Senate Democratic leaders hold news conference as Trump readies for China trip

[0:00] Americans, that brings us all together at a time of such disunity. [0:03] So there was a great joy at the end of our caucus when the four great astronauts walked in. [0:09] Now to a more serious matter. [0:11] Not more serious, but less happy matter. [0:14] If you want to understand Republican priorities, just look at their reconciliation bill. [0:21] Prices are rising. [0:23] Families are hurting. [0:25] Americans know exactly who is making it worse. [0:28] A CNN poll this morning said 77% say Trump has raised their costs. [0:34] What is the GOP response? [0:35] A billion dollar ballroom. [0:39] Fancy. [0:39] Gold plated. [0:41] It's outrageous. [0:44] Only 30% of the people approve of Trump's handling of the economy. [0:49] Americans are distressed. [0:50] Their economic situation in three words. [0:54] Uncertainty. [0:55] Stress. [0:56] Dread. [0:57] It's true. [0:57] Families gather at the dinner table after a meal and dread looking at the bills and saying, [1:04] how are they going to pay this one and not this one? [1:06] Which one should they pay? [1:07] Which one shouldn't they pay? [1:09] And when you think of the needs, for instance, of your kids or maybe your elderly parents and [1:13] you can't really do what's needed for them, it's dread and ache. [1:19] What are Trump and the Republicans doing about these awful conditions? [1:25] Not lowering grocery costs. [1:27] Not lowering gas prices or housing or electricity or health care costs. [1:32] Nope. [1:34] What are they doing? [1:37] Instead of cleaning up the chaos they created, Republicans are pushing a bill that pours billions [1:43] more into Trump's raids and masked agents and sticks taxpayers with a bill for Trump's billion-dollar ballroom. [1:53] A billion-dollar ballroom. [1:57] These are the ballroom Republicans. [1:59] At the very moment Americans are pleading for relief, Republicans are telling them, [2:05] pay for Trump's palace first. [2:09] This bill has zero dollars to lower costs for families. [2:12] Here's their second reconciliation bill. [2:14] It's their second chance to show what they got. [2:17] They got nothing for the American people and a ballroom for Donald Trump. [2:24] The bill has zero dollars, as I said, for reducing costs to families, [2:29] but somehow comes up with a billion dollars for Trump's vanity project. [2:33] Trump said not one penny of federal money would be used for the ballroom. [2:37] Well, give me a break. [2:38] Another lie. [2:39] There's lie after lie after lie, and the American people are wise to it. [2:43] These Republicans, these ballroom Republicans, are choosing Trump's chandelier over your child care. [2:50] Trump's ego over your electric bill. [2:54] Trump's palace over the people's priorities. [2:57] Did everyone hear that alliteration? [3:03] Americans want relief. [3:06] Americans are answering and saying, give us relief. [3:10] But the Republicans just say, we were going to give you a ballroom. [3:14] That's not leadership. [3:17] That's Versailles economics brought to you by the ballroom Republicans. [3:21] Democrats will fight this bill tooth and nail. [3:24] We're already filing Byrd Rule challenges. [3:26] We'll offer amendments and we'll force Republicans to vote again and again on one simple question. [3:33] Are you with working families or are you with Trump's ballroom? [3:38] Americans don't want a ballroom blitz. [3:41] They want Congress to bring the cost down. [3:44] And on the war powers vote tomorrow. [3:47] Tomorrow, Republicans face another major choice. [3:50] For the seventh time, Senate Democrats will force a vote on our war powers resolution to withdraw American troops from hostilities with Iran. [3:59] This is the first vote since Trump's war crossed the 60-day threshold under the War Powers Act. [4:07] Once the 60-day clock runs out, the president has two choices. [4:11] Get authorization from Congress or end the hostilities. [4:18] Donald Trump's done neither. [4:20] He's dragged America into an illegal, costly war with no authorization, no clear objective, no end in sight. [4:29] The administration can play word games all at once. [4:33] They call it a skirmish, a mini war, a blip, a love tap. [4:37] They said this is a love tap. [4:40] Give me a break. [4:41] This is a war. [4:42] You just can turn on your television, look into your iPhone and you'll see it's a war. [4:49] And Hegseth just said it out loud again. [4:51] Quote, we are 74 days into this. [4:54] That was his quote. [4:56] And Americans are paying for it. [4:58] Surface members are in harm's way. [5:00] Families are getting hit with a pump. [5:02] And gas prices are now over $4.50 a gallon. [5:06] Trump started this war and families are paying for it every time they fill up at the tank. [5:11] Republicans will have their seventh