Schumer “Temper Tantrum” Halted Bipartisan Work on National Security
‘Our bipartisan committees have a great deal of work to do to safeguard our nation and, in particular, to protect our elections. I hope our colleague from New York gets out of the way.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Minority Leader Schumer:
“Two days ago, the Democratic Leader threatened that if the Senate majority dares to play by the rules and behave like a Senate majority, it would mean ‘the end of this supposedly great deliberative body.’
“Yesterday, we learned what he meant. We saw important Senate business hurt by what amounted to a temper tantrum.
“For some reason, the Democratic Leader decided to vent his frustration by blocking the Intelligence Committee from holding a bipartisan counterintelligence hearing.
“The committee was set to hear from Bill Evanina, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. This is the nation’s top counterintelligence official. Among other things, he works directly on protecting our elections and our politics from foreign interference.
“This is the same Democratic Leader who declared a few weeks ago that if the Intelligence Community did not stay close to Congress on election security, it would be, quote, ‘an abdication of [their] duty… to protect our democracy.’ Just last week, he wrote me a letter saying election security had to be ‘above partisan politics.’
“But now, the Democratic Leader’s temper is more important. He denied Chairman Rubio routine permission for the bipartisan committee to meet. He said ‘we won’t have business as usual here in the Senate.’
“Today, both the Intelligence Committee and the Armed Services Committee are scheduled to meet. They’re set to speak with top intelligence and military officials about election security.
“I guess we will find out whether the Democratic Leader’s embarrassing theatrics were just a one-day matinee or whether he means to make this a series.
“Our bipartisan committees have a great deal of work to do to safeguard our nation and, in particular, to protect our elections. I hope our colleague from New York gets out of the way.
“But the Democratic Leader didn’t stop there. A few minutes later, he decided to cheapen a solemn and unifying moment, and turn a draft unanimous resolution honoring Justice Ginsburg into one more depressing stunt for the TV cameras.
“Over the weekend, I wrote a resolution honoring the late Justice’s amazing life. Normally, such measures are adopted with unanimous, bipartisan support. That’s exactly what we did after Justice Scalia passed. Every Senator recognized that our collective eulogy was no place to debate political questions.
“But not this time.
“This time, the Democratic Leader copy-pasted the tribute I’d written, put his name on top, and added two divisive references to our debate over what to do next.
“He didn’t devote any time or attention to the language praising Justice Ginsburg’s life and career. He did not suggest a single change to any of that. His sole focus was turning a solemn, routine, and unanimous moment for Justice Ginsburg into a platform for himself.
“Justice Ginsburg could not be more deserving of the honor of a formal Senate tribute. I hope our colleague from New York will let one pass soon.”
Related Issues: Supreme Court, Senate Democrats, National Security
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