Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Asking Questions Of Senator Merkley On The Republican Healthcare Crisis And Trump Fleeing The Country Rather Than Negotiating To End The Shutdown

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) joined Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) today on the Senate floor to denounce the Republican shutdown and President Trump’s decision to leave the country amid a growing healthcare crisis, urging him instead to negotiate with Democrats to prevent millions of Americans from losing coverage and facing skyrocketing premiums. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:

Leader Schumer: I just want to thank the great Senator from Oregon for his strength, his fortitude, his integrity, and just shining a spotlight on this erosion of democracy under Trump in so many different ways. I've been to the floor earlier and we've talked about it. But now I'd like to ask a question about one of the most serious threats that our American people face, which is the healthcare crisis, a horrible crisis that is going to leave millions without any health insurance at all, that's going to raise premiums for people from $500 to $1,000 a month, not a year, that will close rural hospitals, that will kick people out of nursing homes, where they will have nowhere to go.

And I remind my colleagues that this president, instead of negotiating a way out that addresses the crisis with Leader Jeffries and I, is going away for six days. It's outrageous for him to leave on a foreign trip while the American people are suffering and we get closer and closer and closer to the time starting November 1st when people are going to have to make that awful decision. Do I leave my family with no healthcare at all because I can't afford it? It's a horrible, horrible decision.

Leader Jeffries and I, asked the president to meet with us before he left. He refused. The reporting is that Johnson and Thune and he were on the phone and agreed they wouldn't even talk to us. And instead he's going away while people are suffering. He ought not to do that. And what is he spending his time on instead? Eroding our democracy, doing these faux ads, screwing up, forcing networks and TV stations and media to bow to his whim, using the Justice Department as an attack dog against his enemies, arresting people, as my good friend from Oregon has pointed out repeatedly, on the streets with people, the arresting people, whoever the hell they are, they have no identification and the people are arrested without even being told why they're being arrested and who knows what the heck is going on. He is spending all his time on eroding democracy, taking away our rights. The people expect him not to go on a foreign trip. This president who fancies himself a king, but instead to do the people's business and help us, sit down with us, negotiate a way out of this healthcare crisis.

We all know, I think, and I'd ask my colleague, he knows, I believe, that before Donald Trump leaves the country, he should at the very least sit down and negotiate in a serious way and address the healthcare crisis that affects the American people. Shouldn't we be working to lower people's premiums, to keep rural hospitals open, to prevent people from being kicked out of nursing homes, to ensure that research that saves lives continues?

Shouldn't the president listen to the cares of the American people and their desperate need on healthcare, rather than taking a foreign trip? Jeffries and I asked him yesterday, we demanded really he sit down and talk to us and negotiate, not just talk to us, negotiate a serious approach to avoid all the devastating things that will occur. And he said four hours later, after conferring with Thune and Johnson, no, he wouldn't. Well, that is a disgrace.

So I would ask my colleague, I would ask him, shouldn't the president be spending time addressing the healthcare crisis, rather than spending all this time eroding our democracy? If he negotiated a fair treatment to people with their healthcare, he'd be doing something good, and when he erodes our democracy, he's doing something evil. So his priorities are wacky and misplaced and awful and so detrimental to what the American people want.

So my question to my colleague is this, and one more thing, doesn't my colleague, and there are a bunch of questions here, agree that Trump is the focal point of this healthcare crisis, that Johnson is paralyzed because of the divisions in his caucus, that Thune just goes along, that the president, this Trump, this President Trump, is the person who could get the Republicans to pass a decent proposal, a fair proposal, a proposal that helps the American people out of this crisis, and the president is the focal point because he can get [Johnson] and Thune to act and there's probably no one else. And yet, he's flying away, ignoring this issue facing the American people after he's eroded our democracy, as Senator from Oregon has pointed out, he's flying away and abandoning the American people.

Isn't it correct, does my friend from Oregon agree, that the president's priorities are so detrimental to the American people, are really perverse, in that he seems to enjoy eroding democracy and doesn't even give a damn when the American people are suffering. So I'd ask my colleague to answer that series of questions.

Merkley: My colleague from New York, the minority leader, is absolutely right. The Trump priorities are absolutely perverse. Well, here we are in a structure of the Senate. And what is the Senate about? Coming together and saying, here's where I want to go, where do you want to go? How can we make those two things work together to make America better? We can't always find the answer, but I'll tell you one thing's for damn sure, you can't find the answer if you can't sit down and have the conversation. And here we are with the House on vacation for over a month, and I guess they're getting paid, and here we are in the Senate without an agreement to just sit down and talk to each other about the framework, because it appears that the key, as you have suggested, the linchpin, is it will not sit down and offer ideas and work out a deal without Trump in the room, or Trump guiding the outcomes. So he is the factor.

So as he jets off, and in Oregon last week, people on a week ago Wednesday, they saw what their prices are going to be, the premiums are higher, the credits are lower, they've got to fill in the gap in between, and are they going to be able to afford insurance? Are they going to be able to make that decision by January 1st? They are stressed about this.

I had small businesses in yesterday, representatives from Oregon, and the vision there is Main Street is in Pain Street, because of the tariffs and because of the fact that many of them, a large share of them, buy their insurance on the exchange. And this man who runs a small company, it's a lighting for events company, and I think he said he had four employees, and he was able to talk to three of them, and the three of them said, we're not buying insurance. We can't afford it. We looked at the new prices. We can't afford it. So they're going to go without insurance. We all know the huge calamity.

Well, when the Speaker of the House that I saw on the boob tube, on the television says there's nothing to talk about, I think immediately there's 20 million reasons to talk about. Those 20 million are the 20 million Americans that are seeing these huge increases. Many of them will not be able to buy insurance at all. And let's add to that, since the bill also is just 15 months out now from slashing in a devastating fashion our Medicaid program, which in combination with the effects on the affordable care exchange will put 15 million people out of health care, 235,000 in my home state of Oregon, 70% of the kids in my rural areas are part of the Oregon health plan, our Medicaid, I can just not even conceive of the carnage that will be done to the quality of life without healthcare available to so many people.

Isn't that a hell of a number of reasons to sit down and brainstorm together? You can't get to a common purpose if you can't even talk to each other. You’re here, your office is open, you're available to talk, you're inviting them to talk, they're saying no. That is a travesty in our republic.

Schumer: So to just renew my question succinctly, does my friend in Oregon believe as I believe that before the president jets away on this foreign trip, shouldn't he sit down with Leader Jeffries and I as we wanted him very much to do, demanded he do, and negotiate a solution that addresses this horrible crisis which my colleague from Oregon has addressed in so many ways, whether it's ACA premiums or Medicaid or nursing homes or community health centers or scientific research. All of those need to be addressed and this president is flying away. Isn't that appalling?

Merkley: That is horrific that he's flying away. He absolutely should be sitting down right now and holding a conversation with you about how we solve this problem for millions of Americans.

Schumer: Let me thank my friend from Oregon for his amazing, strong, persistent efforts.

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