TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Joins CNN’s The Situation Room To Discuss Democratic Unity As Republican Chaos Fuels A Prolonged DHS Shutdown

New York, N.Y. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) joined The Situation Room on CNN with Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown to discuss Democrats standing united to reopen DHS and pay TSA agents, while Republican chaos worsens the shutdown. Below is a transcript of Leader Schumer's interview:

Pamela Brown: Joining us now to discuss is Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. Thanks for coming on the show Senator.

Leader Schumer: Good to be here.

Brown: So this plan that just passed in the Senate does not include the reforms to immigration enforcement operations that Democrats had not only demanded but even used as reasons to withhold their votes for DHS funding when all of this began more than a month ago. What did your party actually accomplish with this shutdown?

Schumer: Well, first, let me say that the that Republicans are hardly unified. Johnson, for the second time, rejected a proposal made this morning by John Thune with unanimous consent support of all the Republicans to fund the DHS agencies like the Coast Guard, like FEMA, like CISA, which we need. This is now clearly the Johnson shutdown. It's a Republican shutdown. All he had to do was put that bill on the floor, and it would have passed overwhelmingly. So the Republicans are hardly unified. They're squirming about. Democrats for three months, or three weeks rather, have been trying to fund all of the other agencies. We're not gonna fund a lawless ICE or CBP, but we've been trying to fund TSA, we've been trying to fund Coast Guard, and the Republicans have blocked it repeatedly. So this shutdown is on their back, and their failure to want to reform DHS, sorry, to reform ICE and Border Patrol - all we want them to do is what every police department does-use warrants, okay, don't mask, cooperate with local authorities. American people want that, everyone wants that, but a group of right-wing Republicans who just like ICE and CBP as it is, as much as we all abhor it, and it's on them.

Brown: Well, you've heard the new DHS Secretary say that there will be reforms particularly to warrants and other areas, but just to follow up on my original question, look, ICE and CBP, they are funded I mean with billions of dollars from last year's budget bill for the next few years. So what did Democrats actually accomplish with this shutdown where you saw many government employees really struggle?

Schumer: Well, again, we were ready to fund the rest of DHS, it was the Republicans who blocked it over and over again. So that's on them. But second, the bottom line is, what we have shown the American people is we want obvious, common-sense reforms to ICE and CBP, and the Republicans don't. If they want to fund it with the same kind of chaos, the horror we've seen in Minneapolis, in Portland and in other cities, within ICE and CBP that are lawless, it's on their back.

Wolf Blitzer: President Trump's new order, as you know, to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees will provide welcome relief for these workers, especially the TSA workers. Do you give him any credit for that, Senator?

Schumer: No. We've been trying to do it for three weeks and Trump has opposed it. We proposed funding all of those other agencies, not ICE and CBP until they reform, but all the other agencies, and they said no. And so the best way to get them paid was for Johnson to put the bill that the Senate passed this morning, with Thune's leadership, on the floor and we'd pass it.

Blitzer: What do you say to those critics who argue that both ICE and Border Patrol are already set with funding millions and millions of dollars because of President Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" that passed months ago, so Democrats just held up this legislation for what? For political posturing, is that right?

Schumer: Well that's not fair at all. We held it up because we wanted, as I mentioned before, to reform ICE and CBP which are lawless. The American people are totally on our side I think by two to one or close to that they want it reformed and that's what we're pushing for. We're not going to fund a lawless ICE and a lawless CBP. And the American people are overwhelmingly on our side on that.

Blitzer: But they're already funded, right?

Schumer: Well, if they put funding in from their other bills and want to keep funding a lawless ICE, a lawless CBP that creates chaos in our cities, it's on their back. We're not going to participate in that.

Brown: Bottom line is Democrats are in the minority. You mentioned what the American people want. Overall, the American people are not happy with the Democratic Party. CNN's recent polling shows that a broad 74% of the public says Democrats in Congress have the wrong priorities. How do you respond to that as the Democratic Leader in the Senate?

Schumer: Look at just about all the elections, whether they were the elections in New Jersey and in Virginia or throughout the country. The American people are choosing Democrats over Republicans, and why? Because they know that the Republicans are the party of costs, high costs, people's costs are going way up; of chaos, not only chaos in the cities, but chaos in Iran. What we're seeing in Iran is one of the worst foreign policy fiascos, disasters, in American history. When Trump started in Iran, he didn't have any goals. No one knew what the goals were. After the speech last night, no one is any clearer on what those goals are. And our main, the two main things we need to do, clear the Strait of Hormuz and get rid of the, find the nuclear materials that Iran could use. We know nothing more about that after this ridiculous rambling speech. So the American people are on our side on the major issues, on costs, on Iran, and on reforming this government and getting rid of the chaos and the corruption. So we're united, we're strong, and we're doing very well, and the best way to test that is election results.

Brown: Right.

Schumer: And just about all of the election results, we have dominated.

Brown: And that is true in the recent elections, and it is true that the Iran war is unpopular broadly among the American people, and President Trump is unpopular broadly. But overall, when you look at the polling about priorities, the American people are unhappy with what Democrats have been doing, and they indicate these polls that you have historically low performance ratings. What specifically can you be doing to bring these numbers up and reestablish trust within both your own party and with your constituents?

Schumer: The bottom line is our caucus and our party is strong and united, and we are fighting very hard. We're fighting to lower the costs. Today is "Tariff Day." Democrats, we've come out with a proposal of how to get rid of these tariffs and reduce the cost of the American people. We have talked about how to reduce the health care cost, the electricity cost, the cost of housing. We're on the American people's side and we're going to keep talking about this, talking about this, talking about this, and it's going to help us, you'll see, take back the House and the Senate in 2026. The American people much prefer us over Trump and the Republicans.

Blitzer: Those midterm elections coming up in November, we'll see what happens. The Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. As usual, thanks so much for joining us.

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