BREAKING: Chuck Schumer And Senate Democrats Relentlessly Hammer Trump Over Conflict With Iran

Good afternoon, everybody. And I'm so proud to have Senators Baldwin, Duckworth, and Kim here at our leadership stakeout. So let's call Trump's Iran policy for what it is. Not Trump's Operation Epic Fury, Trump's Operation Epic Failure. That's just what it is. It's an epic failure. 45 days into this war, things are worse than the day Trump started his choice of putting us in war. Let's look at the chart here. Straight up Hormuz, the situation is worse. Iranian regime, situation worse. Gas prices, situation worse. Iran's nuclear ambition, worse. American credibility, worse. What a colossal failure. What a colossal failure. And yet, despite all of that, 45 days, Congress has done nothing. Nothing. They're putting their heads in the sand with this awful war that's hurting America, hurting the American people, hurting the world economy. No hearings, no oversight, no accountability. Not one. You'd think in this war there'd be some hearings at least. Nope. Not one. So if Republicans won't act, Senate Democrats will force the issue. Starting this week, we will bring a War Powers Resolution to the floor. And if Republicans block it, we will vote again, and again, and again. Until this war ends, or Congress does its job and holds the administration accountable, we will bring these resolutions to the floor every week. I believe 10 of them have been filed. Okay, why do we do this? Because our troops deserve a mission, not a mess. They deserve a strategy, not chaos. Now Republicans have a choice. Stand with our troops or keep them in harm's way without a plan. Stand up as a senator or rubber stamp Trump's disastrous and failed war policies. We're going to force that choice week after week after week. And while Republicans sow chaos abroad, they're creating chaos here. So tomorrow, Senator Duckworth will bring a War Powers Resolution to the floor. Next week, Senator Baldwin will bring a War Powers Resolution to the floor, and there will be one every week. Now, let me talk for a minute about the Department of Homeland Security. That's still in a state of shutdown. Let me be clear, Republicans could fix it today. Democrats passed bipartisan funding twice for the parts of DHS that protect Americans every day. Why'd Republicans block it? Because Donald Trump and Stephen Miller told them to. Instead of reopening DHS and delivering for the American people, Republicans are dragging the Senate through a partisan circus just to avoid basic accountability for ICE and Border Patrol. So the pattern, unfortunately, with this administration is clearer and clearer. Chaos abroad, the war. Chaos at home with not funding DHS with reform. A failed war overseas, a manufactured crisis here in Washington. In both cases, Republicans aren't leading. They're following orders. Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Leader Schumer. And I'm glad to have the TAMI caucus here in full force also. Look, I have to be honest. This war is not what I want to be here talking about. Over the recess, I was home in Wisconsin and I heard from families and workers. I met with police and fire chiefs and small business owners. They have a lot on their plate right now. In some fashion or another, almost every one of them brought up how they are struggling to pay for something they need because of high costs. Fire chiefs need new equipment. Families are figuring out how on earth they're going to be able to afford to rent or buy a home. And small businesses are being hit in every direction with higher input costs. That is what we should be talking about here today. How we can meet these folks' needs. But instead, we're talking about an illegal war of choice that has not made us any safer. And it is actually raising costs and has simply gone off the rails. We are over a month in and because I think it bears repeating, here is what this illegal war has meant. Thirteen American service members are dead and their families are now grieving and living without a loved one. Hundreds more soldiers are wounded. Taxpayers have been left with a bill for tens of billions of dollars. Gas prices have surged, more than a dollar per gallon up. And given the mess in the Strait of Hormuz, those prices look like they're only going to get worse. Fertilizer costs are skyrocketing for farmers across the country, including in Wisconsin. And we know it's just a matter of time until those costs are going to be impacted. The families that we represent, they'll see those costs at the grocery store. Iran's resolve has been strengthened. And despite what the President says, the Iranian regime still has a huge stockpile of enriched uranium and its capacity to build a nuclear weapon has not been diminished since this war began. I don't know how else to put this. This war has been a disaster, a total and complete disaster. Americans are paying the price because of this war, and it is abundantly clear that the President has not even a shred of a plan for how we get out of this mess. So we need to do it for him. This week, we will force the Senate to vote on a resolution to end this war. And if Republicans won't wake up and smell the coffee this week, we will force these votes again and again and again, until either the Congress finally does its job to be a check on this President, or he comes to his senses and stops this war. Congress has a job to do. And despite my Republican colleagues' best effort to give it all away, we do have power around here. And we need to use it to stop this illegal war of choice. Now I'll hand it over to Tammy Duckworth. Thank you, Senator Baldwin. Hi, everyone. I don't know if it's just me, but I seem to remember Donald