Floor Statements

Madam President, Secretary of State Pompeo will meet with Vladimir Putin tomorrow, and there is something important he must do.

The Mueller report, for all its revelations about the President's conduct, also reminded us of things we know to be true and must resist at all costs. The Mueller report documented the ``sweeping and systematic'' disinformation campaign directed by President Putin to undermine our 2016 elections. Whatever you may think of the President's behavior, foreign interference in our elections cannot be ignored.

It was an attack on democracy itself, and in my view, America's response has not been adequate. What happened in the past has happened, as bad as it was, but the point of looking at this is to prevent it from ever happening again in the future. We don't know what country will try to change our elections and who it might support--Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. So we have to bolster ourselves, and until we get a full, full description of what happened and a plan to stop it from happening in 2020, America should not rest because it is an attack on democracy itself.

America's response, thus far, has not been adequate. Congress passed sanctions, but then President Trump failed to implement some and watered others down. Only a few months ago, the Treasury Department cut a sweetheart deal on sanctions relief for Russian oligarch and Putin crony Oleg Deripaska.

Even rhetorically, the President and members of his administration have shown an unbelievable willingness to look past President Putin's actions of 2016. A little over a week ago, just after the Mueller report came out, President Trump held a phone call with President Putin in which he reportedly brought up the Russian hoax, and he did not warn Putin not to meddle in our elections. Of course, the press conference in Helsinki last year was the epitome of President Trump's inability to confront President Putin about his interference in our elections.

This matters a great deal because any softness on the administration's part will be read by Putin and other foreign powers as an invitation to try and interfere with our elections again. We know, thanks to the testimony from FBI Director Wray and our national intelligence chiefs, that foreign adversaries are gearing up right now to try again and interfere with our elections in 2020. Yet it may not be just Russia next time; it might be China, North Korea, or Iran. Who knows?

So it is long past time for the Trump administration to make it crystal clear that another interference campaign by Putin will not be tolerated. The Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, has an obligation to warn President Putin that any action to interfere in our elections will be met with an immediate and robust response. Secretary of State Pompeo must make clear that the cost of trying to interfere with American elections will be dear. Secretary of State Pompeo must deliver a shot across the bow to Putin and any other foreign adversary who would dare think about trying to influence our elections. Anything else from Secretary Pompeo will be a failure of diplomacy.

Here in Congress, our response must also be strong. In the wake of multiple warnings about future election interference, we must do everything we can to harden our election infrastructure before 2020. There are multiple bills--bipartisan, sponsored by Democrats and Republicans--that are in committee right now that would do just that, but Leader McConnell will not commit to bringing them to the floor, which is another example of his legislative graveyard. Instead, he just schedules nomination after nomination. This is now the third week in a row that the Senate will spend processing only nominations. Leader McConnell is, slowly but surely, changing the Chamber into a legislative graveyard, where even the most urgently needed, bipartisan bills on election security and Russia sanctions get buried.

Madam President, on healthcare, it is not just election security, of course, that finds itself in the McConnell graveyard. Bipartisan bills, like background checks, paycheck fairness, and the Violence Against Women Act, have all passed the House with Republican support but have languished in the Senate. I wouldn't be surprised if healthcare legislation will soon be

added to the list of tombstones in Leader McConnell's graveyard.

At the end of last week, the House passed a crucial piece of legislation that would reverse the Trump administration's attempts to weaken protections for Americans with preexisting conditions--a policy supported by the vast majority of Americans and publicly supported by several State Senate Republicans who are up for reelection. This week, the House is poised to pass another great package of healthcare legislation to further protect preexisting conditions and help people sign up for quality healthcare coverage.

Compare that to the Trump administration's policies, which have only increased costs and lowered the number of Americans who have health insurance. The uninsured rate had been on a steady decline until President Trump took office. Now, for the first time since 2013, the number of Americans without insurance has been on the rise.

