00:00Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. President, for nine long months.
00:06The Senate Democrats have waged an unprecedented effort to slow down the Senate
00:12and to delay the President from getting his team on the field.
00:18It has been an unprecedented blockade.
00:22President Trump was elected to get America back on track, and that means getting the team on the job.
00:27So what does Chuck Schumer, who just spoke here on the Senate floor a few minutes ago, had to say?
00:32Well, he put out a press release in August, and he said that historically bad nominees, his words,
00:41deserve a historic level of scrutiny.
00:45He has treated every nominee from President Trump as controversial.
00:50And he's treated every nominee as an existential threat to our nation.
00:59Senator Schumer and Senate Democrats have specific concerns with specific nominees.
01:04They should come down to the Senate floor and discuss them and share their concerns with the American people.
01:11That's not what's happening.
01:14Here are the facts.
01:14Senate Republicans have confirmed now 109 sub-Cabinet nominees.
01:21Now, that's in addition to the Cabinet that we've confirmed, the judges that we've confirmed.
01:26Every single one of those 109 sub-Cabinet nominees have been filibustered by the Democrats.
01:35Yet, only seven of them received more than 10 minutes of debate on the Senate floor.
01:40Now, you know, Mr. President, that when they filibuster, that says consume two hours on the Senate floor to debate the nominees.
01:49They've chosen to waste the time, but not to discuss the credibility of any of these nominees or their qualities for service, what we will get.
01:59In fact, of the Democrats who have filibustered all 109 sub-Cabinet nominees, the average Democrat debate was two minutes.
02:1187, zero Democrat debate.
02:14Only seven of them went for more than 10 minutes.
02:17In other words, the Senate Democrats declined to come to the floor to discuss 75% of these sub-Cabinet nominees
02:24that ultimately were all confirmed by the United States Senate.
02:27This is in spite of the fact that each one of them required the two full hours of debate.
02:38On average, we've done all the math, we've watched all the speeches,
02:41two minutes and 12 seconds by the Democrats consumed discussing each nominee on average.
02:48218 hours of debate time spent on the Senate floor ignored by the Democrats, wasted time, couldn't do legislation, couldn't do other things
03:00because of this historic obstruction by the Democrats of what the American people voted for.
03:07For all the bluster and all the so-called historic scrutiny, the Democrats and Chuck Schumer, when it came to nominees, have been missing in action.
03:19These guys actually spent more time on the Senate floor debating and discussing wasteful Washington's spending,
03:30such as using taxpayer dollars for electric vehicles in Africa,
03:37than they did on all 109 sub-Cabinet nominees combined.
03:43The Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer froze the Senate floor for 210 hours
03:50from doing the important public business as a result of their unprecedented blockade.
03:56It is time for the Senate to return to normalcy, to regular order.
04:03And that's because there are still 145 nominees on the executive calendar that we have right here on our desk waiting to be confirmed.
04:11These are people who have gone through the hearing process, been voted out of committees,
04:16and are stuck here in the Senate limbo waiting to see what's going to happen with their confirmation.
04:23They're waiting to help in the fight to get America back on track and to do the people's business,
04:31and the Democrats are obstructing every step along the way.
04:38It seems like the Democrats just want to sabotage our effort to get America back on track.
04:43Otherwise, why are they standing in the way of the progress of our nation?
04:46We know these nominees are all qualified, the 145 I've just referred to,
04:51because committees have actually reported them out to the Senate.
04:57They've had background checks from the FBI.
04:59Their ethics reports have all been confirmed,
05:03and they have actually been approved by the Senate committees,
05:07the committees whose job it is to scrutinize.
05:09And that's why half of the 145 that were still waiting to come to the Senate floor,
05:16they've earned bipartisan support coming out of committees.
05:20They're ready to go, ready to get put to work.
05:23So the minority leader needs to stop pretending that he's leading some kind of grand investigation,
05:29because he's not.
05:32It's time for him to admit that this has nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominees.
05:38His objections have everything to do with his obsession with President Trump.
05:46That's what we're dealing with here, Mr. President.
05:49Many of these bipartisan nominees have been waiting for months to get put to work.
05:56They've been nominated.
05:57They've put their lives on hold.
