TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Joins Morning Joe To Discuss The Urgent Need For Congressional Republicans To Meet With Democrats To Pass A Bipartisan CR And Avoid A Government Shutdown

Washington, D.C. - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today joined MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss the urgent need for Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune to meet with Democratic leadership and come to a bipartisan agreement to avoid government shutdown. Leader Schumer also discussed the growing threat of political violence.

Joe Scarborough: Leader Schumer, thank you so much for being with us. Let's start by your reaction and your response here for our friends and family that are watching today to the heinous murder of Charlie Kirk.

Leader Schumer: Well, it was just horrible and the image stays in people's minds. Violence is just too frequent in America, on the left, on the right, in the middle. And the bottom line is we all have to condemn violence no matter where it comes from. Violence like this undermines our democracy at its roots and its core, and we have to be strong against it.

Scarborough: Do you have any words of encouragement for the president, for the vice president, for others in his administration who are trying to make political violence wholly on the part of the left and instead like talk about, first of all, talk about facts, and secondly, try to bring this country together.

Schumer: That's the point. Presidents in the past, when these horrible things have happened, have always tried. They could be Ronald Reagan, they could be Bill Clinton, they could be anybody, Barack Obama. They would try to bring people together. Finger pointing is the opposite of what we should be doing, blaming one side, blaming another side, even before the facts are out. We all have to come together on this. And finger pointing hurts and exacerbates the problem, doesn't help it, doesn't improve it.

Scarborough: And of course, last night there was a special election in Minnesota to replace Minnesota's top Democrat in the House who was assassinated in her home along with her husband and their dog, leaving two children behind. Another Democratic state senator shot eight times, his wife shot nine times. Just let's talk about the specter of political violence that hangs over Democrats, Republicans, and everyone who is in what many still believe to be a noble profession, and that is public service. How do you protect your own members, both Democratic and Republican, from violence?

Schumer: Yeah, we need to do more to protect our membership. And some of our leaders in the Senate are working on a proposal which would provide protection to the senators and their spouses. I think that's really important now because all of us have become targets. And that, again, is something we cannot, cannot tolerate in America. That's what happens in dictatorships. It should not happen here. We have to do everything we can to stop it. And you will see strong proposals. And I believe these will be bipartisan, hopefully. Alex Padilla is leading it on our side to give greater protection to the people in office. There's also a proposal to give greater protection to people in the judiciary and executive branch, and that's good too.

Scarborough: I was going to say, Senator, you said something at a press conference that many took as being threatening to judges. You apologized, clarified your remarks. I'm curious, what level of threat do federal judges, state judges face, and what did you learn from that moment when you said something that was construed as being irresponsible?

Schumer: Look, the bottom line is I didn't have that intention. The minute people thought I did, I apologized immediately. And that's, I think, you know, we have to do more, all of us, to curb what we say because people, especially people in dark places, could take those things and do very bad things as a result of them, even though people didn't intend that to happen.

Scarborough: Senator, you were attacked by a lot of Democrats after the last government shutdown for not getting something out of it. Your response, you've responded to that already. I'm curious, coming into this next government shutdown, how will your strategy be different working with Republicans?

Schumer: Yeah. Look, we Democrats - and today, Hakeem Jeffries and I, on behalf of House and Senate Democrats, will put in a proposal, an alternative CR. Number one, we have seen the enormous damage done to the American people by some of the proposals and things that have been passed by Trump and the Republican Congress. We see it with healthcare, we see it with tariffs, we see it with energy costs. The American people are demanding that we help. We don't just do the status quo, which is what the Republican bill does and keeps all these bad things in place. So, we will have very strong protections that meet the needs of the American people and make their lives better.

And the second area that we will go into in our proposal is making sure the process that we go through is real. In other words, right now, [Russell Vought] and the Trump administration, with rescissions, with impoundments, with pocket rescissions, can just undo almost unilaterally anything the Congress does. We said that's ridiculous and that shouldn't happen. So we're going to do that.

But the number one thing we are saying, Joe, is that we need to have a bipartisan bill. The Democrats have been frozen out. There is no input. Every time you pass, or just about every time you pass a successful CR, the two parties sit together and come to conclusion. Why are Thune and Johnson not talking to us? Well, it became clear in the last few days. Trump has told them not to. He says, I don't need Democratic votes. Well, he either doesn't know how the Senate works or he doesn't know how to count. Because you need 60, there are 53. So we are asking them to sit down with us and negotiate. We won't get everything we want. They won't get everything they want. But the American people and their anguish about what is happening with costs in healthcare will have a voice at the table.

Willie Geist: So, Senator, you and Leader Jeffries, when this bill was proposed and put out 91 pages from Republicans yesterday, rejected it out of hand, as you have this morning. We have two weeks until that shutdown deadline. As you say, you've got to get to 60 votes somehow. Do you see any hope working with the other side of the aisle to avoid a shutdown at this point?

Schumer: I would hope they would avoid a shutdown. They're on the path to causing it. Trump is, and they're going along with it. But the way to do it, we still have, as you correctly said, we have two weeks. Let's sit down and talk. Let's have input from both sides and let's come up with a bipartisan bill that can pass and avoid a shutdown. Right now, when Trump says no Democrats should be involved, and Johnson and Thune go, yes, sir, Mr. President, they are heading our country towards a shutdown, which we don't want and no one wants. So it's very simple. Sit down and negotiate, as has been done in the past. And let me tell you this. The data shows that the American people are on our side. The data shows we've seen just recently in a number of cases, who would cause the shutdown? 59% believe it's Trump. And when you ask them why, it's because he won't negotiate. It's common sense. You don't have to be a PhD in political science to know that when there are two sides and you need votes from both sides, you've got to sit down and talk with them and not just unilaterally say, this is what I want. And the biggest problem is what they want doesn't improve the lives of the American people at all. It keeps the status quo in place, which the American people are very unhappy with.

Mike Barnicle: Senator, given the climate of events that have taken place in this country over the past several months, have you had any members of your caucus come up to you and demand more money for their own personal security?

Schumer: We've had, yes, yes, we've had lots of discussions. Members are afraid that something could happen to them. And there have been some incidents of violence against some of our senators, not at their persons, but at their homes. And of course, there are so many threats online. Members are very concerned about this. And we have to do and will do more to protect every member of the House and Senate. This should be bipartisan. Hopefully, it will be.

Jonathan Lemire: So, Leader Schumer, we've heard last couple of days in the wake of the Kirk assassination. Many in the White House, starting with the Vice President of the United States, also powerful aides like Stephen Miller, suggest this is a moment to go after, to, in their words, investigate and the like sort of left-wing groups that they believe are funding violent acts without evidence at all, even potentially what we saw last week tragically in Utah. Your response to that, and is there any way that the Senate, with Democrats obviously in the minority still, have the ability to check it?

Schumer: Yes. Look, first of all, they just speak off the top. They just say things without any evidence. If you're going to make a serious charge like that, which is probably a criminal charge, you need evidence. And it is un-American and not the way this country has conducted itself for centuries that you just make a very serious charge like that with no evidence at all. So we have been speaking out against that kind of thing, but we need the president to do it. This president is so different than others. I'm certain that George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and all the way back, every Republican president, as well as Democratic presidents, would have condemned anyone in their administration who did that. But Donald Trump seems to at least shrug his shoulders and maybe at times encourage it.

Mika Brzezinski: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. We really appreciate it.

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