Chuck Schumer

American politician (born 1950)

Charles Ellis Schumer (born November 23, 1950) is an American politician who became Senate Majority Leader on January 20, 2021. He is the senior United States senator from New York and a member of the Democratic Party.

As I ride my bike around New York City on the weekends, I see what immigrants do for America.

Quotes

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2006

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2009

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  • People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens, and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the U.S. legally.
    • Gorka: Dems Only Care About 'Power' & 'Taking Down' Trump, Not Protecting Americans, Fox News (29 December 2018)

2010

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2013

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2018

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  • President Trump turned away from not one but two bipartisan compromises. Each would have averted this shutdown....It is something the majority could have avoided entirely, a concern the president could have obivated, if he were only willing to take yes for an answer.

Speech to the U.S. Senate (21 December 2018)

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Remarks to the Senate with less than twelve hours before a shutdown of the U.S. government was to occur as existing funding expired without a new budget passed and in place. Schumer specifically addressed previous remarks by President Donald Trump that he desired and would take responsibility for a shutdown of the American government, which did indeed occur, and cited the Senate's bipartisan efforts to prevent a shutdown. Televised by CNN live on 21 December 2018: Schumer to Trump: You will not get your wall, abandon your shutdown strategy.
  • This may have been the most chaotic week of what's undoubtedly the most chaotic presidency ever in the history of the United States. The stock market is in a tumult and decline. The Secretary of Defense, one of the only steady pairs of hands in our government, is resigning from the administration in protest. And the United States is pulling out of Syria and likely Afghanistan, abandoning our coalitions, allies, and the Kurds, and surrendering the field to Putin, Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban, and Bashar Al-Assad. The position of Defense Secretary, of Attorney General, of Ambassador to the United Nations, of Interior Secretary, and even Chief of Staff to the President are all in flux. The institutions of our government lack steady and experienced leadership. With all of these departures it's about to get even more unsteady. The President is making decisions without counsel, without preparation, and even without communication between between relevant departments and relevant agencies. All of this turmoil is causing chaos in the markets, chaos abroad, and it's making the United States less prosperous, and less secure. And to top it all off, President Trump has thrown a temper tantrum and now has us careening toward a Trump shutdown over Christmas.
  • There are not the votes in the Senate for an expensive, taxpayer-funded border wall. So, President Trump: You will not get your wall. Abandon your shutdown strategy. You're not getting the wall today, next week, or on January 3rd when Democrats take control of the House. Just two days ago, the Senate came together to support a proposal by leader McConnell; unanimously- every Democrat, every Republican- to extend government funding through February without partisan demands. What it would accomplish would be the government would not shut down. The fights that we're having would be postponed to a later day, and millions of Americans would not be hurt this Christmas week. So let me repeat that: the Senate- every Democrat, every Republican- has already unanimously supported a clean extension of government funding. Democrats supported the measure because we do not want to see the government shut down. We have no demands other than that. We had every indication the President would sign the legislation, as did our friends, the Republicans on the other side of the aisle in the Senate.
  • But yesterday, President Trump, hounded by the radical voices of the hard right, threw another temper tantrum, and here we are, once again, on the brink of what the President has spent months saying he wanted: a Trump shutdown. The President will try to do his best to blame Democrats, but it's flatly absurd. President Trump called for a shutdown no less than twenty-five times. In our meeting in the Oval Office, President Trump said, quote: "If we don't get what we want, I, President Trump, will shut down the government." "I am proud to shut it down," said President Trump. "I'm not going to blame you," meaning Democrats, "I will take the mantle of shutting it down." Those are President Trump's words and nothing he says or does today can undo that. No Democrat has called for shutting the government down. We are all working to avoid it. The President seems to relish it. He seems to feel it'll throw a bone to his base. The problem being, his base is less than one quarter of America. Mr. President, President Trump- you cannot erase months of video of you saying that you wanted a shutdown and that you wanted the responsibility and blame for a shutdown. President Trump, you own the shutdown. You said so in your own words.
  • Each of those proposals contains 1.3 billion dollars of real border security, not a wall. There's no wall in those proposals. Democrats support real border security, not a wall. And by the way, that is in addition- in addition- to the 1.3 billion dollars in border security Congress allocated last year, the majority of which the Trump administration has not yet spent. They're asking for loads of more money? They haven't even spent last year's money. It's clearly a political gambit by President Trump to appease his never-happy base.
  • But there is only one way we will have a Trump shutdown: if President Trump clings to his position for an unnecessary, ineffective, taxpayer-funded border wall that he promised Mexico would pay for.

2021

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  • It will be a fair trial, but make no mistake, there will be a trial, and when that trial ends senators will have to decide if they believe Donald John Trump incited the erection insurrection against the United States.
  • It has to be the legislation itself, it has to be big bold and strong. If Republicans work with us to get good strong legislation then yes... but look at 2008 where we spent a year and a half trying to get something good done, ACA (Obamacare), and we didn't do all the other things that needed to be done. We will not repeat the same mistake.
  • If one political party believes "heads we win, tails you cheated," if one political party believes that when you lose an election, the answer isn't to win more votes, but rather to try to prevent the other side from voting, then we have serious and existential threats to our democracy on our hands.
    • interview reported on March 20, 2021[1]

Quotes about Schumer

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  • The leadership of the party, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez, are creations of corporate America. In an open and democratic political process, one not dominated by party elites and corporate money, these people would not hold political power. They know this. They would rather implode the entire system than give up their positions of privilege. And that, I fear, is what will happen. The idea that the Democratic Party is in any way a bulwark against despotism defies the last three decades of its political activity. It is the guarantor of despotism.
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  1. Karson, Kendall and Meg Cunningham (20 March 2021). GOP warns HR 1 could be 'absolutely devastating for Republicans'. ABC News.