As the leader of the majority in the Senate, Senator McConnell has a responsibility to use our time here to help the American people. As insurance rates fall, protections for preexisting conditions are under attack, and prices go up for middle-class Americans. I believe the Senate must act to improve the Nation's healthcare system, and we have multiple House-passed bills awaiting action. Leader McConnell need only call them up for debate. Instead, the legislative graveyard--where good legislation doesn't even get debated or amended, let alone passed--is upon us.

Madam President, on Tuesday afternoon, our country suffered another shooting--this time in Highlands Ranch, CO. It was the second shooting of the week following a weekend where at least 19 people were shot in Baltimore, 16 in St. Louis, and 28 in Chicago.

My grandson is less than a year old. He turned over in his crib last night--great accomplishment. But on a serious note, I don't want him to live in a world where this is the norm. I don't want him to see this on TV every other week. I don't want him to come home after school to tell his parents about learning to hide under a desk with the lights off. I don't want him to grow up in a country where children and adolescents are more than 20 times more likely to be killed with guns than their peers in other high-income countries.

I want him--little Noah and every other child in America--to live in a world where America's gun violence epidemic is a thing of the past. It may seem a naive thought in a cynical time, but I believe we can get there. We can take steps right now to make these incidents less likely. Nothing will prevent them, but there are lots of things we can do to make them a lot less frequent. A few months ago, the House did just that. The House passed legislation to close the loopholes in Federal background checks--something that more than 90 percent of all Americans support.

No one here pretends that we can prevent every incident, but we have a choice to face between moving in the right direction in a significant way and doing nothing. That is why I am so disappointed once again that Leader McConnell and the Republican majority have turned this Chamber into a

legislative graveyard where even the most bipartisan, broadly supported legislation like background checks can't even get a vote or a discussion. Here we are at the end of another week in the Senate. This week, we have done nothing but process nominations. It is not because there is nothing else to do. There are over 100 bills--many noncontroversial and many bipartisan--that have passed the House and are awaiting Senate action, but Leader McConnell has turned the Senate into a legislative graveyard.

When the American people demand action, Leader McConnell does nothing. When the American people demand action, the Senate Republicans are in obeisance to this strategy of a graveyard, even when in their hearts they may know doing that is not right and they would like to debate the issues, whatever their views.

Leader McConnell promised to preside over an open Senate, with vigorous debate and amendment votes and the ability to vote on issues of the day. He promised that, and he said no matter which party offered the ideas. Leader McConnell is breaking those promises when he consigns bill after bill--every one of them needed by America, needed by the middle class, needed by working people--every one of them to a legislative graveyard. So there are no debates, no amendments, no progress, no hope for the American people as the Senate continues to be in such a legislative graveyard.

Madam President, on Puerto Rico, last night President Trump held his first Florida rally of the year in Panama City, in the heart of the Florida Panhandle, which was so awfully devastated by Hurricane Michael last year. President Trump's speech contained all the usual demagoguery and bloviating, but one thing in particular stuck in his craw. The President used his rally in Florida to denigrate once again the island of Puerto Rico, to repeat falsehoods about how much aid it has received, and to pit one American against another, which seems to be his MO.

Again, the President said that Puerto Rico has gotten $91 billion of disaster aid--flat-out false. They received a hair over $11 billion.

Mr. President, ask your budget people how many dollars Puerto Rico has received, and they will not tell you the $91 billion falsehood you have repeated over and over.

Again, I saw the President pit Americans against each other, going so far as to hold up a flimsy graphic to get Floridians in his audience to turn against Americans in Puerto Rico. At a time when we need unity, at a time when we should be together, with all the threats challenging us--domestic and foreign and all the other types of challenges--all the President can do is to appeal to people's worst instincts and divide us. We are humans. We are made by God. We have good and bad in each of us. The President should be appealing to the good side, not the bad side, but all he does is the bad side. It is a shame.

