Chuck Schumer Goes Nuclear On Trump After His ‘I Love Inflation’ Remark | US News

Well, Mr. President, it may be genuine, it may genuinely be impossible, impossible for Trump to be more out of touch with the American people than he already is. After Trumpflation reached a record high yesterday, Donald Trump said, the numbers are great. I love the inflation. That's what he said. That's his words. The numbers are great. I love the inflation. That's when inflation hit a record high, long-time high of 4.2%. Look at this guy. How out of touch is he, Donald Trump? The American people hate the inflation. They're shouting it from the rooftops every day, bring costs down. And Donald Trump says, I love the inflation. What is wrong with him? How out of touch is he? It's sickening. And you can't even make this stuff up. Americans are losing their homes. Parents are working multiple jobs just to feed their kids. Workers are walking to their jobs because they can't afford to fill up their tanks. But Donald Trump has the audacity to say, I love the inflation. In fact, I was told that a veteran in New York one night had to choose between feeding his child and feeding his service dog. Isn't that, doesn't that make you sad? What we're seeing from Trump isn't just benign neglect or blind indifference. Trump is actively rooting for the financial demise of the American people when he says, I love the inflation. What is Trump thinking? Did Trump lose a bet where he had to say the most asinine, tone-deaf thing imaginable on national television? Trump has torched the American economy with his tariffs, with his disastrous war in Iran, and with his unprecedented cuts to health care and other vital services. Now most arsonists flee the scene of a crime Donald Trump calls a press conference. The only thing Donald Trump loves more than inflation is the corruption. As Americans live through a financial nightmare, Donald Trump is living out his billionaire dreams – golden ballrooms, lavish gifts from foreign countries, sweetheart deals for his family business, taxpayer-funded cash payouts for him and his cronies through the slush fund. Apparently, Senate Republicans love the inflation too, helping Trump every step of the way as he drives up costs and lines his pockets. You'd think, given how out of touch Trump is, given how he talks about loving inflation while the American people are suffering, that some of our Republican colleagues would have the guts to cross the aisle and join us in fighting this inflation. But instead, silence, fear, knees knocking because they're afraid of Trump. Well, we'll see how much Trump and the GOP love inflation come November on stock buybacks. You know, costs are skyrocketing, but corporations are making massive profits, and instead of using the profits to create jobs and invest in growth, corporations too often buy back their own stock to increase its value and reward executives. I'm introducing legislation today with Senators Wyden and Warren to rein in the stock buybacks that corporate executives use to line their own pockets to the detriment of the American people. Americans need more jobs and higher wages right now, not more privileges for millionaires and billionaires. Our bill would quadruple the tax big corporations pay on these stock buybacks, which will both push companies to invest in their workers and the future, and allow us to invest more in lowering costs and helping working families get ahead with some of the money we could use when you collect that 4% on stock buybacks. While Trump and Senate Republicans don't have any plan to lower Americans' costs, in fact their policies are doing the opposite. Democrats continue to fight back against corporate giveaways and push for solutions to help the American people deal with skyrocketing costs of Trump economy. And let's not forget, if you're the CEO of a company, and you're often measured by your stock price, buybacks raise that stock price. The damn shame of it all is, those buybacks don't create a single new job, or an investment in a worker, or investment in equipment to increase productivity and produce more, no. They simply raise the stock price which benefits corporate executives and shareholders, but not the American public. So we ought to, at the very minimum, raise the tax which was put on at 1% to now 4%. And in addition, it will bring in revenues to the federal government, hopefully that we can use to help lower costs of the American people. That's certainly what we would do. Now on Bill Pulte. The whole job of the Director of National Intelligence is to keep America safe. But Trump's decision to appoint Bill Pulte, someone with absolutely zero relevant experience, is going to put Americans in danger. Let me repeat, America, with Pulte in charge, we are in danger. This job is so sensitive, we need real leadership in the intelligence community. Not a national security novice sent to undermine the work of intelligence professionals. That's what Pulte's expert on. Trump has an enemy, he goes after him, even if the facts don't merit it. Look what he did to my Attorney General in New York, Tish James. Or to so many others, including Cook on the Federal Reserve. He's just a hitman, in a certain sense, in a financial sense. It's outrageous. He has no fidelity to fact. He's just a yes-man to Trump. Trump says, go after one of my enemies, and Pulte does. No one in their right mind would trust Bill Pulte, a person nicknamed Little Trump by his administration colleagues, to speak truth to power, to conduct objective analysis, to resist efforts to politicize the intelligence community. In a job where facts are so important, and the President knowing the real facts are so important, to have this man, who has no fidelity to facts, in this job, again, is very dangerous for the American people. Trump and Republicans need to put an adult in a room. Bill Pulte is not the man for the job, and my Republican colleagues know it. On Iran, for weeks, Donald Trump, Pete Hexeth, and Marco Rubio have insisted their disastrous war in Iran is over. How stupid do they think the American people are? This morning, Trump said he plans to take Karg Island, which could even mean putting American boots on the ground. It doesn't take a military genius to see that Trump's fiasco of a war with Iran never ended, not with American helicopters being shot down, not when American bases are being attacked and American troops are coming under fire. Saying this war is over is an insult, an insult to the brave American servicemen who are risking their lives every day to fight it. The only thing more absurd than the Trump administration's lies about the Iran war is that Republicans accept them at face value and just go along. Too many. Too many of them. For months, Democrats have urged Republicans to support our war powers resolution, to end this war for real. And for months, Republicans have failed to do so. Americans have made it clear they don't want this war. They don't want the high costs, gasoline and fertilizer and everything else that come with it. And Trump has made it clear he's incapable of cleaning up this mess. You just have to listen to his statements over a period of a few days and they completely contradict each other. And typical of Trump. He doesn't care if he says one thing one day and says the total opposite thing the next day and the American people know he's lying to them. He doesn't care. Trump is incapable, given his way, his lack of concern for facts, his only concern being his own ego. He's incapable of ending the war. Incapable of cleaning up his own mess. Republicans need to stop buying the BS, show some spine and help us bring our service members home. I yield the floor.