Schumer Urges Republicans To Put Country Over Party On Cabinet Nominations, Unconstitutional Executive Orders And Russia
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today spoke on the Senate floor urging Republicans to put country over party on cabinet nominations, unconstitutional executive orders and Russia. Below are his remarks:
Madam President, I rise this morning to speak directly to my friends on the other side of the aisle.
Now is a time to put country before party.
I understand the pull of party loyalty and deference to a new President, but from what we have seen in the first two weeks of this Administration, party loyalty is demanding too much of my Republican colleagues on several issues.
On the matter of the Cabinet, the President’s executive order on immigration and on dealing with Russia, we need Republicans to set aside partisan considerations in favor of doing what’s best for the country. Otherwise our institutions of government, our Constitution, and core Americans ideals may be eroded.
My friends on the other side are going along with the President and treating many of these things as if they were normal. But America knows they’re not. We need Republicans to start recognizing it, saying it, and start stepping up to the plate to do something about it.
I understand that my Republican colleagues will go along with the President 90% of the time, but there are certain issues that are too important.
Now is a time to put country before party.
First, on the Cabinet.
Our norms of good government and above all ethics are being tested by a Cabinet unlike any other I’ve ever seen in my time in public office. There are so many billionaires with so many conflicts of interest and so little expertise in the issues they’d oversee.
Take the nominee we are now considering: Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary. In my mind, she is the least qualified nominee in a historically unqualified cabinet.
On conflicts of interest, she ranks among the worst: in her ethics agreement, which was delivered to the committee after her first hearing, it was revealed that she’d keep interests in three family-owned trusts that have holdings in companies that could be affected by matters related to the Dept. of Education. Independent ethics watchdogs have criticized her ethics agreement for failing to deal with these conflicts of interest.
On philosophy of education, her views are extreme: she seems to demean the main purpose of her job: public education. 9 in 10 Americans attend public schools. Her views on public education are a major concern, particularly for Senators from rural areas. There is not a lot of choice of schools outside the major metropolitan areas. If you don’t have a good public school, you have nothing. Any Senator from a rural state should be worried about her commitment to public education.
We in New York have the third-largest rural population in America. I am worried for those schools where if the school is no good, you don’t have much choice. You don’t have any choice.
Above all, and on basic competence, she has failed to make the grade: She didn’t seem to know about the federal education law that guarantees education to students with disabilities; she couldn’t unequivocally say that guns shouldn’t be in schools; and she didn’t seem to know about a long-simmering debate in education policy about measuring “growth” vs “proficiency.”
Ms. DeVos’s answers to questions at the hearing were embarrassing. Not only for her but for my Republican colleagues on the Committee, who rushed her nomination through with 5 minutes of questions, one round each. Only one round and at 5:00 p.m.
Madam President, Cabinet Secretaries can’t be expected to know everything. But this is different. The nominee for Secretary of Education doesn’t know some of the most basic facts about education policy.
She has failed to show proficiency, and there is no longer any time for growth.
Madam President, the American people are speaking in one, loud voice against this nominee. I’ve had many people come up to me in New York and say I voted for Donald Trump, but I’m making calls about this nominee. Americans from across the country in red states and blue states have been flooding our offices with phone calls letters and e-mails asking the Senate to vote NO on Betsy DeVos. Local newspaper editorial boards, many of them that endorsed Trump, are saying the same thing.
My friends the Senators from Maine and Alaska were profiles in courage last week when they announced their opposition to her nomination. But unfortunately, so far, they are the exception.
I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to follow the courageous example of the senators from Maine and Alaska.
We have an obligation as Senators – not as Republicans, not as Democrats – but as Senators, to evaluate these nominees and their fitness for office, because these nominees are going to wield immense power over the lives of Americans for possibly the next four yours.
I ask my Republican colleagues to look into their consciences and cast their votes tomorrow not based on party, but based on whether or not Ms. DeVos is qualified to be our nation’s leader on education policy.
If one doesn’t measure up, the Senate has a responsibility to reject the nomination. I realize it rarely occurs, but this should be an exception because she is so uniquely unqualified, whether it comes to competence, whether it comes to philosophy -- against the public schools -- or whether it comes to conflicts of interest, which still exist in far too many instances with Ms. DeVos holdings.
Second, Madam President, the President’s executive order on immigration and refugees is so awful, so poorly constructed, so haphazardly implemented, so legally and constitutionally dubious, so contrary to our basic values as Americans – that my Republican friends should feel a duty to country to help us rescind it.
Several members on the other side, I think it’s over a dozen, have expressed concerns about it. Several spoke out strongly and unequivocally against imposing any type of “ban” during the campaign, but now that we have one, they are unfortunately silent.
