Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Slamming Republicans’ Refusal To Protect Americans’ Access To Healthcare And End The Republican Shutdown

Washington, D.C. - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to slam Republicans for passing legislation that kicks millions of Americans off their healthcare and raises costs for millions more, and urge Republicans to engage in negotiations to reopen the government and address the healthcare crisis. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

It's now been a full week of Donald Trump's government shutdown, and the country is feeling the sting of Republican intransigence.

Over 700,000 federal employees have been furloughed. Services are being disrupted. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that businesses nationwide with government contracts are in peril.

This Republican-manufactured disaster did not need to happen.

The government is shut down for one reason and one reason only: Donald Trump and the Republicans would rather kick 15 million people off health insurance and raise premiums by thousands and thousands of dollars a year on tens of millions of Americans, rather than sit down and work with Democrats on fixing healthcare.

That's the reason. They'd rather kick tens of millions off healthcare than sit down with us and work with us on addressing this so-important issue to the American people.

Now, Americans are frustrated. The cost of living continues to go up. Donald Trump's tariffs have sent grocery prices spiking - it's even more expensive now to buy a cup of coffee, one of the first things many drink in the morning. They're going to see Trump's tariffs hurting them.

People are worried about paying more on their electricity bill. Forty-one states have already seen increased prices. Why? Because in their mania of hating clean energy, they cut out so much of wind and solar - solar being the cheapest form of new energy to go on the grid.

Americans are pessimistic that any of this is going to get any better. And they blame President Trump and the Republicans.

A CBS poll from a few days ago found that seventy-five percent of Americans don't think the administration, the Trump administration, is focusing enough on lowering costs. Fixing healthcare would be at the top of the list for lowering costs for people.

Now, Democrats want to reopen the government right away.

We want to have a serious negotiation to fix healthcare so people can see their costs go down. And we can do both: fix healthcare and reopen the government. This is not an either-or thing, which Republicans are making it. The American people don't like it.

Democrats have been consistent. Our position remains the same, we've been saying it for months: Republicans are shutting down the government because they refuse to address the crisis in American healthcare.

One sentence sums it all up: Republicans are shutting down the government because they refuse to fix and address the crisis in American healthcare.

Now our Republican colleagues being against public sentiment, are flailing. On the one hand, it's starting to sink in for Republicans that their position of not fixing healthcare is untenable in the eyes of the American people.

As President Lincoln said, public sentiment is everything. Well, public sentiment is building on fixing healthcare. It's high already. It's getting higher every day. And it's not going to recede - it's getting even stronger.

Republicans refuse to acknowledge that public sentiment is not on the side of Trump and Speaker. Speaker Johnson has become the number one roadblock to ending a shutdown. He's sent everyone home for three weeks now.

If you care about fixing the crisis, if you care about reopening the government, how the hell do you keep your House not in session for three weeks? But even so, Speaker Johnson himself is feeling the heat.

At first, he and his conference were telling Republicans in the House not to talk about healthcare. They knew the American people were against what they thought.

Johnson's leadership team explicitly told members in a memo not to [message] on healthcare when talking about the shutdown. Of course that didn't work, because the public knows overwhelmingly that we need lower healthcare premiums.

And that's what Democrats are fighting for, and that's what's preventing the Republicans from coming to the table. They don't want to fix it. That's why they're causing the shutdown.

So, feeling the heat, Speaker Johnson held a press conference yesterday and said perhaps one of the most ridiculous things I've heard from Republicans in a long time. He said, "Let me look right under the camera and tell you very clearly: Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare."

As he did it, he couldn't look right into the camera. Deep in his subconscious, he knew he wasn't telling the truth. What he said was nonsense. He couldn't even look at the camera when he said this, because he knows the American people don't buy what he's saying. Republicans are the ones who cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid and who tried to repeal the ACA. Three times we asked them to vote to sustain it after the new year; three times they voted it down.

So, that's first.

And second, President Trump is making all these terrible threats, led by the evil Mr. Vought. President Trump is saying he is going to fire people en masse, saying that federal workers don't even deserve backpay, even though he signed the law guaranteeing backpay in 2019.

Again, they're threatening, bludgeoning, using the American people, government workers, as pawns.

But these kind of tactics from the administration are backfiring. Americans don't like being used as pawns. Even if they're not the ones subject to being held hostage, they don't like watching it happen.

And the American people know clearly that its Republicans who are in charge. Republicans have the White House. They control the House and Senate.

So, when people are laid off, when people are not paid, when people are not getting back pay, they know it's the Republicans trying to do it, even though they're using it to try and bully us.

It's not Democrats who are threatening to fire people or threatening to withhold backpay. It's the Republican side, Donald Trump, saying all this, and the American people know it and will blame them for these mass firings and chaos.

The data is very clear that trying to use the public as political pawns will backfire for Republicans.

And plenty of Republicans in Congress know this. That's why behind closed doors some Republicans are praying the administration tones down its threats because these mean-spirited tactics by Russell Vought aren't going to win in the court of public opinion or in the hearts and minds of Americans.

Look, Republicans are tripping over themselves because they are divided on the core issue: fixing people's healthcare.

When someone as hard right as Marjorie Taylor Greene openly says that Republican leaders are wrong and that we need to fix ACA premiums, that's how you know how deeply Republicans are split.

Let me read what she said. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, not Chuck Schumer: "I'm going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to double, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district."

More Republicans should listen to her because on this issue, she is right on the money.

Meanwhile, Democrats' position hasn't changed. We urge our Republican colleagues to join us in a serious negotiation to reopen the government and extend ACA premium tax credits.

This is the right thing to do for the American people, and that way we will be able to quickly reopen the government before serious damage is done to the country.

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