'That Is The Arrogance Of A Billionaire': Chuck Schumer Lays Brutal Smackdown On Trump's First 100 Days

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In Senate floor remarks on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) slammed President Trump's first 100 days in office.

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00:00Schumer. And first, I thank my colleagues, the ones I've heard so far, Senator Blumenthal,

00:06Senator Coons. I know Senator Klobuchar will be great as always, as will Senator Baldwin,

00:11but I thank them all for coming. Now, Madam President, Democrats are holding the floor

00:17late tonight to expose the disaster of Donald Trump's first hundred days in office. We will

00:23be speaking for several more hours. This week marks the 100th day of Donald Trump's second

00:32term as President of the United States. It's been 100 days from hell, and people are fed

00:39up. 100 days in, the legacy of Donald Trump's second term is already set. Chaos, corruption,

00:48corruption costs. It's chaos, one fiasco after another. One minute Donald Trump and his people

00:55say one thing, then they say the opposite, then they say something else entirely. Nobody

01:00ever seems to know which way is up, and many of them just lie outright to the American people.

01:07It's corruption. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans are hijacking the government,

01:13raiding the public's piggy bank, and picking the pockets of the American people to enrich themselves.

01:20These billionaires are using the government to even make more money. It's despicable. We've

01:25never seen anything like it, like the level of corruption and self-dealing in America before.

01:32MAGA grifters are getting rich off meme coins, and the White House lawn has been turned into a

01:38Tesla dealership. It makes Americans cringe. This is not the American way. This has not been a hallmark

01:45of our history. And maybe most of all, Madam President, it's been 100 days of costs.

01:51Costs going up and up and up because of tariffs. Costs to working people because programs vital to

01:58them, Medicaid and Social Security and Medicare, veterans benefits, housing, SNAP,

02:05are being threatened, or even already taken away to some extent, and it will be a greater extent once

02:14we see their reconciliation bill. So Donald Trump promised a golden age on the day he took the

02:21oath of office. What Americans are learning instead is fool's gold. Americans got corrosion, erosion,

02:29and rot. Corrosion across his administration, erosion across his economy, rot within the foundations

02:36of our democracy. So tonight, Senate Democrats come to the floor to expose this administration for what

02:43it is, a full frontal attack against the fabric of America, and a full frontal attack on our economy,

02:51and on people's pocketbooks, and a full frontal attack, finally, on working people in the middle

02:57class to take away people's Medicaid, their Social Security, Veterans Care, Health Care, and more,

03:03all to give tax cuts for the very wealthy. Another way to describe this administration,

03:09billionaires win, American families lose. There's a cabal of very greedy people who run the White

03:16House. They're rich. They have no understanding of what average Americans go through, and they plunder

03:22the government, and then slash programs that we so desperately need for average families,

03:29all for tax cuts for the rich. And there's a second thing they're doing. They're destroying the

03:35guardrails of government. They're destroying every part of anything that opposes them, all so they can

03:42take more money away from working people and give it to themselves.

03:47So let's talk about it. First, and most urgently, maybe, one, they're all very urgent. That's the

03:56only reason I say maybe. But first, 100 days of Donald Trump have meant 100 days of rising costs.

04:05For months before he became president, Trump promised that if elected costs would go down,

04:09the American, that America would be affordable again. Well, prices haven't gone down quite the

04:15opposite. Groceries up, gas and energy prices up, clothing, cars, homes up. What about retirement

04:22savings? Down. What about consumer confidence? Down. In fact, consumer expectations are at their

04:30lowest level in over a decade. The stock market, on pace for its worst 100 days of any presidential

04:36term since Nixon. What happened to Donald Trump bragging about the stock market like he always liked to

04:42do. Not much to brag about these days. No president in history has promised more on day one and

04:49delivered less by day 100 than Donald Trump. In record time, the president has turned his golden promise

04:56into an economic ticking time bomb. It gets worse every day. He's trying to call it progress. He says to

05:03people, Americans won't mind paying more. That is the arrogance of a billionaire. The arrogance of a

05:10billionaire. Thanks to Donald Trump's stupid trade wars, which have failed to rein in countries like

05:15China, CEOs and small business owners are warning about rising prices, empty shelves, disruptive

05:21supply chains. We urge national retailers to be honest with their constituents, with their customers.

