[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 165 (Thursday, November 17, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6446-S6450]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, our Nation has gone through a difficult,
bruising Presidential election. Normally, we would be making the pivot
to healing those wounds, but this election has been particularly rough,
and the wounds sustained during the campaign continue to haunt our
Nation. Many groups of Americans across our country are frightened for
the future, of being deported, of being targeted as Muslims, of
resurgent racism toward African Americans, of anti-Semitism, of losing
their right to marry the person they love.
Unfortunately, they have good reason to be afraid. We have seen a
surge, a wave of hateful bigoted, racist, sexist attacks happening in
communities across our country since the election. The divisive
rhetoric and conduct of President-Elect Donald Trump's campaign over
the past year and a half is responsible for unleashing this blight on
our country. He has the responsibility to turn things around, to put an
end to this division, and to start the healing.
That is why, earlier today, 10 of my colleagues in the Senate joined
me to send a letter to President-Elect Trump, demanding that he stand
up and condemn these verbal and physical attacks occurring around this
country, that he denounce his own past campaign rhetoric that gave life
to so many of these acts of hate and violence, and that he exclude
proponents of hatred and discrimination from the ranks of his
administration, including immediately firing white supremacist Steve
Bannon as his Chief Strategist.
Here is what the text of the letter says:
Mr. President-Elect:
Your campaign conduct and Electoral College victory have
unleashed a wave of verbal and physical assaults against our
fellow Americans. In just the last six days, the Southern
Poverty Law Center has documented hundreds of acts of
discrimination and violence toward many of the ethnic and
social groups you attacked in your campaign. These attacks
are absolutely unacceptable. We condemn them. We stand united
with our fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, these acts of hate have been enabled by your
campaign strategy of promoting bigotry, racism, and sexism.
It is the logical consequence of your campaign attacks on and
discrimination aimed at Hispanics, African Americans,
veterans, immigrants, women, Muslims, Jews, and individuals
with disabilities. Millions of Americans see a President-
elect who has chosen to knock them down rather than to lift
them up. Your conduct has empowered too many Americans to act
on their darkest impulses.
This is the wrong vision for America and the wrong path for
your coming Administration. We call on you to change course.
We urge you, as our future President, to join us in rejecting
hate and embracing respect for every ethnicity, race and
gender. We urge you to join us in fighting for a nation free
of discrimination, where every child has the opportunity to
thrive and contribute according to his or her ability. We
urge you to join us in fighting for our Constitutional vision
of equality and opportunity and the vision in
[[Page S6447]]
our Pledge of Allegiance of liberty and justice for all.
As you assume the mantle of leadership in office, it is
your responsibility to put an end to the crimes of hate and
prejudice sweeping our nation. These wounds to our national
citizenry are of your making. It is your responsibility to
rectify the damage. You have the power as President to move
beyond the hate-filled rhetoric of your campaign.
We call on you to repudiate your campaign attacks against
diverse communities of Americans.
We call on you to address the American people and demand
that all Americans end these verbal and physical attacks and
replace acts of hatred with acts of kindness.
We call on you to exclude the proponents of discrimination
and hatred from the ranks of your Administration, and that
includes immediately firing Steve Bannon as your Chief
Strategist.
The letter concludes:
It is time for you to act boldly and powerfully to put the
nation on a path of healing. For the sake of all Americans,
we call on you to rise to the challenge.
In addition to myself, it is signed by Senator Mazie Hirono, Senator
Elizabeth Warren, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Ed Markey, Senator
Bernard Sanders, Senator Al Franken, who spoke so eloquently a few
moments ago, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator-Elect
Chris Van Hollen, and Senator Tom Carper.
I thank my colleagues who have appropriately said that at this
moment--at this unusual moment in our history, in our time here in the
21st century--that we have a President-elect playing on hate and
prejudice and bringing a white supremacist in as Chief Adviser is
unacceptable.
Some will say that President-Elect Trump cannot himself be
accountable for what is happening across our country, but they are
wrong. His words and his conduct are directly connected to the
harassment and the physical and verbal assaults that we are seeing.
