On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate Floor about the proposed Republican-backed reconciliation package and the threat it poses to Medicaid.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Madam President, a few minutes ago, for the second time this year, Senate Republicans
00:23began the process to pass legislation eviscerating Medicaid, abandoning our kids, failing our
00:32veterans and squandering our future, all for the sake of tax cuts for the ultra-rich.
00:40This is the Republican agenda.
00:45Billionaires win, American families lose.
00:52Billionaires win, American families lose in the Republican plan.
00:58And Republicans have failed to be honest with the country about the true nature of their
01:02plans.
01:03They have tried to hide their Medicaid cuts.
01:06They have tried to hide their billionaire tax giveaways with budgetary gimmicks and
01:11distractions.
01:12They are tying themselves in knots.
01:15They don't want the American people to know what their agenda is.
01:20Well, if Republicans won't be straight with the American people about their agenda, Senate
01:26Democrats are glad to do it for them.
01:31Tonight, my colleagues and I will begin to put the Republican agenda on trial before
01:39the Court of Public Opinion here on the floor of the Senate.
01:43It's going to be a long few days for Senate Republicans.
01:49Democrats will expose the dark corners of the Republican plan.
01:52We will explain the devastating consequence, highlight the many injustices that Republicans
01:57will inflict on people's health care, on their financial security, on their children's future,
02:04and on the very future of the American dream itself.
02:09We begin tonight with a topic close to home for all of us, Medicaid.
02:15It's my honor to join my fellow Democrats to lay the case before the American people
02:21for how Republicans plan to destroy Medicaid as we know it and harm millions and millions
02:29and millions of Americans.
02:34We will share the stories of people back home.
02:38We will illustrate the full scale of the destruction these cuts would do.
02:43And we will make it clear to the American people, while Republicans work like hell to
02:48eliminate Medicaid, to cut taxes for the rich, Democrats are fighting to protect the health
02:54care the American people deserve and need.
02:59And Medicare will be the first of six different themes that we'll focus on here on the floor.
03:07Tomorrow, we will be focused likewise as we debate this bill.
03:12On Republicans' morally bankrupt tax breaks for billionaires.
03:17On Donald Trump's dumb and costly tariffs.
03:21On the need to stand up for our veterans and our national security.
03:25On the unprecedented corruption Donald Trump has unleashed in our government.
03:31And finally, on the existential fight to protect social security from the chainsaw
03:39of Elon Musk.
03:42These are the themes we will cover today and tomorrow.
03:45This is the fight the American people need to see because people's lives and livelihoods
03:50are at stake.
03:52The health care that protects our kids is in danger.
03:56Our children, their health care is in danger.
03:59The benefits that keep our seniors whole are at risk.
04:04Senior citizens in their golden era could have Medicaid, the rug, pulled out from under
04:08them, leaving them in dire straits.
04:12The investments that unlock America's future now stand on the edge of a knife.
04:19Why?
04:20Why?
04:21Why are Republicans doing this?
04:22Why are they being so cruel, so callous, so thoughtless?
04:27Why are those in the billionaire bubble who seem to run Donald Trump and Elon Musk?
04:33Why are they doing this?
04:35Very simple.
04:37They're trying to give the ultra-rich another tax break.
04:41The Republicans are enthralled with these very wealthy, very greedy people.
04:48And all they want is a tax break.
04:50And when Donald Trump became president, they got control of the Republican Party.
04:55And Elon Musk and Donald Trump are in the billionaire bubble.
05:04And when Democrats expose all these cuts to health care and veterans aid and benefits
05:10for the American people to see, the American people will think it's sickening.
05:17So tonight, let us begin with Medicaid.
05:2070 million, 70 million people rely on Medicaid in one way or another to provide medical care.
05:29And tens of millions more are their families and friends.
05:34That includes not just seniors who are the 70 million, but also newborns, parents, Americans
05:41with disabilities, rural communities that have access perhaps to a single hospital or
05:45clinic if they're fortunate.
05:48Medicaid, Medicaid makes all these things possible.
05:52I want to focus on a truly sobering experience I had earlier this week, visiting two nursing
05:59homes in New York, Silver Lake Specialized Care and Rehab Center on Staten Island and
06:06Carillon Nursing Home and Rehab on Long Island.
06:10These institutions alone, there's just two of them, serve over 600 residents together
06:15and employ 600 people.
06:17They have a lifeline to a local community.
06:20They help seniors with dementia, with post-surgical rehab, physical disability and so much more.
06:28It was my my visit to these communities was clouded by a shadow of fear and anger.
06:33I talked to senior citizens who knew if Medicaid was cut, they'd lose their health care.
06:39In fact, the owner of Silver Lake, one of the most esteemed health care facilities on
06:43Staten Island, told me if the cut were even half what the Republicans are proposing, his
06:49home would close.
06:52Hundreds of senior citizens would have no health care.
06:56Three hundred people would lose their job.
06:59They were frightened.
07:00They were scared.
07:01They were angry.
07:06There's no question about it.
07:09Even if Republicans pass a fraction of the cuts they're pushing, it would devastate these
07:14communities.
07:15We had the heads of major hospitals, many of them not the same party as mine, there
07:20telling us what would happen if these devastating cuts to Medicaid went through.
07:24On Staten Island, we estimated 18,000 people would lose their jobs.
07:29Tens of thousands would no longer get health care.
07:31It would cause a recession on Staten Island like that.
07:38Seniors at the centers, new seniors, who were getting out of hospitals or have a new
07:43illness that they were just encountering, would be turned away.
07:47There'd be no funding.
07:48There'd be no beds.