05:29I urge national retailers, when you post prices online for your products, show them, show the

05:35price, show the consumer exactly how much tariffs are adding to the total price. Eggs would have been

05:43X, cars would have been X dollars, but now they're X plus Y dollars. Show it to the American people,

05:52because it's hurting you, retailers. Don't let them blame you. They should be blaming Trump.

05:58To be honest, be honest with your customers. Show them exactly how Donald Trump's tariffs are making

06:05prices go up. Americans deserve to know who's picking their pockets. And smaller businesses shouldn't

06:12take the downfall of Donald Trump either. His policies are forcing them to an impossible choice.

06:18Hike your prices or risk shutting down your doors. On Long Island, a small business owner told me she is

06:24losing sleep over tariffs. She proudly voted for Donald Trump, but told me she's seeing her costs rise 30%.

06:30She was frustrated. Frustrated the president she supported put her whole business, which she put

06:35everything into, at risk. Donald Trump's tariffs are a MAGA double whammy. Not only are they eating at public

06:42are the people's bottom lines. His chaotic approach makes it harder for people and businesses to plan ahead

06:48at all. You're a business. You don't know what he's going to do two weeks from now or five weeks from

06:55now. So you don't spend, you don't build a new plant, you don't hire the new worker. Small businesses

07:00have to cut back because they don't have a cushion. Every business is getting clobbered by Donald Trump's

07:07chaotic tariff policies. And even if Donald Trump ended Trump's tariffs tomorrow, the damage is already

07:15done because leaders don't know what he's going to do next. It's not just the tariffs, the prices and

07:22recession. Americans are worried about the costs of cutting to their health care, cutting their social

07:27security, cutting Medicaid. They're going to slash Medicaid all across. I was in six of the Republican

07:34districts in New York State last week. All six had Democrats, Republicans, independents frightened to

07:41death about what will happen if Medicaid is cut. They could lose their jobs. Elderly people could be

07:48kicked out of nursing homes. Health care would diminish for everybody. And when they cut veterans,

07:54they're cutting the health care of veterans. These people who served us are told go away and the

08:02cruelty which wish they're firing people in the VA and other agencies. I know one woman, she was a former

08:08veteran. She served our country, risked her life, got injured, served, got helped by the VA and then

08:14decided to work there. She saw the good work they were doing. She loved her job. She didn't get paid

08:20that much, but she loved helping her fellow veterans. One night, Friday night, she comes home and on her

08:26computer is, you're fired. Don't show up at the office until further notice. This woman was distraught.

08:32Why was she fired? Why was she fired? What did she do wrong? What of her services serving the veterans

08:38at the Buffalo VA home? What services were not needed? Were superfluous? Were waste?

08:47There were none. Just cruelly fired. Only an administration that exhibits a meanness,

08:54almost a viciousness, would do it. But that's what Trump, Doge and Musk and all their henchmen who work

08:59there are doing. So this is just a terrible, terrible hundred days for the anyone who depends on Medicaid.

09:09And that's about, that's a huge number, tens of millions of people in America.

09:15And it also, there's also chaos in so many other places. Every single day, Donald Trump's administration

09:25lurches from one crisis to the next. For all their talk of bringing back meritocracy,

09:31their administration seems addicted to chaos and incompetence, hardly meritocratic. Every day,

09:38we see a new decision, a new reversal, a new course correction, replace what came the day before,

09:42only to give way the next day to whatever impulsive decision comes next. Tariffs are a great example.

