‘Democrats Suck at This So Bad’: Bakari Sellers Blasts Chuck Schumer and Democratic Leadership

CNN’s Bakari Sellers laid into Democratic leadership over what he said was its feckless response to the first week of President Donald Trump’s second term.

As of Tuesday afternoon, for example, Medicaid reimbursement portals were down in all 50 states after the Trump administration issued guidance ahead of a constitutionally questionable spending freeze. The move, which is legally suspect, comes just days after Trump fired 17 inspectors general at various agencies despite not giving Congress 30 days’ notice as required by law. As such, the firings appeared to be illegal.

Sellers joined Tuesday’s edition of The Lead on CNN, where Jake Tapper asked him to react to an interview he just conducted with White House adviser Stephen Miller, who defended Trump’s actions.

“Bakari, you’re an attorney,” Tapper began. “I don’t know if you were listening to Stephen Miller earlier today, but he basically just said he doesn’t think that it’s constitutional for Congress to mandate that President Trump give a 30-day notice, as the law would require before he fires inspectors general. And I’m wondering if you think that that is emblematic of kind of the Trump administration’s posture here.”

Sellers replied in the affirmative and accused Trump of sowing “chaos” with the government freeze before pivoting to congressional Democrats’ reaction to the president’s actions over the past eight days – particularly Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

But Democrats apparently have been caught flat-footed, Jake. And that’s the most disappointing thing. I mean, the House Democrats have a meeting tomorrow over something that’s urgent today. And then we rolled out Chuck Schumer. I mean, I think that when you have institutions and places that are affected, we need to go to our constituents quickly. Those voices need to be up – 15, 30-second ads talking about how this affects them.

My daughter actually receives federal grant money to go to Howard University. Benedict College, right down the street, 95% of their $65 million budget is from federal grant and aid money. The uncertainty– old folk who can’t get meals on wheels, we don’t need to hear from Chuck Schumer. We need to hear from people who are actually affected.

And it’s so– it’s just malpractice that Democrats suck at this so bad that we’re allowing Donald Trump and Stephen Miller to run roughshod on what our government looks like, and people are learning the wrong lessons from what happened November 5th.

Watch above via CNN.