During remarks on the Senate floor Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticized President Trump amid a sharp decline in his approval rating as he approaches 100 days in office.
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00:00First hundred days. Well, this week President Trump marks a hundred days as
00:06president. It's been a hundred days of hell for American families, for our
00:13economy, and for our democracy. The start of Donald Trump's second term has been
00:19the worst start of any president in modern times. He now has the lowest
00:25approvals any president has seen through his first hundred days since they
00:30started polling 80 years ago. Tomorrow night Senate Democrats will take to the
00:37floor to highlight the disaster of Donald Trump's first hundred days. We will
00:43expose his broken promises. We'll expose his lies. We'll expose the ways he is
00:48threatening democracy. So we will take to the floor and expose Donald Trump
00:54as a disastrous president in his first hundred days. We ask America to
01:00listen. On the day he became president, Donald Trump promised a golden age for
01:06America. Today, that seems laughable. Instead of a golden age, what Americans
01:12have gotten is one of the most chaotic, corrupt, and harmful starts to a
01:17presidency in modern history. Before our very eyes, the man who occupies the Oval
01:23office is destroying the foundations of our democracy. Federal law enforcement are
01:29arresting people with little due process, even going as far as arresting a judge in
01:34Wisconsin. At least four U.S. citizens, all of them children, two suffering from
01:40cancer, have been illegally deported. It's sickening. It's immoral. Arrest a judge to try
01:47and threaten and scare judges, which he's done before, saying he's about impeachment and other
01:53things. Freedom of expression, rule of law is under attack. Government has been weaponized
02:01against the free press, against academic and judicial independence, against anyone who might
02:06disagree with Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't want to be president of a democratic republic.
02:12He has said he wants to be a king or some kind of dictator. He said, let me be a dictator for one
02:19day. But his actions show he wants to be one for much longer. Meanwhile, meanwhile, billionaires like
02:29Elon Musk have been handed the keys to the federal government with little accountability. Donald Trump
02:35claimed he's a better president than George Washington, but he takes inspiration more from the likes of
02:41Victor Orban or worse. So 100 days into Donald Trump's second term, what exactly do Americans have
02:49to feel good about? Is it that Donald Trump's trade war has pushed our country to the Greek of recession?
02:55Is it that his tariffs will cost families an average of $4,700 annually? Is it that CEOs and business
03:02owners are warning about rising costs, empty shelves, and an economic downturn?
03:08Maybe it's that the Dow Jones is on track for its worst April since 1932.
03:14The truth is, Donald Trump's presidency is no golden age. It's a disaster. The worst start to a new
03:23administration in modern times. Americans are already fed up. Americans are already beginning to see
03:30that Donald Trump has betrayed them. That Donald Trump's campaign promises before he won election
03:36and his actions as president are almost in direct contradiction on issue after issue after issue.
03:42They are seeing that Donald Trump is not on their side. He's not on the side of working families.
03:47He's on the side of the billionaires. And we're all suffering for it.
03:51So for the last two weeks, what happened during recess corroborated all of this. For the last two
04:00weeks, my Democratic colleagues and I have seen Americans' frustration firsthand. During the Easter
04:07recess, I traveled from one end of my state to the other. I visited six of seven congressional
04:13districts represented by Republicans in Congress in New York. And I spoke with small business owners,
04:19seniors, health care workers, veterans, local electors, Republicans, Democrats, independents,
04:24people from all walks of life. People are anxious about tariffs driving up their costs,
04:30about inflation eroding their paychecks, and fearful for the future of Social Security.
04:36Last week, I met with the owner of a woman's clothing shop in Suffolk County. A well-known woman
04:42in Suffolk County, head of a very successful business, Tandy's Clothes, a long-time fan of the
04:49President. She said she proudly voted for him, right when I was standing there. But now she said
04:57her small business wouldn't be able to absorb the shock of a prolonged trade war, that her costs were
05:03already up 30 percent. This is a Donald Trump voter who's angry at these tariffs. No one I met over the
05:13last two weeks believed we were entering the golden age Donald Trump promised. Instead, I heard worry,
05:20I heard frustration from Republicans, I heard a lot of buyer's remorse. And Republican members from those
05:28districts I visited are nervous, worried, scared as could be. They know their voters don't agree with
05:35Trump, but they're too scared to buck them. In the upcoming reconciliation, we'll see what they do.
05:44Will they side with Trump against what Americans need and want? Or will they have a little courage?
