Let’s assume for a moment that those who object to the certifications are right, that the Constitution intended that a bare majority of Members of Congress could circumvent the States that have chosen to certify the popular votes of their own State citizens. I ask the objectors to think about the precedent that would be set if we were to do that.
What if the majority in the House and the Senate were of the other party when a Presidential candidate of our party came through a close Presidential election? Would you want a Congress controlled by the Democrats to play the role you now intend for us?
It is asking Congress to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the voters and its judgment for the judgment of the States that certified the results. And even forgetting the dangerous precedent that would be set, what would be the basis for objecting in this election?
Look, I voted for President Trump. I supported him because I believe the Trump administration’s policies are better for Ohio and for the country. And I supported the Trump campaign’s right to pursue recounts—they had every right to do it—and legal challenges.
I agree that there were instances of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 elections. I think we all do. And by the way, there are fraud and irregularities in every Presidential election.
But it is also true that after 2 months of recounts and legal challenges, not a single State recount changed the result. And of the dozens of lawsuits filed, not one found evidence of fraud or irregularities widespread enough to change the result of the election. This was the finding of numerous Republican-appointed judges and the Trump administration’s own Department of Justice.
Every State has now weighed in and chosen to certify its electoral slate based on the popular vote, as set out in the Constitution.
I understand that many Americans who would never storm this Capitol don’t trust the integrity of the 2020 election, don’t think the States should have certified, don’t think we should have accepted the results from the States, and are insisting on more transparency and accountability.
In the 2016 elections, lest we forget, many Democrats objected to the results and distrusted the election.
I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to listen but also to do our part to try to restore faith in our elections. We should all work to improve the integrity of the electoral system and the confidence of the American people in this bedrock of our great democratic Republic.
Today, I will do my constitutional duty and oppose these efforts to reject the State-certified results.
And tomorrow, in the wake of this attack on the Capitol, the pandemic that engulfs us, and other national challenges, let’s work together for the people.
The Vice President. The Democratic leader.
Mr. Schumer. Mr. President, I believe we have 8 minutes left, so I would like to divide 4 to Senator King and 4 to Senator Van Hollen.
The Vice President. That is correct.
The Senator from Maine.
Mr. King. Mr. President, Winston Churchill once said that he could do a 2-hour speech extemporaneously, but a 10-minute speech took immense preparation. I don’t know what he would have said about a 4-minute speech.
We are a 240-year anomaly in world history. We think that what we have here in this country is the way it has always been.
It is a very unusual form of government. The normal form of government throughout world history is dictators, kings, czars, pharaohs, warlords, tyrants. And we thought 20 years ago the march of history was toward democracy, but it is in retreat in Hungary and Turkey—goodness knows, in Russia.
Democracy as we have practiced it is fragile. It is fragile, and it rests upon trust. It rests upon trust in facts. It rests upon trust in courts, in public officials, and, yes, in elections.
I don’t sympathize or justify or in any way—in any way—support—that is putting it mildly—what happened here today, but I understand it. I understand it because I saw those people interviewed today, and they said: We are here because this election has been stolen.
And the reason they said that is that their leader has been telling them that every day for 2 months.
We cannot afford to pull bricks out from the foundation of trust that underlies our entire system. And I agree with Governor Romney that the answer to this problem is to tell people the truth—is to tell them what happened.
It is easy to confront your opponents. It is hard to confront your friends.
It is hard to tell your supporters something they don’t want to hear, but that is our obligation. That is why the word “leader” is applied to people in jobs like ours. It is not supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be something that we take on as a sacred obligation, and if people believe something that isn’t true, it is our obligation to tell them: No, I am sorry, it isn’t, just as Senator Portman just said, as Mike Lee just said: I am sorry we can’t do this here. We don’t want to do this here. This is a power reserved to the States, not to the Congress.
And I agree with the majority leader. I think this is one of the most important votes any of us will ever take.
On December 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln came to this building. He came to this building in the darkest days of the Civil War. He was trying to awaken the Congress to the crisis that we were facing, and he didn’t feel that they were fully and effectively engaged. He ended his speech that day with words that I think have an eerie relevance tonight. Here is what Abraham Lincoln said:
Fellow-[Americans], we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.
And here are his final words:
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The Vice President. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. President. The mob violence and attack we saw on our Capitol today should be a wake-up call to each and every one of us of what happens when we fail to come together, not as Democrats and Republicans but each of us as Americans, to stand up to a President who time and again has shown contempt for our democracy, contempt for our Constitution.
Today, here on the Capitol, we witnessed people taking down an American flag and putting up a Trump flag. That is not democracy in the United States of America.
As every Senator who has spoken has mentioned, we have for hundreds of years had a peaceful transfer of power. Nobody likes to lose, and supporters of the losing candidate are always disappointed. What is different this time?
We all know what is different this time. We have a President who, as the Senator from New Jersey said, even before a vote was cast, that if he didn’t win the election, it was going to be a fraud and every day since then has perpetrated that lie.
We have a President who just today criticized the very loyal Vice President, who is presiding right now, urging him to disregard his responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States in order to reinstall Donald Trump as President; the same person who got on the phone to the secretary of state in Georgia and threatened him to change the results of the election.
Mr. President, I read something this week I never thought I would read in a newspaper in the United States of America. It was an op-ed by all the living former Secretaries of Defense, including Secretaries Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Mattis, warning—warning—the country about our tradition of peaceful transfer of power and that it would be inappropriate for the military to take sides in the United States of America. We talk to the world about how we want to promote democracy and our values, and right here at home too many are undermining those values.
Mr. President, Donald Trump could not do this alone. He could only do it if he is aided and abetted by individuals
