Chuck Schumer Calls Out ‘Tone Deaf’ Mitch McConnell for Balking at More Stimulus While ‘America Is, In Many Ways, Burning’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw down the gauntlet at his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, calling him out for publicly balking at another round of stimulus funding even as the outbreak continues to claim thousands of lives every day and unemployment numbers have skyrocketed.

Speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett on the same day that news reports found 20 million private company jobs were lost in April, Schumer demanded continued emergency measures to prevent the nation from diving into a Great Depression.

“We need a big, bold answer to this. I am just appalled that Leader McConnell, [House Minority] Leader [Kevin] McCarthy and the president himself say let wait back and see what’s happening, maybe we don’t have to do anything,” Schumer said. “We have the biggest economic and health crisis we have had in decades, as you have mentioned. We need big, bold action and we need it soon. We need action to help those who are unemployed deal with their lives and not lose everything, their homes, their ability to feed their kid their ability to get healthcare. We need our businesses to get the help they need. We need our state and local governments a our firefighters and bus driver and police officers not to be laid off. And our Republican friends seem to be twiddling their thumbs.”

Schumer then railed against the president’s decision to push forward with a federal court fight to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

“We have millions of people losing their health care. We have so many people who have preexisting conditions who need help,” Schumer pointed out. “They say get rid of all that in the midst of a crisis. How tone deaf can they be? How removed from the statistics you’re mentioning can they be? And each statistic represents a personal heart break for somebody. How can they do this? I am just utterly amazed. They stick to this right-wing ideology, which helps a few, very well-to-do people and say to the rest of American, ‘Let’s fiddle,’ while the rest of America is, in many ways, burning.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.