Chuck Schumer Decries 'All-Out Assault' On Medicaid In Trump's Proposed 'Skinny Budget'

During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ripped President Trump's "all-out assault" on Medicaid.

Transcript

00:00Now on the Trump budget. If you asked AI to come up with a federal budget that

00:05utterly screws over average Americans, you know what the AI would come up with?

00:09Donald Trump's latest budget proposal. So today let's look at Trump's so-called

00:14skinny budget a little more closely. It's hard to believe that this is a

00:19serious proposal. If an acted Trump budget would completely gut public

00:25safety, sometimes something they say they want to strengthen. Trump's own FBI

00:31director, Kash Patel, one of the most loyal Trumpites, testified in the House

00:36yesterday that, quote, the FBI, not quote, that the FBI can't meet its mission to

00:41keep Americans safe with the cuts in the Trump's budget. If Kash Patel, one of

00:46Donald Trump's most loyal acolytes, says this budget won't work, who else is going

00:52to come out against it? How can we take this budget seriously? If Patel is against

00:57it, so will many other cabinet officers, publicly or privately. How carefully was

01:03it even done? Did the people who put it out know they're slashing the FBI? The

01:10budget has sloppy and reckless written all over it, and even Kash Patel agrees. And

01:15that's not all. The Trump budget would also strangle American families. It's an

01:19all-out assault on American health care. Under Donald Trump's budget, America's

01:24housing crisis would go from bad to worse. Hell will freeze over before

01:28Democrats entertain anything remotely close to Trump's budget. This budget

01:32proposal is dead on arrival in the Senate, and anything close to it will go

01:37nowhere as well. On Medicaid and CBO, the Republicans right now are struggling

01:43with a very basic idea that the truth sometimes hurts. In their case, the truth is

01:48that Republican policies are so deeply unpopular with the American people,

01:53Republicans are realizing that, and it's left them paralyzed. Now that Republicans

01:58actually have to produce a bill, reality is catching up with them. No more bland

02:02words, no more words, don't worry, we'll protect you. The budget shows what they're

02:07actually up to. Yesterday, the CBO reported that no matter which scheme of

02:11Medicaid cuts Republicans are likely to choose, the result will be that millions will

02:17become uninsured. Republicans can try in any way to make their bill work, but their

02:22numbers just don't add up. There's no way for Republicans to accomplish their

02:26massive tax giveaways without devastating millions of working people, middle-class

02:30people. Even if the Republicans pass a fraction of their proposed Medicaid cuts,

02:35it still means millions will lose their health care. And for what? So that

02:41billionaires can get another tax break that they don't need? At a time of high

02:45inflation in a possible recession, that's the definition of cruelty. This is the

02:50fundamental problem Republicans are facing right now as their infighting

02:54continues, that their policies are deeply, deeply unpopular with the American

02:59people, not just blue state Republicans, but purple and red state Republicans too.

03:04Telling the American people that you want to ax their health care so that

03:08extremely rich people can pay less in taxes is a horrible message that virtually

03:13hardly anyone in America agrees with. But that is precisely what Republicans are

03:18trying to do, so it's no surprise they're eating their own tails trying to

03:22figure out how to proceed.