'Devastating And Wildly Unpopular': Chuck Schumer Hammers Trump Over Spending Cuts

Forbes Breaking News

At a Senate Democratic press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about spending cuts in the rescission package.

Transcript

00:00all right sorry we had our picture and our historian gave us a lecture in we

00:08always have the historian at the beginning of our lunch at when the

00:11picture started which is a while back and they were supposed to be temporary

00:15only once but here we are okay I want to thank senators Hassan Lujan and Van

00:20Holland for joining us as as if kicking 17 million people off health care to

00:28give billionaires the largest take talk tax break in history wasn't enough

00:33Republicans are at it again this week Republicans are leading the charge to

00:39implement President Trump's devastating and wildly unpopular cuts that impact

00:45millions of Americans this time targeting local news throughout the country

00:50including in rural areas that lack broadband and other options to be clear

00:55gutting bipartisan investments and hurting America's standing throughout the world

01:01is not popular losing access to local news radio and weather alerts particularly

01:08in rural areas is not popular Americans rely on public broadcasting for weather

01:15alerts and these cuts couldn't come at a worse time right now after we're seeing

01:20the devastating tragedy in Texas and we're left with even more questions about

01:26what the cuts to to the weather service and to FEMA hat what effects they had that's

01:36why today I called for a full-scale in independent investigation into whether Trump and

01:44Secretary Noem's haphazard haphazard policy changes and job cuts delayed aid cost lives left our nation

01:52vulnerable to future disasters we need a full-scale investigation how did these cuts affect what

02:01happened in Texas and how will they affect the rest of the country because we know there are going

02:08to be more weather disasters occurring from one end of the country to the other so I have called for

02:16this full-scale in the independent investigation into whether their policy changes affected Texas and

02:23how they'll affect America I sounded the alarm on the nationwide risk and demanded a sweeping federal

02:31audit of FEMA's crippled ability to respond to disasters nationwide thanks to this administration

02:38heartless cuts you know Doge comes along with its chainsaw approaches they just cut cut cut they

02:44have no idea what the consequences will be and they don't give a hoot they simply want to cut

02:50whether it causes disasters and a and and prevents whether it causes disasters in the country or prevents

02:58us from dealing with natural disasters in the country Americans must be able to count on FEMA in the

03:05moments of crisis every one of us has seen that in our states the good job that FEMA has done but

03:12the flood response in Texas exposed systemic vulnerabilities created just by national

03:19desert created just by natural disasters and then made much worse by political failures we owe it to the

03:28families mourning you see those pictures of those 16 of those 26 girls it breaks my heart we must we owe it to the

03:35community still waiting for help and to all Americans that may one day face an unforeseen disaster to

03:43determine now what went wrong and fix it before another storm strikes the country the cuts have devastating

03:51impacts Americans are paying the costs speaking of costs Donald Trump campaigned as a president to lower

03:59costs he said he'd lower costs on day one but halfway through his first year his first year it's clear

04:05nothing could be further from the truth and today Americans woke up to a very troubling headline U.S.

04:13inflation accelerated in June as Trump's tariffs pushed up prices at a time when we should be helping the

04:21American people to recover financially Trump is taking a wrecking ball to economic stability even worse

04:29real wages are down for June so wages are going down costs are going up and I've talked to a whole bunch of

04:35economists in New York and elsewhere they think this is just the beginning of the inflation because it was

04:40caused by people front loading people who trade with China and other countries front loading but

04:46those extra supplies they bought those extra goods they bought are gone and now prices are going to go up

04:54and bottlenecks will increase in their opinion so so we have people's paychecks can't keep up are unable to

05:06keep up as Trump's disastrous with with Trump's disastrous agenda because it makes them pay more for

05:14groceries electricity and health care it's only going to get worse because of Republican politics Trump's trade war has

05:20been nothing but a tax on the American people and now they're beginning to feel it and this economic harm came before the big ugly

05:32betrayal and put those two together the costs increases and cuts to the well-being of people done by the big ugly

05:42betrayal and now the tariffs it's a pincer just squeezing the American people Republicans couldn't make it any

05:51clearer they will roll out the red carpet for billionaires and special interests but programs American families rely on

05:58them they don't give a hoot again to be clear gutting bipartisan investments compromising our national

06:05security hurting America's standard throughout the world is not popular losing access to local news radio

06:13weather is not popular these cuts that Republicans are pushing help to continually establish America as a

06:21leader leader that these cuts that helped America establish itself as leader on the world stage well now

06:29it's being filled by the vacuum these cuts create by China and Russia very bad for us so when Republicans

06:39claim we don't have funding for these critical programs whether it's cutting local news or cutting these foreign

06:46policy issues would help us fight China and Russia abroad when they claim they don't have the money for

06:52it we say bull what about the tax cuts to the wealthy you had the money for that Senate Democrats are going to

07:00continue sounding the alarm on these devastating and short-sighted cuts and now let me

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