During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) spoke about President Trump's tariffs.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you Mr. President. I thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this issue.
00:06President Trump's new tariffs are not Liberation Day, they're Obliteration Day.
00:11They are going to be remembered as something that raised taxes on every
00:19American consumer, had foreign countries then attack businesses all across our
00:26nation, all without a plan from President Trump to have an endgame.
00:36President Trump is just making this up and we're gonna have to wait to see how
00:41he responds when Europe attacks us, when Canada attacks us, when Asian countries
00:48now attack us. He's inviting an attack upon the American economy, even as
00:54American consumers have to pay higher taxes. So we're just the dawn of the
01:00equivalent of an all-out war, trade war, with every other country in the world.
01:10And who's gonna pay the price? American workers and American taxpayers. They're
01:17the ones who are gonna pay the price. So Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak
01:23about the outrageous calls we have been hearing to impeach federal judges who
01:28have ruled against Donald Trump. And that's right. Donald Trump and his
01:32extremist MAGA supporters think that if a federal judge dares to rule against
01:37the president, that judge should be impeached. Recently, Trump tweeted that
01:43Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court here in
01:49Washington DC, should be impeached because he ruled against Trump's use of
01:55the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador
02:01without any due process. Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has
02:08been on the losing side of several recent judicial decisions, has referred
02:13to federal judges as evil and called for, quote, a wave of judicial impeachments.
02:20In the other body, MAGA extremists have taken up the cudgel and filed articles
02:26of impeachment against federal judges who have ruled against the president, and
02:31then they receive political contributions from Elon Musk for doing
02:35so. And just last week, Speaker Johnson even suggested eliminating entire
02:42federal courts because their judges have dared to rule against Donald Trump.
02:48These calls for the impeachment of judges and elimination of courts are
02:53just the latest salvos in a broad attack on the courts, on lawyers, on the rule of
02:59law by the president and by his allies. I come to the Senate floor today to
03:04condemn this dangerous and un-American onslaught against the judiciary in legal
03:10profession and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to speak out
03:15against it. Federal judges confirmed by the Senate and given life terms under
03:20the Constitution during good behavior are not like contestants on The
03:25Apprentice. You don't get to fire them because you don't like the way they are
03:29doing their job. The president and his acolytes don't seem to understand this.
03:34With each call to impeach judges, they disregard and disrespect the
03:39Constitution, its separation of powers, its checks and balances, and its
03:44establishment of three co-equal branches of government, one of which is a
03:49judiciary whose principal job, as the Supreme Court explained more than 200
03:54years ago in Marbury v. Madison, is to quote, say what the law is, to say what
04:02is constitutional. And that is precisely what the courts have been doing. Since
04:08retaking office, Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders that are
04:13blatantly, patently, and obviously unconstitutional and illegal. Trump's
04:18illegal belief that he can supersede the Constitution and the laws passed by
04:23Congress with an executive order has spawned more than 100 lawsuits against
04:29his administration. And federal judges across the country, judges appointed by
04:35Democrat and Republican presidents alike, including Donald Trump himself, are doing
04:41the same job that judges have done in our country for centuries. They are
04:47interpreting statutes, making legal determinations, and upholding the
04:51Constitution of the United States. They are moving swiftly to hear cases and for
04:57now preventing some of the most egregiously unlawful Trump policies from
05:03taking effect. Revoking birthright citizenship? Blocked. Freezing all federal
05:09funding? Blocked. Pulling down public health websites? Blocked. Capping funding
05:15for critical health research at the National Institutes of Health? Blocked.
05:19Denying gender-affirming health care to transgender youth? Blocked. Allowing Musk
05:25to unbridle access to Social Security data? Blocked. Clawing back funds
05:31appropriated by Congress and obligated to my National Climate Bank? Blocked by a
05:38federal district court judge? And the list goes on and on and on and on.
05:43Blocked. Blocked. Blocked. Blocked. In these cases, like any others, if the losing
05:49party disagrees with the judge's decision on what the law is, they can
05:53appeal it. What they shouldn't do is to call for the extraordinary step of
05:58impeaching the presiding judge. That is a remedy the Constitution reserves for
06:03only grave ethical or criminal misconduct. And that's why John Roberts,
06:09the Chief Justice of the United States, was compelled to issue a rare public
06:14statement after President Trump called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg.
06:19Without referring to the President directly, the Chief Justice nonetheless
06:23rebuked him, explaining that, quote, for more than two centuries it has been
06:28established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement and
06:33that, quote, the new, the normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.
