In a Senate floor address on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Democrats will hold President Trump “accountable” if they win the midterm elections.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Mr. President, Donald Trump’s cavalier disregard for the lives of our service members is beneath contempt and beyond despicable. In a Truth Social post yesterday, Trump seemed to brag that 18 service members had been killed in his disastrous Iran war, compared to the tens of thousands who died in Vietnam. Donald, stop treating our service members’ lives like they are points on a scoreboard in your twisted game. Asked about his handling of the Iran war yesterday, Trump said, quote, I think people are very impressed. Impressed? What kind of bubble does he live in? Every survey shows how much the American people are against this war. Americans are not impressed that Trump has botched this war from the start. Americans are not impressed when they see headlines like the one behind me right here, that the price of gasoline is back over $ 4 a gallon because of Trump’s war. And Americans are certainly not impressed that 18 Americans have been killed and hundreds more wounded, and that Trump tried to cover it up. Donald Trump may believe that if he conceals the casualties, Americans will forget the war, but our service members are not numbers to bury. They are human beings with families who had lives. They are the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers who were sent into harm’s way without a strategy for bringing them home. And bring them home we must. This week, Senate Democrats will force another vote on our War Powers Resolution to end this unauthorized war and get our troops out of harm’s way. Every senator will have to make a choice. You cannot claim to support the troops while leaving them trapped in a war with no mission and no end. You cannot call it a victory while the battlefield keeps expanding. And you cannot hide the wounded and call it peace. Now on Air Force One, Donald Trump’s corruption truly knows no limits. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for Trump to charge the American people for his golden ballroom on the ground. Now he wants the taxpayers to fund his palace in the sky as well. Trump’s $ 400 million foreign jet, the biggest gift a president has received from a foreign government ever, is anything but free. Taxpayers will have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to outfit Trump’s luxury jet with the security upgrades it needs to serve as Air Force One. I’m advancing the Presidential Airlift Security Act for immediate passage to ensure that Americans don’t have to foot the bill to max out Trump’s luxury jet when he already has access to a perfectly fine Air Force One. There is no way we’re letting Trump charge Americans so he can fly in style while they are struggling to make ends meet. I introduced this legislation last year, but every single Republican senator voted against the bill. Senate Republicans cleared the way for Trump’s Air Force One spending spree. I urge my colleagues across the aisle not to repeat the same mistake. Trump always finds a way to saddle the American people with the cost of his corruption. We have an opportunity to stop it. Will our Republican colleagues join us to make that happen? Democrats will continue to expose how the Trump administration’s corruption is driving up Americans’ costs every chance we get. The slush fund, exemption from taxes, what he did on his own social media and charged people for it, and now this Air Force One corruption. Every day, just about every day, there’s a new story about how Trump’s corruption is rampant and raises the costs of the American people. On the Election Protection Task Force, Donald Trump knows he can’t defend Republicans’ disastrous record, so he’s attacking the midterm elections that could hold him accountable. Instead of trying to earn Americans’ votes, Trump is trying to discount them. That’s not going to happen, Donald. Today, Senate Democrats’ Election Protection Task Force will gather for a second time to wargame responses and to plan how we can counter Trump’s efforts to subvert our elections. We’re going to red team a number of different instances that Trump might try to subvert our election and what we will do to counter them. We are fighting to protect the right of every eligible American voter to cast a ballot, to have it counted, without interference, intimidation, or obstruction. Our task force is preparing over and over again to meet the election threats we know are coming. We are bringing together top experts to identify threats to the election, to test responses, and to strengthen our defenses because we’re defending the American people’s right to vote and have a free and fair election. We’re preparing our responses to what they might do now so that voters can have confidence later. Trump is doing everything he can to undermine confidence in our elections because he knows just how bad of a bind he’s in. The Trump administration has made life harder, more expensive for the American people. Trump knows Americans won’t ignore the higher costs, the rampant corruption, the widespread chaos. He’s unleashed on our country, which is why he’s trying to ignore their votes altogether. But this country and this election belong to the American people, not to Trump. Democrats are going to make sure it stays that way.

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