Of course, he said that Puerto Ricans should be grateful for whatever disaster aid they have received, as a pretext for not doing more. Does he say that to the people of Florida: You shouldn't get any more aid because you received some already and you should be grateful. Of course not, it is a double standard. President Trump ought to be ashamed of himself for condescending to and publicly mocking a community that is still suffering. These are men, women, and children. They still don't have their homes, their hospitals, their schools. They can't go on with life, and he is mocking them? What did they do wrong? They are American citizens. I sometimes cannot believe the depth of cruelty that the President uses to treat fellow American citizens this way.

The fact remains, we can end the impasse over disaster aid at a moment's notice. To the people of Florida: All you have to do is tell your Senators to vote for the full aid package, including aid to Puerto Rico, and you will get all the aid you need, all the aid that Congress has allocated. Just do that.

But Republican Senators, after Donald Trump went in and said no more aid to Puerto Rico, blindly bowed in obeisance. The House will never pass a bill that doesn't treat Puerto Rico as fairly as it treats the other States of the Union.

Let's decide now that we are going to help every corner of America that is hit by disaster, because that is what Americans have always done.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I give my remarks under leader time and that the vote occurs immediately after.

Madam President, I begin this morning with a heavy heart, having heard of the abrupt passing of New York Times journalist Robert Pear.

It just so happens that Robert lived on my floor in college during freshman year. While everyone else in those days had long hair and wore bell-bottoms, Robert had a flattop, was always studious, inquisitive, polite, and very decent, earning him the nickname ``The Deacon.'' He was the first to go into the library and the last to come out late at night. The Deacon was different from most of us but earned all of our respect.

Robert maintained the qualities of studiousness and inquisitiveness, politeness and decency throughout his personal and professional life. In my view, he represented the very best of America.

When Robert's byline appeared on a story--and so often, his stories were on the front page, above the fold of the New York Times--the reader knew the reporting would be both important and authoritative.

His death is a loss for journalism itself. I send my condolences to his family in this moment of profound grief.

We all know that Leader McConnell would like to move on from the Mueller report. We know that he and many Senate Republicans are ready to say ``case closed.'' We all know that whether he has been bamboozled by, afraid of, worried about, or simply enamored with President Trump, Leader McConnell would prefer to sweep the entire report under the rug. So, yesterday, Leader McConnell's speech here on the Senate floor struck me as an impassioned bit of wishful thinking that I believe the leader will regret in later days that he gave.

I am sure President Nixon wished that the investigations into Watergate would simply go away, just as I am sure President Trump wants Mueller's investigations to fade into the background, but in the first case--President Nixon--we had courageous Republicans who put the rule of law above simple fealty to a President, and they resisted. Unfortunately, thus far, Leader McConnell has shown none of that nobility and strength. He is simply going along with President Trump.

Just for a moment, though, let us set aside the discussion about the President's repeated attempts to obstruct the Federal investigation. Let's just talk about the conclusions Mueller came to about election interference in 2016, separate from his views of the investigation of Trump.

Does Leader McConnell agree that election security is a serious and ongoing challenge? Does Leader McConnell agree with FBI Director Wray that ``2018 was a dress rehearsal'' for foreign influence campaigns against the United States? Does the leader agree with our intelligence and law enforcement officials who are warning us right now that foreign capitals--Russia above all but perhaps Iran and China and Turkey--are gearing up to try to interfere with our elections in 2020?

This is the wellspring of our democracy. Russia may temporarily want to choose one candidate over another--as they chose Trump in 2016 and may well again--but their ultimate goal is to sow such dissension, worry, and lack of faith in our democracy that it could crumble. If everyone believes that foreigners are influencing our elections and the outcome isn't just, that is a terrible--terrible--step downward for America that none of us wants to take.

Then why doesn't Leader McConnell at least do something about election security, independent of President Trump--although, those investigations and hearings should go on and will. If so, if Leader McConnell believes this foreign interference in our elections is a serious problem, then he has an obligation to separate himself from his desire to shield the President from accountability and to act on this national imperative to defend our democracy from insidious and foreign attack.