I am going to share with you all the comments of the campaign and the
acts of citizens in category after category to show how these are tied
together--how, indeed, these verbal assaults and these physical
assaults are motivated by and justified by the campaign of our
President-elect--just to emphasize that it is time for our President-
elect to take responsibility, to change course, to embrace the
connectedness of our American communities, the vision of equality and
opportunity in our Constitution, the vision of a nation with justice
for all, and the fact that our President should be working to raise up
all families--not raising up a few by tearing down the rest.
Let's start by looking at what Mr. Trump said about our Nation's
Latino citizens. At the start of his campaign, Mr. Trump said:
When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best
. . . they're sending people with lots of problems and
they're bringing those problems with them. They're bringing
drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. . . . And
some, I assume, are good people.
Later in the campaign he promised to build a wall--``a great, great
wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall.
Mark my words.''
When discussing Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a U.S. district judge presiding
over a lawsuit against Trump University--by the way, an American-born
citizen--the President-elect said the judge couldn't be impartial and
should be removed from the case because ``this judge is of Mexican
heritage.''
Judge Curiel was born and raised in Indiana.
Mr. Trump's right-hand man, his designated Chief Strategist, Steve
Bannon, used his position at Breitbart News to continue attacks against
Latinos. Under his leadership, Breitbart frequently used anti-immigrant
slurs and published ``war on Spanish'' and nativist-appealing content
in his quest to make his platform a platform for White nationalism.
It is important to note that even many Republicans and conservative
commentators believe that Mr. Bannon is a man with unconscionable views
and frightening ties to white supremacist movements.
John Weaver, a former top adviser to Governor John Kasich tweeted of
Mr. Bannon's selection as Chief Strategist: ``The racist, fascist
extreme is represented footsteps from the Oval Office.''
Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist, called Bannon: ``White
supremacist, anti gay, anti Semite, vindictive.'' Ana then said: ``Be
afraid, America.''
Glenn Beck, known to all of us as a rightwing radio commentator--a
very conservative commentator, a person who has attacked virtually
every idea to help working America that comes from the blue side of the
aisle--said Bannon is ``terrifying'' and said that he has helped to
give voice to White nationalists.
Former KKK leader David Duke and the American Nazi Party have praised
Bannon's elevation to the White House. So there should be no mistaking
or sugar coating what precisely this individual, Steve Bannon, stands
for.
Under his leadership, Breitbart became a leader in anti-Latino,
nativist material--one headline after another attacking Hispanics here
in America.
So when we look at what is happening right at this moment to Latinos
today, what do we see? We see students in our schools taunting and
bullying their classmates. At DeWitt Junior High School in Lansing, MI,
White students formed a human wall and refused to let their Latino
classmates into the school.
In Ventura, CA, a Latino mother reported seeing fifth graders at her
child's school chanting: ``Build a wall.''
Latinos all across our Nation are being harassed and told they are
going to be deported, they don't belong here in America, even if they
were born here in America.
In Andover, MA, a group of white men in a car threw a water bottle at
a young Hispanic woman and screamed: ``Time to go back to your
country''--insert expletive--``my man Trump is on top now and we don't
want you here!''
In Southern California, a college student was accosted by a man who
said:
I can't wait until Trump asks us to rape your people and
send you back over the biggest damn wall we're going to
build. Go back to hell.
Then he inserted a racist slur for a Mexican and then threw water in
the young woman's face.
Walls all across the Nation are being spray painted with phrases such
as: ``Build the Wall Higher.''
In the face of attacks such as these, it is hard to remember that we
are, indeed, a nation of immigrants. Unless you are 100-percent Native
American, you are the child, grandchild, great grandchild, or the
descendent of immigrants. Your forefathers and foremothers came to our
country and felt they had come to a place where they could thrive. We
have those beautiful words carved into the base of the Statue of
Liberty: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free.''
It inspires all of us. Each one of us--again, unless we are 100-
percent Native American--have an ancestor who came to the country and
felt that moment of freedom and opportunity no matter where they had
come from.
Latinos are not the only group of Americans suffering because of the
rhetoric of the Trump campaign. African Americans have become a
significant target in post-Trump America, as too many take their cues
from our next President's words and actions towards that community--
words like the ones President-Elect Trump used to talk about African
Americans who work for him. He said:
I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza.
Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of
people I want counting my money are short guys that wear
yarmulkes every day.