05:50We are very, very worried about the future of this country with so much at stake.
06:04So let's talk about what's going to happen in the Senate in this period, in this work period.
06:10Now we're going to convene at the start of the work period, this pivotal work period. And this week,
06:15Republicans are expected to begin marking up the text of their reconciliation bill.
06:21With so many problems facing our country, with the threat of a recession on the horizon,
06:26with tariffs driving costs up, and Elon Musk taking a meat cleaver to Social Security,
06:31to Veterans Care and to cancer research, what are Republicans in Congress spending their time on?
06:39They want to cut taxes for billionaires and make working people pay for it.
06:43They want to add over 52 trillion, trillion dollars to the national debt.
06:50I think of my grandson when I think of that. They want to make the biggest cuts to Medicaid ever.
06:57This is the Republican agenda. Billionaires win, American families lose.
07:05Republicans have gotten by so far with a bunch of empty and deceptive promises
07:09that none of the outrageous cuts they propose will come back to harm ordinary Americans.
07:15But their rhetorical runway is quickly going to run out. Soon they will have to show everyone the
07:23real details of their legislation, and it's not going to be pretty.
07:28Even if Republicans passed a fraction of the cuts they're proposing to Medicaid,
07:32it would devastate communities, urban, suburban, and particularly rural.
07:37The cost of health care would go up for those least to afford it. Health care workers would lose
07:42their jobs. Millions could lose coverage. And for what?
07:46So billionaires can pay less in taxes. It is a revolting, a thoroughly revolting agenda.
07:54Democrats will vehemently oppose this bill and all the harmful elements of the Republican agenda at every
08:00opportunity. Tomorrow, as I said a moment ago, Senate Democrats will take to the floor to highlight the
08:08disaster of Donald Trump's first 100 days. On Wednesday, we'll take to the Senate steps and join
08:16in one voice with our House counterparts to decry the ways this President has already,
08:22already, only 100 days in, failed our country. In the coming weeks, we'll continue to oppose
08:29deeply unqualified nominees who have no business serving in government. We've seen that already,
08:37for instance, with the antics of Mr. Hegseth. We'll also fight Donald Trump's disastrous trade war.
08:45Soon the Senate will vote on bipartisan legislation I co-sponsored, with Senators Wyden,
08:51Cain and Paul that nullifies Donald Trump's trade war. To nobody's surprise, the President's already
08:57threatened to veto this bill. Senate Republicans, who know how bad tariffs are for their states,
09:04should join us to nullify Donald Trump's trade war and ignore his veto threat. And if necessary,
09:10we should override the President's veto. These tariffs are so bad and already pushing America
09:16into recession. Recession's an economic word for shrinking growth. But what does it mean to American
09:22families? More likely to lose a job, harder to find a new job, more likely to have prices go up and not be able
09:31to afford those price increases. Finally, Senate Democrats will do what Senate Republicans refuse to do,
09:39conduct oversight on this administration. We'll do it on our own.
09:43That means pushing for investigations into the leadership failures at the Pentagon. What Hegseth did
09:49there was horrible. It means pushing back against attacks on Social Security. It means resisting the
09:56defunding of public resources like PBS. It means exposing the chilling arrests of Americans without due
10:03process. Day after day after day, we will hammer home the Republican agenda and Americans will see the
10:11difference between Democratic unity and Republican disarray. It's no wonder Republicans are in such
10:20disarray. House Republicans fighting with one another, Senate Republicans fighting with one another,
10:26and Senate and House Republican leadership's not even on the same page. That's incredible.
10:32Why? Because their programs are so unpopular with the American people.
10:41Democrats are united in our mission to lower costs for families, protect health care, defend American
10:47democracy. Meanwhile, Republicans are at loggerheads with each other. As I said, House Republicans are
10:55fighting among themselves. Senate Republicans are fighting among themselves. Leadership in both
11:02chambers are at odds. And why do Republicans face this situation where they are so at odds with one
11:08another? A simple answer again. Because their agenda is so unpopular with the American people and neither
11:15House and no Republican senator wants to be left holding this hot potato. The backlash Republicans are getting from the
11:23public. Whether it's town halls, in the streets, or through dismal polling data, should serve as a warning to our
11:31colleagues on the other side. If they proceed with their agenda, the political outcry will be enormous, just
11:37enormous. And so as long as Donald Trump pushes America down the dangerous road we're already on,
11:43he'll face resistance from Democrats, from the courts, and most importantly, from the American people themselves.