Leader Schumer Remarks At Congressional Democrats’ Press Conference On Trump’s First 100 Days In Office

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), along with Senate and House Democrats today spoke on the chaos and economic pain of the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

I want to welcome my Senate colleagues and my House colleagues here today to talk about Trump's first 100 days. Donald Trump's first 100 days can be defined by one big F word: failure. Failure on the economy. Failure on lowering costs. Failure on tariffs. Failure on foreign policy. Failure on preserving democracy. Failure on helping middle-class families.

Today's new economic news showed that Donald Trump is running the American economy the way he ran his family business—into the ground. Into the ground.

On tariffs, what a failure. It's a policy that's in total chaos. One day he says one thing, one day he says another. Maybe this country has tariffs, maybe this country won't. Even his policy advisors are at a loss to explain what he's doing and as a result, instead of all of us in the world going after China, China now has allies all over the world going after us. Tariffs—a failure.

On costs, Donald Trump said on day one he'd lower costs for American families. They are up and up and up, and the tariffs are making it worse. Costs will go up by about $4,000 for the average American family. People’s IRAs have lost close to $100,000. Small businesses, medium-sized businesses, large businesses are frozen because they don't know what Trump’s going to do, and that constrains supplies and raises costs. Failure on foreign policy. Instead of standing up to bullies, Trump is succumbing to bullies. He's being bullied by the dictators of the world, and again, he's broken our alliances in Europe, and so all the world now looks askance at America.

Failure on DOGE. DOGE was supposed to bring efficiency. What instead is it doing? Cutting Social Security, cutting medical research, cutting costs. Failure on helping American families. Cutting taxes on the rich and paying for it by slashing Medicaid, strangling Social Security, hurting our veterans. Total failure on helping American families.

And who is complicit in all of this? The Republicans in the House and Senate are co-conspirators. They are complicit. They are aiding and abetting all of Donald Trump's failures. They're not standing up to him once. They're involved, and they will shoulder the blame.

Finally, on democracy. Donald Trump is trying to ruin our democracy. He has changed the Justice Department into an attack dog for his political enemies. The hallowed, fair Justice Department—he's washing it away. He is a would-be dictator. He wants to be a king.

And again, our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are complicit. So Donald Trump's first hundred days are an abject failure. And we Democrats here and around the country will fight him at every turn.

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