He then went on to say:
I think the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault
because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I
believe that. It's not anything they can control.
Those are the words of our President-elect.
When he talked about the Black Lives Matter movement on FOX News, he
said:
I think they are trouble. I think they're looking for
trouble.
He often shows a startling disconnect with the African-American
community, generalizing that they all live in inner cities that he
regularly describes as poverty-stricken war zones.
This disconnect started very early on in his real estate career when
President-Elect Trump was publicly sued twice for discriminating
against African Americans who were trying to rent apartments in his
buildings.
Of course, we can't talk about Mr. Trump's--President-Elect Trump's--
relations with the African-American
[[Page S6448]]
community without bringing up his longstanding promotion and advocacy
of the birther movement, which tried to delegitimize our country's
first African-American President.
Those efforts go back to 2011, when Mr. Trump was considering a run
for the White House and said on one talk show: ``If he wasn't born in
this country, which is a real possibility . . . then he has pulled off
one of the great cons in the history of politics.''
He went on and on and on--month after month--questioning the
legitimacy of our President in office.
To his credit, on that particular point Mr. Trump has recanted
himself, but he used it as a race card time after time after time to
delegitimize our President--President Obama--because he is African
American.
The views of President-Elect Trump's right-hand man, his Chief
Strategist, Steve Bannon, aren't any better. Under Bannon's leadership,
Breitbart created a news section titled ``Black Crime.''
Just 2 weeks after the Charleston massacre in which nine African-
American churchgoers were slaughtered, Breitbart ran this headline. By
the way, in that attack, the attacker used the Confederate flag as a
symbol--a racist symbol--to justify attacking these nine individuals.
What did Steve Bannon do? He ran this headline: ``Hoist It High And
Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.'' In a
lengthy July post on Breitbart, Bannon accused the left of a ``plot to
take down America'' by fixating on police shootings of Black citizens.
Well, the list goes on and on, but he proceeded to say: ``There are,
after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and
violent.'' That is certainly a direct racist statement.
And what is the result we see today of all of this racism from our
President-elect and from his Chief Strategist? Well, we have seen a
startling rise in people's willingness to use the ``N'' word in public.
At a school in Maple Grove, MN, the boys bathroom was defaced by
graffiti that included racial slurs such as the ``N'' word and porch
monkeys, alongside pro-Trump messages such as ``Trump Train'' and
``Make America Great Again.''
Students from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse who were living
off campus found the quote ``Go Home'' and the ``N'' word written on
their front door.
A man in Knoxville, TN, woke up one morning to find his car
vandalized with the phrase--and I am paraphrasing--expletive deleted
``U'', insert ``N'' word, and then the word ``Trump'' spray-painted on
his car.
We have seen incidents harkening back to a time in history of
discrimination and segregation.
At a high school in Jacksonville, FL, an individual put up these
signs: ``Colored'' and ``Whites Only''--the time of Jim Crow in
America, where African Americans were treated as second-class
citizens--and a ``Whites Only'' sign was found on the door of a
bathroom stall at a high school in Duluth, MN.
These are just a few of the incidents. There are the assaults as
well, one incident after another of African Americans being assaulted.
There is the softball field dugout in Wellsville, NY, where the phrase
``Make America White Again'' was spray-painted and the defacement of a
wall in Durham, NC, where someone decided to write ``Black lives don't
matter and neither does your vote.'' There was a horrific incident in
my State of Oregon in which an African-American woman was attacked in
the parking lot of a grocery store in Hillsboro, OR. A group of three
men threw a brick at her, broke her ribs, called her the ``N'' word,
threatened to rape her, and they said: Now we finally have a President
who feels how we feel.
It is hard to imagine how our President-elect, with his own racist
commentary, his own past acts of discrimination, his own racist
campaign, his own racist Chief Strategist, isn't at all connected to
these events sweeping the country. They are directly connected. And
that is why we are calling on the President-elect to change course. The
election is behind us. Before the President-elect is 4 years of
opportunities to improve the lives of Americans. Take the assaults of
the past and make them the assaults of the past. Look to the vision of
partnership to build a better America in the years ahead. Leave that
past behind.
Martin Luther King, Jr., once said:
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. . . .
Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice,
suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and the
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Let's make that the spirit of the next 4 years, where together we are
dedicated to progress for all Americans toward reaching that goal of
opportunity and equality and justice.
Another target has been our women across the country. Our President-
elect repeatedly treated women as sexual objects. Women have worked so
hard to be seen as equals in our society. Women have flown as
astronauts. They have reached the heights in science. They have reached
peak after peak in leadership across our country. They bring their
insight and wisdom to this Chamber here in the U.S. Senate and in the
House of Representatives 100 yards across Capitol Hill.
But our President-elect has seen it differently. Referring to the
media, he said: ``It doesn't really matter what they write as long as
you've got a young and beautiful piece of''--insert a demeaning term
for women. He declared that ``You don't give a''--insert expletive--
``if a girl can play a violin like the greatest violinist in the world.
You want to know what does she look like.''
Our President-elect derided a political opponent by commenting on her
looks, saying, ``look at that face! Would anybody vote for that? Can
you imagine that, the next face of our President?''
During the campaign, our President-elect called a female lawyer
disgusting or at some point in passing he called a female lawyer
disgusting because she asked to take a medical break to pump breast
milk for her 3-month-old daughter.
I think we are all aware of the comments he made towards FOX News
debate moderator Megyn Kelly--words I choose not to repeat at this
moment. And then he said pregnant women are an inconvenience for his
business. And of course our President-elect was caught on tape bragging
about sexually assaulting women, saying:
I'm just automatically attracted to beautiful--I just start
kissing them. Just kiss. I don't even wait.
Then he went on to talk about groping the women and being able to get
away with it because he is a star.
He has brought into the White House his Chief Strategist, Steve
Bannon, who shares these views about women, putting up a headline:
``There's No Hiring Bias Against Women. . . . They Just Suck At
Interviews.''
Another one said: ``The Solution to Online `Harassment' is simple:
Women Should Log Off.''
Here is another: ``Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or
Cancer?'' as if women's rights are a disease.
We see that these comments and the conduct of the President-elect and
the comments of his Chief Strategist have had an impact. Two men at a
concert in Ohio threatened to ``Donald Trump'' a female security guard
because she wouldn't let them into a restricted section of the venue.
According to one teacher, a 10-year-old girl was taken home from school
after a male classmate grabbed her private parts, and when asked why he
did it, the boy said that if a President can do it, he can do it too.
In Oklahoma City, a woman was chased on the highway because of her
Hillary bumper sticker, while men in another car hurled sexual insults
at her.
These are just a small number of the hundreds and hundreds of events
happening across this country. Every Member of this body, every Member
of the Senate can relate stories from people who have shared with them
over the past few weeks, stories from their constituents who have
written to them to share the harassment they have suffered.
We have just seen a historic milestone. We have had, for the first
time, a woman as the nominee of a major political party--and not only
that, she got a lot more votes than did Donald Trump. The women's
suffrage movement has come so far since the days when Elizabeth Cady
Stanton said: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men
and women are created equal'' and that ``the history of the past is but
one long struggle toward equality.'' We have come a long
[[Page S6449]]
ways in the few decades since Martin Luther King said that the moral
arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice. Across our
country, citizens have worked to bend that arc in this vision of a
nation that embraces opportunity for all--not opportunity only for the
rich and powerful to have more opportunity, but opportunity for all,
for every child to have the ability to contribute to this country.
My father, now deceased, was a mechanic. He never went to college.
But he told me when I was in grade school: Son, if you go through the
doors of that schoolhouse and you work hard, you can do just about
anything here in America. That is the vision we want to strive toward,
where the son of a mechanic, the daughter of a janitor, the child of a
Hispanic couple or an African-American couple or a gay couple or a
lesbian couple--where every child has the opportunity to thrive. To do
that, we have to set aside these racist attacks, these sexist attacks.
Another target has been our Muslim-American community. For the last
year and a half, they, like other groups of Americans, have been
denigrated and insulted by President-Elect Trump and his campaign. His
campaign has worked to fan the flames of Islamophobia. Take Mr. Trump's
views on registering Muslim-Americans. When asked whether the United
States should have a registry of Muslims, he said, ``I would certainly
implement that. Absolutely. . . . There should be a lot of systems,
beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems.'' When the reporter
followed by asking ``Would Muslims be required to register?'' he
answered, ``They have to be. They have to be.''
