Senate Democratic leader holds a press conference

Okay, thank you to Senators Whitehouse, Gillibrand, and Gallego. Now, before I begin, a quick update on our dear friend, Chris Murphy. I spoke with Chris this morning. I'm happy to report he sounds great, is recovering well, and we're looking forward to having him back with us soon. Now, we just came from an incredible lunch where 11 new Senator-elect joined us. We're hopeful there'll be two more in a little while. Thanks in no small part to these extraordinary new members, we are on the verge of the single largest landslide for Senate Democrats since the 50s. These people are smart, tough, capable, compassionate, and they ran remarkable campaigns. They defied the odds and earned the trust of the voters in their state, where few thought Democrats could win. They represent the future of our caucus. They came to our meeting today, even though they're not yet Senators. And I couldn't be prouder to welcome them there. But winning the elections is only the beginning, now comes the important part, delivering for American families. That's the most important part of all of this. Our number one priority is lowering costs, making life more affordable, and showing Americans that Democrats are fighting for them every single day. Now on permitting reform. And I want to thank Sheldon Whitehouse for his great work there. Americans are paying far too much for energy. We have an opportunity to do something about it. Our broken permitting system has held back cleaner, cheaper energy, driven up costs, delayed good-paying jobs. We need to bring more affordable energy onto the grid. We need to make sure data centers pay their fair share and protect our land, our water, our communities. Whitehouse and Heinrich deserve huge credit for their hard work moving this forward. I still have some concerns with parts of this bill, and I intend to fight to address them through amendments. But Americans can't afford years of delay and higher energy bills. That's why I'm voting to move this debate forward. Let's get this bill right. Now, one more issue, which is impeachment of Hegseth. Trump's disastrous war in Iran will go down as one of the greatest foreign policy fiascos in all of American history. Eight months into the war, Americans are paying the price. Our service members are being put in harm's way, and this administration still, still has no plans to end it. Trump defied Congress, concealed the sacrifice of our service members, and showed himself to be utterly unfit to lead the Defense Department. We're to protect our soldiers. America needs a serious Secretary of Defense, not a wannabe warlord. Republicans need to listen to the American people, end this war, put Pete Hegseth on trial before the Senate. I support a trial in the Senate for Hegseth. And this is bigger than just party loyalty, bigger than allegiance to Trump. It's about our national security, our service members' security, and of course, our Constitution. It's time for Republicans to decide where their loyalty lies. With Trump or with the country they swore an oath to protect? End this war, put Hegseth on trial, get him. And next is Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chuck. We are all fresh off an election in which affordability was the prime concern. And we have a bill that we have moved to proceed to that addresses energy affordability in a significant way, $10 billion a year in savings for American consumers, and then another $35 billion in savings from making sure that data centers pay their own way onto the grid. To vote against this measure is to vote a $35 billion handout to data center developers. As you all know, I'm also concerned that the climate upheaval that we are facing from fossil fuel emissions has a precursor, which is economic upheaval, as insurance and mortgage and real estate markets collapse in the face of the uncertainties of climate risk. We are seeing the leading edge of that right now. We have to begin addressing the climate danger seriously. This bill operates at gigaton scale to reduce emissions. So we look forward to working very, very hard to make sure that Americans get the benefit of these savings and this safety. And with that, I'll turn it over to... Better Gillibrand. Better Gillibrand, of the DSCC. Last week's election was historic. It wasn't just a blue wave. It was definitely a blue tsunami. Voters across the country made it clear that they are ready for change. From rural New York to South Carolina to Texas, the Americans rejected President Trump's cost-increasing chaos in favor of candidates who are committed to providing real relief for Americans' costs and concerns. Last Tuesday, voters demanded change from the broken promises of the Trump administration. He promised no forever wars. He promised he would get costs down. He did neither. But now, the real work has to begin. We actually have to serve the American people, get things done, and answer the question of this election. We have to lower costs by ending the war in Iran. That will immediately get fuel costs down, diesel costs down, transportation costs down, food costs down. We have to rein in President Trump's reckless tariffs, which has driven up the cost of everyday goods, from groceries to construction materials to clothing. We have to restore access to health care. President Trump took so many people off of Medicaid. He has attacked Medicare at every step of the way. So bringing those health care costs down and restoring health care to the people who lost it. Common sense AI rails. You heard it across the country. People want accountability and they want guardrails. Protect our Social Security. We have our seniors who are terrified that Social Security will not be there in eight years and that will be cut. And finally, crack down on the corruption, including banning stock trading by members of Congress, this president, and top officials. Last week, Americans voted for change. Now is the time for Congress to actually deliver it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. It was great traveling the country, meeting our candidates, and helping get out the vote. And clearly, the American public had a message. They wanted to see sanity restored in Washington, D.C. They wanted to stop the corruption, bring down costs, and that's what we aim to do. As Democrats, whether it was traveling in the Northeast, Florida, Arizona, other parts of the country, what I heard was we want to see the Medicaid cuts reversed. We want SNAP funding to come back and so our kids aren't starving. We want to extend the ACA tax credits, increase the minimum