07:49There'd be no place for them to go.
07:52And most of the residents, it's not just the residents at these nursing homes, it's their
07:56children who now can breathe easy that their parents who helped raise them and worked so
08:03hard through the years to provide for them, their children now, Staten Island's a middle
08:09class community, so is Long Island, the place I visited, the two places I visited.
08:16But their kids would not be able to care for most of them.
08:21Most of them need more health care than just going back to their kids' home.
08:27It's not enough, not adequate health care for so many of them.
08:31And others said their children had no extra room for them.
08:36What are even the kids going to do?
08:40Both Staten Island and Long Island, these are middle class communities.
08:44They're going to be devastated by these cuts.
08:50Residents said, some of the residents said their children might be able to take care
08:53of them, but the burden would be immense.
08:55These families don't have the financial means to take care of their parents in their advanced
08:59age.
09:00They don't have space at home.
09:02They don't have the medical know-how to meet the needs like a nursing home does.
09:07And any of you, the millions of Americans who have a parent who's struggled with dementia
09:12or physical disabilities, those people we know that our parents need the help of medical
09:20professionals to care for them properly.
09:22And that's why Medicaid is so vital, so important, such a lifeline to tens of millions of families
09:29across America.
09:32The Republican Medicaid cuts would be a gut punch to these families.
09:35It was the same story on Long Island.
09:38Senior citizens, scared, nervous, angry about what these budget cuts would do to them that
09:44the Republicans are proposing, that Trump and Musk are proposing.
09:49Workers worried they might lose their jobs.
09:51They worked so hard in these facilities because they care about the patients they're caring
09:56for, told, nope, no more funding, for no reason, they're doing a great job.
10:06Same on Long Island, as in Staten Island.
10:09And the same across all of America in poor communities, which of course depend on Medicaid.
10:15So many people, Medicaid is their only lifeline to health care, to middle-class communities,
10:21even well-to-do communities.
10:24All of them, nervous, scared, angry, furious at what these cuts would do to them.
10:35Why, people ask, why are they doing this?
10:37Why are they being so mean?
10:38Why are they being so cruel?
10:40Why are they being so callous?
10:43And we have to answer.
10:44For one reason, they want to give billionaires a tax cut.
10:48And they want to take the money away from working families, take things that working
10:54families need, take them away, and give them so there's more tax cuts for the billionaires.
11:04It angers me.
11:06It's infuriating that something so wrong, so callous, so detrimental to America could
11:13be right here on the Senate floor with the support of so many Republican senators.
11:20And I say to the Republican senators, listen to your constituents.
11:25Listen to your constituents.
11:28They don't want this.
11:29You know that.
11:30You're going to get up on the floor and make a speech that says you're cutting Medicaid
11:36because you want to give tax breaks to billionaires?
11:38That's what you're doing.
11:41Get up and have the courage to say it.
11:43Get up and have the courage to say it.
11:48The senior senators I visited were represented, actually, by Republican members of Congress
11:53in both Staten Island and Long Island.
11:57There I told every patient, every doctor, every nurse, every employee who works in these
12:03institutions to call their Congress member and tell them that their jobs are at risk.
12:11If they're a resident, to tell them their health care is at risk.
12:14If they're a child of a parent in one of these nursing homes, call.
12:19I told them to make it clear to their congressmen that the Republican congressmen and senators
12:26have the power in their hands to stop these cuts because there are narrow margins in both
12:32the Senate and the House.
12:33A handful of senators, a handful of congressmen, if they had the courage to do the right thing
12:38and most of them, or some of them at least, know that it is the right thing, even though
12:42they're afraid to vote yes, they're afraid to vote no and stop this, but they should
12:52have the courage to do it.
12:57So I told them, I told everyone I encountered in these two nursing homes and many other
13:02places in New York.
13:04I went to a hospital in the Bronx, one of the biggest hospitals.
13:07It serves 1.3 billion people, 1.3 million people in the Bronx.
13:12It's the only cancer care treatment for all those 1.3 million.
13:17The leaders of that hospital told me the hospital would probably close if there were a 20% cut
13:22to Medicaid and the Republicans are proposing a deeper cut than that in this budget bill.
13:28Close.
13:29The only hospital.
13:30One of the biggest employers.
13:31It employs 18,000 people itself.
13:34And this story could be repeated.
13:35The Bronx is a poorer community, Staten Island, Long Island, more middle class communities,
13:41but every one of them will be affected terribly by these cuts.
13:47So I told them to call.
13:50I tell everyone, we have to stop this.
13:57Public sentiment is everything.
14:00Every American in a similar position to those I spoke to should do the same.
14:06Call your congressman.
14:07Call your senator.
14:08Tell them you don't want Medicaid to be slashed.
14:11Tell them you don't want nutrition assistance to be eliminated.
14:13Tell them you don't want our seniors to be abandoned.
14:16Tell them you don't want to see these cuts, these cruel, heartless cuts, just so the wealthiest
14:23Americans can get another break they don't need.
14:31That's what the next few days are about, fighting these awful cuts done to help the wealthiest
14:38Americans get a tax break.
14:41That is the fight Democrats will have here on the Senate floor.
14:47That is the fight we will have tonight.
14:50That is the fight we will have tomorrow and beyond.
14:53Democrats are fighting every day in every way against these attacks against American
14:59families, against this plan which says billionaires win, families lose.
15:10Democrats stand united.
15:12We are unified in fighting this awful bill.
15:15We will fight the Republican anti-family agenda.
15:18We will shine a light on these terrible cuts that Republicans are trying to pass.
15:24The American people will be horrified at what they see.
15:28I yield the floor.