Whatever Leader McConnell believes about the President's behavior and for whatever reason, there is no reason for Leader McConnell to resist bipartisan bills like the Secure Elections Act that would harden election infrastructure. There is no reason for Leader McConnell to oppose additional funding in the appropriations process for States to safeguard their election hardware. For God's sake, there is no good reason for Leader McConnell to resist or delay scheduling an all- Senators briefing on election threats in 2020. The only reason to do that would be false.

I hope the reason Leader McConnell is resisting strengthening and securing our elections is not because he believes Russia will help President Trump and that he is willing to let that go forward. I hope that is not true. There is no good reason on God's green Earth why we shouldn't be making our elections more secure, even though we may

have different views about the Mueller report.

I urge my friend the Republican leader: Disentangle yourself from the self-serving desire to sweep the Mueller report and all of its findings under the rug. Recognize that it is indisputable that Russian interference is a great threat to our elections, that the Mueller report helped corroborate and document that, and work with us. For the sake of America, Leader McConnell, work with us to protect our country from foreign interference in our elections in the future. Do not--you cannot; you must not--sit on the sidelines.

Madam President, on another issue, yesterday we heard Leader McConnell say he would like to get a disaster relief package done by Memorial Day. Democrats in this Chamber are going to hold him to that standard, and we will make sure the package provided will have funding for all affected communities, from Hawaii all the way to Puerto Rico.

My colleagues from the Midwest and South are starting to feel the heat. According to press reports, they are going to Leader McConnell and saying, ``We have to get something done,'' because they realize, justifiably, that with each passing week, the cost of inaction grows. Cities in Iowa have endured another round of flooding. In the South, the hurricane season is around the corner. We need to get disaster aid out the door.

When you want to know why it hasn't happened, first and foremost, it is because President Trump disrupted a bipartisan bill that would have passed a month and a half ago and said: No aid for Puerto Rico. Second, our Republican colleagues in the Midwest and in the South willingly went along with that, thinking they could roll over Puerto Rico, roll over the House, and roll over Democrats in the Senate.

Well, now you have learned that is not happening. So work with us on a bipartisan package. We want to get it done. We want to see aid go to every part of the country, including the Midwest, including the South, including Florida, and including Texas, but Puerto Rico must be treated similarly and fairly.

I promise that we could solve this impasse in a moment. If Republicans in the Senate agree to treat Puerto Rico fairly, a disaster package will pass this Chamber like a hot knife through butter.

Our position is very simple: Democrats support a package for disaster relief that provides support for all affected Americans: Hawaii, California, Iowa, the South, the Atlantic coast, the Pacific islands, and the island of Puerto Rico, and we are not going to move forward unless everyone is included and everyone is treated fairly.

Madam President, on nominations, today is a great example of how Leader McConnell and the Senate, in place of real legislative progress and in place of helping the middle class in this turbulent world in which we live, simply used floor time as a legislative graveyard to only rubberstamp extreme and unqualified nominees with no legislating. We have become a legislative graveyard under Leader McConnell's leadership, and the middle class and people trying to get there suffer.

This afternoon, Senate Republicans are going to confirm Janet Dhillon to be the Chair of the EEOC. This move to restore a quorum by confirming a Republican nominee, while refusing to consider Democratic nominees--which had been the Senate's tradition to always do these nominees in a bipartisan way, one Democrat and one Republican together--is going to imperil equal pay rules and protections for LGBTQ workers.

This afternoon, the Senate will vote to end debate on the nomination of Michael Park to the Second Circuit. A quick overview of Mr. Park's experience reveals some pretty outlandish views.

In private practice, he advanced arguments that would limit the civil rights of millions of Americans on matters pertaining to the census and educational opportunity. He represented groups in an amicus brief against the constitutionality of Medicaid expansion and worked to defend the Kansas effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

Since the Second Circuit covers my home State of New York, I met with Mr. Park to try to understand why he was being nominated for a lifetime position as a circuit court judge. Frankly, his principal qualifications seemed to be that he is a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society.

