[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 5, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2226-S2227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the Republican leader has called the 
Senate back into session during a time when there are significant risks 
to the health of the Members of this Chamber and the staff who make 
this place function.
  This is a time of national emergency. We should be working to provide 
our country with the relief and support it so direly needs. But this is 
only the second day of business since Leader McConnell called the 
Senate back into session, and there will be no votes on the floor--not 
one vote. And so far, there is no plan--no plan at all--to consider 
COVID-related legislation on the floor in the near future.
  If we are going to be here in session, with an elevated health risk, 
why doesn't Leader McConnell have us work on issues that are directly 
related to COVID-19?
  Last night, we confirmed a noncontroversial nominee to the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. The next nominee on the floor is for a 
counterintelligence post--no doubt important but unrelated to COVID--
whose nomination has been delayed by a hold by a Republican Senator. So 
when the Republican leader reasons that we must process nominees on the 
floor this week because of a previous Democratic obstruction, he should 
check his notes and his facts first.
  We could be using our time here to address a number of urgent 
priorities, whether it is rescuing our ailing health system, increasing 
testing capacity, assisting small businesses, renters, and homeowners. 
Providing vigorous oversight of legislation we have already passed 
would have been a better use of the Senate's time.
  Instead of coming together to work on these pressing matters, we are 
talking about nominations and rightwing judges, including a former 
protege of the Republican leader who was rated unqualified by the 
American Bar Association, a man who argued against the 
constitutionality of our healthcare law in the midst of a public health 
crisis--someone who probably 80 percent or 90 percent of Americans 
would reject if they knew his views. But he is a protege of the leader. 
We are rushing him through. We are not paying attention to COVID.
  The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding a virtual hearing on the 
nomination of Representative Ratcliffe to serve as the next Director of 
National Intelligence. This is an extremely important post that demands 
a candidate with deep experience, credibility on both sides of the 
aisle, and, above all, the ability to speak truth to power.
  Representative Ratcliffe meets none of these criteria. He is a deeply 
partisan cheerleader for the President, a yes-man in every sense of the 
phrase--someone who doesn't speak truth to power to the President of 
the United States. He tells the President what he wants to hear.
  Doesn't this sound familiar? Right now, we are living with the 
consequences of a President who doesn't want to hear the truth about 
the coronavirus, who doesn't want to believe it is as bad as it truly 
is, who wants to cling to quack medicines that will not work, and who 
runs away from the fact that his administration bears responsibility 
for the inadequacy of our national response--a President who still 
doesn't have a testing plan when we desperately need tests to get this 
country open again.
  The President doesn't like hearing the truth. It is that simple. That 
has hurt us dearly when it has come to the coronavirus. This crisis is 
partly the

[[Page S2227]]

result of an administration that did not take COVID-19 seriously enough 
early enough and refused to heed the warnings of public health 
officials and scientists.
  The same phenomenon of the President's not wanting to hear the truth 
will hurt us dearly when it comes to national security as well. If the 
Director of National Intelligence can't stand up and tell the President 
what is really happening, even when the President doesn't want to hear 
it, our country will be dramatically less safe--the same thing that has 
happened during the coronavirus crisis. If we move Ratcliffe and pass 
him, we will repeat the same mistake that the President has made on 
COVID. Not hearing the truth, not acting on the truth, listening to 
flattery and not much else, which we did on COVID, will be repeated on 
national security.
  Now, I think many of my Republican colleagues actually know this. 
This is not the first time that President Trump has floated Ratcliffe's 
name--it is the second--because, the first time, the Republicans 
balked. Many Republicans whispered: He has no experience. Some 
Republicans said to one another and to some of us: You don't need 
someone in the DNI who is just a cheerleader for the President; you 
need someone who knows intelligence and will speak the truth.
  There is no new evidence that Mr. Ratcliffe will act with the 
necessary independence. Nothing has changed about Ratcliffe's 
qualifications since he was shot down by the Republican Senators in 
their saying he was the wrong man for the job. Yet sometimes--all too 
often in this Senate and to the detriment of this country--even when my 
Republican colleagues know the President is wrong, they go blindly 
along with him anyway. That happened with COVID and will now happen 
with our intelligence agency. I hope it is not the case. I hope Mr. 
Ratcliffe's nomination will be roundly rejected, as it should be.