TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer And Senate Democrats Condemn Republicans Prioritizing Billions In Taxpayer Funding For ICE And Border Patrol While Failing To Address Rising Costs[...]

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at a press conference on the upcoming Republican reconciliation bill and Democrats' plans to lower costs and bring relief to American families, rather than giving billions to Donald Trump & Stephen Miller's rogue police forces-ICE & Border Patrol. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Yesterday, Senate Republicans put forward their budget resolution for its first procedural vote, and its contents are astounding. $140 billion for ICE and Border Patrol. $0 to lower costs to the American people.

This will be a reconciliation of contrasts, and we are relishing that fight. Republicans want to shell out billions of dollars to Donald Trump's private army without any common-sense restraints or reforms. Democrats want to put money in people's pockets by lowering their costs of electricity and of gas and of housing, of health care, of food. The contrast is glaring. Republicans are bending the knee to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Democrats are standing up for the American people. Republicans want to keep shutting down TSA, FEMA, CISA, Coast Guard and other crucial DHS agencies. Democrats want to reopen all the law-abiding agencies in DHS. Forget about being on the same page. Republicans aren't on the same planet as the American people. Republicans want to give $140 billion to ICE and Border Patrol. And these are agencies highly unpopular, unreformed with the American people. Their right wing is driving them over a cliff. Republicans are at each other's throats, tying their party up in knots. Democrats are united together, fighting hard to lower costs for the American people, which is what the American people want us to do.

So, this is a reconciliation of contrasts, and it's contrasts we welcome. Senate Democrats will make these contrasts abundantly clear, vote after vote, amendment after amendment, during vote-a-rama. Republicans are about to learn the hard way that when they refuse to reduce costs, American families lose, and they lose. Republicans will find they cannot reconcile their deeply partisan, unpopular, and costly policies with the frustration that millions of Americans feel today.

So, this will be a reconciliation of reckoning for Senate Republicans. Are they for the $140 billion for ICE and Border Patrol and for no dollars to reduce costs? Or will they join Democrats as we propose amendment after amendment, focusing on reducing their costs? This plan is so against what Americans want and shows how out of touch the Republican Party and the Republican Senate is. If the Republicans acquiesce to Trump and Miller rather than stand up for the American people, so be it. We are going to make them own that decision own this decision amendment after amendment vote after vote.

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And just one more point I want to make because we have the vote on the Baldwin Resolution for War Powers. Every day that Trump prolongs the war, he digs himself deeper and deeper into a hole. Republican Senators will have a choice to help him get out of that hole by voting with us. But it's getting worse and worse and worse for Trump as he pursues this war of choice that doesn't have goals, that has made things worse on the Strait of Hormuz, on the militancy of the Iranian leadership every day. And he's digging himself deeper and deeper in a hole until he stops the war. He will have a rough time getting out. He won't be able to.

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Reporter: Leader Schumer, the Republicans also left out Pentagon spending for the Iran war in this. They seem to think that Democrats will eventually kind of deal with them at 60 votes to send tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions to the Pentagon. Are they making a mistake not doing this on reconciliation?

Schumer: Look, it's a mistake not to end the war because Trump is digging himself deeper and deeper into this hole every day. We see more trouble in the Strait of Hormuz. We see an Iranian leadership that is more militant. We see the nuclear materials they have even more hidden. So they're making a huge, that's the mistake they're making. That's the mistake they're making. Not by putting in more money to this war of choice that is so unpopular with the American people that Trump's numbers today went down to, I think it was, 33 percent. Lowest they've ever been.

Reporter: How much will-Republicans using reconciliation to fund ICE and Border Patrol, how much will that damage the appropriations process in the future? And do you expect Democrats to use reconciliation in the same way the next time that your in the majority?

Schumer: Look, the bottom line is that they've tied themselves in a total knot. They can't get things done in regular order and now they've given us this ability, opportunity to show the contrast between them and us. We believe in the appropriations process. We want to see it go forward. They're helping destroy it.

Senator Murray: The Republicans who elected their Majority Leader because they wanted to put the appropriations process on the right track are now destroying it by taking this funding outside the appropriations bill and funding it. They're setting a precedent for the future, and it is going to be extremely difficult in the future for whoever ends up in the minority.

Reporter: A number of Republicans are equating Democrats' opposition to this package as a sort of defund the police effort. What would be your response to that criticism?

Schumer: What we want for Border Patrol and ICE is what every police department does. They don't run around wearing masks. They don't knock down doors without a warrant. They don't come in and not tell local law enforcement what they're doing. They are the ones who are being against a good, strong police force that has the support of the American people.

Murray: I've not heard one Democrat say defund ICE. What I have heard every single Democrat repeatedly say is when you fund ICE agents, then make sure they have training, make sure they have warrants, make sure they act like law enforcers, and have the ability to have the trust of the American people. That's what we're asking for.

Schumer: Plain and simple. It's obvious, and the American people are on our side. These are commonsense reforms that every police department uses, and we want to get these funded with the reforms. We've been fighting for that, and they have voted against it repeatedly over and over again.

Senator Klobuchar: And as the person that leads the COPS Reauthorization bill, I'd say we'd like to fund, use that money to fund local police officers, 200,000 for three years, because so many local police departments across the country need more officers. They don't have the funding. They're not able to retain them with the funding that they have. And that would be the most helpful, whether it's burglaries, whether it's going after rapists, whether it is investigating white-collar crime, they need that resources. So that's the first.

And then the second thing is my colleagues just pointed out here, look at these. We had a whistleblower testify. Some of you may have heard them in a hearing that Senator Durbin did and others. And when you hear that testimony of that whistleblower, they got rid of all the use-of-force training courses for ICE. As you've heard, a number of them were trained for just 47 days.

We're certain in Minnesota - and I just can't wait for all these facts to come out - you're going to see that they picked up so many people that were legal. The people were yelling, "I'm legal, I'm legal. Here's my driver's license." They threw them in cars. Why? Because they got bounties for it. And then they'd sometimes just drive four blocks away and dump them out. So when all of that truth comes out about the Indian American surgeon that was stopped three times on his way to work and all of the racial profiling that was going on, two white guys and a Latino, and they tell the white guys, you can stay here, we'll come in. People in stores that would tell the Somali shoppers, go to the back, and so it's just white people in the front, so that when the ICE people came in, they'd look, and they would just turn around. Those are stories.

Reporter: Approximately, how many amendments will Democrats offer? And do you know if any can actually get the support of the Republicans?

Schumer: Yes, two points. First, we are going to have lots of amendments. The focus of those amendments is to show the contrast. We are for reducing costs for the American people, whether it's housing, or whether it's health care, or whether it's electric costs, or whether it's groceries, or whether it's child care. And they are funding a rogue police force that is not even popular with the American people. And we're going to keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it. And the Republicans, yes, the Republicans feeling the heat from the American people, if they want to represent what the American people, I don't care if it's in a red state, a purple state, or a blue state, should be voting with us. We'll see what happens.

Reporter: Is there any progress on a time period for when these votes could start happening? Could we see them today?

Schumer: Look, Thune hasn't told us the time agreement yet, but we're ready. Whenever he's there, we are ready with our amendments to show the glaring contrast between the parties in terms of who's for reducing your costs and who's not.

Reporter: Affordability is a tough nut to crack. Are these amendments going to be specific policies to lower costs?

Schumer: Yes. You will see there'll be a variety of amendments, and we will use them, we will offer them now, and then we'll have another opportunity where we can be even more specific on the real reconciliation bill, not the Senate budget bill.

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