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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the chaos at TSA is reaching a boiling point. We need to reopen it as quickly as possible. That is what Senate Democrats are intent on doing. So, tomorrow, the Senate will take a very simple procedural vote on beginning to reopen TSA, which Democrats are leading.
Tomorrow, America will see the matter crystal clear: which Senators want to open up TSA, pay TSA workers, and end the chaos at our airports and which Senators are going to block TSA funding yet again. If you want to open up TSA, vote yes tomorrow.
Every previous vote offered by the Republicans has tied TSA funding to also continue funding for ICE, without any reform of ICE. This is different. This doesn't tie the TSA to ICE funding because ICE funding is controversial. This does not make the workers at our airports or the passengers at our airports hostages.
Republicans are saying: Unless you pass ICE as-is, without reform, we are not going to help the TSA workers get paid and reduce the lines at the airport.
We are saying: Just do it, no ands, ifs, or buts.
Negotiations to rein in ICE and end the violence still have a way to go. There are some very deep disagreements. Republicans still have not accepted that the American people want legislation--real legislation-- to ensure the kind of brutality we saw in Minneapolis can't happen again. But in the meantime, Republicans do not need to hold the rest of these Agencies hostage, including TSA.
To my Republican colleagues: We both see the chaos at TSA. We both know and would admit there is a lot more work to do on ICE. There is no good reason to keep holding TSA hostage. There is no good reason to reject our proposal to fund it.
We are going to hold this vote tomorrow, and I urge my Republican colleagues to vote yes. SAVE America Act
Mr. President, on SAVE, the Senate is in session today, and all we are really doing is wasting time on a voter suppression bill written only to appease the fringe elements of the MAGA base. With so many problems facing our country, the cost of living so high, with people struggling to make ends meet, with the war going on in Iran, Republicans instead are choosing to spend time making it harder for citizens to vote. This is exactly what the SAVE Act is designed to do. It is designed to make it harder for citizens to vote.
Do not listen to the Republican talking points about voter ID. That is a ruse. Underneath the surface, the SAVE Act is a voter purge bill. Most of its core elements don't even talk about voter ID. They want to make it harder to register to vote than it is to register to buy an AR- 15.
MAGA Republicans want to force every single State in America to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security. They want Americans' information to be run through an algorithm that Elon Musk and DOGE could use to kick eligible American citizens off the voter rolls without them even knowing they were kicked off.
When you show up at the polling place, they say: Mr. Jones, Ms. Smith, you are no longer on the registry.
And you say: Why?
They say: Well, you will have to go find out.
That is a disgrace. That is undoing what is deeply American: the right to vote. They want to make registering to vote a bureaucratic nightmare.
They want to end vote-by-mail, end registering online, end registering on college campuses and in churches, and even end registering at the DMV, where, of course, you have to show ID.
That is what the SAVE Act is, and Republicans know it. They know that if the American people are given a fair chance to make their voices heard, Republicans are in trouble. Iran
Mr. President, on Iran, thanks to Donald Trump's war with Iran, gas prices are now nearing $4 a gallon. Experts predict that this weekend gasoline will cross the $4-a-gallon threshold. In just the last month, gas prices have gone up by $1 a gallon. Brent crude is hovering around $108 a barrel, much higher than it has been.
And Donald Trump has the gall to say that prices are ``not that bad.'' Do you hear that, America? Donald Trump is telling you $4 gas is not that bad. What bubble does he live in? How often does he fill up his car with gasoline? When Donald Trump says that the prices are not that bad, who is he kidding? He is speaking like a billionaire. America is being led into war by Marie Antoinette.
And then Kevin Hassett, the top economic adviser to Trump, says Americans' pain is ``the [least] of our concern[s] right now.'' Can you believe this? The highest economic adviser in the Trump administration says Americans' pain is ``the [least] of our concern[s] right now.'' If there is anything that shows how much Donald Trump and his minions are out of touch, that is it right there. Trump and his acolytes are unbelievable. They are so clueless. They are in a bubble.
Meanwhile, the war with Iran is expanding. Iranian strikes on Qatar's energy structure have knocked out 17 percent of the country's LNG export capacity. QatarEnergy says two LNG trains could be sidelined for 3 to 5 years--a staggering blow to global energy markets. In other words, even if this war ended tomorrow--and there are no signs it is anywhere close to ending--the damage Donald Trump has unleashed will take a long, long time to fix.
Meanwhile, the war in the Middle East is expanding, not shrinking. Donald Trump is sending additional warships and thousands of marines to the region. He refuses to fully rule out boots on the ground, a step that would mean more American casualties and even higher costs than he now projects. And this week the administration was floating a funding request of more than $200 billion--$200 billion--to finance this open- ended war. No way; that will never happen. It is a preposterous and dangerous risk. We should never accept giving Donald Trump a blank check to wage war in Iran in perpetuity. Even a fraction of the $200 billion is unacceptable for a war without a plan, without an endgame, without the support of the American people. And, of course, the money could be used for so much better--reducing Americans' costs on healthcare and on housing and on electricity and on daycare.
So much could be done with that money instead of a war that Donald Trump has chosen to wage without even a vote in Congress.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to vilify and bash our closest allies even as he publicly asks for their help. Today, he called NATO a ``paper tiger'' and called our allies ``cowards.'' How does he expect to form a coalition, which he says he needs, if he is just going to spend his time calling them names--calling our allies names?
The damage Donald Trump is doing to our alliances will last a long time and is sickening. He has spent years trashing our allies, insulting them, threatening NATO, undermining the very alliances that have kept us strong for generations. Now, suddenly, after Trump has dragged the United States into a war that is not going his way, he turns around and asks those same allies to jump in and help. What world does he live in? And when the allies don't immediately leap into this open-ended conflict in the way Donald Trump wants, what does he do? He calls them ``cowards.''
Donald Trump's leadership is pathetic--pathetic.
The war needs to come to an end now. The American people have had enough.
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