Well, let me share with the President-elect that we are not a nation
that discriminates because of one's religion. It is called freedom of
religion. Our vision is opportunity for all. There were nations that
discriminated based on religion. Those were European nations. That is
why a lot of our forefathers came here--to escape that oppression and
to have the freedom to thrive and to maintain the religious views they
wanted to have, not what somebody else told them they had to have, or
to be imprisoned, or register them for discrimination because of their
religious background.
So when any American attacks our Muslim-American brothers and
sisters, we need to stand with them shoulder to shoulder. And if any
other religious group is attacked, we need to stand with them shoulder
to shoulder and stand for the vision of opportunity and equality for
all. That is what every Member of this Chamber should be coming down
here to say--that when those groups are attacked, we will stand with
them because that is not the vision of America. That is not the spirit
of America. That certainly is 100 percent contrary to the vision of
America.
Our President-elect tried to foment fear of Muslims seeking refuge in
our Nation from war zones. He told a crowd in Minneapolis that allowing
refugees into our country ``will import generations of terrorism,
extremism and radicalism into your schools and throughout your
communities.'' This statement is so far diverged from the truth as to
make it impossible to recognize where he got this notion. Every expert
will tell you that if a terrorist wants to come into our Nation, the
hardest path is to come as a refugee: You have to go to refugee camp,
you have to be registered, you have to be vetted for years, and if you
are male, you are probably not going to make it, but because the goal
was to foment Islamophobia, this lie was repeated again and again. It
is much easier to come into our country on a tourist visa, a business
visa, a student visa, not a refugee settlement visa.
Our President-elect told the same crowd that refugees settling in
Minnesota were ``joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all
over our country. . . . `'
Now there are reports from some connected with the transition team
that the incoming administration is considering implementing a system
for registering Muslim Americans, just as President-Elect Trump talked
about, and using our country's shameful internment of Japanese
Americans to justify this idea because it is a precedent. Let me be
clear: Imprisoning fellow Americans as we did during World War II was a
shameful and dark chapter and a mistake. We need to make sure we
remember that it was a mistake and never use it as a precedent for
action in the future.
Then, again, here we have our President-elect's Chief Strategist,
Steve Bannon, who has run headlines like, ``Political Correctness
Protects the Muslim Rape Culture'' or ``Immediately After Muslim Mayor
Elected, London's Iconic Buses Proclaim, `Glory to Allah.''' Mr. Bannon
has personally suggested that we are in a global war against Islam.
So it is no wonder the rhetoric of our President-elect and the leader
of the White supremacist Web site is causing discrimination and
confrontation with Muslim Americans around our country.
Some are being physically assaulted, like the woman at San Jose
University who lost her balance and choked when a man attempted to rip
off her headscarf or the Muslim student at the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign campus who reported having a knife pulled on her.
Then there are those who are being verbally abused and otherwise
intimidated, including a woman riding the BART train in San Francisco
who was accosted when another passenger called her a terrorist who
should be deported, and a pickup truck that has been driving around
Brooksville, FL, with writing on it that says: ``All Muslims are
Terrorists,'' ``Deport them all,'' and ``I hate Muslims.'' In Georgia,
a Muslim teacher found a note left for her that said: ``Headscarf isn't
allowed anymore'' and telling her to ``hang yourself with it.'' That is
the level of Islamophobia sweeping our Nation at this very moment,
inspired by the rhetoric of our President-elect and his Chief
Strategist, Steve Bannon, and it is unacceptable. It needs to stop.
As Robert Kennedy once said, ``America's answer to the intolerant man
is diversity--the very diversity which our heritage of religious
freedom has inspired.'' We need to embrace that heritage, we need to
cherish that heritage, and we need to strive to live up to the best
instincts of our Nation, not the darkest impulses.
Yet another group that is feeling threatened is our LGBTQ community.
I will note that Donald Trump in his campaign did not attack our LGBTQ
community overtly, and he said on ``60 Minutes'' the other night, as
the question of same-sex marriage came up, the question of same-sex
marriage is ``settled.''