09:50One day, he says yes to tariffs. The next day, he has no. I'm negotiating with countries. Oh no,

09:56maybe I'm not. This one's got, this tariff is, this tariff is going to stay in place. This one will

10:01be reduced. Then he flips it. No, again, no business person, no sound business person

10:09is going to plan ahead. And that's why not Democrats, but places like the big banks and the big analysts say

10:16the chances of a recession could be as high as 60%. And what does the recession mean to the average

10:22family? You could get laid off. If you need to find a job, it's harder. Costs go up, stagflation,

10:30which is likely to occur. It's nasty, brutal to people. So chaos is there and chaos, of course,

10:39is in foreign policy. I was amazed. Last week, on one day, Donald Trump over at the Vatican says,

10:45I had a great talk with Putin and acted like there was going to be a deal. The next day says,

10:50I had a terrible talk with Putin. And he didn't even talk to Putin in between. He makes it up.

10:57Whatever he thinks will appeal to people that moment, he says, and he doesn't even know what

11:02appeals to people. It's really what appeals to his own ego, which seems to be governing this country

11:08more than any rational policies or caring. The chaos makes Americans head spin.

11:18Firing people who manage our nuclear arsenal and then saying, never mind, oops. But you know,

11:23when you fire people, they don't all come back. And of course, their morale is shaken. Good people

11:28who work so hard for so long. So the long and short of it is this. Donald Trump's 100 days, 100 days

11:40of corruption, of cronyism, of higher costs, much higher costs to the American people.

11:47It really is awful. The poll numbers show it, but we don't need the poll numbers to tell us. We've all

11:53been back in our districts. We're hearing it. And you know, we're not just hearing it from Democrats.

11:59We're not just hearing it from people who are out on the streets protesting. We're hearing it to

12:04average folks who don't really care about politics, but are getting hurt. And it's making them look at

12:09Donald Trump and say, whoa, this is not what I bargained for. And of course, last but not least,

12:17this is a threat to our democratic republic. He's acting like a king, a mob boss, a wannabe

12:23dictator. He said he wanted to be a dictator on day one. It looks like he's extending it.

12:28Any quarter of opposition that might just say something in our tradition of free speech and

12:34and debate, he tries to crush, crush the law firms, crush the universities, go after the judges,

12:44which have been a foundation of our republic, that judges are independent and are able to stop

12:49an executive that's going too far. When the founders drafted our constitution, they feared a man like

12:58Donald Trump, who sees the rule of laws and nuisance, who considers the truth and inconvenience, who

13:03regards his fellow citizens as little more than subjects, kiss the ring, bow before the throne,

13:08or watch your back. That's the ethos of Donald Trump. He has moved, with lightning speed,

13:17to weaponize the federal government against anyone he thinks might oppose him. He doesn't believe in

13:23democracy, debate, or honest disagreement. He simply wants to crush his opponents. That's what

13:27dictators do. And what is so interesting, Madam President, is Americans are as angry about that

13:33as they are about their higher costs, because the roots, Donald Trump, of democracy go deep

13:38in the American people. And the American people will not tolerate, will not tolerate your disruption,

13:49your threat. You're trying to end, in a sense, our democracy.

13:56So, the good news is this. Donald Trump's destructive agenda has one great weakness,

14:03the American people themselves. Most Americans vehemently reject the path which he's trying to

14:08take our country, on costs, on chaos, on corruption, on democracy. The American people are not giving up,

14:16they're standing up, they're organizing, they're resisting, and Democrats are standing with them,

14:21shoulder to shoulder, and with our country. So, as America remarks the hundred days of the worst

14:28president of our lifetimes, I ask Americans to look at this administration for what it is,

14:35a full frontal attack on the core elements of what makes America truly great.

14:42The rule of people over kings and oligarchs, the rule of law, not the dictates and authoritarian,

14:47respect for the rights of all people, respect for all people, and a commitment to promoting the

14:52general welfare for the whole, not cruel and cheap scapegoating. So, let us commit ourselves,

14:59all of us, Democrats here in the Senate, against this administration, and to uphold the core values,

15:08the principles of this beautiful nation, which we must fight to preserve and protect. I yield the floor.

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