Wednesday on CNN’s “OutFront,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) accused President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers of helping only the wealthy while telling the rest of America “let’s fiddle” as the country is burning.
Schumer said, “We need a big, bold answer to this. I am just appalled that Leader McConnell, Leader McCarthy, and the president himself say let’s wait back and see what’s happening, maybe we don’t have to do anything. We have the biggest economic and health crisis we have had in decades, as you have mentioned. We need big, bold action, and we need it soon. We need action to help those who are unemployed deal with their lives and not lose everything, their homes, their ability to feed their kid their ability to get healthcare. We need our businesses to get the help they need. We need our state and local governments and our firefighters and bus driver and police officers not to be laid off. And our Republican friends seem to be twiddling their thumbs.”
He continued, “Tonight, amazingly enough, the president said he and the Republican Party are sticking with repealing the ACA. We have millions of people losing their health care. We have so many people who have preexisting conditions who need help. They say get rid of all that in the midst of a crisis. How tone-deaf can they be? How removed from the statistics, you’re mentioning can they be? And each statistic represents a personal heartbreak for somebody. How can they do this? I am just utterly amazed. They stick to this right-wing ideology, which helps a few, very well-to-do people and say to the rest of Americans, ‘Let’s fiddle.’ Which is what they are doing while America is, in many ways, burning.”
He added, “The bottom line is very simple. This crisis is horrible. It is so bad that if we don’t take big, bold action, our deficit will be worse. There will be fewer people paying taxes and contributing to the national wealth. It will be worse. We don’t have the situation where we can sit back and say let things unfold as they are without possibly moving into a depression. Yet that’s what Trump, McCarthy and McConnell seem to be saying.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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