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Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, the House of Representatives is not coming back into session, reportedly, until next week. The government is shutting down tomorrow night, and the Republican House of Representatives isn't here, and they aren't coming back until the government has been shut down--reportedly for days. That tells you all you need to know about who is responsible for a potential shutdown of the government. Republicans care so little about funding the government that they aren't even showing up.

President Trump doesn't care either. He boycotted even meeting with Democrats until 24 hours before the shutdown was to begin. He was watching golf or posting on social media--basically anything except trying to negotiate, to do the job of government.

I wish Republicans were trying to keep the government open instead of trying to shut it down, but what I really want is for Republicans to open their eyes and see what is happening at an increasing pace to our democracy.

What I want and what I think is necessary at this moment is for any budget that we write to put the health of our democracy first. In fact, as I have watched the events of the past few weeks play out, with political enemies being systematically hunted by this administration, I think that we all have a moral obligation to only support a budget that at the very least puts the brakes on the President's lawlessness.

Right now, our democracy is in grave peril, and there is no better example of this than the events that played out last week over the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.

The President has made it clear that he wants to put his political enemies in jail as retribution for the charges brought against him. He does not care about whether there are grounds for these charges; he just wants charges. So he instructed Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney in Virginia, a Republican, to bring charges against James Comey, but Seibert refused for a simple reason: There was no evidence that James Comey had done anything illegal. So Trump fired Siebert, and he appointed his personal lawyer, who has never set foot in a courtroom, as the new U.S. attorney simply because he knew she would follow orders.

Every career prosecutor in the office recommended she refuse to bring the charges--again, because there were no charges to be brought--but she did it anyway, as instructed. Not a single other lawyer in the office would sign the indictment--virtually unprecedented in a case like this.

Trump cheered the indictment, and then he warned that there would be more charges brought against others that had vocally opposed his policies.

That is not all that happened in the last 2 weeks. Trump ordered the FCC to issue threats to TV stations that did not remove one of his primary late night critics, Jimmy Kimmel, from the airwaves. He announced new military deployments to additional cities. He began a process to harass and arrest leaders of prominent political groups that oppose his Presidency, threatening at least one funder of groups that oppose his policies, George Soros, with arrest simply for supporting opposition to Trump.

Much of this, though not all of it, has happened in the wake of the brutal, horrific murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. His assassination was abhorrent, and it was and still is a moment for all of us to consider what we can do to stamp out political violence and violence of all kinds. But his murder does not justify the dizzying campaign of political repression that has been carried out--often in his name--since. To exploit his murder to crush dissent or to censor speech is unacceptable.

This brings me back to the debate over the expiring budget. I join with my colleagues in wanting this new budget to at the very least postpone the healthcare insurance increases that are coming for millions of Americans and that are going to ruin people's lives in this country--75 percent increases for people, who are going to make this awful decision about whether they should continue to pay their premiums, whether they should put food on their table for their kids, or whether they should risk going without insurance.

I think that is a pretty reasonable ask. Just don't increase costs on families when it comes to healthcare at a time when the cost of everything else is going up because of President Trump's insane economic policies.

But let me ask you this as well: Why would we not also simply say that any budget we pass should stop the worst of the lawlessness? Stop the deployments to our cities. Stop the witch hunt of Comey and Soros and Senator Schiff. Stop using the FCC to censor speech. Stop unconstitutionally ignoring the budget and spending only money that the President wants to spend.

To me, this is simple: We should not willingly pay the bills for the most serious assault on political freedom since the Civil War--an assault that may collapse American democracy as we know it.

Now, I know my Republican friends think this is hyperbole, that our fear for our democracy is just fearmongering, just politics. I swear it is not.

Our Republican colleagues know why Comey and Senator Schiff and Soros are being targeted. They know that the President just picked the people that give him the hardest time and told his folks to come up with charges.

My Republican colleagues know the impact that this has on people who want to politically and peacefully oppose the President but now won't do that because they fear for their freedom. Republicans know this. They should not defend it.

Republicans know that it is wrong to sit down and agree to a budget and then cheer the President when he refuses to spend the money in blue States or on the priorities that got Democrats to sit down at the table to begin with. Republicans know that is not fair play. They shouldn't defend it.

Republicans know that using the FCC to crack down on speech that the President doesn't agree with is wrong. They know, as Senator Cruz pointed out, that is a slippery slope we may never get off.

I want to find agreement with the Republicans on stopping these premiums from going up. I do. I think that is really important for people in this country. And I think it is OK to admit that this is an odd arrangement that we have in American Government today, where the minority party in the Senate, so long as it has 40 Members, is kind of in a coalition government with the majority party because the budget can't pass without bipartisan agreement. But the majority party has an obligation to honor and fight for a basic set of protections for our democracy, and when it doesn't, it really stops being a good-faith negotiating partner.

How do Republicans expect us to vote for a budget that funds a government that is lawlessly pursuing Democrats, that is arresting and harassing our members and our allies, that is deploying the Army and masked officers to our cities?

We are at a moment of decision for this country. Right now, Republicans aren't even trying to keep the government open. They are not even here.

They are not even here. They are rooting for a shutdown.

But if we are going to keep the government open, why can't we all agree that it should only be a government that respects our democracy, that is not corrupt, that doesn't treat people and places that oppose President Trump as enemies deserving of indictment or military deployment. That also seems like a pretty minimalist ask.

So it is decision time: Is this Senate going to fund the destruction of our democracy or are we going to do what is necessary to stand up for basic American values?

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