‘Sorry’: Chuck Schumer Apologizes After Calling Republicans ‘Bastards’ on MSNBC
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) apologized on Thursday after he referred to Republicans as “bastards” live on MSNBC.
During a heated discussion about the controversial government spending bill – which Schumer has stated he will vote for, despite criticism from fellow Democrats – MSNBC host Chris Hayes argued:
The only thing they understand is meeting conflict with conflict. So if you look at Doug Ford in Ontario, who banged the table and said, “You’re gonna tariff us? I’m gonna tariff you, we’re gonna put a surcharge on electricity,” that’s the only thing that gets their attention, the only thing that gets them to back down, is meeting conflict with conflict. If you meet conflict with essentially managed retreat or strategic non-engagement, then they roll all over you.
Schumer responded, “No, Chris. We are going to conflict with them on everything, on the tax cuts for the billionaires. They’ve become a plutocracy, an oligarchy. On Medicaid, we have plans to conflict them with all of that. If the shutdown occurred, we wouldn’t be able to do that because they would fill up both the Senate and the discussion on whether we should cut this and not cut that of things that they want to cut.”
He continued, “So to have the conflict on the best ground we have, summed up in a sentence, that they’re making the middle class pay for tax cuts for billionaires, it’s much, much better not to be in the middle of a shutdown which divert people from the number one issue we have against these bastards. Sorry, these people.”
As Hayes could be seen smirking, Schumer went on, “…Which is not only all these cuts, but they’re ruining democracy. And one other thing on a shutdown, on a shutdown, the courts could close, or at least be totally, totally disabled, and the courts are one of the best ways we’ve had to go after these guys.”
Just hours after Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) urged fellow Democrats on Thursday that “now” was “the moment” to take on “tyrant Trump” by opposing the government spending bill, Schumer announced he would be voting for the bill as the lesser of two evils.
“While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer argued. “For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR, it is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs, but I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