Actions speak as well as words, and of all the possible men and women
he could choose as a running mate, he chose now-Vice President-Elect
Mike Pence, the most anti-LGBTQ Governor in America. This individual is
someone who has signed a draconian religious ``liberty law'' in Indiana
that allows individuals and businesses to discriminate against the
LGBTQ community. Our Vice President-elect supported conversion therapy
to change people's sexual behavior. As a radio host, he gave a speech
and declared marital equality would lead to ``societal collapse.''
Mr. Trump's Chief Strategist echoes much of this. One headline on
Breitbart News said: ``Dear Straight People: I'm Officially Giving You
Permission to Say''--and then it goes on to list anti-LGBTQ slurs.
Another headline that he put up on his Web site said: ``Gay Rights Have
Made Us Dumber, It's Time to Get Back in The Closet.'' Yet another
headline said: ``Kids Raised By Same-Sex Couples Twice As Likely To Be
Depressed, Fat Adults.''
How has this kind of rhetoric impacted our Nation since the election?
A gay couple in Ogden, UT, woke up to find their car vandalized with
anti-gay slurs painted on the side. Rainbow flags, the symbol of the
LGBTQ movement around the world, were burned in Rochester, NY. An
individual in North Carolina found a note on their car that said:
Can't wait until your ``marriage'' is overturned by a real
president. Gay families = burn in hell #Trump 2016.
Like so many of the other groups of Americans I have talked about,
the LGBTQ community has struggled for a long time to be accepted, to be
recognized as full members of our society, to not be discriminated
against when they seek employment in our country, to have the same
rights against discrimination that we adopted for race and gender and
ethnicity in 1964. We have
[[Page S6450]]
come a ways, but we haven't yet made it to the point that we have
provided the same foundation against discrimination that we provided in
1964 to other groups.
So while Donald Trump himself did not attack the LGBTQ community, the
person he chose as Vice President and the person he elevated to Chief
Strategist for the White House very much have, and that is a powerful,
powerful message that has unleashed attacks across this country.
As our next President, Donald Trump has the responsibility to put an
end to the prejudice and to put an end to the hate crimes sweeping our
Nation and to calm the fears and anxieties of millions of Americans who
are frightened about their future in this country--about whether they
will have an opportunity to contribute to this country, whether they
will be fired from their job, whether their car will be vandalized,
whether their children will be taunted and bullied, whether they will
be attacked in a parking lot.
Across the Nation, thousands of people have been turning out to walk
the streets and to protest. They are trying to send a message.
Sometimes that message has gone off-track.
In Portland, OR, thousands turned out to send this message to our
President elect: Put the hate speech and hate acts behind you. Don't
bring White supremacists or deeply prejudiced individuals into your
administration. Let's have a next 4 years that embraces all Americans
and their opportunity to succeed. They are trying to send a message by
walking with their feet from park to park, across bridges, through the
streets.
Unfortunately, some anarchists decided to destroy the effectiveness
of this protest by breaking windows and setting some fires. The
organizers of these protests condemn the anarchists and try to keep
them out, and most of the protests have succeeded.
I ask for our President-elect, if you won't listen to those of us who
are publicly asking you to change course, and if you won't listen to my
colleagues who are privately calling you and saying to you and your
team to change course, then listen to the people in the streets across
America who are trying to peacefully convey the message that we are a
diverse nation, with a fabulous vision of embracing people of every
religion and every ethnicity and every race. Let's continue that
tradition. Let's strengthen that tradition. Let's build on that
tradition. That is the message all of us are trying to send.
I join my colleagues to repeat the requests we have made on the floor
in Senate, the letter we sent to you, the message sent privately by
many of my colleagues sitting across the aisle, the message sent by
many of our leaders from civil rights groups and other organizations
who have contacted the transition team, the message that has echoed
with thousands and thousands of emails sent to Capitol Hill to ask us
to help convey this message.
From every direction, Americans are reaching out and saying: End the
hate speech. End the hate commentary. Bring people into your
administration who believe in opportunity and justice for all. Change
directions.
It is a time for leadership. It is time for our President-Elect
Donald Trump to rise to the occasion and to help build a nation that
provides the foundation for every American to thrive.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________