Mr. Park has little experience and little judicial background. He is an ideologue. He doesn't have the kind of balance and integrity and compassion and understanding of both sides that any judge needs. It will be obvious to anyone who reviews his record that he lacks the breadth and objectivity that we prize in our judges, but my Republican friends, like Leader McConnell, have a singular goal: to remake the Federal bench in their image. So Federalist stooges, like Mr. Park, who aren't qualified for District Court, are being rammed through as circuit court judges.

The Senate ought to reject this confirmation. In the less partisan Senates of the past, it wouldn't even have come forward, but, regrettably, instead of legislating, instead of doing things for the American people, all Leader McConnell is doing is ramming through these nominees, most of whom are way out of the mainstream, far away from the views of most Americans, and unqualified for their jobs.

This wouldn't have happened years ago. I hope my colleagues, when they look at Mr. Park's record, will do the right thing.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I have just listened to my friend the majority leader engage in an astounding bit of whitewash--not unexpected but entirely unconvincing.

Yes, the Mueller investigation took 2 years, and, yes, it produced a stunning document in the end--not only a damning appraisal of our election security and just how willing a major Presidential campaign was to accept and amplify the disinformation of a foreign adversary but also a thorough examination of the behavior of a lawless President, who at least on 11 occasions, according to the report, may have obstructed a Federal investigation.

So while my friend the majority leader wants to say ``case closed''-- I don't blame them--375 former Federal prosecutors looked at the Mueller report and said publicly that the conduct of the President amounts to felony obstruction of justice. In any other case, were he not President, those prosecutors would have recommended bringing charges.

Our leader saying ``Let's move on'' is sort of like Richard Nixon saying ``Let's move on'' at the height of the investigation of his wrongdoing. Of course he wants to move on. He wants to cover it up. He wants silence on one of the most serious issues we face--whether a foreign power can manipulate our elections, the wellspring of our democracy.

If the leader is sincere, then put election security on the floor. Let's debate it. Put sanctions on Russia on the floor. Let's debate it. He doesn't want to move on; he wants to run away from these awful facts that relate to the wellspring of our democracy--foreign interference in our election and a President who is lawless. That is what he wants to push under the rug.

Of course, he would say this is all done. It is not done. If Russia interferes in 2020, it is not done. If this President or future Presidents believe that they can avoid the law and even break the law-- at least according to 375 prosecutors--it is not done. This is very serious stuff.

The leader bemoans ``breathless conspiracy theorizing.'' For a moment, I thought he was referring to the President and to those House and Senate Republicans who for 2 years intentionally sought to undercut Mueller's investigation by peddling farfetched conspiracy theories about deep state ``coups,'' unmasking scandals, and uranium purchases to muddy the waters. I guess he meant something about Democrats. But I don't remember the Republican leader bemoaning those breathless conspiracies; nor do I remember the Republican leader or the Republican Senators having such a distaste for congressional oversight during the Obama administration. On things far less serious, they were relentless in wanting investigations. Now they say ``never mind'' when the wellspring of our democracy is at stake, there is foreign interference in our elections, and a President who just disobeys the law. The leader sure acted differently a few years back.

What I remember is that from the very beginning, the Republican leader has not taken the threat of Russia's election interference as seriously as he should. In the run-up to the 2016 election, when the Obama administration sought to warn State election officials about foreign meddling and designate election systems as ``critical infrastructure,'' Leader McConnell reportedly delayed for weeks, ``watered down'' the letter from congressional leaders, and pushed back against the designation. Yes, I would have swept this under the rug if I had done that. I wouldn't want to keep talking about it.

Despite 2 years in charge of the Senate since the 2016 election, Leader McConnell has pursued additional election security only after being prodded by Democrats, and it has been half-baked at that.

