Schumer Floor Remarks on the President’s Joint Address: President Talks Like a Populist but His Agenda Benefits Special Interests

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks on the Senate floor outlining his concerns following the President’s address to Congress as well as his rationale for voting against the confirmation of Congressman Ryan Zinke as Secretary of Interior. Below are his remarks:

Before I get into the substance of my remarks, I was listening to our Republican Leader talking about compromise, not that he engaged in very much of it when he was Leader last year, but compromise requires something to compromise over.

We have nothing from the administration—nothing on infrastructure, nothing on trade, nothing even on ACA. So you want to sit down and talk? Let's see what your plans are. Get your own act together before you point the fingers at Democrats.

Now, the president's speech. Let me say this: this president's speech was detached from this president’s reality. The president, in this speech and in so many others, talks like a populist. He promises so many things.

But when he governs, nothing like that at all. He's favoring the very powerful special interests, making their lives easier and putting more burdens on the middle class and people trying to get to the middle class.

At his inauguration, he gave a speech aimed at the working people and after that, within an hour, he signed an executive order that helped the banks and added about $500 to the mortgage of every new homeowner.

You can't just talk the talk, Mr. President, you have to walk the walk.

And on issue after issue after issue, we haven't seen anything but negative things for the working class. We heard some talk about infrastructure. Democrats, a month ago, put together an infrastructure plan of $1 trillion. It was a strong plan. It's gotten a lot of support throughout the country. Where is the president's infrastructure plan? We haven't heard a peep about it and some of his White House folks leaked that, ‘Well, we won't get up to infrastructure until next year.’ Mentioning it in a speech, infrastructure, it's not going to employ a single new worker.

What about trade? The president talked about trade, putting America first. My views tend to be closer to President Trump's than they were to President Bush's or President Obama's on trade, but, again, what we hear in the speech and what the president actually does are contradictory.

So throughout his campaign, the president took an issue near and dear to my heart and Senator Graham's heart, China manipulating its currency. He said over and over again in the campaign, ‘On the first day I'm president, I will sign an executive order that labels China a currency manipulator.’

We know that they manipulate their currency and it cost America hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of good-paying jobs and caused a load of wealth to flow from our country to theirs.

This one didn't require a single Democrat to join in. All the president had to do was sign the order. We're now 40 days into this administration—not only has he still not signed the order, but he is saying he may back off.

Last night, the president talked about research, wiping out rare diseases. And yet, the budget that they proposed, given that they want to slash domestic discretionary spending by tens of billions of dollars and exempt veterans and homeland security, there is no alternative. But the fact that the president, in his budget at the same time he's talking about medical research, is going to slash it.

Education. He talked about the great issue of education. Same thing. His budget is going to slash education to smithereens, hurting our teachers and schools.

Perhaps the most hypocritical of all was draining the swamp. That was one of the president's main themes when he was President-Elect, ‘drain the swamp.’

Well, just look who is in his cabinet. His secretary of treasury, his secretary of commerce and his NEC Director are from Wall Street. Is this the same man who said we're going to go after Wall Street if we get elected? Wall Street is running the economic show. The cabinet's filled with bankers. The cabinets filled with billionaires, not people who feel for the average American.

In fact, if you add up the net wealth of his cabinet, it has more wealth than a third of the American people’s total. It’s close to 100 million people. That's cleaning the swamp? Give me a break.

So the problem with the president's speech was very simple:

His actions don't match his words. His words in the campaign are not matched by his actions.

His words in his inaugural speech are not matched by his actions.

His words in his speech last night—it was so funny he spoke to a bunch of cosmopolitan news anchors and mentioned maybe he will change his views on immigration and the media got into a buzz about that.

The speech he gave was one of the most anti-immigrant speeches that we heard any president ever give—saying one thing, doing another.

Now, it's not the hypocrisy that bugs us, although it's there, it's the fact that he's not helping middle-class America.

It's the fact that he's not making it easier for more people to travel and get into the middle class because he seems to have governed from the hard, hard right. The hard right is very far away from where the average American is.

