WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a Senate Judiciary Committee markup today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) spoke on the dangers of President Trump questioning whether there would be a peaceful transition of power after the upcoming election, the future of the Supreme Court, and what is at stake fortens of millions of Americans who would lose their health care coverage if the Affordable Care Act is overturned.
KEY EXCERPTS:
“We have a President of the United States, who like all of us, took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, not willing to say that he will abide by the greatest tradition in all of democracies on this planet, the orderly transfer of power, that has gone on from the beginning of our republic till now. To me, that right there is an overt violation of your oath to defend the constitution. It is so a-democratic. It is so contrary to the ideals of this nation, it should render him illegitimate to even run for that office. He to me has surrendered his legitimacy if he is calling into question the peaceful transfer of power and saying that he will not abide by it. And having already told us that if he loses, the election is rigged…This is a moment that is not about partisanship. It's got to be about patriotism, where our love of our country comes first. This is not normal. This is dangerous.
“And so how does the Supreme Court play into this? Well, he has told us specifically that we need to get someone on the court because of the upcoming election. How is that not just delegitimizing his presidency as someone who won't abide by our traditions, norms and constitutions, but seeking to delegitimize the highest court in the land?
“The filling of this vacancy is about a lot of things from what we know is clear. The President of the United States saying we're going to end Roe v. Wade. We know it's about that. We know it's about the ascendancy of corporate power, as we saw with the unfortunate Citizens United decision, and the documentation of Senator Whitehouse, about the power of big money, but I want to hone in on what we know this is about this is about the health care of millions of Americans. How do we know that? It's because the President has told us that this is what it's about…This is about pre-existing conditions. This is about gender, where women were told that being a woman is a pre-existing condition. This is about the expansion of Medicaid in those states that actually did it, not those handful of states led by Republican governors that refused to expand it, but the millions of Americans who got health care through the Affordable Care Act. And so I'm worried about the issues at hand in this pandemic, while people have already started to vote. We know that this is a major concern for Republicans and Democrats, their health care, and to not let this be decided by the voters. As Donald Trump rushes to put someone on that will carry out his will, as he has told us he will. This should be decided by the electorate.
“This President has told us who he is it's time that we believe him. He told us he's going after our health care, we should believe him. He told us he's going after Roe v. Wade, we should believe him. And yesterday, he told us he's going after our sacred tradition of the transfer of power. We should believe him and this committee in a bipartisan fashion should condemn that with every fiber of our love of country, for our patriotism. This is not about partisanship. This is not about left or right. This is about the endurance of the greatest democracy on the planet Earth.”
