAGA Republicans continue embracing unhinged conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, which has been a rallying cry for ultra-nationalists and white supremacists in Europe for years.
And all year long, while Democrats have been pushing solutions that will lower costs, MAGA Republicans and the chair of the Republican campaign arm, openly support raising taxes on poor and working families while cheering on inflation as a “gold mine.” And that was Senator Scott's words, not mine: he called inflation a gold mine. Imagine.
MAGA Republicans are showing Americans exactly who they are: just this weekend, the Conservative Political Action Conference—the largest conservative organization in America—held their conference in Hungary and welcomed one of Europe’s most notorious proponents of replacement theory, Viktor Orbán, as their keynote speaker.
Again, the Conservative Political Action Conference—a very important organization in the new Republican MAGA Party—had Viktor Orbán as their keynote speaker, an autocrat who has whittled away democracy in Hungary.
It is sickening—sickening—to see that two weeks after the shooting in Buffalo, Republicans as prominent as Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson spoke at the same event as one of Europe’s most prominent white nationalists and authoritarians. It is a scary and otherworldly turn for one of America’s two parties to take.
I know not all Republicans embrace the views of MAGA Republicans. I know many of them support women’s rights and embrace diversity and reject conspiracies like white replacement.
I urge these Republicans in the Senate and in the country to repudiate the MAGA wing taking over the GOP. I invite the voters to support Democratic candidates as a protest against extremism, so we as a nation can halt the dangerous rise of the hard-right.
This week, all of us in the Senate will have a chance to take a stand against extremism by voting to begin debate on the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act.
For the information of all, I will take the first procedural step on this legislation later today, and Members can expect to vote on Thursday on this bill that will crack down on domestic terrorism and extremism.
As far as legislation goes, this bill is as much of a no-brainier as it comes. Two years ago, when Donald Trump was President, the House passed this bill unanimously. Every single Republican was for the bill. But in a sign of how radicalized the GOP has become, nearly every single House Republican opposed it last week, despite one Morning Consult poll that showed that a majority of Republican voters support these commonsense measures.
Let me say it again: according to one Morning Consult Poll, a majority of Republican voters support cracking down on domestic terrorism, yet nevertheless every single House Republican voted against this bill last week. If you wanted some proof that the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is taking over the whole party, there it is.
I hope that given everything happening across the country right now, Senate Republicans will act differently and support this bill.
Let me be clear: Democrats’ goal is to pass this bill, just as it is with all bills we bring to the Senate floor. But if Republicans keep going down their extremist, obstructionist path, then this vote will still allow the American people to hold their elected representatives accountable.
Not long ago, views like Replacement Theory were relegated to the fringes of American society, shared primarily by twisted minds on online message boards. But today, white supremacy—which has been with us for decades and centuries—is now out in the open, and proponents speak about it unabashedly and unashamedly.
Many were shocked in 2017 when, out in the open, thousands of white supremacists marched at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and chanted “You will not replace us.”
It was out in the open on January 6th, as insurrectionists waved confederate flags through the hallways of this Capitol, the first time that ever happened in American history.
It’s out in the open every time Donald Trump holds a MAGA rally and blames undocumented immigrants for stealing the 2020 election.
And it’s out in the open on cable news networks like Fox, where Tucker Carlson has spread replacement theory in over 400 episodes, and other commentators join in.
To be sure, the extremism of MAGA Republicans is hardly limited to their embrace of ridiculous conspiracy theories. Across the country, the hard right is also hell bent on turning back the clock on women’s rights by 100 years, pushing restrictions on abortions that are wildly outside the mainstream.
Whether it’s a national ban on abortions—which Leader McConnell acknowledges is possible if Republicans win the Senate—or the prosecution of women who pursue abortions, or even banning business that help employees access abortions out-of-state, MAGA Republicans are openly championing restrictions that would have been career-enders just a few years ago but are now part of the GOP cannon.
And we cannot ignore who suffers most under these radical restrictions: women of color, low income families, and families that live in deeply gerrymandered states where their views have been all but silenced.
This is what MAGA Republicans clamor for: a world ruled by conspiracy theories, national abortion bans, and the greatest curtailing of individual rights in fifty years.
A world where immigrants and communities of color are considered “replacers”, where women are considered second class citizens and being told what to do with their bodies, where white supremacy is tolerated or even embraced, and where our democracy erodes in favor of autocracy. Imagine again, Orbán, leading autocrat of Europe, being the lead speaker at CPAC, where President Trump and other major Republicans participated. Who would think we would see that day? Who would think?
We cannot let these views become accepted or even the norm in the United States. This week, we can take one step of many to help silence the voices of white supremacy, the voices of domestic terrorism.
So I implore my Republican
colleagues: if you reject the dangers of white supremacy and views like
white replacement, you should vote in favor of moving forward to begin debate
on this domestic terrorism bill.
This is a test; this is about accountability. Republican Senators: do you reject the views of MAGA Republicans? Do you reject white supremacy and replacement theory?
Taking a stand against domestic terrorism and white supremacy should be the easiest thing in the world.
If Republicans can’t join us on something as simple as that, Americans will see with even greater clarity how radical the GOP has become under Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans.
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