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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now on the need to fund the Secret Service, I just heard Leader Thune lashing out. I sympathize with him. He is in a real pickle. He is fighting with his own Republican Party Speaker in the House. His caucus here is factionalized as to what to do, as to how we fund both ICE and CBP and even DHS. They are in a mess.

So what does the Republican leader do? He points fingers at Democrats. That is absurd. The idea that Democrats are somehow to blame for this Republican shutdown of DHS is just ridiculous, and Thune and his Republican leadership ought to act like adults and help us solve this problem during serious--serious--times like these, instead of pointing fingers in another direction.

At this very moment, funding for Secret Service and so many other Agencies is sitting idly in the House of Representatives, not waiting for Democrats--we don't run the House--waiting for Republicans. And Republicans somehow, especially the rightwing propaganda, just blames Democrats with no logic, no rationale.

What Republican rightwing propaganda is saying couldn't be further from the truth. Democrats wanted to fund all of the law-abiding Agencies at DHS, and we worked with Republicans, Leader Thune, here in the House to do it--here in the Senate to do it.

Democrats looked to compromise with Republicans as we pushed for commonsense reforms for ICE and other Agencies, and twice Democrats and Republicans here in the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would fund all of the Agencies within DHS except for ICE and Border Patrol, which are already funded.

Let me say that again. Democrats unanimously--unanimously--supported funding the vast majority of DHS, including Secret Service, not once but twice. We passed it in the Senate, not once but twice.

It was House Republicans, not Democrats, who blocked funding for Secret Service, TSA, CISA, Coast Guard, FEMA, and other Agencies that we all agree should be funded.

House Republicans could and should fund the Secret Service today, but, instead, they are holding it up. So Leader Thune--if he wants to be constructive, if he wants to get something done--should stop pointing fingers in this direction and start looking in the mirror. At least look down the hall and start talking some sense into the House Republicans, who seem to be tied in a knot because the rightwing MAGA few refuse to go forward.

Republicans ought to start standing up to Speaker Johnson and the House Freedom Caucus and say: We must fund this. And that applies to the Republican leader, who has a greater responsibility than just inanely pointing fingers to the other side of the aisle.

To the Republicans--House and Senate--stop with the partisan games. Advance the bipartisan bill that we all passed unanimously in the Senate, and we could get the funding for the Secret Service and other Agencies done.

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