Trump campaigning on the promise of supposedly making America great again. But at this point, it's beyond clear that when Trump looks at the word America, he only sees the second and third letters, M and E. Donald Trump wouldn't know what the word sacrifice meant if we wrote the definition in a big sharpie letter right in front of him. Despite the fact that he ran away from danger and right to his podiatrist when his nation needed him to serve in Vietnam, thousands of the bravest Americans you and I could ever meet actively facing needless dangers abroad because they volunteered to make the sacrifice Donald Trump was too cowardly to make himself. And already, because of Trump's unjustified, unwanted, unauthorized war of choice, 13 of our heroes are dead and hundreds more have been wounded. From the moment this conflict began, Trump has tried to shroud his incompetence behind the valor of our service members. When asked to justify his illegal actions, he's tried to hide his ignorance and cowardice behind their courage. He's tried to act as if questioning why we are at the war is the same as questioning the skill and bravery of our troops themselves. It isn't. Not at all. I know that our military will always do the best job possible. When given a mission, our service members don't say, why me? They don't ask, but will I be safe? No. Instead, they pack their rucksacks, they lace up their boots, and they show up and they do what is asked of them. Time after time, tour after tour. They will always, always execute their orders to the maximum capability of their professionalism. And they're proud to do it. The problem is, the man who's supposed to be their leader has no idea what he's doing. The problem is that their commander in chief not only has no idea what the end state looks like in his war of choice, he probably doesn't even know what the end state means at all. The problem is that even in the last two weeks, the man in charge of this whole mess has somehow gotten even more erratic than he has been. He's threatened the annihilation of an entire civilization, terrifying people overseas and here at home who are understandably worried about retaliatory strikes. He's chosen to pick fights with the Pope of all people, and we in Chicago don't like that very much, rather than try to engage in any semblance of real diplomacy to end the war, caring more about saving face than saving lives. Now, after one half-assed day of so-called negotiations, he's whipsawed to his next idea, a dangerous, complex, partial military blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Once again, launching a risky new front in this war at our service members' expense, with no justification, explanation, or even a concept of a plan of how to get to an end state. But you know, Trump is Trump, and is actively, unabashedly telling us to ignore what we're seeing with our own eyes. Day after day, he tries to declare mission accomplished, even though day after day, we're seeing more and more failures of his own making. We're still at war. Americans are still at risk. Civilians across the region are still dying for no reason anyone can articulate. He's declaring, and I quote, we did it, we're winning, but everyone can see that he hasn't won a single thing. We are still at war. Americans are still at risk. Civilians across the region are still dying, and Trump can't give one good damn reason why. In reality, the only thing that Trump has accomplished over the last six weeks is more chaos. His actions, his incompetence have led to the installment of a new, young Ayatollah, who seems perhaps even more radical and more dangerous than his father. It has resulted in more Gold Star parents grieving their children, and it has resulted in more American families struggling to afford spiking gas prices. Unsure if they can pay every time they go to the gas station, they get forced to do so because they need it to get to work, and they need to take their kids to the third grade, and they need to take their aging parents to the doctor. They need to live their lives. Only someone as inept and unfit, someone as callous and cruel as Trump would see this as winning. Only a draft- dodging coward would think that this is the right way to engage in war. We cannot let this chaos continue unchecked. As our troops continue to sacrifice whatever is asked of them, we senators need to do the absolute minimum required of us. That's why this week, I'm going to demand a vote on my War Powers Resolution to end Trump's illegal war of choice. My Republican colleagues have a choice also. It's simple. They can vote with me to end this conflict and prove that they're actually putting America first, or they can vote to put Trump's ego first. With this war growing more and more out of control each day, it is clear that they cannot continue to do both. Thank you. And now I will turn it over to my good friend, the senator from New Jersey, Andy Kim. Good afternoon, everyone. The Americans that I represent tasked me with the mission of coming back to the Capitol and to be able to find the urgency that our nation needs right now. That is the word that I heard, urgent. It was urgent that a woman that I talked to in Atlantic City told me that she feels like she's drowning. She's just overwhelmed by so many costs and the gas prices are just making it so much harder. It's urgent that we stand up for our small businesses, for our economy at this time, and it's urgent that we stand up for our service members who are put in harm's way with no strategy and no mission. So with that urgency in mind, when I saw the absolutely insane tweet that President Trump put out about destroying a civilization, I came straight back to the Capitol to try to demand