Democrats Focus on Impeachment Instead of Defense Funding
‘We cannot cease all legislation just because Democrats would rather fight with this president. We won’t neglect the business of the American people just because a House committee is holding some public hearing. If they are going to keep plowing ahead with their impeachment obsession, they cannot abdicate their basic governing responsibilities at the same time.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding defense funding:
“As my colleagues know, I have no qualms about spending floor time on the personnel business. Our Democratic colleagues have made it necessary by subjecting this president’s nominees to unprecedented, systematic delays and obstruction.
“And so the majority has been willing to do things the hard way. We’re giving the American people the government they voted for, as chosen by the president they elected.
“But my Republican colleagues and I wish that we could also be spending floor time on productive, bipartisan legislation that the American people need to become law.
“We want to pass the USMCA and the 176,000 new American jobs it would create. But Speaker Pelosi continues to block it. The far left objects to their passing anything the president likes.
“We want to pass a conference report for the NDAA, critical legislation for our national defense. Congress has passed a bipartisan NDAA every single year since 1961. But now it’s another casualty of the impeachment obsession.
“House Democrats steamrolled Republicans in order to pass a wholly partisan bill. I believe this may be the first time ever that either chamber has passed a purely partisan NDAA. Now they’re stalling the conference committee and jeopardizing the whole process.
“And we want to pass the defense funding bill that our Democratic colleagues have now filibustered twice, so that our servicemembers and commanders get what they need.
“Back in the summer, the Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and the Senate all signed onto an agreement with President Trump. A bicameral, bipartisan agreement. Everybody signed it.
“We brokered this deal to make sure the appropriations process did not get bogged down with bickering over other policy issues. All sides agreed to keep poison pills out so that government funding could move forward. But just a few months later, our Democratic colleagues are now insisting on the exact kinds of poison pills they foreswore.
“They’re holding up funding for our men and women in uniform because they disagree with the president’s views on border security. They want to chip away at the exact presidential authorities that they specifically agreed would not be touched.
“In short, my friends in Democratic leadership smelled an opportunity to pick a political fight.
“Our servicemembers need their funding. American workers and small businesses need their new trade deal. Our armed forces need the authorizing legislation that has been a bipartisan slam-dunk every year for almost sixty years.
“We cannot cease all legislation just because Democrats would rather fight with this president. We won’t neglect the business of the American people just because a House committee is holding some public hearing. If they are going to keep plowing ahead with their impeachment obsession, they cannot abdicate their basic governing responsibilities at the same time.”
Related Issues: America's Military, Senate Democrats
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