Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The American People Rejecting MAGA Extremism And The Need For Bipartisan Legislation To Avoid A Government Shutdown
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the American people rejecting MAGA extremism in Tuesday’s elections and the need for bipartisan legislation to avoid a government shutdown. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Tuesday’s elections were another horrible defeat for MAGA extremism, and another affirmation for the Democratic agenda of jobs, infrastructure, lowering costs for the middle class.
By now, Republicans need to admit there’s a pretty clear pattern at play: ever since Donald Trump was elected President, the MAGA agenda has led to failure in big elections, in small elections, in red state elections, in blue state elections, and everything in between.
And it shouldn’t be any big mystery why MAGA candidates and MAGA issues keep turning out to be duds: Americans don’t want hard-right extremists, and the chaos they bring, to govern this country. Americans don’t support a MAGA agenda that has, at its bedrock, radical attacks on women’s health care.
Americans want their elected leaders to choose bipartisanship, to focus on people’s lives instead of cable news shows. Sadly, Republicans seem mightily impervious to the obvious truth that MAGA equals disaster for America and for their party.
And there’s much to do here in Congress right now that will demand exactly the kind of bipartisanship Americans have made clear they want.
In a little over a week, the federal government will shut down if Congress does not come together to pass a bipartisan extension of funding.
Today, I am taking the first procedural step for the Senate to move forward on a legislative vehicle we can use next week to pass a temporary extension to avoid a government shutdown.
Over the next few days, Democrats will continue talking to Republicans about finding a path forward on avoiding a shutdown that both sides support, and I earnestly hope we can reach agreement sooner rather than later.
No matter how negotiations evolve over the next week, one thing is not going to change: the only way, the only way – let me say it a third time – the only way we avoid a shutdown is with bipartisan cooperation, just as it was true in September and it will be true in the future.
I implore Speaker Johnson and our House Republican colleagues to learn from the fiasco of a month ago: hard-right proposals, hard-right slashing cuts, hard-right poison pills that have zero support from Democrats will only make a shutdown more likely. I hope they don’t go down that path in the week to come.
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