The vow by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to “change America” is a threat to the future of the nation and to conservative values, Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation’s virtual President’s Club meeting.
The left’s “version of ‘change’ is packing the Supreme Court and adding more justices; giving statehood to D.C., to Puerto Rico; giving felons the right to vote; [and] making certain that they eliminate your ability, and 153 million Americans’ ability, to have private health insurance,” said Blackburn, R-Tenn.
The senator was one of a number of prominent conservative leaders—among them columnist and commentator Victor Davis Hanson and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer—to speak at the 2020 President’s Club event, an annual meeting of conservative activists and Heritage Foundation members.
With the partisan composition of the Senate in the 117th Congress uncertain until after Georgia’s two Jan. 5 runoff races, the integrity of America’s elections must be preserved, said Blackburn. State leaders need to “make certain that individuals know their vote is going to count,” she said.
Amid the turbulence of the 2020 election, and as Americans decide between a “move towards freedom” or toward socialism, Blackburn recalled some of the success America has experienced under the leadership of a conservative Senate and President Donald Trump.
In the past four years, she said, America has strengthened trade relationships with foreign nations, improved relationships with allies, implemented tax cuts, stimulated record-breaking economic growth, and launched Operation Warp Speed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blackburn has championed Trump’s judicial nominations, especially in the case of the newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, and promised that even this week, the Senate will continue “confirming more judges to the circuit courts and to the district courts.”
Regardless of partisan control of the Senate, Blackburn says she won’t waver in her commitment to conservative values and will continue to promote policies that strengthen and secure America’s future.
The U.S. must push back “on China, because what they want to do is dominate globally,” Blackburn said, adding that China has carried out unthinkable human rights abuses and has “taken our jobs.”
“They sent us this virus, and China needs to be held to account,” she said.
In the area of technology, Blackburn said her focus will remain on ensuring Americans’ privacy is protected on the internet and necessary reforms are made to Section 230, a provision of the Communications Decency Act that shields online platforms from being held liable for the content users post on them.
With regard to health care, Blackburn said, she will continue the fight to make it “accessible and more affordable.”
Blackburn’s commitment to promote strong conservative ideas is also the mission of her new podcast “Freedom Rings.”
The podcast will discuss “faith, family, freedom, hope, and opportunity, with great patriots who are seeking to advance the conservative cause and who are working to ensure every American has the opportunity to live the American dream,” Blackburn said, according to WVLT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Knoxville, Tennessee.
With America standing at a historic crossroads, Blackburn’s “leadership is invaluable,” Thomas Binion, vice president of government relations at The Heritage Foundation, said during Tuesday’s event.
The Tennessee lawmaker is the “rare, authentic, and truth-telling politician” that America needs right now, Binion added.