Chuck Schumer Lights Into Trump, GOP Over 'Inescapable And Devastating' Healthcare Cuts In BBB

Forbes Breaking News

During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about healthcare cuts in the Republican budget.

Transcript

00:00Let me begin, Mr. President, let me begin by reading a few headlines showing what Donald Trump's so-called golden age really looks like.

00:11These are headlines from the past few weeks from the Wall Street Journal.

00:15Quote, factory activity shrinks for the sixth month. Tariffs remain a key worry. Hello?

00:22Or, how about this headline, also from the Wall Street Journal? Stagnant job market is a rising risk for the U.S. economy.

00:34Or how about from Bloomberg? Economists see slow U.S. growth, stubborn inflation, well into 2006.

00:43And finally from CBS News, quote, families are paying more for back-to-school supplies

00:50and waiting longer to finish shopping data shows.

00:53So, I guess this is Donald Trump's idea of a golden age.

00:58Parents pay more for school supplies. A job market on the brink.

01:02More and more and more inflation that hurts people's pocketbooks every week.

01:07Factories slowing to crawl month after month.

01:12That is not, it's certainly not what the American people have signed up for.

01:17This morning, the White House Press Secretary, Karen Levitt, and other senior White House officials

01:26will hold briefing sessions with GOP members about how to rebrand the big, ugly bill

01:33in hopes they can make it play better with the American people.

01:37They're squirming.

01:39They know this bill is unpopular.

01:41So, now what do they want to do? Change the name?

01:43Change the name? Changing the name isn't going to open rural hospitals that are closing.

01:48Changing the name is not going to give health care to the millions who will lose it.

01:54Changing the name is not going to cause health care premiums to go up and up and up.

02:02Donald Trump says he wants to change the name of this big, beautiful bill

02:06because, as it turns out, it's terrible.

02:12And it's a terrible name for the biggest health care and nutrition cuts in history.

02:19Americans know damn well that these Medicaid and ACA cuts are not big and beautiful.

02:26They're hideous. They're cruel. They're destructive.

02:28The fact that Donald Trump says Medicaid cuts are big and beautiful

02:36shows just who he is and just what his values are.

02:43The American people are learning who he really is.

02:46The fact that Donald Trump thinks that Medicaid cuts are beautiful

02:53reveals to America who he cares about and who he doesn't give a damn about.

03:01And the average American he doesn't care a bit about.

03:04He cares about giving his tax breaks to his billionaires

03:06and he cuts health care to do it and then he calls that beautiful.

03:11Well, maybe it's beautiful for a few billionaires.

03:14It sure ain't beautiful for tens of millions of Americans who are hurt by it.

03:19Let's be very clear, folks.

03:22The Republicans don't have a branding problem.

03:25They have a substance problem.

03:28What they did is horrible.

03:30They can call their bill whatever the hell they want.

03:34It's not going to change the fact that millions are going to lose health care.

03:37Tens of millions are going to have their premiums go up.

03:40Rural hospitals will close and research funding.

03:43Everything that saves kids from cancer is slashed.

03:49When hospitals close, when people get sick and die,

03:53they don't give a damn what Donald Trump's bill is called.

03:59They want the Republicans to stand up to Trump, Republicans here in the Senate,

04:04and reverse these cuts even though every one of them,

04:06just about every one of them voted for it.

04:10And if Republicans think that a bunch of branding briefing sessions

04:14can change the American people's views of what this bill is all about,

04:20they are colossally out of touch.

04:22I spent a month in August traveling from Niagara Falls to Glens Falls.

04:29I met with parents.

04:30I met with doctors.

04:31I met with nurses.

04:32I met with hospital people.

04:34I met with Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

04:37People detest this big, beautiful bill.

04:40It's cruel.

04:40And if you don't believe me, look at the data.

04:45Republicans, Donald Trump, look at the data.

04:51Look at what the American people think of this so-called big, beautiful bill.

04:57Americans hate the Republican big, ugly bill.

05:00Pew Research, 46% disapproved, 32% approved.

05:05Navigator, 52% unfavorable, 33% favorable about the big, ugly bill.

05:13CNN, 61% opposed, 39% approved.

05:18These are not just marginal differences.

05:23Overwhelmingly, just about every Democrat, two-thirds to three-quarters of independents,

05:31and a large chunk of Republicans hate this bill.

05:34And that's what the data shows.

05:35That's what the data shows.

05:39So the Republican problem is not difficult to understand.

05:44Why Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, the White House, the Republican senators are squirming and on their back foot

05:50is not difficult to understand.

05:53These numbers say it all.

05:55What they did is despise the number one achievement that they're going home and they think they can brag about.

06:01People hate, and that's why they're not having town hall meetings.

06:05And that's why when senators and congressmen, Republicans, go to their town hall meetings, they get booed.

06:10Not because people are mean,

06:13but because people are struggling to deal with the consequences of the big, beautiful bill.

06:20The American people know Donald Trump is dead wrong.

06:23That is why his numbers, his popularity, has declined significantly.

06:31Republicans can't magic-talk their way out of this big, ugly bill

06:36because the real-life impacts back home are inescapable and are devastating.

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