wage so someone actually has a fighting chance to actually live well, protect our jobs from the threats of AI, and to crack down the data centers that are sucking up our water and also raising electricity. The president, however, has seemed to think that he's going to have a position that is somewhat favorable by the American public. He wants to call himself Mr. Veto. If he thinks that that is something that is popular, I'm going to give him a little hint. The American people want us to work for the betterment of their lives, of their kids' lives. They want to see a government, both Democratic and Republicans, that are working together. If he's just going to veto things, I think that 2026 will be a precursor to what's really going to happen in 2028. And lastly, especially for the Latino voter who was decisive in this election. In 2024, told the country that they were hurting from the cost of living. They were hurting from not being paid attention to. They came and said in 2026 that we are still hurting, and this administration was not listening to them. They're more focused on ballrooms and dining rooms. They're more focused on trying to hit quotas instead of trying to actually protect neighborhoods. They're more focused on making Stephen Miller happy than trying to actually keep families together. And that's why you saw such a radical change in the election. One of the strongest turnouts ever that it was prime to not just getting someone like Senator Ted Cruz elected, but also in other parts of the country, including Kansas, Georgia, and other parts. So I hope the message was very clear to this administration that it is time for us to work together for the betterment of the country, working class America, and any attempts of just being Mr. Veto, I think, will be hugely unpopular with the crowd. I'm confident I will be elected Majority Leader, and our caucus is really united. In focusing on bringing down costs, on ending the corruption, on ending the chaos, on ending the war. We have great unity in our caucus, and I'll be proud to lead it as Majority Leader. Yes, yes. I'd actually like to ask Senator Gillibrand of the White House. Are you supportive of Senator Schumer in this vote later? Yes. Look, I... I used to be a long-time Cubs fan, and I luckily got over that. When the manager takes you to the World Series, you give him another contract. And this has been a really good election cycle for us. Chuck and I have had our differences. Thank you. I am in his office a lot more. I think that he wants me to be in his office. And sometimes I'm called to the office more than I want to be called to the office. But at the end of the day, these are historic numbers. It's time for us to unify. We're going to work together as a caucus to put a plan together about how to move forward for what the country wants us to do. And I think, you know, we have the person that's going to lead us there. Peter Schumer? Let them answer. Yeah. So let's be clear. We won for a lot of reasons. President Trump created the most toxic agenda you could imagine by sending us to war in Iran, by having chaotic tariffs that raised the price of everything. But what made a difference for this election is that the Democratic caucus went into these elections 100% unified. We spent a year and a half talking about cost, corruption, and chaos. That was all Leader Schumer's decision-making and effort to keep our caucus united. We talked from one... What do we call it? One song sheet the whole time. There was enormous unanimity. You saw this caucus go out and campaign for these candidates in red and purple America. You saw this caucus raise enormous amounts of resources so these candidates could at least try to communicate head to head. And Senator Schumer, on top of all that. Raised another $600 million, which is an extraordinary amount of money because we were so outspent by the Republican Party because they had Elon Musk dumping in his billions and they had more super PACs than you could ever imagine. So what I can tell you is this caucus is grateful for the hard work of Senator Schumer. No one has put in the time and effort that anyone has put into this cycle than he did. And on top of that, he worked early, right in the beginning of the cycle, to find the best candidates we can find. And what made a difference is when these very... Very strong candidates got out there and raised the resources, created the grassroots advocacy. They allowed us to put more seats on the map. Because we had candidates like Sherrod Brown, because we had candidates like Roy Cooper, who could take these deeply red states and start turning them blue early, because John Ossoff was out front kicking ass from day one, raising over $100 million, taking Georgia Georgia off the map, that event allowed another ten races to become a part of this play. Senator Schumer and I did a fundraiser a year ago for our Mississippi candidate, for Scott Colome. He made sure there were resources in that state. Over a year ago, to actually register 100,000 new voters, that takes vision, it takes clarity of thought, it takes strategic leadership. And that is what Senator Schumer has done, and that is why you will see, despite all the grumblings, enormous gratitude for the hard work he has done to get us to this position. We are about to win nine Senate seats. That has never happened in my political history. Nine, this wave is bigger than the last blue wave, which was in 2006. In 2006, we won, that's me, it's when I won my two-to-one Republican House district. He was the head of DSCC at that cycle, Chuck Schumer. But it's bigger than that wave because that wave was six Senate seats and 30 House seats. You are going to see nine Senate seats, and you're going to see plus 30 House seats. That wave doesn't get created by... Magic, it gets created by hard work and putting the pieces together over two years. And what Senator Schumer was able to do was galvanize this caucus to all work hard to get this done. And yes, this country voted for change. That's why they voted for so many new candidates up and down the ticket. Most of our candidates are under the age of 45, which is shocking. But it takes strategy and planning to move us to the place where we can put these players on the field and actually win. And that takes experience. Sheldon, I was yes. I was yes early. Okay, but Chris Van Hollen and I are friends, we talk frequently, and we're united. United in lowering costs, and united in ending this damn war. How do you restate the base that's calling for some change? Thank you all. Well, what is that message that you're supporting?