-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I thank my colleagues, the ones I have heard so far--Senator Blumenthal, Senator Coons. I know Senator Klobuchar will be great as always, as will Senator Baldwin. But I thank them all for coming.

Democrats are holding the floor late tonight to expose the disaster of Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. We will be speaking for several more hours.

This week marks the 100th day of Donald Trump's second term as President of the United States. It has been 100 days from hell, and people are fed up.

One hundred days in, the legacy of Donald Trump's second term is already set: chaos, corruption, costs. It is chaos, one fiasco after another. One minute, Donald Trump and his people say one thing, and then they say it is the opposite, and then they say something else entirely. Nobody ever seems to know which way is up, and many of them just lie outright to the American people.

It is corruption. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans are highjacking the government, raiding the public's piggy bank, and picking the pockets of the American people to enrich themselves. These billionaires are using the government to even make more money. It is despicable. We have never seen anything like it, the level of corruption and self-dealing, in America before.

MAGA grifters are getting rich off meme coins, and the White House lawn has been turned into a Tesla dealership. It makes Americans cringe. This is not the American way. This has not been a hallmark of our history.

Maybe most of all, it has been 100 days of costs--costs going up and up and up because of tariffs; costs to working people because programs vital to them--Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, housing, SNAP--are being threatened or even already taken away to some extent, and it will be a greater extent once we see their reconciliation bill.

So Donald Trump promised a golden age on the day he took the oath of office. What Americans are learning instead is it is fool's gold. Americans got corrosion, erosion, and rot--corrosion across this administration, erosion across this economy, and rot within the foundations of our democracy.

So tonight, Senate Democrats come to the floor to expose this administration for what it is: a full-frontal attack against the fabric of America, a full-frontal attack on our economy and on people's pocketbooks, and a full-frontal attack, finally, on working people in the middle class to take away people's Medicaid, their Social Security, veterans' care, healthcare, and more--all to give tax cuts to the very wealthy.

Another way to describe this administration: Billionaires win, American families lose.

There is a cabal of very greedy people who run the White House. They are rich. They have no understanding of what average Americans go through. And they plunder the government, then slash programs we so desperately need for average families--all for tax cuts for the rich.

And there is a second thing they are doing. They are destroying the guardrails of government. They are destroying every part of anything that opposes them, all so they can take more money away from working people and give it to themselves.

Let's talk about it. First and most urgently, maybe--they are all very urgent; that is the only reason I say ``maybe.'' But the first 100 days of Donald Trump have meant 100 days of rising costs. For months before he became President, Trump promised that if elected, costs would go down, that America would be affordable again. Well, prices haven't gone down. Quite the opposite. Groceries up; gas and energy prices up; clothing, cars, homes up.

What about retirement savings? Down.

What about consumer confidence? Down. In fact, consumer expectations are at their lowest level in over a decade. The stock market is on pace for its worst 100 days of any Presidential term since Nixon.

What happened to Donald Trump bragging about the stock market like he always liked to do? There is not much to brag about these days.

No President in history has promised more on day one and delivered less by day 100 than Donald Trump. In record time, the President has turned his golden promise into an economic ticking time bomb. It gets worse every day. He is trying to call it progress. He says to people: Americans won't mind paying more. That is the arrogance of a billionaire--the arrogance of a billionaire.

Thanks to Donald Trump's stupid trade wars--which have failed to rein in countries like China--CEOs and small business owners are warning about rising prices, empty shelves, disrupted supply chains. We urge national retailers to be honest with their constituents, with their customers. I urge national retailers, when you post prices online for your products, show the consumer exactly how much tariffs are added to the total price. Cars would have been X dollars, but now they are X plus Y dollars.

Show it to the American people because it is hurting you, retailers. Don't let them blame you. They should be blaming Trump. Be honest with your customers. Show them exactly how Donald Trump's tariffs are making prices go up. Americans deserve to know who is picking their pockets.

And smaller businesses shouldn't take a downfall of Donald Trump either. His policies are forcing them to an impossible choice: hike your prices or risk shutting down your doors.

On Long Island, a small business owner told me she is losing sleep over tariffs. She proudly voted for Donald Trump but told me she is seeing her costs rise 30 percent. She is frustrated--frustrated that the President she supported put her whole business, which she put everything into, at risk.

Donald Trump's tariffs are a MAGA double whammy. Not only are they eating the people's bottom lines, his chaotic approach makes it harder for people in businesses to plan ahead at all. If you are a business, you don't know what he is going to do 2 weeks from now or 5 weeks from now, so you don't spend. You don't build a new plant. You don't hire the new worker. Small businesses have to cut back because they don't have a cushion. Every business is getting clobbered by Donald Trump's chaotic tariff policies.

And even if Donald Trump ended Trump's tariffs tomorrow, the damage is already done because leaders don't know what he is going to do next.

It is not just the tariffs, the prices, and recession. Americans are worried about the costs of cutting to their healthcare, cutting their Social Security, cutting Medicaid. They are going to slash Medicaid.

