Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Providing An Update On The Critical National Security Supplemental Package

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the national security supplemental. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:

Over the last few days, negotiations on a path forward to getting the national security supplemental done have made good progress.

As I have said, if we believe something is important and urgent we should stay and get the job done.

That is certainly the case with the supplemental. It is important. It is urgent. I spoke with Leader McConnell this morning about the plan for next week and making sure the Senate continues to do our work.

So for the information of all Senators, after we finish today, the Senate will return on Monday. That will give negotiators from the White House, Senate Democrats, and Senate Republicans a time to work through the weekend in an effort to reach a framework agreement.

It will then take some time to turn that framework into text.

To prevent unnecessary delays, I intend to move to reconsider the shell for the supplemental as a vehicle to move an agreement forward.

The plan is for the Senate to act as soon as we are ready to move forward on the supplemental.

Members need to be here next week. We have to get this done. Our Republican colleagues who have said action on the border is so urgent should have no problem with continuing to work next week.

We hope to come to an agreement. But no matter what, members should be aware that we will vote on a supplemental proposal next week.

It is not easy to reach an agreement on something this complicated. This might be one of the most difficult things we have ever had to work through.

But we all know that so much – so much –  hangs on our success.

We know the world is watching. We know autocrats like Putin and Xi are hoping for us to fail. So we need to try with everything we have to get the job done.

I will update Senators when more information about schedule becomes available.

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