Leader McConnell thwarted the Rules Committee from marking up the bipartisan legislation designed to enhance election security.

At the beginning of the year, 42 Republicans, including Leader McConnell, essentially voted in favor of the administration's proposal to weaken sanctions against Russia.

In the last round of negotiations, Senate Republicans blocked our attempt to fund additional efforts to make our election safe in 2020.

Now, despite a preponderance of testimony from our intelligence officials--not politicians; intelligence officials who are in charge of our security and well-being--they testified that foreign powers are ramping up to interfere in our next election. The Senate has done nothing to grapple with the problem, even as minimal of a request as I made to the leader: an all-Senators' classified briefing from our defense and intelligence leaders so that the Senate understands what we need to do to protect American in 2020 and beyond. I have been asking for 2 weeks, and we still haven't gotten action.

Let's bring the bipartisan Secure Elections Act to the floor and debate and amend. Let's strengthen sanctions against Putin and any other adversary who would dare to interfere with the sanctity of our elections.

Regardless of what you believe about the President's conduct, we should all--every single Democrat and every single Republican--be working to ensure that what happened in 2016 never happens again. We can debate how much of an effect it had, but we sure don't want it to be worse--whatever it was--in 2020 than it was in 2016. And the leader sits on his hands, does nothing, creates a legislative graveyard for these and every other issue, and then says: Let's move on. No way. No way. We can do both. We can make our elections more secure. We can examine what happened so we can make them more secure and do other issues. So far, Leader McConnell is doing neither.

What we have here is very simple. What we have here is a concerted effort to circle the wagons to protect the President from accountability, to whitewash his reprehensible conduct by simply declaring it irrelevant. In that effort, the leader and Senate Republicans are falling down drastically on their constitutional duty to provide oversight and, I fear, to defend the national interest as well.

Madam President, let me now talk about something related--the legislative graveyard.

Leader McConnell says: Let's move on and work together. There hasn't been a single bill put on the floor on issues we can debate, whether it is protecting preexisting conditions, making our education system better, dealing with the problem of the high cost of drugs, doing infrastructure--nothing. Just appointments have been put on the floor. And nothing has been done on election security at the very minimum.

I know the leader is afraid to debate what happened and explore what happened given the tawdry history of certainly President Trump and of Senate Republicans in responding to this serious issue, but at least he could move forward and we could put some bills on the floor and debate them to strengthen our election security, which everyone admits is weak.

So if Leader McConnell, as he says, is ready to move on to serious things, then how about bringing forward legislation to protect our elections? For 4 months, the Senate has been little more than a legislative graveyard, and election security is exhibit A.

The House passed important reforms to improve and safeguard our elections. No action here in the Senate. We have a bipartisan election security bill waiting in committee. No movement from the leader.

As long as this place remains a legislative graveyard, we are rolling out the welcome mat for foreign adversaries--not just Russia but Iran, Turkey, North Korea, China--to interfere in our elections. We are essentially encouraging a sequel to 2016 because the leader is sitting on his hands, because the leader is presiding over a legislative graveyard on election security and just about everything else. What about bipartisan background checks? What about paycheck fairness? What about election reform? What about even the Violence Against Women Act, which passed the House with 33 Republicans? None of those are being put on the floor so that we can act and debate.

Later this morning, my friend Senator Udall will come here to the floor to press our Republican friends to take up this bill and shed light on the fact that it includes long-overdue reforms to protect Native American women. The House is moving on legislation this week to protect our healthcare law and protections for Americans with preexisting conditions from the administration's efforts to destroy those protections. There is no reason for Leader McConnell, who says he wants to move on, to let these bills collect dust in the Senate. Even if he doesn't love every particular in these bills, why not bring them to the floor to debate and amend? Surely, we could find a way to agree on issues. Ninety, ninety-five percent of Americans agree on every one of these. But the Republican Party and Leader McConnell are so in the grasp of powerful special interests and lobbyists from the hard right that they are afraid to move any of this.