Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Rampant Corruption, Increased Costs And Absolute Chaos Of The Trump Administration
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the rampant corruption, exponential cost increases for the American people and absolute chaos that has defined the Trump administration thus far, specifically calling on the FBI to conduct a counterintelligence threat assessment on the Epstein files to ensure no adversary can use them to influence the President. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Just over six months into Donald Trump's second term, the American people feel deep buyer’s remorse.
As you've seen so many times, Donald Trump's big promises turned out to be duds, turned out to be more lies. He lies every day. He doesn't care. He doesn't show a bit of remorse on his face as he spews out lie after lie after lie.
Today, only 37% of people approve of the job Donald Trump is doing, according to Gallup.
Only 37% of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, according to a recent YouGov poll.
And an overwhelming number of Americans – including independents and conservatives – despise Donald Trump's “Big, Ugly Betrayal.”
These are not the signs of a golden age. This is Trump malaise, created by three things: higher costs, endless chaos, rampant corruption.
Let's talk about costs, the number one thing on Americans' minds.
Donald Trump's tariffs have been a national sales tax on the American people.
Yale Budget Lab estimated this week that the totality of Donald Trump’s tariffs will cost households $2,400 this year. That’s a lot of money.
The cost of healthcare is going to skyrocket: thanks to the “Big, Ugly Bill,” as many as 15 million Americans are going to lose their coverage.
And even if you don’t lose coverage outright, you are still in great, great danger of paying far more out of pocket – hundreds of dollars more, sometimes even thousands, for healthcare insurance.
And that’s because Republicans failed to extend the ACA’s premium tax credits, which expire at the end of the year. Twenty-four million Americans will soon get a letter in the mail telling them that their premiums are going to up in 2026.
This letter isn’t coming two years from now, as they tried, Republicans, to kick the can down the road and hide this from people. It's coming right now, folks. You're going to get those letters, those increases, in the mail. And remember: it's because of Donald Trump and the Republican senators' lack of courage to stand up for you as they bow down to millionaires.
If Republicans don’t work with Democrats to restore these tax credits, premiums are going to go up by 75%, and five million Americans will lose coverage altogether.
Let me say that again: if Republicans don’t work with Democrats to restore these tax credits, premiums are set to go up by 75%, and five million Americans will lose coverage altogether.
That is precisely what Donald Trump did to help the billionaire class and the corporate special interests, hurting, very grievously, American families, so many of them.
Now, as costs go up for the American people, so does the chaos. It’s unending. It’s exhausting. And it’s dangerous.
Donald Trump’s trade war? Total chaos. One minute he says yes to tariffs, the next he says no, and after that he changes his mind again. And the American people are going to pay a lot more because of these tariffs.
What about DOGE? Again, unmitigated chaos, and a failure at achieving any real efficiency.
DOGE has fired, re-hired, and fired again everyone from VA workers, to medical researchers, to USAID workers, to even nuclear safety personnel. It’s incredible.
The Social Security Administration is being hollowed out in real time.
They don't like Social Security, these right-wing DOGE people, even though it's the most successful government program we've ever had. But they're afraid to just shoot it through the heart, so instead they strangle it – fewer people answering the phones, fewer people solving the problems when you can't get your check, putting barriers in the way of people applying.
They’ve sent seven thousand staffers packing, wait times on the phone have gone way up, online services have gone dark at times, millions of seniors who depend on Social Security have been left anxious and betrayed and in the dark.
You can be sure, when that chaos occurs, they'll figure out how to blame someone else. But they're to blame. They did it.
And finally, as this all happens, as Americans pay out of pocket, as chaos keeps Americans distracted day after day after day, what's happening here in Washington, with all this cost increase? With all this chaos?
In addition, unfortunately, it’s unprecedented corruption.
Never in our lifetimes have we seen a president use the levers of power so transparently to personally enrich himself and his inner circle. That never happened in America. Presidents – Democrats, Republicans, independents, conservatives, liberals – they respected the fact that their office, being a high office, was a guardianship, and not to grab and reach and make money and enrich themselves. But that’s what Trump is doing regularly.
In the past few months, Donald Trump accepted a luxury plane from Qatar to use as Air Force One, and we have no clue – no clue – as to how many hundreds of millions or more in taxpayer dollars will be spent in renovations.
You have to renovate it because there could be listening devices in little nails and screws in those planes. You have to almost take it apart and put it back together, so Donald Trump can have this plane. And the way the deal works, after he leaves office, it goes to his presidential library. Can you imagine? A gift like that to a sitting president from Qatar, who we've had good and bad relations with?
And then that’s not all. He turned the South Lawn of the White House into a Tesla dealership when he was friendly with Elon Musk.
His family is getting rich off crypto schemes, selling access to the White House for profit, personal profit. Truly, the Trump administration is rampant self-dealing at an unprecedented scale, and that turns the stomachs of Americans who believe we're better than that, and there are many millions of us who believe that. We are better than what Donald Trump is doing.
And then we have Jeffrey Epstein. The more time passes, the less we all know about the truth behind Trump’s relationship with the late financier and predator.
Donald Trump promised he would release the Epstein files while he was on the campaign trail. He made that promise, and he has yet to do it.
Speaker Johnson quite literally preferred to shut Congress down early and send everyone home on an Epstein recess rather risking a vote on the Epstein files to take place.
Americans are right to be angry over the lack of transparency.
But this isn’t just about getting to the truth. This is also every bit about our national security.
Whatever may be in the Epstein files is clearly troubling enough that Donald Trump doesn’t want to touch this issue with a ten-foot pole.
So it’s natural to ask: what happens if America’s adversaries use cyber-attacks or other means to access investigative materials into Jeffrey Epstein that are embarrassing – or worse – for President Trump and the people around him?
What happens if Epstein materials end up in the hands of the Chinese government, or Russia, or North Korea?
Unless the Epstein files are released, and made fully transparent to the public, could our adversaries use that information to blackmail someone like the president? Or other senior leaders in government? What kind of risk could that pose to our national security?
So today, I am calling on the FBI to immediately conduct a counterintelligence threat assessment to ensure we understand the risk posed if a foreign adversary were to gain access to anything connected to the Epstein files.
Specifically, I am calling on the FBI to do three things.
First, we must determine if foreign intelligence agencies could gain access to the information the president does not want to release in the Epstein files, through methods that include cyber intrusion.
Second, the FBI must identify any vulnerabilities that could be exploited by foreign intelligence agencies with access to non-public information in the Epstein files, including being able to gain leverage over Donald Trump, his family, or other senior government officials.
And third, I’m calling on the FBI to publicly show they are developing mitigation strategies to counter these threats and safeguard our national security.
The idea of foreign adversaries hacking into agency files to collect information that could be leveraged against our government is not at all a remote possibility.
Whatever is in the Epstein files is clearly concerning enough that Donald Trump is running scared.
If that is in fact the case, our adversaries could certainly be interested in trying to use this information to hurt America and Americans.
We must ensure that that can never happen and that the FBI must immediately conduct a risk assessment so we’re not caught flat-footed if our adversaries already have seen these files.
National security is not – and should never be – a partisan issue. We need to do everything we can to make sure we’re protecting the U.S. and American families every single day. This report is imperative to do just that.
And there is one more thing Donald Trump could do to quell people’s anger, confusion, frustration and fears over the national security ramifications: stop running away from this issue. Tell the truth. And if there is clearly no national security risk, release the Epstein files, President Trump.
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