Democrats Wake Up, Change Their Tune, And Promise To Fight Trump Tooth And Nail

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:34 pm

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Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) shifted away from the overly positive talk of working with Donald Trump by promising to fight Trump tooth and nail during an interview on ABC’s This Week.

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Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
RADDATZ: What’s the message?

SCHUMER: We shouldn’t just do a little thing about college, we should make college affordable for everybody and make sure that everyone gets out of college debt-free. We have to — we shouldn’t just say we’ll change the trade laws a little bit, we need dramatic change in the trade laws. We should close all of these loopholes, (INAUDIBLE) and other things.

Now many of these issues actually, Donald Trump supported in the campaign. We’re going to challenge him to work with us on those issues and not work — go against them and break his promise to the blue collar people, because the Republican leadership or the Republican establishment doesn’t like them.

RADDATZ: The Republicans now have both chambers of Congress, the presidency, the majority of statehouses and the majority of governors.

SCHUMER: Yes, I don’t…

RADDATZ: Isn’t that not a — isn’t that a mandate?

SCHUMER: Look, as you know, Democrats got a majority of the popular vote, Hillary did, so it’s not a mandate. And when he’s opposed to our values, we’re going to go after him tooth and nail.

For instance, we’re not going to let him repeal Dodd-Frank or the — the — the rules we put in place to limit Wall Street. They’re going to regret the day they tried to repeal the ACA.

So when we oppose Trump on values or if his presidency takes a dark, divisive turn, we’re going to do it tooth and nail.

Schumer tone has definitely changed over the past 4 days. At the press conference announcing the new Senate Democratic leadership team, he said, “When we can agree on issues, then we’re going to work with him. But I’ve also said to the president-elect, on issues where we disagree, we expect a strong and tough fight. And that’s how the relationship is going to be.”

The Democratic base views anybody who works with Trump as someone who is enabling and normalizing a racist, sexual assaulting, misogynist president who is a danger to civil rights and liberties. The top Senate Democrat seems to have gotten the memo. The rank and file of the Democratic Party know that they are going to have to fight Trump and the Republican Party on every single issue.

Democrats didn’t want to hear the same Washington mumbo-jumbo about compromise. They needed to that their party is going to fight for them.

Judging from his comments on ABC’s This Week, it appears that Sen. Schumer has moved away from talk of compromise with Donald Trump.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association