05:58They're ready to go.
06:00And yet the Democrats, through their sabotaging, have slowed the process to a crawl.
06:06And there's absolutely no reason for this.
06:07Look, this latest Schumer shutdown of this confirmation process,
06:13it really does leave critical jobs unfilled.
06:17It does weaken our economy.
06:19It does undermine our international diplomacy.
06:23And, Mr. President, it jeopardizes our safety.
06:27The Senate in the past didn't operate this way.
06:32And we need to change things to get America back on track and get the Senate back on track.
06:39You know, 98% of George W. Bush's, President Bush's nominees, and Bill Clinton's nominees,
06:44they were concerned, they were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent.
06:49They'd gone through the committee process.
06:51They were sent to the Senate and then worked through the process pretty quickly.
06:57During President Trump's, this is second term, the number that went by voice vote or unanimous consent,
07:03here we are nine months in, zero.
07:06Absolutely zero.
07:07Because of what the Democrats are doing in an unprecedented way.
07:15They seem to be obstructing for obstruction's sake.
07:18Today, 45 of the 145 nominees stuck on the calendar are, interestingly,
07:26for positions that never before in the history of the Senate have actually had to come up for a roll call vote.
07:33They always went by voice or unanimous consent.
07:35So I would ask the Senate Minority Leader here on the floor to tell me why
07:40the Chief Counsel for Advocacy at the Small Business Administration,
07:45I mean, that's the position, why that needed to be filibustered.
07:50Why did he and the Democrats filibuster the Chief Counsel for Advocacy for the Small Business Administration?
07:56What was so critical about that position or so wrong with the nominee
08:00that the Democrats would decide it was worthy of spending two hours of Senate floor business
08:05to filibuster this nominee who got confirmed anyway?
08:11And in the past has never had a vote on that.
08:13It's just always gone by unanimous consent or by voice vote.
08:20Confirming positions like this used to only take seconds.
08:23Now it can take days.
08:25And it's because of the obstruction by the Democrats.
08:29The Senate has a role of advice and consent.
08:31That's why we have the committee process.
08:32That's why we go through it.
08:33But what we're dealing with is stalling and delaying.
08:37Now, Mr. President, there are still more than 800 positions
08:40that still need to come through the Senate.
08:43Some that may not be named yet.
08:45The President hasn't made nominations.
08:47But because the President has over 1,100 nominations to make
08:51to fill out the government and the people that do the job of the people.
08:55But without a change to try to get through that next 800,
08:58that would take years.
09:00Over 1,000 hours on the Senate floor.
09:04And that's if the Senate did nothing else.
09:07Because every time they filibuster one, that's two wasted hours,
09:10and they end up spending two minutes of debate in total.
09:15And 81% of them nominated who got approved.
09:20The Democrats spent zero time on the floor even talking about.
09:25Look, under this Schumer confirmation shutdown,
09:29it's impossible for the United States Senate to pass legislation.
09:34Can't do it.
09:35The floor is iced.
09:37Legislation such as the National Defense Authorization Act
09:40that we're getting to today.
09:41We're considering it this week.
09:43Funding bills that we need to do, the appropriation bills,
09:47that Schumer never even brought to the floor when he was the leader.
09:50We want to get those passed.
09:51Doing the people's business.
09:53The Senate and our nation cannot continue to be run this way,
09:59and controlled this way, and function this way.
10:03If Democrats won't stop abusing the rules of the Senate,
10:07Republicans are prepared to change the rules.
10:11Later today, Mr. President,
10:13Senate Republicans are going to discuss how to update these rules
10:16to restore the Senate's long-time practice,
10:22a practice of confirming nominees in a reasonable fashion.
10:28Now, we're not talking about Cabinet secretaries or Supreme Court justices.
10:31We're talking about restoring the norms of the Senate
10:35for the hundreds of routine, qualified nominees
10:39who come through the committee process,
10:41go through the scrutiny,
10:43and then come to the Senate floor to be put to work.
10:46I would say enough with the Democrat obstruction,
10:52enough with this phony scrutiny,
10:54and enough with another Schumer shutdown.
10:59The American people elected President Trump,
11:02and they elected Republicans to get America back on track.
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