Mr. Mulvaney's idea of a budget, maybe 10% of America, mostly ideologues, will support it.

It is far away from where the average Republican is. Yesterday, when the president proposed his budget, we had one Republican say it's dead on ail rival. We had the Majority Leader saying you can't cut State Department foreign aid in half. He's far over, and that's hurting him and hurting us.

It's hurting the American people.

So, Mr. President, you know, the first 40 days have been a pretty rough 40 days for President Trump. It hasn't worked out very well. Why?

It's not because he hasn't given a few good speeches. It's because he is governing from the hard right. He is governing far away from what the American people want. He is governing way off to the extreme.

And, Mr. President, a speech isn't going to change that.

A speech isn't going to create one job, one infrastructure plan, or one trade law that makes our trade law, which needs to be changed, fairer. No, no, no. It takes action.

Unfortunately, when the President takes action, it is quite the opposite of what he says in the speech on the issues that affect the middle class and working-class people.

So, Mr. President, if President Trump does not change how he governs—how he governs, not what speeches he gives—in the near future, then these 40 days which have been of tumult, of contradiction, of turning one's back on the working class, that will be six months, a that will be a year, and that will be two years.

The problem with the presidency does not lie in the speeches the president gives, even though I might object to a lot of things he puts in them, it lies in how he governs.

He is not governing well.

He is not governing down the middle.

He is not governing in a way that lends itself to compromise.

We Democrats will continue to hold the president accountable. That's our job. That's what the constitution says we should do and we will continue until we see the president change his course in governing and no speech is going to change that or affect that.

Now I want to spend a moment on the nominee for the Secretary of the Interior.

One of the most important issues handled by the Interior Department is the stewardship of our national parks—these are one of the great national resources of our country.

When my children were younger, my wife and I would take them to national parks and go hiking. We loved it. We so looked forward to going out west. I remember the reward after a big hike was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I probably wanted one more than my kids did. I loved peanut butter and jelly.

From Niagara Falls to the Erie Canalway, to places like Seneca Falls, Stonewall and Ellis Island, my dear state of New York is home to some of our country’s most famous national parks and monuments – places that I’ve visited and treasured my whole life.

Now, I’ve been concerned in recent years about the reluctance on the other side of the aisle to properly care for these great national beauties, these great national resources.

Currently, there is a $12 billion maintenance backlog for our national parks and our Republican majority has not seen fit to address

This new Administration’s hiring freeze across federal agencies has already affected national parks like the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, which I’ve visited a bunch of times. It’s had to cancel tours due to insufficient staffing.

And most troubling, the Republicans want to make it easier to sell off or give away public lands – and expand ‎the footprint of the oil and gas industries on our public lands.

As usual, help those narrow special interests, hurt the average American. It seems to be the trade mark of this administration, which our friends on the other side are happily going along with.

That’s the context in which I approach Congressman Zinke’s nomination.

He claims to be a conservationist in “the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt,” he has demonstrated support for rules that would make it easier to sell off public lands—just the opposite of what Teddy Roosevelt wanted.

Congressman Zinke claims to be a conservationist, but he said that he would revisit actions taken by the last administration to use the Antiquities Act to permanently protect endangered places of cultural and tribal significance.

He claims to be a Roosevelt conservationist, but pledged his support for the Trump Administration’s energy agenda, which is centered on efforts to expand drilling and mining on federal lands and waters. A few big oil companies made happy, America losing a great resource. That is an economic resource, as well, a beautiful, natural resource.

So I would say to Mr. Zinke, you can’t be a Roosevelt conservationist when you vote to make it easier to sell off public lands.

You can’t be a Roosevelt conservationist when you support opening up public lands to increased extraction and drilling.

And you’re not much of a conservationist when you downplay the authority of the legislation that allows Presidents to create national monuments.

Congressman Zinke says he’s a dyed-in-the-wool conservationist, but doesn’t have the record to back it up. That should concern every outdoor enthusiast and lover of our great and grand national parks.

Mr. President, I will unfortunately, because of his record, vote no on Mr. Zinke’s nomination and I urge my colleagues to do the same.