I was in six of the Republican districts in New York State last week. All six had Democrats, Republicans, Independents frightened to death about what will happen if Medicaid is cut. They could lose their jobs. Elderly people could be kicked out of nursing homes. Healthcare would diminish for everybody.

And when they are cutting the healthcare of veterans, these people who served us are told: ``Go away.''

And the cruelty with which they are firing people in the VA and other Agencies--I know one woman who was a former veteran. She served our country, risked her life, got injured. She was helped by the VA, then decided to work there. She saw the good work they were doing. She loved her job. She didn't get paid that much, but she loved helping her fellow veterans.

One night, Friday night, she comes home and on her computer is: You are fired. Don't show up to the office until further notice.

This woman was distraught. Why was she fired? What did she do wrong? What of her services serving the veterans at the Buffalo VA home--what services were not needed, were superfluous, were waste? There were none. She was just cruelly fired.

Only an administration that exhibits a meanness--almost a viciousness--would do it. But that is what Trump, DOGE, and Musk and all their henchmen who work there are doing.

This is just a terrible, terrible 100 days for anyone who depends on Medicaid. And that is a huge number--tens of millions of people in America.

And there is also chaos in so many other places. Every single day, Donald Trump's administration lurches from one crisis to the next. For all their talk of bringing back meritocracy, their administration seems addicted to chaos and incompetence--hardly meritocratic. Every day, there is a new decision, new reversal, new course correction, only to give way the next day to whatever impulsive decision comes next.

Tariffs are a great example. One day he says yes to tariffs. The next day he says: No, I am negotiating with countries. Oh, no, maybe I am not. This tariff is going to stay in place. This one will be reduced. Then he flips it.

Again, no sound businessperson is going to plan ahead. That is why, not Democrats, but places like the big banks and big analysts say chances of a recession could be as high as 60 percent.

What does a recession mean to the average family? You could get laid off. If you need to find a job, it is harder. Costs go up. Stagflation is likely to occur. It is nasty, brutal to people.

So chaos is there; and chaos, of course, is in foreign policy. I was amazed last week on one day when Donald Trump was over at the Vatican, he says he had a great talk with Putin and acted like there was going to be a deal. Next day, he says: I had a terrible talk with Putin, and he didn't even talk to Putin in between. He makes it up. Whatever he thinks will appeal to people that moment, he says. And he doesn't even know what appeals to people. It is really what appeals to his own ego, which seems to be governing this country more than any rational policies or caring.

The chaos makes Americans' heads spin--firing people who manage our nuclear arsenal, then saying: Never mind, oops. But, you know, when you fire people, they don't all come back. Of course, their morale is shaken. These are good people who worked so hard for so long.

The long and short of it is this: Donald Trump's 100 days is 100 days of corruption, cronyism, of higher costs--much higher costs to the American people. It really is awful. The poll numbers show it. But we don't need the poll numbers to tell us. We have all been back in our districts. We are hearing it. We are not just hearing it from Democrats. We are not just hearing it from people who are out on the streets protesting. We are hearing it from average folks who don't really care about politics but are getting hurt, and it is making them look at Donald Trump and say: Whoa, this is not what I bargained for.

And, of course, last but not least is the threat to our democratic republic. He is acting like a King, a mob boss, a wannabe dictator. He said he wanted to be a dictator on day one; it looks like he is extending it. Any quarter of opposition that might say something in our tradition of free speech and debate, he tries to crush--crush the law firms, crush the universities, go after the judges which have been a foundation of our Republic. The judges are independent and are able to stop an executive that is going too far.

When the Founders drafted our Constitution, they feared a man like Donald Trump who sees the rule of law as a nuisance, considers the truth an inconvenience, regards his fellow citizens as little more than subjects: Kiss the ring, bow before the throne, or watch your back. That is the ethos of Donald Trump.

He has moved with lightning speed to weaponize the Federal Government against anyone he thinks might oppose him. He doesn't believe in democracy, debate, or honest disagreement. He simply wants to crush his opponents. That is what dictators do.

What is so interesting, Madam President, Americans are as angry about that as they are about their higher costs because the roots, Donald Trump, of democracy go deep in the American people. And the American people will not tolerate--will not tolerate--your disruption, your threat, your trying to end, in a sense, our democracy.

Good news is this: Donald Trump's destructive agenda has one great weakness--the American people themselves. Most Americans vehemently reject the path which he is trying to take our country on costs, on chaos, on corruption, on democracy. The American people are not giving up. They are standing up. They are organizing. They are resisting, and Democrats are standing with them shoulder to shoulder and with our country.

As America marks the first 100 days of the worst President of our lifetimes, I ask Americans to look at this administration for what it is--a full frontal attack on the core elements of what makes America truly great: The rule of people over kings and oligarchs; the rule of law, not the dictates of an authoritarian; respect for the rights of all people, respect for all people; and a commitment to promoting the general welfare for the whole, not cruel and cheapskate voting.

Let us commit ourselves, all of us--Democrats here in the Senate-- against this administration and to uphold the core values and principles of this beautiful Nation which we must fight to preserve and protect.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source