Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for the second time in two days, unsuccessfully tried to bring up a bill that would overturn President Trump’s executive order banning travelers and refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations admission to the United States.
Schumer accused the Trump administration of orchestrating a “Monday night massacre eerily reminiscent of the Nixon firings during Watergate” by firing acting Attorney General Sally Yates for announcing her refusal to enforce the immigration executive order.
“Instead of happening after six years of an administration, it’s happened after six weeks because the president and the people in the White House didn’t want to hear a proper legal opinion,” Schumer said Monday.
The Trump administration is 11 days old.
If the White House had consulted Yates, they would have “learned all the ways it was legally and constitutionally deficient,” Schumer said, arguing that the country is “on the cusp of a constitutional crisis” and is “already in a crisis of competence” because of Trump’s rushed immigration executive order.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., objected to Schumer’s attempt to bring up a bill to overturn Trump’s immigration executive order and argued that Yates was improperly objecting to order on policy, not legal grounds. He noted that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had reviewed the executive order and signed off on it.
“Her decision was a policy decision — she was grandstanding,” Cotton said. “She should have been relieved … I’m glad the president relieved her.”
He then accused Democrats of failing to show up for work and do the job taxpayers pay them to do, namely, confirm Trump’s Cabinet nominees in a timely manner. Democrats Tuesday morning boycotted the confirmation hearings for Trump’s picks to lead the departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury.
“I feel like Yogi Berra when he said it feels like deja vu all over again,” Cotton said in objecting to Schumer’s attempt to bring up the bill to overturn Trump’s immigration executive order. Cotton made the same objection Monday morning.
“I will object today. I will object tomorrow, and I will object as long as [Democrats] make these frivolous requests,” he said.
