Jeff Merkley

Thank you very much. To my colleague from Wyoming, would you yield for a question?

I thank my colleague, because, 4 years ago, I was on this floor, and I know you weren't here in the Chamber, and I listened to so many Members of the Senate say that they were establishing a new precedent--a precedent they felt was a…

So thank you to my colleague. I think what you are confirming is that never in American history have we conducted such a debate and voted during an election. You have a different precedent argument but not a precedent that shows that…

Thank you. You know that the process we are in right now is based on clear precedent. I have scoured American history to find the precedent of conducting a debate and vote on a Supreme Court nominee during an election, and I haven't found…

This is a seat that was stolen from the former president, Obama. That's never been done in U.S. history before.

Thank you. You made the point about lack of identification. I have here the picture of how these have been deployed. I will make sure you can see it as well. Many are in camouflage--the generic police, with no sense of what agency they are…

For clarification, will my question be credited to my colleague's time, and can I ask unanimous consent that that it be credited to his time? The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). If the Senator for Connecticut yields for a question, it comes…

You asked about coordination. My understanding is that there was not an invitation from the mayor to come, and there was not a conversation with the Governor. There certainly was no conversation with Senator Wyden and me and the other…

Well, they have been present in the streets. I don't know just how many blocks from the Federal building but certainly not just in the perimeter of the Federal property. They have swept through streets. They have vans that have gone…

To my colleague from Illinois, that is exactly right, as seen in this picture and the testimony of all those who are present. Mark Morgan, the Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, said that is not the case, and he said: ``Our…

And I would invite my colleague to stay if he would like to and yield to him if he wants to jump into the conversation.

We might think of hunger as kind of a temporary discomfort, something you get through, but my understanding is, when children are hungry, when they don't have the basic nutrients on a regular basis, it damages the development of the mind…

It is being driven by massive unemployment. The estimate in April was for families who earn less than $40,000 a year, 40 percent had lost their job. I think that was April. Now, maybe it is well over 50 percent. Half of working America of…

I am pretty sure, down the hall in the House of Representatives, nobody is missing a meal; yet so many people in each of our States are missing meals. In my State of Oregon, hunger has doubled since March. I imagine hunger has increased in…

Senator Stabenow, it is a pleasure to be here with you in this fight for something as fundamental as hunger. As I was listening to the conversation, your words and our colleague's from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, who was speaking, and our…

This morning we received news that the Supreme Court has ruled in regard to our Dreamers, our Deferred Action Childhood Arrival children, who came to America knowing no other country, and now the Court has said that President Obama did…

Every piece of evidence from every direction points towards a quid pro quo, and that is that both a meeting with the president, our President Trump, was held up and aid was held up in exchange for creating pressure for the new president of…

I hope -- I really hope my colleagues across the aisle join together to fight for the vision of a full and fair trial with documents, with witnesses.

Yes, it's very helpful to actually see people speaking and listen to them and their voice, see their facial expressions, very different than just reading about it on a piece of paper.

We took out our Ambassador Yovanovitch who was a champion for helping fight corruption. We didn't provide any new programs to Zelensky, the new president, who actually wanted to have help taking on corruption.

But again, it goes back to the fact that the House setting is a different setting. Is there substantial information relevant to what would be the -- an indictment? And in a trial, it's full examination of the facts, with everything brought…

If we are unable to in good faith say, we'll set aside our preconceptions, look at the exact language of the House articles of impeachment, the exact evidence and how it fits, then we should recuse ourselves.

Lack of witnesses and documents, that's a cover-up.

The leverage is 51 votes. The leverage is people doing their responsibility under the constitutional framework of checks and balance. The leverage is the oath we're going to take at the start of the trial, where we pledge to do impartial…

Well, I say to them that there's really two steps here. An indictment is based on sufficient information that a serious act has occurred. And of course, in the context of an impeachment, that doesn't necessarily mean a crime. It can mean…