Senate Democratic leaders hold their weekly press briefing.
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00:00okay thank you everybody for being here I want to thank Senator Coons Baldwin and
00:12Warnock for joining me today so this morning President Trump came to the
00:17Capitol to push for their one big beautiful bill it's not beautiful it's
00:22ugly it's nothing short of one big grift on the American people she's very nice I
00:40like her Trump can meet with House Republicans as many times as he likes
00:46but it doesn't change the facts this bill kills jobs explodes the deficit and
00:52overwhelmingly helps the rich their plan is simple billionaires win American
00:59families lose on jobs Trump and the Republicans want to pay for billionaire
01:04tax cuts but killing critical clean energy projects throughout the country
01:10under Trump Chinese government Chinese industry is far outpacing the United
01:17States on clean energy he's literally ceding our leadership to Chinese
01:22companies in 10 years from now because clean energy is the future it's cheaper
01:26and better it's going to hurt our country our families our children in so many ways
01:32this ideological obsession that the hard right led by the oil gas and coal
01:38industry have against clean energy is going to be very harmful it's going to be
01:42one of the worst there are many one of the worst things that this administration is
01:46doing in history will show it and then of course the tax giveaways to the budget
01:52proposal that would add 52 trillion dollars to the national debt over the next 30 years
01:58despite claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility this administration Trump
02:04and the Republicans would add 50 trillion dollars 50 trillion dollars to the debt
02:10this plan isn't for all Americans it's not even for most Americans according to a study by Wharton
02:17under the Republicans plan the top 10 percent of Americans get 65 percent of the benefit of the
02:23tax breaks and many Americans making less than fifty one thousand dollars a year would actually see
02:29their incomes go down go down and despite campaigning on it Trump just this morning completely backed down
02:38from his promises on state and local tax deduction he came to Long Island he
02:43campaigned he said he wants to help the policemen and the firemen and the
02:47teachers the small business folks by getting by making sure that that cap is
02:54raised and he just did 180 degree reversal pulling the rug out from under the New
02:59York and New Jersey and California Congress members who said that Republican
03:04Congress members said they needed this let's see if they stand strong they
03:08said they're going to do everything they can to get that salt cap up let's see where
03:12they are it was incredible I don't believe let's okay we'll leave it at that it was
03:19Donald Trump who created this disaster when he put the salt caps in during his
03:24first term it's like the arson is promising to put out the fire when he says now he
03:29wants to change it so Senate Democrats will fight all of these cuts in their utter cruelty of
03:36this legislation Senator Coons thank you Senator Schumer Donald Trump promised in
03:45his campaign he would reduce costs facing working families on day one instead he's
03:51pushing House Republicans to pour more gasoline on our national debt and deficit
03:57and inevitably raise costs for borrowing and for all the American people Moody's has
04:04already sounded the alarm on the utter lack of fiscal responsibility in the
04:08House reconciliation bill by downgrading our national debt for the first time in
04:13over a hundred years because the Republican proposal would add so much to our
04:19national debt it increases the debt by over 7% over the next decade jobs will
04:25fall by more than 800,000 and recent polls show that 90% of Americans are worried
04:32about a recession because of this most expensive bill in American history what
04:38are its priorities well it throws something like 13 million Americans off
04:43of health care whether because it gets rid of tax cuts that make the Affordable Care
04:47Act affordable or because it changes the way Medicaid works for our country
04:52that'll impact every single American wait times and emergency rooms will go up the
04:57cost will be spread out and all of us will bear higher health care costs at the
05:03end of the day I can't think of a faith that teaches that it is good to take away
05:09food from hungry children and seniors to take away access to health care for those
05:15who are at the dawn of life for the end of life and to take those resources and
05:19instead give them to those who are already among the wealthiest in our society
05:24Penn Wharton which has a detailed model of how budget proposals will impact our
05:29economy in our country says the poorest fifth of Americans will lose a thousand
05:34dollars next year if this bill passes while the top 1% will each get at least
05:39four hundred thousand dollars the end of the day all these numbers amount to one
05:43thing the reconciliation bill that the Republicans are trying to send over from
05:47the House is a bad deal for America it's a bad deal for working families it's not
05:53righteous it's not just and it's not sustainable thank you
05:59thank you so good afternoon I am here to speak on behalf of the nearly 14 million
06:07Americans whose health care is on the chopping block right now in this bill
06:12Republicans are advancing a plan to take away care from millions of working
06:17families so that the super wealthy can get richer so big corporations many of
06:23which we know jack up the costs of health care and drugs in the first place
06:27don't have to pay their fair share these are giveaways for their wealthy
06:34friends at the cost of Americans health and their lives that's the deal while
06:40Republicans squabble over just how many Americans they're willing to kick off their
06:47insurance will continue holding their feet to the fire who will pay the price so rich
06:54folks can get richer a single mom who has two jobs and no time for extra
07:00paperwork a working family who can only afford their coverage thanks to the
07:06marketplace tax credits rural hospitals that depend upon Medicaid to keep their
07:12doors open all these Americans health care and more are on the chopping block so
07:19that big corporations can become more profitable the truth is Republicans know
07:25this is unpopular we are watching them outright lie to their constituents about
07:32what their bill actually does we are watching them hide from their constituents and try to tell
07:39people not to believe their lying eyes today's latest proof point comes from the
07:46president himself he sees the writing on the wall he said to House Republicans
07:54earlier today and I paraphrase don't f around on Medicaid welcome to the party mr.
