During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) spoke about the stock market dropping amid uncertainty surrounding Trump's tariffs.
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00:00Senator from Hawaii.
00:02Mr. President, we're 50 days into Donald Trump's second term,
00:07and the American economy is already in freefall.
00:12Prices are soaring, stocks are plummeting, and people are panicking about a recession.
00:19None of this was inevitable.
00:22All of this is Trump's own making.
00:26This week, after Trump couldn't categorically rule out that his policies would lead to a recession,
00:31Nasdaq had its worst day in years, while the Dow Jones dropped a whopping 1,300 points.
00:39But it's not just the stock market that is taking a hit, it is regular people everywhere.
00:45Consumer confidence is down by 7 points, 7 points in 50 days since Trump took office,
00:51and spending has dropped for the first time in two years.
00:55The dollar is weaker, hiring is slowing, interest rates are unlikely to come down,
01:00and GDP is expected to shrink this quarter for the first time in three years.
01:08You know, usually, presidents get too much blame or too much credit for the state of the economy.
01:18But not this time.
01:21Trump is going out of his way to plunge the economy into chaos and make life harder for everyone.
01:27And whether you're buying groceries or trading stocks or hoping to retire next month, you are getting hit.
01:35When the Commerce Secretary was asked yesterday about a potential recession, he said, quote,
01:41It's worth it.
01:45It's worth it.
01:47They actually think a recession would be worth it.
01:51And if the economic numbers coming in are bad, if they show that the economy is shrinking or the costs are rising,
01:57their solution is to cook the books, to make them seem better.
02:02Because when the data is bad, change it.
02:05Everybody knows that.
02:07Trump is getting to work on lowering prices on day one like he said he would.
02:12The president has spent his days plotting the rebirth of a gilded age with tariffs and tax cuts.
02:21That was a time when the rich got richer while everyone else got screwed.
02:26Trump tells a different story.
02:28Quote, we were at our richest.
02:30We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913, he said.
02:35That's when we were a tariff country.
02:38We were a very wealthy country, and we're going to be that way again, end quote.
02:43And so I just want to make clear, yes, I'm a partisan.
02:46Yes, I think Donald Trump is screwing up the economy.
02:49But it's really important for us to understand they actually do have a theory of the case,
02:53and that is the golden age from 1870 to 1913.
03:00I didn't say that.
03:03The president said that.
03:05I didn't say, hey, these guys think a recession is worth it.
03:10They said a recession is worth it.
03:14It is true that in the gilded age, some people were very wealthy then.
03:19Robber barons and business tycoons built enormous empires on the backs of working people
03:24who had little to show for it.
03:26Profits boomed.
03:28Billionaires emerged.
03:30Regular people suffered in tenements and on factory floors, and poverty was everywhere.
03:37But the gilded age is exactly what the president is trying to recreate.
03:42Whether it's tariffs on our largest trading partners that will jack up the price of our food
03:47or our homes or our cars or mass layoffs of the people who inspect our food
03:52or keep the skies safe or care for our veterans
03:56or the tax cuts for the richest people to ever exist,
04:00funded by slashing regular people's health care and hard-earned retirement savings,
04:05all of this is about taking money from people who don't have enough
04:10and handing it over to people who already have more than anyone has ever had.
04:19Whether you voted for Trump or not,
04:23whether you believed he would be good on the economy or not,
04:27whatever sort of side of the political, tribal, ideological, partisan, algorithmic divide
04:37that we are all experiencing in our little filter bubbles on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter
04:42and wherever else we get our disaggregated information,
04:46this economy sucks.
04:50People are paying too much,
04:53and it is the intentional policy of the president's economic team
05:00to recreate a time when, until just about 50 days ago,
05:05everybody agreed we should never go back to that time.
05:09Kids working on factory floors,
05:12people working 70 hours and not able to feed their family,
05:18unprecedented disparity between the extremely wealthy and everybody else.
05:23That's what they are explicitly going for.
05:27This is not me putting spin on the ball.
05:30That's what they're saying.
05:32That's what the Commerce Secretary is saying.
05:34That's what the Treasury Secretary is saying.
05:37That's what the President of the United States is saying.
05:40This is their plan,
05:42and it is going according to plan.