It’s time for that silence to end, and for Republicans to step up to the plate and start backing up their words with action.
On Friday, the order was temporarily blocked by a federal judge. On Saturday, the President questioned his court credibility via Tweet and then asked the country to blame any potential attacks on the country on the judge and the courts. He is not a “so-called” judge as the President tweeted, but rather a Senate-confirmed Bush appointee.
Now, Madam President, that’s not how we do things in America. There is a separation of powers for a reason. An independent judiciary is absolutely necessary to ensure Presidents and Congresses do not break the law or impinge on the Constitution.
But the President has shown a certain callowness when it comes to judges who rule against his whim: Judge Curiel during the campaign, Judge Robart now.
Instead of attacking the judge, the President should be working with Congress to tighten up security where it’s actually needed.
The President has said if there are attacks, the judge will be to blame. I remind him not one attack- I remind not one attack on U.S. soil has been perpetrated by a refugee from one of the seven countries in the executive order. It doesn’t make us safer. If anything, the executive order increases the risk of lone wolf attacks – which are our greatest threat. That’s what happened in San Bernardino. That's what happened in Orlando. And no authority less than Senator John McCain has said exactly that, that it will increase the likelihood of attacks by these lone wolves. These disaffected people who are egged on by the evil ISIS.
So I make this offer to my friends on the other side of the aisle: join Democrats in rescinding the executive order and we’ll work with you in a bipartisan way in good faith on ways to actually make our country safer…like closing up loopholes in the Visa Waiver Program, where people from countries, just because they’re generally friendly to us, those countries are not checked. We know that places like France and Belgium have homegrown terrorists lured by ISIS. They can get on a plane and come here far more easily than a refugee from those seven countries. Let’s tighten that up. But instead the president picked this executive order. Lord knows how he came to it. And every expert on terrorism will say there are a lot more important things and better things that we need to do.
So let me repeat: the stakes are too high for party loyalty to stand in the way of doing what’s right for this country. We ought to scrap the order and start over.
Finally, Madam President, I ask my Republican colleagues to put country over party when it comes to Russia.
This Administration has shown a disquieting reluctance to criticize Russia when it flouts international norms and laws. The administration seem hesitant to enforce new sanctions and have even hinted at relaxing existing sanctions on what has always been probably our most formidable enemy, along with ISIS, Russia and Putin.
Unbelievably, just yesterday, the President insinuated that the American and Russian governments were somehow morally equivalent.
When asked about Putin’s authoritarian regime, President Trump responded, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent”
Can you imagine if a Democrat had said that? Every one of these seats would be filled with people decrying that kind of moral equivalence. Russia, a dictatorship, where Putin kills his enemies, imprisons the press and causes trouble anywhere he can in the world. Morally equivalent to this great land?
Come on, where are you?
You know if a Democrat said it, you’d be just howling at the moon. Rightfully so. And here, I don’t hear much.
Madam President, Vladimir Putin has little or no respect for the diversity of his people, for the freedom of religion and expression, for a free press, for free and fair elections in Russia and in America. And, he has demonstrated on more than one occasion that he will go to any length to silence political dissidents, including murdering them.
Does that sound like America? I would ask President Trump. Maybe in President Trump’s mind, but certainly not the America that this body represents.
My Republican friends, as I said, ought to be aghast. I don’t think anyone from the other side would associate themselves with those comments. And I am encouraged that the Republican Leader and other Senate Republicans criticized the President for these dangerous remarks.
If it was a Democratic President who made these remarks, there would be a universal howl of condemnation.
But what worries me most is the policy. Russia is a persistent and strategic threat to this nation. Will this Administration cozy up to Putin and his oligarchs and relax sanctions? Will they look the other way when Russia supports separatists in Ukraine or commits human rights violations in Syria alongside Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime? Putin is the kind of bully where if you give him an inch, he’ll take ten miles. We have all come up against people like that.
President Trump’s rhetoric is ceding more of the battlespace to our enemy each day.
We must ensure current sanctions stay in place and are robustly enforced. We also need to increase sanctions pressure on Russia for its interference in our election. We ask our colleagues, step up to the plate. Dow what you know is right and join us in making sure that the President cannot unilaterally reduce sanctions and that we strengthen sanctions for what he has tried to do in our election.
Madam President, the stakes are too high to let loyalty to the President, any president, stop this body from doing the right thing for the American people.
On the Cabinet and particularly Ms. DeVos, the executive order, and the lack of respect for an independent judiciary and on Russia – I ask my Republican colleagues to consider principle over party, and their duty to country before deference to the President.
Thank you, Madam President, I yield the floor.