chance to do the right thing. [5:15] The first since the 60-day deadline passed. [5:18] They can stand up and do their job for their constituents. [5:22] They can protect our service members. [5:24] They can help stop the chaos, driving up costs. [5:27] Or they can keep backing Trump's war. [5:31] There are no excuses left. [5:33] No president should be able to drag this country into war alone. [5:38] Not now. [5:39] Not ever. [5:41] Senator Klobuchar. [5:47] Thank you very much, Chuck. [5:48] So this morning, the inflation report was out. [5:53] And inflation rose 3.8 percent, the highest of Donald Trump's presidency. [5:59] Energy prices are through the roof. [6:03] Groceries are up. [6:04] Housing is up. [6:05] Prices are so high that for the first time in years, they've wiped out the wage growth that Americans have earned. [6:12] I was just on a tour of western Minnesota in towns from Marshall to Litchfield to Wilmer. [6:21] They may not just roll off your tongue, but I can tell you right now the last thing that those people want funded right now is a ballroom. [6:29] I met with them about child care businesses who are going to be unable to hire employees. [6:35] They want to hire them. [6:36] The employees want to work for them, but they don't have child care. [6:39] Gas prices now in Minnesota that have tended to be a little lower than the rest of the country, but they've now gone up over four bucks. [6:47] Diesel prices up over five bucks. [6:50] Farmers already hit by the tariffs. [6:53] Now it costs more to bring their goods to market. [6:55] And now you have fertilizer prices. [6:57] And I'm going to have to leave right after this because Senator Bozeman and I are doing a hearing on fertilizer prices. [7:03] Fifty percent of the urea that goes into fertilizer goes through the Straits of Hormuz. [7:10] Thirty percent of the ammonia, that's another ingredient, goes through the Straits of Hormuz. [7:17] Then you add to that the tariffs on fertilizer with other countries. [7:21] You can imagine what's happening. [7:23] As I've told you before, as one farmer called it, it is a perfect storm of ugly. [7:28] So what do we have before us? [7:30] Are we working on that? [7:32] No. [7:32] It's another reconciliation to write yet another blank check for ICE. [7:37] Seventy billion dollars plus this money for the ballroom. [7:41] They want to spend this money on ICE, and I don't think they must be talking to the people that I'm talking to out in these small towns. [7:50] Because I can tell them what seventy billion would pay for. [7:53] Two hundred thousand local law enforcement officers for three years. [7:58] Having talked to local sheriffs, that's something that people need. [8:02] Extending the health care premium tax credits for two years. [8:06] Not just one year, two years. [8:08] Providing seniors with dental, vision, and hearing coverage through Medicare for an entire year. [8:15] Building 700,000 affordable homes. [8:18] That's what we could do with that seventy billion dollars. [8:21] And providing child care for 3.5 million children. [8:27] So the question before us is simple. [8:30] Where do you want to spend that money? [8:31] On a gilded ballroom or on health care? [8:35] On ICE when they won't even do any reforms and they got this huge increase that made ICE bigger than the Marines and bigger than the FBI. [8:43] Do you want to spend more on them or do you want to spend it on housing? [8:47] The American people have answered and that is why the President's approval ratings are lower than they've ever been and so many polling places have had to actually add a quintile to where he stands on running the economy because it is now in the low 30s. [9:02] With that, I turn it over to Senator Merkley. [9:05] Well, the families of Oregon and America, they're pressed to the wall. [9:18] I held nine town halls throughout eastern Oregon over the break and people are pretty unhappy. [9:26] They're unhappy that in Oregon, gas is over five bucks a gallon, diesel is over six bucks a gallon. [9:35] They're unhappy that the health care costs went up and that the tax credits that helped them pay for it went away. [9:42] They're unhappy that the groceries are up. [9:45] They are unhappy about the cost of rent and homeownership going up. [9:50] They're unhappy because they are pressed to the wall and what is the Republican answer to all of this? [9:56] The ballroom boondoggle, a Louis XIV massive edifice that turns the White House into an auxiliary dwelling unit. [10:09] This is hardly the vision for a Democratic Republic, possibly the vision for a dictator, possibly the vision for a strongman, [10:17] possibly the vision for an authoritarian state, but not a vision for a Democratic Republic. [10:27] And the rest of their bill, the rest of their bill doesn't do a damn thing for those health care, gasoline, housing, grocery