Summary
- Senator
Jeff Merkley speaks on Senate floor for 19 hours. - Warns
Trump acting as an authoritarian, deploying military locally. - Criticizes
Trump’s use of National Guard in Portland, Oregon.
The 68-year-old lawmaker spoke uninterrupted into Wednesday
morning after starting at 6:20 p.m. on Tuesday. With signs that read
“authoritarianism is here now!” and “Trump is violating the
law,” Merkley has been standing on the Senate floor all day, pausing only
to answer questions from other Democratic senators.
“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm
bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic
since the civil war. President Trump is shredding our constitution,”
Merkley
said as he began his speech.
Merkley’s remarks came a day after a federal appeals court
granted the president permission to bring the national guard into Portland
despite local officials’ protests that the administration’s assertion that the
city is a “war zone” is without merit.
In Chicago, where federal officials are conducting a
vigorous crackdown on individuals they suspect of being unauthorized
immigrants, Trump has also ordered a similar army deployment.
The senator discussed those deployments to Democratic-heavy
cities and other cases where the president is perceived to be retaliating
against his political rivals, such as the accusations made by a US lawyer who
was handpicked
against former FBI director James Comey and New York State Attorney General
Letitia James.
“Equal justice under law – that’s the vision here in
America. Not unequal injustice, which is what the president is pursuing by
taking the power of the government and going after individuals that he does not
like or perceives to be political opponents,”
Merkley said.
“That’s what you read about in authoritarian governments far
away, and you go, that would never happen in the United States of America, but
it is happening right here, right now.”
The senator intends to speak “as long as he can,”
according to a spokeswoman for the lawmaker.
Merkley’s speech is the second time a Democratic senator has
delivered a protracted floor speech denouncing Trump’s actions this year. A new
record for the longest speech ever given by a lone senator was achieved by Cory
Booker of New Jersey, who talked for 25 hours and five minutes around two
months after Trump’s inauguration.
The senator from Oregon stood on a lectern Wednesday
morning, holding a copy of How Democracies Die, a 2018 book by Steven Levitsky
and Daniel Ziblatt that describes the breakdown of democratic democracies
worldwide, and a little glass of water.
Democratic senators flocked to the floor as Wednesday
progressed to ask Merkley, who has stood the entire time, questions that also
served as a platform for them to voice their own complaints about the
administration.
“We are seeing a time now that if we do not ring the alarm
bells, more and more Americans will be hurt by a president who is acting more
like an authoritarian leader than a democratically elected executive,”
Booker
said.
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut compared Trump’s partial
destruction of the east wing of the White House to the financial cuts and
layoffs he has mandated throughout the government.
“This destruction that Donald Trump is doing to the White
House is emblematic of the wrecking ball he is taking to our democracy. Put
aside the waste of money that could be used to improve our education system,
solve food insecurity, guarantee the election integrity of this nation – the
damage that he’s doing to this iconic symbol of America is so costly to our
image and esteem around the world,”
Blumenthal said.
Ron Wyden, Oregon’s senior senator, said in an interview
that his counterpart was “making some particularly, relevant and important
points about the threat”.
Asked if other Senate Democrats were planning such lengthy
speeches, Wyden said:
“You take them one at a time, but I think what senator
Merkley is doing is very important.”
Having failed to agree on legislation to extend funding past
the end of September, Democrats and Republicans started a government shutdown
at the beginning of the month, which is now in its 22nd day.
A Republican-backed package to extend funding through
November 21 has been the subject of 11 fruitless Senate votes. Democrats have
opposed the bill because it excludes healthcare spending, which they are
demanding, and it also limits Trump’s use of rescissions to cut down on
congressionally approved funds.
How have Portland officials reacted to claims about military
deployment?
Portland officers have explosively condemned the
military deployment plans and conduct by the Trump administration. City
councilors representing Portland neighborhoods blamed the civil government’s
use of military helicopters and deployment of troops as intimidation
tactics aimed at creating a false narrative that Portland is unsafe.
For instance, District 4 Councilor Eric Zimmerman called the
helicopter deployment expensive and “ deeply un-American, ” while fellow
Councilor Mitch Green described the helicopters as residents.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek labeled the planned National
Guard deployment an “ abuse of power ” and asserted there was no
public trouble, emphasizing Portland was “ safe and calm.”.