08:03president I pledged to work with anyone to do right by Wisconsin and I welcome the
08:10president's sudden epiphany I hope president Trump for once uses his iron grip over Republicans to
08:19help and not hurt Americans and not got Medicaid if not these cuts to Medicaid are his legacy and he owns that
08:32that the issue is not going away quietly into the night we'll continue raising the alarms telling the
08:40stories of the real people who are getting the rug pulled out from under them and fighting back
08:46so the so the Republicans have a real problem they are trying to cut 880 billion dollars out of Medicaid and
09:02there is not enough waste fraud and abuse to cut 880 billion dollars from Medicaid not even close
09:10and so they are coming after people's health care pure and simple and they'll find many ways to talk
09:20about this they'll talk about work requirements but let's be clear what they're talking about they're
09:27they're really talking about work reporting requirements we have already seen this experiment in Georgia our
09:35governor has a program called pathways to coverage he ought to call it roadblocks to coverage we've got
09:43over 500,000 people in Georgia who are in the health care coverage gap a lot of those folks could be covered right
09:50now if Georgia would just accept the Medicaid expansion and said instead we've seen this program and 20
09:59months later they've covered a whopping 7,000 people that's it 7,000 people and so all of these are just
10:09tricks these efforts of putting red tape up asking people to certify their hours month after month after
10:16month does not incentivize work but it does a very good job of keeping working people off of their health
10:25care and as a result of that our workforce grows sicker and poorer and it's a drag on our economy every
10:34time I hear this I think about Heather Payne who is a traveling nurse in Georgia and ironically she spent her
10:43whole career working in health care and one day she got sick and to make a long story short she discovered
10:50she had had a series of many strokes and she needed to see a neurologist but she didn't have health care
10:56and so all of this time later she she's struggling trying to get her life back together Heather Payne traveling
11:05nurse from Georgia doesn't need work requirements she needs health care so that she can get back
11:13to work the data is very clear on this I released a report on this last week I want to see people work my
11:23daddy drilled that into me and so we're not gonna let people moralize and preach to us about work
11:29requirements while they're giving billionaires a tax cut the way to get people back to work is to have a
11:36healthy workforce and so we all must raise our voices on this budget a budget is not just a fiscal document it's a
11:46moral document show me your budget and I'll show you who you think matters and who does not and if this
11:53budget that they're trying to push through using reconciliation we're an EKG it would suggest that the
12:01Republican Party has a heart problem and that they are in need of moral repair and so we will continue
12:08to raise the voices of ordinary people and stand on the side of the people who sent us here so that
12:13they can get back to work and do the best by their families thank you senator Warnock yes
12:20the heel number one in answer to your first question it's going nuclear plain and simple
12:36it's overruling the parliamentarian and second what goes around comes around yes what is your response to
12:44the arrest and hold to the charges filed against Compton and McIver do you think Democrats can do
12:49anything look I think what they're doing is outrageous and I think that you know this is typical of the
12:56Justice Department trying to intimidate anybody who might oppose them whether they be an elected official
13:01a judge or anybody else yes the bottom line is that Donald Trump is engaged in such graft corruption
13:13with so many of these items that I wanted the bill to be a lot stronger now it was improved when we
13:19voted no the first time many of my colleagues made improvements but it was not at all tough enough
13:24on Donald Trump and his family thank you everybody