During a press briefing on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about the Trump Administration using fentanyl smuggling to justify tariffs on Canada despite fentanyl coming from Canada making up less than 1% of all fentanyl that enters the United States.
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NewsTranscript
00:00On the Democratic side who's been really strong and pushing this, please welcome a guy with
00:04his own border with Canada, New Yorker Chuck Schumer.
00:08Thank you very much, Tim.
00:10And first let me thank Tim and his co-sponsors Amy and Mark.
00:14Tim has done an amazing job here.
00:16He has been persistent, he has been focused, he knew how important this was even a month
00:21or two ago before we saw the menace of all these tariffs.
00:26So Tim deserves a lot of credit from Virginians and from Americans for getting this issue
00:31to the point where we now will have a vote on it and the Republicans are squirming because
00:37they know very simply that tariffs are simply a tax increase.
00:41Let's listen to Senator Mullen.
00:44He said tariffs is a tax and it will be passed on to consumers.
00:48Rand Paul said tariffs are simply a tax.
00:51And here's the most galling thing.
00:53Donald Trump says, quote, I couldn't care less if prices go up to American families.
00:58America, you hear that?
01:01Donald Trump says he couldn't care less if you pay more.
01:05And it's not just a little.
01:07The estimates go as high as $6,500 more for the average American family.
01:13To the family that's sitting down Friday night and trying to figure out, do they have enough
01:17money to go on that vacation or to visit grandma or maybe to buy a car?
01:24Take away $6,500 and those dreams are out the window and Trump couldn't care less?
01:30Give me a break.
01:32Give me a break.
01:34And so many jobs will be lost.
01:36In New York alone, we estimate that over 200,000 jobs could be lost.
01:41We have the Canadian border.
01:42In a city called Plattsburgh on the northern border in Clinton County, 20% of the companies
01:48are Canadian owned or Canadian affiliated.
01:51Plattsburgh will just go into deep recession if this happens.
01:56So we're not going to let, we're going to do everything we can to fight.
01:59And oh, the most galling thing of all, why is he doing this?
02:03As Tim outlined, it's not fentanyl.
02:05You know, they always make up an excuse because they have no justification for what they're
02:10really doing.
02:11In this case, they say fentanyl, but the amount of fentanyl that comes over the Canadian border
02:16is minuscule.
02:17They're doing it so they raise revenue so they can give tax cuts to the billionaires
02:22like everything else.
02:24The whole government is geared, whether it's social security or Medicaid or Medicare or
02:30housing or agriculture, the whole government is geared to create dollars that can give
02:38tax breaks to the billionaires.
02:40And one final thing.
02:41Yes, are there certain areas where tariffs might be needed?
02:45Yes, it should be pinpointed in specific areas.
02:48But typical of this administration, they use a blunderbuss instead of a scalpel.
02:54They use a hatchet instead of a scalpel.
02:57They use a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.
03:00Thank you, Tim.
03:03And they just go after everything with huge destruction for the American people.
03:07You know, I've been a China hawk.
03:10And the kind of sort of imposing broad tariffs on China, which really has hurt us in trade
03:16every step of the way, makes sense.
03:18To do that to Canada, our friend, who our economies, our interrelated economies depend
03:23on each other, makes no sense whatsoever.
03:26But this administration makes no sense when it comes to tariffs.
03:29One final point.
03:30I've talked to New York business people.
03:32They hate uncertainty.
03:33Whether you're a small business person, a middle-sized business person, or a big business
03:38person.
03:39And the tariffs are so uncertain, so chaotic, such a mess, that business people are pulling
03:45back.
03:46So are consumers.
03:47They're saying, I don't know what's going to happen.
03:48I better not spend on that extra plant or hiring that extra, training that extra worker.
03:53So this is just a nightmare for the American economy, a nightmare for the American worker,
03:58a nightmare for American businesses.
04:00And we're going to fight it every step of the way.