Foreign policy. Well keep you posted on updates or changes as they develop. Again live coverage of the House Judiciary Committee when they resume. Lets see the Senate Democraticic leadership News Conference and show you what we can until the Committee Gavels back in. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming. Im proud to be joipd by colleagues feinstein, merkley and hirono. We know what happened last month. Mass shootings claimed 51 lives. In el paso and dayton and in odessa. To say nothing about the dozen ever eras of lives lost every day, every single day to gun violence here in america. We just wrapped up our caucus lunch. We heard a powerful moving speech from the dayton mayor. Nann waly. She drove home the point of how gun violence has scarred and scared too many communities across the country. Over the august recess leader mcconnell promised the senate would hold a keebt on gun violence when we return to washington. We are ready to have the debate right now. Enough is enough. Too Many Americans are losing their lives to gun violence. Its time to bring h. R. 8, the house passed bipartisan universal background checks bill to the floor for a vote. It passed the house 195 days ago. Its been buried and leader mcconnells legislative grade yard ever since. We have to have a strong background checks law to pr prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands in the first place. And there are two people who can make that happen. President trump and leader mcconnell. Later today Republican Leaders will meet with President Trump. I strongly urge my republican colleagues to prevail on the president to support universal background checks. Leader mcconnell said he will bring a bill to the floor if it has the president s support. Which means there is a historic tune for President Trump to lead his party finally toward passing sensible gun safety laws. 93 of american support background checks. The vast majority of gun owners and republicans support background checks. So the president can provide republicans with important political cover to finally buck the nnra save lives and do the right thing. The question now is whether or not leader mcconnell will allow the snapt to consider housepassed background checks bills on the senate floor. The time to act is now, before more lives are lost. Senator feinstein. Thank you very much, leader. When i was in San Francisco i went down to Northern Police station to see the new ammunition feeding device which is double barrelled. And contains 100 bullets. I saw it on a glock. And i also saw how it would be positioned on an assault weapon. And then the realization struck of what these weapon do in our society. And our caucus that we just finished we had louisiana opportunity to hear from a number of senators from different states. And its just remarkable that something as simple as a universal background check won be something that everyone welcomed. This morning i picked up the washington post. And i saw on page a6 a poll that had been done by the postwhich showed virtually close to 90 of the American People supporting universal background checks. Why cant it happen . How is it not in the best interests of every man, woman and child in this great country to be protected that way . Thank you. Thank you, senator feinstein. Senator merkley. Im coming here as a senator from a powerful Second Amendment state, the citizens of oregon value guns for collecting, target practice, hunting, for personal defense. But its also a state where the citizens have said we do not want individuals who are deeply disturbed or who have felon backgrounds to hold guns. Because we have a responsibility to make sure they dont fall into the wrong hands and are misusesed. It was no the year 2000 that the Oregon Legislature closed the gun show loophole. In 2015 they closed the craigslist loophole. And it was in 2018 just last year that they closed the boyfriend loophole, saying that if an individual has a restraining order against them or a stalking conviction that they dont have access to be able to buy a gun in our state. I do a lot of townhalls. Every county, every year, 22 of my counties are extremely red. In issue comes up all the time. And people strongly support a National System like oregon has developed. Because without a National System oregons law is not effective. People can go across the border to another state. People can use a straw buyer to buy guns in another state and bring them in and sell them. We need a National System. And i tell you i think about the fact that we have cities, names, ringing in our cities cities like dayton, 79 dead, 27 wounded, el paso, 22 dead, 24 under wounded. Odessa, middle 7 dead, 24 wounded. But lets understand this. There is a mass shooting more than once a day in 2019 in the United States of america. A mass shooting where more than four people are shot. So its time to act. Now, moments ago the majority leader came out to the podium and he said he is waiting for the president. Well, in the constitution there is a vision of congress as being the legislative body. The president gets one phone call from the nra and his strong will collapses. His spine collapses. We need to give the president the spine to sign the