05:47These people have the ability to short things
05:51and ride the volatility
05:53and monetize all of the craziness
05:56and make side deals and do crypto
05:59and park their assets here and there.
06:01They make money no matter what.
06:03But if you're retiring next month
06:06with a 401K or an IRA or a 403B,
06:11you just got screwed.
06:14Trillions of dollars of wealth was eliminated,
06:19and the President sprung into action.
06:22Why? For what purpose?
06:25To help his buddies sell cars on the White House lawn.
06:30I don't have a preference for electric cars or non-electric cars.
06:34I don't care. That's fine.
06:37But what a weird thing to spring into action about
06:39when everybody's getting kicked in the face,
06:41economically, except his buddies.
06:45Mr. President,
06:47I ask unanimous consent that the following remarks
06:50appear in a different part of the journal.
06:52Without objection.
07:01Mr. President, it wasn't so long ago
07:03that a senator stood on this floor
07:05and said the following.
07:07Foreign aid, as a part of the overall budget,
07:10is less than 1% of the total amount
07:12that the U.S. government spends.
07:14I promise you,
07:16it is going to be a lot harder to recruit someone
07:18to anti-Americanism and anti-American terrorism
07:21if the United States of America
07:23is the reason one is even alive today.
07:26End quote.
07:27The person who said that was not me.
07:29It wasn't another Democrat.
07:31It was then-Senator,
07:33now Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
07:36As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
07:38Marco Rubio was one of the strongest supporters
07:40of foreign aid,
07:42and specifically,
07:44the United States Agency for International Development,
07:46or USAID.
07:48He introduced bills to leverage USAID
07:50to fight human trafficking,
07:52advance women's economic empowerment,
07:54and reduce violence globally.
07:56He called on the agency to, among other things,
07:58provide humanitarian relief in Colombia,
08:01support free and fair elections in Burma,
08:03promote Internet freedom in Cuba,
08:05advance democratic values in the Indo-Pacific,
08:08and speaking in 2018, he said, quote,
08:11anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid
08:14and that will bring us to balance
08:16is lying to you.
08:18It's just not true.
08:20And so, to witness the evisceration of USAID
08:26and foreign aid more broadly
08:28under his leadership as Secretary of State
08:31and acting administrator of USAID
08:34has been honestly shocking.
08:37This is someone who just two months ago
08:39was confirmed by the Senate 99 to 0.
08:43He is someone who throughout his time in the Senate
08:45believed in the power and the jurisdiction
08:47of this institution.
08:49Someone who, while we disagreed on policy a lot,
08:51consistently showed moral clarity
08:53on the basic belief
08:55that America ought to be the side,
08:57on the side of the good guys,
08:59on the side of democracy and freedom.
09:03But he has sidestepped Congress
09:05at every turn on this issue.
09:08As the lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee,
09:10overseeing funding for foreign and national security policy,
09:14I've been working with my colleagues to press
09:16Secretary Rubio publicly and privately for answers.
09:20We've sent numerous letters with dozens of questions,
09:22virtually all of which have gone unanswered.
09:25And these aren't, like, these aren't out of the ordinary
09:28partisan gotcha questions.
09:30These are the normal things that your clerk
09:32from the Appropriations Subcommittee would say,
09:34like, hey, can you tell us what this is
09:36and please inform us per the law.
09:38This is, like, normal, mundane,
09:40work-a-day correspondence.
09:42Nothing.
09:45We're supposed to get notifications
09:48about changes,
09:50and we've gotten nothing.
09:54Then on Monday,
09:565 a.m. Eastern Time,
09:58there was a tweet from him saying that the review
10:00of foreign aid that was supposed to take 90 days
10:02is now complete,
10:04and that 5,200 contracts are gone,
10:0683% of the whole enterprise,
10:08and they'll consult with Congress
10:10about what remains.
10:13But the last part is not true.
10:16There has been no consultation
10:18with Congress at all
10:20during this process.
10:22There has to be,
10:24as a matter of law,
10:26and the Secretary ought to come to Congress
10:28and explain to us, not Pete Morocco,
10:34not Pete Morocco,
10:36who we didn't confirm,
10:38who most people in the public
10:40have never heard of,
10:42who is widely viewed as a controversial figure.