costs, [10:40] or inflation going up at 3.8 percent, the highest rate in three years. [10:46] There's something else going on here that's important to address. [10:50] The Republicans are turning reconciliation into an appropriations bill process. [10:58] You know, reconciliation was passed by every single senator voting for it. [11:01] Not one was against it. [11:02] Why? [11:03] Solely it was reserved for reducing deficits. [11:07] Well, Republicans nuked it. [11:08] They did a nuclear option back in 1996, and they said, you know what? [11:13] We can now use this to increase costs, increase deficits, rather than decreasing them. [11:19] A massive violation of how 100 senators had come together. [11:24] And they did that so they could do tax bills. [11:26] But now, tax bills that gave away our treasury to the richest Americans. [11:30] But now they're proceeding to say, we will just do regular appropriation bills. [11:35] We are going to fund ICE and CBP, a massive amount, even though ICE and CBP are already sitting on $103 billion of unobligated funds. [11:45] Funds that will never be exhausted during this coming financial year. [11:51] And they're doing it for this ballroom boondoggle. [11:58] Recognize that neither of these was essential, $103 billion, along with the unobligated funds for ICE and CBP. [12:05] And why not go through the regular appropriations process if you want to build a ballroom? [12:12] Well, so this is something that we will see reverberating for years to come. [12:16] The steady destruction of the norms and processes of the Senate, destroying bipartisan collaboration on spending bills. [12:24] An important point to note. [12:25] But more important at this moment, all this being done, not to give a single penny to help a single family on a single issue where they're pressed the wall. [12:36] Thanks, Jeff. [12:38] Question. [12:39] Yes. [12:39] What is your level of confidence today that you'll ultimately get 51 votes to either remove or redirect ballroom funding? [12:46] Because that's clearly your focus on that. [12:47] Look, the bottom line is this ballroom is a disgrace. [12:51] The Republicans know it. [12:52] Let's see if they have the guts to do what they know is right, both substantively and politically, and tell Trump we don't need a damn ballroom. [13:02] Would you support suspending the federal gas tax until Americans afford the bill? [13:09] Look, Americans need real relief. [13:11] $0.18 isn't enough. [13:13] If Trump wants to give real relief to Americans, end the damn war, that's $1.50. [13:19] It's a lot more than $0.18. [13:20] Yes. [13:21] You've got to speak a little louder. [13:25] A lot of the voting rights decisions before the break and the remissioning awards, what's the point? [13:30] Where does voting rights and the electoral reform fit into the Senate Democrat strategy as you all try to go back? [13:36] We already have task forces meeting with outside groups, lawyers, and we are red teaming anything they might do. [13:46] Trump knows he's going to lose this election because he's so out of touch with the American people. [13:50] So he's going to try to steal it. [13:52] He tried one way in 2020. [13:54] He's going to try many ways now. [13:56] We are prepared, and we're going to fight him and succeed every step of the way. [14:00] Yes. [14:01] Senator, you're going to vote for senators. [14:07] Yes. [14:08] And you expect that it happens? [14:09] I'm going to vote for it, and I think it has a lot of support. [14:13] Okay. [14:14] Yes. [14:15] Back there. [14:16] Yes. [14:16] No, you. [14:17] Thank you. [14:18] Thank you, Peter Schumer. [14:19] I wanted to ask a little bit about crypto legislation. [14:22] I know you had a meeting with some of the Senate Democrats about it today. [14:25] I'm just wondering if you think that this is a bill that Democrats need to work to get across the finish line, [14:30] or if there are enough concerns that you're just hoping to be a block. [14:34] Look, we'd like to see a good crypto bill pass, [14:36] and our senators on the banking committee and on the ad committee are working diligently towards that goal. [14:42] They're making good progress, but we're not there yet. [14:45] Thank you, everybody. [14:47] Go, Knicks. [14:48] They've got plenty of extra points. [14:50] They're doing good. [14:52] I love the Knicks. [14:54] Who can name the five great Knicks of 1977? [14:58] Paul Clyde Frazier. [15:00] Keep going. [15:02] Oh, jeez. [15:05] Willis Reed at center. [15:06] A senator was forward. [15:08] Reverend Redley. [15:10] Another senator, and another non-senator was forward, too. [15:15] DeBusher. [15:17] And Earl DePearl. [15:18] Did you name Earl DePearl or Clyde Frazier? [15:20] Okay. [15:21] Then Earl DePearl. [15:22] That's who they are. [15:23] Eric Kennedy. [15:45] Here's a little skill over here. [15:53] You're ready to be here.