[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S78-S79]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GOVERNMENT FUNDING

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, last night President Trump tried to 
convince Congress and the American people that there is a crisis at our 
southern border. It was little more than a rehash of spurious arguments 
and misleading statistics the President has been using for weeks. 
President Trump once again tried to claim there was a crisis at the 
border. The fact is, migrant border crossings have been declining for 
nearly two decades.
  The President inveighed against drugs pouring over the border, but 
the vast majority of heroin enters the United States through legal 
ports of entry in trucks and on airplanes.
  The President and his allies have been claiming that nearly 4,000 
known or suspected terrorists have been stopped from entering the 
United States. They say that is a reason for the border wall. But 
nearly every single one of those apprehensions occurred in airports, 
not on our southern border.
  In a recent report, Donald Trump's State Department concluded that 
there is no credible evidence that terrorist groups were trying to 
enter the United States through the southern border. In a report on the 
President's strategy to combat terrorist travel, sent to Congress by 
President Trump on December 21--the day the shutdown began--the 
National Security Council, appointed by President Trump, did not even 
mention a wall or a barrier to stop terrorists from entering the 
country.
  The President continues to fearmonger, and he makes up the facts. 
This is a Presidency that is in crisis. It has so many problems, and it 
is the old trick--fearmonger, distort, try to scare people, and maybe 
they will not pay attention to the real problems in this 
administration.
  In no way, however--the President is not getting his way. His 
fearmongering just isn't working. In no way did the President's speech 
last night make a persuasive or even a new case for an exorbitantly 
expensive border wall--a wall that the President guaranteed would be 
paid by Mexico. He said: I ran on this. Yes, he ran on it, saying 
Mexico would pay for it. At his rallies, he chanted: Who will pay for 
the wall? The people screamed back: Mexico.
  The President's speech did nothing--nothing--to convince us here in 
Congress, and I believe it did nothing--nothing--to convince a 
skeptical public that this government shutdown is anything but a 
manufactured crisis of the President's own making. The President's 
speech, if anything, moved the American people even further away from 
his view that he should keep the government shut down until he gets his 
way. Reports say that the President didn't want to give this speech. 
Well, he was right. I don't think it helped his cause, and he probably 
hurt himself.
  It is time for the President and our Republican colleagues to stop 
this fearmongering and to stop this diversion away from the problems 
that the President really has and end the shutdown. The shutdown is 
hurting millions of Americans, and it is going to get worse, all 
because of President Trump's temper tantrum. We should not--we should 
not--treat hundreds of thousands of Americans--millions of Americans--
as leverage to try and get something by pounding the table. That is not 
how our government works.
  What is happening? Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers--innocent 
Federal workers who do their jobs, who work hard, and sometimes they 
get up on Monday morning with a 100-

[[Page S79]]

degree fever, but they go to work because they know their job is 
important--have been furloughed because of what Trump has done. Four 
hundred thousand continue to work without pay. TSA agents, food safety 
inspectors, border agents--those hard-working, dedicated public 
servants--are about to miss a paycheck.
  Last night, many of my colleagues--including Senators Warner, Kaine, 
King, Cardin, Casey, Van Hollen, and others--held the floor to give 
voice to these Federal employees who live and work in their States, 
many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck.
  President Trump's government shutdown--his choosing, he is the only 
one who did it--is forcing a personal crisis on those public servants 
and their families. How unfair, how mean-spirited, and how wrong.
  These families are owed a paycheck, but they are left to wonder how 
they are going to pay the mortgage or the rent and all of their other 
bills. They are wondering what will happen to the good credit they have 
worked so hard to maintain over the years. They are innocent victims of 
the Trump shutdown--a shutdown he said 25 times he would cause, a 
shutdown he said he would be proud to own.
  President Trump, are you proud to own a shutdown that is hurting so 
many innocent people? Did you realize that when you caused this?
  As government agencies remain shut down, American farmers and small 
businesses can't get the loans they desperately need. Tourism suffers 
as our national parks go neglected. Some families can't get a mortgage 
to buy a new home. The American people are suffering needlessly--
needlessly--because President Trump selfishly refuses to retreat from 
an intransigent, indefensible, and increasingly unpopular position.
  The Democratic House has passed legislation that received support 
from many of my Republican colleagues to reopen the government. In no 
way does that legislation preclude us from having a debate and hashing 
out compromise solutions on border security. We have done that before.
  We can continue to debate because, indeed, Democrats, Republicans, 
and the President all want stronger border security; we just sharply 
disagree about the best way of achieving it.
  Why not open the government while we continue to hash out our 
differences? I have asked that of President Trump. I said: Give me one 
good reason why the shutdown should continue as we debate our 
differences on border security, which we all want. He could not give a 
single reason. We know the reason: He is leveraging--mercilessly 
leveraging--millions of Americans who are caught in his irresponsible 
action and who are hurt by it.
  Let us open the government and continue to hash out our differences. 
That would be the responsible thing to do, and I believe Republican 
Senators, many of them, know that.
  I urge my friend Leader McConnell to act now, convince the President 
to accept legislation to reopen the government, and let's pass it here 
on the floor of the Senate. The vast majority of the Republican caucus 
has already supported it. What are we waiting for?

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