what the American people have been asking for, because they are livid right now about this war that is being fought in their name, at their expense, but without their say. And they're just done with this. They are absolutely done with this. So I came back here and I went to the Pentagon, I asked for a briefing about this war, and the answer I got was no. They're not just saying no to me, they're saying no to the American people. They're saying you don't deserve to know what is happening with this war. And we are just so sick of this. So we're here right now, back here with weeks of this war going on, zero hearings in Congress. Zero hearings. Nothing from Headseth, where we should be demanding that we have an absolute accounting to the dollar how much has been spent in this war. We get none of that. And I just want to convey just how livid the American people are right now when we see this, because the urgency that the people that I work for have expressed to me is not being felt or seen by Republican leadership here. Where is the urgency of Republican leadership here at the Capitol when our country is at war? I worked at the White House during wartime. I saw what leadership should be when it comes to a commander-in-chief, and I see nothing of that. I see an absolute vacuum of leadership with this president. Not only is he absent, he's making things so much worse. As someone who's been in negotiating tables before, as a former State Department officer, nothing that I saw in Pakistan with those talks resembled the serious negotiations that the American people deserve at this incredibly dangerous moment. These are serious times, and we have an unserious president and White House leading this country into this level of chaos that is beyond anything I ever imagined that I would see. So I am filing and have filed for war powers myself that we will take up in the future weeks if this war continues on, because it means that much to my constituents and that much to the American people to get the answers that they deserve and to be able to bring this illegal unconstitutional war to an end. Your election forecasters say Democrats' prospects of winning back the Senate this fall are improving. However, some of your candidates in key states, like Michigan and Maine, have said they want to change the leadership around here. If they get nominated, would you still support them in the general election? Look, we're going to win the Senate. We're going to win in Maine. We're going to win in Michigan. And our caucus is united and focused on winning those seats. Good afternoon. Leader Schumer, this question is for you and Senator Kim. With the DHS shutdown going on here, the World Cup final will be played at MetLife Stadium. There's a hearing tomorrow with some of the security officials. Are you concerned in any way that this is going to threaten the security of the World Cup, even though that's not until the summer, considering the severity and the length of this shutdown? Senator Kim, it's in his state. So I've had extensive conversations with Governor Sherrill, with security officials throughout New Jersey and nationally as well. We feel confident that we'll be able to pull off the World Cup, to be able to have the security. But that is certainly something that highlights the urgency of this moment, and which is why, you know, just the continued efforts by Republican leadership here, especially in the House, to hold up a bipartisan deal is completely reckless. We will make sure that the American people are safe. We will make sure that the World Cup goes across successfully. And that is a promise that we need to make to the American people and to the rest of the world. Yes. Thank you, sir. Republicans are set to fund ICE and CBP through reconciliation. That's going to have no guardrails on it. But the original bill agreement in January that had some guardrails on it. Why is this outcome better than if Democrats had just voted for the January bill? Because the January bill had no safeguards, virtually none. The simple safeguards that every police officer in America obeys. They have to have identification and don't wear a mask. You use warrants before you bust the guy's house down or gals, that you cooperate with local police. All of that is not in there. Democrats have standed united and strong that we must fund DHS and Border Patrol with the safeguards, the chaos. My colleagues talked about chaos, the chaos we're seeing in Iran. We're seeing in cities across America because you have a Border Patrol, because you have an ICE that is just so out of control. We're not standing for that. America doesn't want to stand for that. They're on our side. Is there more that the Senate and the House needs to do to ensure that people who work in this building up the chain? Well, let me just say, I'm glad that those two resigned and we have to be vigilant, vigilant, vigilant against any kind of harassment, whether it be sexual or in any other way. Yes. No. Someone had their hand over there. Do you foresee any reforms to ICE? Any reforms to ICE in the mix for forthcoming in your talks with Republicans in the White House? Look, the bottom line is these are simple. These are common sense. They're what every police department uses. And when you ask the American people, they're on our side. It's the intransigence, particularly of the hard right, who seem to like what ICE is doing, even though no American, no sector of the American people do to not reform it. And so they're tying themselves in a total knot by going through a reconciliation process that no Republican wants. And you can be sure in a Voterama, we're going to hold their feet to the fire on DHS, on the war and on so many other issues. Thank you.