WASHINGTON–President Donald Trump blasted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday after Schumer admitted the Democrat shutdown, which is depriving federal workers and U.S. troops of pay, is motivated by partisanship.
Trump singled out Schumer during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“Chuck Schumer proclaimed this morning that ‘Every day gets better for’ them. No, every day it’s actually getting worse for them,” Trump said, referring to Schumer’s odd brag to Punchbowl News. “And they’re having a rebellion in the Democrat Party because they want to stop.”
He noted that Schumer, over the years, has repeatedly railed against government shutdowns. Yet it is Schumer and Senate Democrats who have repeatedly refused to fund the government through a Continuing Resolution with zero strings attached at the same funding levels then-President Joe Biden approved last year.
“So this is a confession that he’s acting not to serve the people, but to serve the partisan interests of his party,” Trump said of Schumer’s shutdown boast. “And I don’t think he’s serving them well, because they’re way down. Look, they just lost an election in a landslide.”
Although Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) are the leaders of Democrats in their respective chambers, their desperation throughout the shutdown has been apparent, and Trump contends the party is actually without a defined leader with whom serious talks about reopening the government can be had. Rank and file Democrats actually want to fund the government, Trump said.
“So Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the congressional Democrats are holding the entire federal government hostage. I will tell you, a lot of Democrats want to get this thing open too, they do. They’re calling us and… they just want to get it open,” he said.
“And all we’re doing is saying, ‘Just pay the same thing until we get it straight.’ And they don’t know how to go about it. I mean… and the problem is we really don’t know who the hell is leading the Democrats,” he continued.
He contended that Schumer is feeling heat from a potential primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and is catering to the far left of the party.
“But AOC said that they can come to her office and negotiate, the Republicans,” Trump said. “And we’re saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t know she was in leadership,’ but she’s taking Hakeem Jeffries’ place, and Schumer’s afraid that she’s going to run against him.”
“Right now… I don’t think he could beat anybody,” he added. “So he’ll… lose in a primary. I would say he’ll retire before he loses in a primary. I think Schumer is going to retire because he can’t beat anybody. His polls are so bad.”
The Democrat shutdown is hurting “hard-working Americans, including our military, our air traffic controllers, and impoverished mothers, people with young children,” and “people that have to live not the greatest of lives,” Trump emphasized.
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