Chuck Schumer Celebrates Removal Of 'Lawless Provision' In GOP Reconciliation Bill

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In remarks on the Senate floor on Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer celebrated the removal of a provision on judicial injunctions in the Republican reconciliation bill.

Transcript

00:00On reconciliation, we've arrived at a pivotal week in the United States Senate, a week where

00:06Senate Republicans have to make a choice, either stand up for your constituents, stand

00:12up to defend Medicaid, stand up to protect millions of good-paying jobs, or stand with

00:18Donald Trump and his billionaire friends.

00:21That's the fundamental choice Republicans face with their so-called big, beautiful bill.

00:27Before the week is out, we expect Republicans will bring their bill to the floor for debate.

00:33That means very soon the Senate is going to have a long night of Voterama.

00:38When Voterama begins, Democrats will be ready.

00:42We will pick the Republican bill apart.

00:45We will put Republicans on record.

00:47We'll force Republicans to explain in multiple ways again and again and again why they want

00:53to cut taxes for the rich at the expense of working people.

00:58Even now, many Senate Republicans know their own bill is poison.

01:03One reason is that their bill will decimate rural hospitals, even more than the House bill

01:08would, as bad as that was.

01:10It will do it by curtailing the provider tax that many states use to fund Medicaid.

01:15Now they know it's terrible.

01:17So it sounds like Senate Republicans are trying to sweeten this bitter deal by adding a rural

01:23hospital fund in hopes of easing the worries of some members among their rank.

01:30But make no mistake about it, and the rural hospitals and the American Hospital Association

01:35know it, this won't work.

01:39Whatever funding Republicans would offer in a rural hospital fund would easily be overwhelmed

01:46by cuts the states would still face, by the difficulty rural hospitals would still be in.

01:54A rural hospital fund would be like putting a Band-Aid over an amputation.

02:00Again, it is not going to work.

02:04Now even before we get to Voterama, Democrats have already successfully pushed back against

02:09some of the nastiest provisions in the Republican bill.

02:14This work is certainly not done.

02:16It will continue to be an ongoing process.

02:19But Democrats will continue to use every tool available in the Senate to fight back against

02:25the Republican bill.

02:27Today I want to mention one important example.

02:30Yesterday, I announced that Senate Democrats successfully challenged a provision Republicans

02:36tried to sneak into their bill that would have stripped federal judges of their ability

02:40to enforce their own rulings.

02:43Now we all know federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration in the vast majority

02:49of cases that are currently in court.

02:51Many of the administration's most harmful executive orders have been temporarily halted through

02:57preliminary injunctions, restraining orders, and other emergency rulings by the courts.

03:03So what did Senate Republicans try to do?

03:05They tried to write a workaround into their reconciliation bill.

03:11By preventing judges from even being able to issue preliminary injunctions or restraining

03:19orders unless plaintiffs paid for the bond up front, it goes even further than what the

03:24House Republicans tried to do.

03:27That meant if someone wanted courts to put a stop to Donald Trump's freezing of federal

03:31funds or stop Doge from rummaging through people's private data or any number of abuses,

03:37there are so many, they first had to pay up before the courts could even issue a court order.

03:44That's not justice, my Republican friends.

03:47That's pay to play.

03:49It's antithetical to our system of checks and balances.

03:52And once again, the wealthy are favored, they'll be able to afford these bonds.

03:56But middle class people, poor people, many groups will not.

04:01And I'm pleased, very pleased, that we Democrats have successfully pushed back against this lawless

04:07provision.

04:08Now, to be sure, not every decision has gone our way.

04:12But we will keep fighting until the last possible moment to strip the worst parts of the big,

04:17ugly bill that have flown under the radar.

04:21None of this has been easy to do.

04:23And I want to thank all the ranking members, their staffs involved in this long technical

04:28process.

04:29My staff has done a great job.

04:31I salute them.

04:32So has Senator Merkley's staff.

04:33He's our ranking member on the Budget Committee.

04:35The hours have been long.

04:37The issues they've worked through have been immensely complicated.

04:40So I thank them for their continued good work.

04:44And let me close, Madam President, by looking forward for a moment.

04:48The debate that will take place here on the floor in the coming days will be one of the

04:53very most consequential the Senate has seen in years.

04:58At stake is the health care of tens of millions of Americans.

05:02At stake, over two million jobs in red states and blue states alike, which could throw our

05:07country into a recession.

05:09There are so many job cuts, all for tax cuts for the wealthy.

05:14But today I want to leave my Republican colleagues with this.

05:18It will also, if they proceed with their big ugly bill, they will push our nation's debt

05:27to a point of no return.

05:30If Senate Republicans try to make Donald Trump's tax cuts permanent, as they're trying to do,

05:35they will add tens of trillions to the national debt in the coming decade.

05:44Not a few trillion, tens of trillions in the coming decades.

05:48Senate Republicans know this.

05:50So what do they do?

05:52They try to use a budgetary gimmick called current policy baseline to pretend as if these

05:57Trump cuts taxes won't cost anything.

06:01This has never been done before in this way, but they're sort of desperate.

06:06Look, Republicans can use whatever budgetary gimmicks they want to try to make the math

06:12work on paper.

06:13But you can't paper over the real-life economic consequences of adding tens of trillions to

06:19the debt.

06:20They're adding the money to the debt, that's for sure.

06:23They just try to do as a paper trick so that it doesn't look like it.

06:28But it does.

06:30And interest rates will go sky high no matter what parliamentary gimmick they try to use.

06:37Higher borrowing costs for all Americans, for cars, for homes, for credit cards.

06:44Americans are going to feel these higher costs because interest rates will go up because they're

06:48making the debt so deep.

06:50And Americans are going to feel this everywhere they look.

06:55American household wealth will permanently be hobbled.

06:57Our economy will fail to reach its full potential.

07:01That is what will happen if Republicans proceed.

07:03Again, there aren't enough budgetary gimmicks in the world to change that fact.

07:09And for what?

07:10For what?

07:11Why are Republicans doing all of this?

07:14So billionaires can pay less in taxes while tens of millions lose their health care benefits

07:20and pay more for everyday expenses.

07:23I urge the Republicans not to move forward.

07:25It's abundantly clear the bill is deeply flawed.

07:28And if they do, Senate Democrats will continue to expose the Republicans' bill for the debt-busting

07:36mess that it truly is.

07:38I yield the floor.

07:39No.

07:40I yield the floor.

07:41No.

07:42No ideas.

07:42I yield the floor.

07:43Only an American household wealth will provide a better state than the nutrients for自由

07:48to vivir, but of course the

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