Senate Democrats are planning to make Republicans pay dearly for not standing up and speaking out against President Trump’s Muslim ban.
The Washington Post reported that Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has announced that Democrats are working on legislation to reverse Trump’s Muslim ban:
“These orders go against what America has always been about. The orders make us less humanitarian, less safe, less American,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during his regularly scheduled news Sunday morning conference in New York as he announced that his colleagues were working on new legislation.
“We’re demanding the president reverse these executive orders that go against what we are, everything we have always stood for,” he said.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said in an interview with Vox that he is going to shame Republicans into joining the opposition to the ban, “I am going to do my best to shame Republicans into joining us to oppose this measure, but they control congress. Democrats can’t change this policy by ourselves. I’m going to make the case to them that this is terrible national security policy. This is objectionable from a moral standpoint, but it’s also going to get Americans killed.”
Legislation and shame aren’t the only tools that the Senate Democrats are going to use. Democrats are also planning to slow the confirmation process for the rest of Trump’s cabinet nominees if Republicans don’t get on board with reversing the executive orders.
Republicans who don’t speak out about the Muslim ban will now own it with Donald Trump. The good news is that some Republican Senators (Flake, Sasse, McCain, and Graham) have already announced their opposition to the ban. Democrats are confident that they will pick up more Republican support in the coming days.
Silence is cooperation with Trump’s agenda, and if Republicans don’t speak out, Democrats are going to everything that they can to make them pay a heavy political price.