Stand down.
That was the message this week from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, to Missouri’s junior senator, Republican Josh Hawley.
In on the Senate floor that came as Hawley continued to block high level staff appointments to the Department of Defense by President Joe Biden, Schatz took his colleague to task:
“He’s doing a very specific thing. He’s damaging the Department of Defense. We have senior DOD leaders; we have the armed services committee coming to us and saying, ‘I don’t know what to tell him; I don’t know how to satisfy him,’ but he is blocking the staffing of the senior leadership of the Department of Defense.â€
Congressional speeches are often less about their content and more about getting face time that might get a Republican on Fox News that night or a Democrat on MSNBC. They are often given before an empty chamber, with the purpose being to create a sound bite that might look good on TV or in the next campaign.
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This one was different. I don’t know much about Schatz. I wrote about him not long ago because he is that would provide federal incentives for states to end the predatory fines and fees in the criminal justice system that often lead to poor people spending time in jail or prison because they can’t afford court debt. This bill would help empty the new American debtors prisons that are trapping a generation of folks in an inescapable cycle of poverty. It’s a good bill that should get bipartisan support.
But that’s not what this speech was about. It was about an arcane Senate rule that allows one senator — in this case Hawley — to put a hold on a president’s nominees for whatever reason that senator wants to proffer. In this case, Hawley is suggesting he’ll stop Biden from placing needed staff members in the Department of Defense or the Department of State until the leaders of those two departments, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinkin, resign.
“That is not a reasonable request from a United States senator,†Schatz said.
He’s right of course. Hawley, or any Republican, can complain all they want about Biden’s foreign policy. They can stand up on the Senate floor and do so, or scream from the top of their lungs with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, as they spread Russian propaganda intended to make it harder for Ukraine to defend its country.
But in doing so while also stopping the president’s ability to fill the Department of Defense with the staff members it needs, Hawley makes the country weaker, and he makes it harder for the U.S. to help Ukraine.
“This comes from a guy who raised his fist in solidarity with the insurrectionists,†Schatz said, recalling the famous photo of the man who became the face of sedition. Hawley is so shameless, he is now selling mugs with the image on them.
“And this comes from a guy who before the Russian invasion suggested that maybe it would be wise for (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy to make a few concessions about Ukraine and their willingness to join NATO,†Schatz continued. “This comes from a guy who just about a month ago voted against Ukraine aid. He’s saying it’s going too slow; he voted no. He voted no on Ukraine aid and now he has the gall to say it’s going too slow.â€
Indeed, that’s the ultimate hypocrisy with Hawley’s position. He stood against Ukrainian aid, and failed to hold former President Donald Trump accountable, long before the Russian invasion when Trump was impeached for also delaying that aid, even though it had already been approved by Congress.
Schatz’ speech stands as sort of a modern version of the cartoon from the 1970s television series “Schoolhouse Rock.†The new version explains not how a bill becomes a law but how one pro-insurrectionist senator can make a country weaker simply by standing in the way.
“Spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and the free world,†Schatz said. “Because this man’s record is exactly the opposite.â€