Chuck Schumer: “I had a few questions earlier this morning of my great colleague, and, once again, his strength, his indomitability, and…”

“I had a few questions earlier this morning of my great colleague, and, once again, his strength, his indomitability, and his caring about this democracy, which we all know is at risk, is just amazing. And so my question relates to something he touched on before in his discussions with our great Senator from New Hampshire. There are so many ways this administration is trying to rip apart democracy, and one of them you mentioned a minute ago is the threatening of media to just do what Trump wants. And the man who is the head of the FCC seems to be an instrumentality of that. Trump has said: Things they say I don't like should not be put on the air. And they have held over the heads the broadcast licenses of some of our great media companies. In other ways, they are getting some of their friends to take over some of our media companies. And isn't one of the greatest blows to democracy, I would ask my colleague--one of the greatest blows to democracy is when we don't have a fully free press, and has it been a hallmark of so many of the countries that he has mentioned that are autocracies or absolute dictatorships to have no free press, so no information can come out, and doesn't that dramatically hurt the American people when government is shielded and can do whatever it wants and hurt as many people as it wants because you don't have a free press?”