10:44He came in,
10:46closed-door briefing, one hour,
10:48and you know what?
10:50He had a hard stop, had to go at 11.
10:52You know what he did at 11?
10:54He went with federal marshals
10:56to another federal agency
10:58and barged in the door,
11:00and that was found to be illegal.
11:02That was his hard stop.
11:04He only had an hour to talk to members
11:06of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
11:08because he had to get on
11:10to commandeering a building
11:12with federal marshals.
11:14As of today,
11:16we still have no idea
11:18which programs were cut
11:20and which still remain.
11:22It was like we were in a classified session.
11:24When you're in a classified session,
11:26they might give you paper,
11:28and then their staff,
11:30politely but firmly,
11:32take the paper back
11:34so you don't accidentally
11:36take a bunch of classified stuff
11:38out of the building.
11:40They acted like the stuff they're doing
11:42on appropriations
11:44is somehow top secret.
11:46It's not top secret.
11:48They just don't want anyone to know.
11:50They program the funds
11:52from the programs that were eliminated.
11:54We're still waiting to hear how he intends
11:56to operate the remaining programs going forward.
11:58Weeks and months have passed,
12:00and we still don't even have
12:02the most basic information.
12:04Here's what we do know.
12:08I'll try to calm down here.
12:10Here's what we do know.
12:12Multiple laws are being violated
12:14at once.
12:16The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act
12:18of 1998, which established
12:20USAID as an independent agency.
12:22The Impoundment Control Act,
12:24which says a president can't delay
12:26or refuse to spend funds Congress appropriates
12:28just because they have a different
12:30policy view.
12:32The Impoundment Control Act is not ambiguous.
12:34It says
12:36that a president cannot decide
12:38what they spend
12:40based on a policy preference.
12:42If it's in the law, it's in the law.
12:44They've got to execute on it.
12:46If their opportunity
12:48to exercise their
12:50leverage as a separate and co-equal
12:52branch is to threaten to
12:54veto a bill if it has something they don't want to
12:56spend money on, but once that law
12:58is enacted, their discretion
13:00is gone.
13:02The Appropriations Bills for
13:04State and Foreign Ops, which,
13:06among other things, sets minimum
13:08funding levels, prohibits the creation
13:10of new programs, the suspension
13:12or elimination of existing programs,
13:14and changes to agencies without
13:16prior consultation with
13:18and notification of Congress. Nobody
13:20did that.
13:24You can love these cuts.
13:26I assume some people love these
13:28cuts. You can hate these cuts.
13:30I hate these cuts.
13:32But one thing you cannot say
13:34is that this administration is following
13:36the law and fulfilling
13:38its duties in consulting
13:40with Congress. And in the meantime, millions
13:42of people will die.
13:46Millions of people will die.
13:48Our sudden
13:50withdrawal has pushed people in Syria,
13:52Sudan, South Africa, and so many other
13:54places to the verge of
13:56starvation, disease,
13:58and death.
14:00I understand.
14:02I learned when I was 28
14:04that when you're in elected office, you better be
14:06very careful what you say. I said
14:08some casual words one time.
14:10I don't remember what I said. I won't repeat them.
14:12I was on Hawaii News Now, and someone
14:14asked me a question, and I was tired.
14:16It was the morning show, and I said
14:18something just overly
14:20casually, and it really hurt people.
14:22And so ever since then,
14:24I've tried to be as precise as I can be.
14:26And now that
14:28I'm in the Senate, even more so do I have
14:30an obligation to not say
14:32anything that's untrue, but also to just be
14:34careful not to be too provocative.
14:36And so I say this
14:38unwisely, millions of people will die
14:42because of the United
14:44States government executive branch.
14:46This is a global
14:48humanitarian catastrophe
14:50about to happen
14:52on America's watch.
14:54When I became ranking
14:56member of the subcommittee,
14:58one of the first things I talked to
15:00Chairman Lindsey Graham about was
15:02how do we make things work better?
15:04Where can we better align
15:06our priorities?
15:08I am open for business
15:10if the enterprise is
15:12lawmaking.
15:14And I am absolutely opposed
15:16if the enterprise
15:18is lawbreaking.
15:20I yield the floor.