06:40Unfortunately, the MAGA extremists calling for impeachment of judges or the
06:46elimination of the courts don't care about this. The Constitution, centuries of
06:51judicial norms, the rule of law, they only care about one thing, fealty to
06:57Donald Trump. The baseless calls for Chief Judge Boasberg's impeachment
07:01confirm that. This is a judge who was a Yale Law School graduate, who cut his
07:06teeth as a successful homicide prosecutor, who was first appointed to
07:11the bench by a Republican president more than 20 years ago, who was confirmed to
07:16the federal bench in a 96 to 0 vote, and who was named by Chief Justice Roberts
07:22to a seat on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where he
07:26served a seven-year term, including as the court's presiding judge. Yet this is
07:33the judge, widely respected throughout the judiciary and legal profession, who
07:37President Trump calls a, quote, radical left lunatic, a troublemaker, and an
07:43agitator. That's Trump talking about Judge Boasberg, just because he ruled
07:49against the administration in a preliminary decision, which, by the way, a
07:53three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld on
07:58review. So while Trump's ad hominem attack on Judge Boasberg was typically
08:05baseless, it and other attacks like it, leveled against other judges, are no less
08:11dangerous. They have given rise to increased threats against judges, a, quote,
08:15significant uptick, as Chief Justice Roberts put in his report on the federal
08:21judiciary at the end of last year. Indeed, according to the Chief Justice, U.S.
08:27Marshals Service data showed a tripling of hostile threats and communications
08:31directed at judges over the preceding decade. Recently, judges have also
08:37experienced the swatting of their homes, the delivery of pizzas to their homes,
08:42actions intended to send the message, we know where you and your family live,
08:49where your children are, so reach the result which we want. Be afraid. Be very
08:58afraid. This is wrong. Very wrong. It is dangerous. It is intended to pressure
09:05judges in their decision-making. It puts lives at risk. It deserves the strongest
09:10possible across-the-board condemnation by all senators and all Americans. Instead,
09:17my Republican colleagues have been awfully quiet, fearful of upsetting
09:23President Trump, who has followed the Godfather Part One playbook and made
09:28them an offer they can't refuse. A primary opponent if they just don't go
09:33along. Well, finally, I have a few words about Donald Trump's unprecedented
09:40executive orders targeting law firms and individual lawyers who have litigated
09:45against him. These orders have suspended security clearances, canceled government
09:50contracts, barred employees from federal buildings, and erected other obstacles
09:54that prevent lawyers from representing their clients. Trump has even directed
09:59the Department of Justice to seek sanctions against attorneys who file
10:04frivolous lawsuits or engage in vexatious litigation against him. So with
10:11Donald Trump coming after lawyers and law firms, it's gut-check time for law
10:16firms in our country, especially the big law firms that the President has
10:21targeted for revenge and retribution because of their lawyers daring to do
10:27their jobs and represented clients in cases against him. I commend those firms
10:33like Wilmer Hale, like Jenner and Block, who are standing up, who are fighting
10:40back, and we need all law firms to stand up to this administration and to
10:47continue to stand up for the rule of law. And those that don't, especially those
10:52that seek to appease and accommodate the President out of fear that their bottom
10:56line will suffer grave risk, grave harm to our liberties, will in fact depend
11:04upon the lawyers who take difficult and unpopular cases, often against the
11:09government and zealously representing their clients in those matters. I'll
11:13conclude with this. The attacks on our judiciary, the calls for the impeachment
11:18of judges, and the attempts to intimidate and retaliate against lawyers who dare
11:23to stand in defense of the Constitution are not just an assault on individuals.
11:27They are an assault on the very foundations of our democracy. The courts
11:32are not pawns in a political game. The rule of law is not up to negotiation. If
11:37we allow this dangerous precedent to take root, if we tolerate threats against
11:42judges and lawyers who fulfill their constitutional duties, we set the stage
11:46for the erosion of the checks and balances that have safeguarded our
11:50nation for over two centuries. This is not about protecting one man. This is
11:56about protecting the principles that ensure justice and fairness for all
12:00Americans. It is time for all of us as a nation to rise above partisan interests
12:05and defend what makes us strong, our commitment to the Constitution, to the
12:10independence of the judiciary, and to the rule of law. And I urge my colleagues, all
12:14of my colleagues, and every American, to stand in defending these sacred
12:19institutions, not for our political health, but for the health of our
12:22democracy itself. I thank you, and I yield back, Mr. President.