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April 9, 2025 04:49-05:04 - CSPAN
14:33
Senate Democratic Leaders Hold News Conference
Participants
Main
c
chuck schumer
sen/d 06:13
Appearances
r
raphael warnock
sen/d 03:03
r
ron wyden
sen/d 03:03
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Where are you going?
Or maybe a better question is, how far do you want to go?
And how fast do you want to get there?
Now we're getting somewhere.
So let's go.
Let's go faster.
Let's go further.
Let's go beyond.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talked about the potential for a global recession in the wake of President Trump's tariff announcement.
Speaking alongside fellow Senate Democrats, the minority leader called on Congress to end the tariffs.
Guys, heads up.
He's up.
chuck schumer
Good.
I'm glad you did.
Okay, I'm joined with Senator Kaine.
Couldn't make it because we're running a little late, but Senator Wyden and Warnock are joining with me against the Senate Republicans' war on American families.
Last week, Donald Trump poured gasoline on our global economy and lit a match with his devastating trade war.
President Trump introduced tariffs on so-called Liberation Day, but the only thing so far that Americans have been liberated from is economic stability.
As everyone knows right now, the nation is in tariff chaos.
No one really knows what's going on, especially the president.
These tariffs are self-inflicted catastrophe on the United States.
The market continues to teeter.
Your retirement accounts are in a whiplash.
A report by JPMorgan, now they're normally a stayed banker, but you know what the title of their report was?
There Will Be Blood.
And it warned that, quote, these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly the global economy into a recession this year.
They continued with a warning, raising the risk of recession this year to 60%.
The stock market's all over the place, but what really is bothering the American people is the potential rise, the dramatic rise in costs, what they pay for food, for medicine, for clothing, for housing, for cars, for gas.
The fact that in a recession, it's harder to get a job, advance in your job, and it's harder to, and it's more likely you'll be laid off.
It's more likely you'll pay for more.
So the American people are focused on how it will affect them in their pocketbook, whether they own stocks or not.
The choice in front of Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson is simple.
Are they going to choose Donald Trump, or are they going to choose American families?
Stand up to Donald Trump or watch him walk us directly into a recession.
And so far, they're not standing up.
Congress must take action before Donald Trump causes even more damage to the economy.
Last week, the Senate took the first step, passed Senator Kaine's resolution that would roll back tariffs on Canada to ease some pain from American families.
Speaker, Johnson must allow the House to vote on that bipartisan legislation that would reverse the senseless tariffs in our longtime ally, Canada.
Senate Democrats are trying to do more to help families worried about their costs, their retirements, economic chaos.
So that's why I was so deeply disappointed last Friday when every single Republican rejected my measure to stop any tariffs since January 20th if prices for groceries and medicines and other essential goods went up.
Every one of them voted no.
And the voters are realizing that.
Let me repeat.
Republicans had the chance to stop this pain for American families and every single one voted no.
But we won't be deterred in fighting for Americans.
That's why today I'm proud to be joining Senators Wyden, Kaine, Warnock, and others to introduce another resolution that would halt all of Trump's tariffs.
The Senate has the power and the authority to stop this madness.
We have a duty to act in a bipartisan way to repeal these tariffs.
We have the ability to put it on the floor and make them vote on it, like Senator Kaine did in his resolution.
Same with Senator Wyden's.
And now let me call on him, Senator Wyden.
ron wyden
Thank you, Leader Schumer.
And I'll be short.
First of all, Trump's tariffs have taken the U.S. economy from being the envy of the world to being a laughing stock in less time than it took to finish March madness.
I mean, basically, you just turn around and we are trying to basically dig out from under these incredible experiences so many Americans are having with their 401ks and trying to pay for essentials.
And today in the Finance Committee, we learned that the massive global tariffs are going to go into effect tomorrow.
And they said, well, maybe it would be scheduled.
And finally, we got them to admit essentially right after midnight, these are going into effect.
And they are going to hit millions of Americans with what amounts to an economic fireball in terms of its power to them.
And apropos of what the Leader just said, it seems to me now the Trump administration is squeezing folks who work for a living, senior citizens and others.
They're being squeezed from both sides.
The tariffs are hitting them right now.
They're going to get worse tomorrow.
And what we tried to do last Friday night is say, for example, that we were going to protect Medicaid for our seniors.
We lost by just one vote last Friday night, but we are going to be back because for all those Americans who I've described as being squeezed by the Trump administration, we owe them more fairness.
We owe them a fair shot.
We owe them an opportunity to get ahead.
So I'm pleased to be able to work with our caucus in two essential areas that go to the finance committee.
One of them is tariffs, the other is Medicaid.
But we've got to stay at it and mobilize Americans in every corner of the country to make sure that people on both health and their budgets, which is what the tariffs are all about, they get a more fair shot in the days ahead.
