Democratic senator protests Trump’s ‘grave threats’ in marathon overnight floor speech
By Rashard Rose, CNN
(CNN) — Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon has been speaking on the Senate floor for more than 12 hours after announcing he would protest what he called President Donald Trump’s “grave threats to democracy.”
He began his remarks at 6:24 p.m. ET Tuesday and was still speaking as of Wednesday morning.
“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 in his opening remarks.
The Democratic senator pointed to the Trump administration’s previous halting of research grants for universities in its battle over campus oversight as well as the recent indictments of several of the president’s political opponents as well as his push to deploy National Guard troops to Portland.
“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Oregon, in my home state, is full of chaos and riots. Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation,” Merkley said.
Early on Wednesday, the senator condemned the tactics of federal law enforcement against protesters outside of an immigration detention facility in Portland, and in other cities that are seeing a surge of immigration enforcement.
His comments on the situation in Oregon come after an appeals court on Monday cleared the way for Trump to deploy troops there after a previous, Trump-appointed federal judge blocked his first efforts to do so.
“This is an extraordinarily dangerous moment,” Merkley added Wednesday morning. “An authoritarian president proceeding to attack free speech, attack free press, weaponize the Department of Justice, and use it against those who disagree with him, and then seeking the court’s permission to send the military into our cities to attack people who are peaceful(ly) protesting.”
The senator’s remarks represent a symbolic show of Democratic resistance as the party has blocked Republican efforts to reopen the government 11 times, remaining in a standoff over health care subsidies.
The shutdown is expected to drag on Wednesday as the impasse enters a fourth week.
Earlier this year, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey held the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes, warning against the harms he said the administration was inflicting on the American public. The effort broke the record for the longest floor speech in modern history of the chamber.
This was also not Merkley’s first time holding the Senate floor – he previously spoke for more than 15 hours in 2017 against Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
In recent years, the chamber has seen a number of marathon speeches mounted by senators of both parties, including Sens. Chris Murphy on gun control in 2016; Rand Paul over National Security Agency surveillance programs in 2015; and Ted Cruz against the Affordable Care Act 2013.
CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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