bill by passing hr 8 here in the u. S. Senate without delay. Senator hirono. Thank you very much. We have a hundred deaths by firearm every single za in this country. Think about it. Men, women, children, 100 people every day in our country. These are not normal times. We have a president who lies every single za and surrounds himself with yes men, including parental Mitch Mcconnell. And in a country that is so deeply divided on so many issues, as you heard, there is one issue on which 90 of the American People agree. And that is background checks. So i ask Mitch Mcconnell, who you just heard from, saying, he has to wait for the president to tell him what to do. Wait, this is the president who changes behind his mind from moment to moment, day to day . This is a person that we are going to wait on rather than acting like the separate branch of government that congress is and enact hr eight which was passed almost what, 2007 days ago . 200 days, 100 people dying every single day in our country. Do the math. And this is very typical of Mitch Mcconnell. Because there are bills he should bring to the floor but he wasnter wroent waiting for the president to tell him what to do. This happened on the daca and the shutdown. And now we are 90 of the American People support background checks he does it on gun safety. So we are standing here saying so Mitch Mcconnell, asking him, telling him, do your job. Lets pass the hr 8 process. We should not be seeing 100 more people die in our country every single day. And as the refrain goes, do something. Good. I would say there is one word that scribe describes mitch manuel mcconnells attitude on this vital issue. And that is duck. Duck because he is saying let the president decide. Then he was asked do you support the universal background checks for commercial sales and he ducked again . He is afraid of this issue. But thats not what a leader should be doing. Would democrat support a red flag law absent hr 1234r508 our goal is to get a vote on hr 8. Senator blum that you will is working on the red flag law we dont want to call it a red flag. Warp the words. Severe er extreme extreme risk protection. We want to call that that. The house has a very strong bill. We dont know where these negotiations between senator blumenthal and senator graham will come. We are insisting on a vote of background checks. Because if you have the extreme protection law and less lets say john jones has an order against him and there is no background check, john jones can go to a gun show or online and buy the gun anyway. You need the background checks to make an extreme protection law, the socalled red flag law work. Where did democrats draw the line and border barrier funder. I heard mcconnell say poison pills are the reason that no thats no the the reason. The proposal didnt work out with the 302 bs with the democrats or orders. Puts 12 billion more for the wall thats not going to happen. Thats causing all the problems. They added 5 billion, took it out of hhs and put it into dhs. Took 3. 6 million in mill kon va and 3. 6 new reprogramming. They know darn well that a 12 billion additional money for the wall is not flying with Senate Democrats or with the house. So they ought to get to serious negotiating now that they have shone the president ing they are paying more feelty to him. When Mitch Mcconnell was here a few minutes ago he says that your press conference with the mayor of dayton yesterday is theatrics. What is your response. Same shame him him there are people who died shame on him. Put the bill on floort appear stopping you can ducking the issue and calling names. Shame on him. Thank you, everybody. Senator Senate Democratic leadership from this amp, the senate back in session continuing work on President Trumps nominees. They earlier approved kelly kraft, the u. N. Ambassador to attend the upskomg assembly, the General Assembly at the United Nations follow the senate on cspan2. The house is finishing up work on votes. We will see the Judiciary Committee gavel back in shortly expected to begin consideration of three dpkic proposals on gun violence legislation. Massachusetts congressman joe kennedy with this tweet kind of laying out what the three will do, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines will save lives. Useful background checks will save lives. Denying gun to people with Domestic Violence records will save lives he tweets. Abolishing the Civil Liberties of people with Mental Illness will only excite the gun lobby. So our coverage will resume here shortly. Well take you back live to the hearing, hearing room here on cspan3 and also to lotte you know as the house goes out this afternoon our Coverage Later will mrpgt over to cspan. Beal have all of it live for you on the cspan the committee will come to order. Before we begin i want to briefly note that the chairman emeritus mr. Sensen brener, has announced he will retire at the end of his term. We have worked together on many important issues such as surveillance reform and reauthorization of the Voting Rights act. As the former chairman of the sub Crime Committee he has helped to lead reform efforts. He is a Strong Partner in this committees bipartisan investigation into competiti