We're going to stay at it until they do.
And as the leader said, we now have a bipartisan resolution that's going to build on the Kane resolution, but try to accomplish the same thing, only for 180 nations, not just one.
chuck schumer
And Warnock.
raphael warnock
President Trump ran on a platform to lower Americans' costs, and instead, he is slamming ordinary people, hardworking families. with a huge tax on everyday goods.
Let's be clear about what this is.
This is a tax on hardworking families.
These tariffs will be a $3,800 tax increase on working people.
I want you to think about that and the implications of that at a time when a third of all Americans have only $500 in their savings account.
And so people will literally be crushed by what is happening in real time.
I can tell you that as I talk to Georgians, they want help.
They want a government that understands the challenges of ordinary people.
They want help paying for their groceries.
They're concerned about the price of saving and buying a house and buying a car.
Make no mistake, tariffs will only raise costs and make life harder for middle-class people and for hardworking families.
Ironically, the president who ran on a platform to lower people's costs is taxing hardworking people, middle-class people, the working poor, while at the same time they are laser-focused on giving a tax cut to the richest of the rich.
I think that's wrong-headed.
I think it's Robin Hood in reverse.
They're stealing from the poor in order to give to the rich.
And the people of Georgia and all across our country deserve better than this.
In contrast, my colleagues and I are focused on lowering costs.
And that's why tomorrow I'm proud that I'll be joining Senator Bennett to introduce the American Family Act, which would put money back into the pockets of families by nearly doubling the child tax credit.
Three months after I arrived here in the Senate, I'm very proud that in the American Rescue Plan, one of the first things I was able to do was to deliver on the expanded child tax credit.
It literally cut child poverty almost in half.
But we only did it for six months because we could not get it extended.
We need to reorder our priorities in this institution.
We need to pass tax relief for children and for the families that are raising these children.
And we need to make sure that the wealthy pay their fair share.
Congress has a role in it.
And my Republican colleagues need to decide, are they standing with Donald Trump and co-president Elon Musk?
Or are they standing with ordinary people?
chuck schumer
Thank you, Senator Warren.
Just one more point, one more point.
I heard that Senator Thune said a few minutes ago that he and Speaker Johnson are speaking different languages, but neither of them are speaking the language of the American people who want lower costs, who don't want to see tax breaks for billionaires, and want to see Medicaid and other vital programs kept.
unidentified
We've had decades of trade deals that have not brought down our trade imbalance with many, many countries.
That has put our factories, our workers, our farmers at a disadvantage.
chuck schumer
How would you address this problem without we have not seen, we have not seen such a chaotic across the board and um uh, highly well, let me say it again, we have not seen something as chaotic and as damaging across the board as this trade deal in decades.
It's going to be devastating for the American economy and the world economy is moving the political needle, and any Senate Value says, whether it be Maine or North Carolina.
We are seeing it move the political needle across the country because people have less and less faith in Donald Trump's handling of the economic policies of this country.
Plain and simple, we're seeing it in just about every state and the numbers continue to get worse for him and will continue to.
But the numbers aren't what's important.
It's what the American people feel, and the American people feel that he is not paying attention to their needs.
They want lower costs.
He's raising their costs.
They want the billionaires to pay their fair share.
He wants to cut them.
They want health care he's cutting that.
unidentified
Yes, when Republicans are offered to fan their gariffs, they say that this is what Donald Trump support is going to go in every rally.
He was talking about gariffs and that he should be given the deference to make these trade deals, and this fade is only decorated well.
chuck schumer
The American people I say the American people are speaking already and they don't like what they're seeing.
They're anxious, they're worried and they're worried about the chaos of what Trump is doing, in addition to worrying about how deep these tariffs, how high these tariffs go in terms of costing them.
He never outlined a policy like this.
unidentified
Yeschimer, how are Democrats going to use the recess to message about these tariffs and do you think that former senator Menendez deserves a pardon?
chuck schumer
Okay, the bottom line is that how Democrats are going to use you're going to see us talking.
We are working, Hakeem and I, our Senate and House colleagues, are going to be out there talking to the people during the recess all the time on the issue of tariffs, on the issue of Medicaid, on the issue of taxes, on the issue of social Security.
We have days planned where we're working on all these issues.
Did you want to answer something?
ron wyden
No I I, I was.
I was just going to say we also got a tax bill coming up that can help bring industry back from overseas by making it more attractive to do business in the United States rather than overseas.
Look at the Pfizer report.
A few years ago, Pfizer paid no taxes in the United States.
They basically went and did business overseas.
That's the kind of idea that the Democrats have, thank you.
unidentified
Do you believe that former senator Menendez needs a pardon?
ron wyden
Give you, oh no.
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