Congress
Schumer: ‘The days of Trump’s supplicant Senate are over’
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is vowing that his party will use control of the chamber next year to try to end the Iran war, launch investigations and act as a legislative stumbling block for President Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters on the latest stop of his 12-hour victory lap Wednesday, Schumer said that he has not yet spoken to Trump since Democrats won the Senate majority Tuesday night, but warned that “the days of Trump’s supplicant Senate are over.”
“Whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court, and entangle him in legislative razor wire,” said Schumer, who is on track to be majority leader in the next congress.
Asked if he thinks Democrats will be able to work with Trump, Schumer added: “We are going to work hard to drive costs down with the president or without him. Period.”
The New York Democrat sidestepped a question about whether the election results were a mandate to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — he said that “everyone will make their own interpretation of what it meant in terms of Hegseth” — but vowed that Democrats “are going to end the war.”
Democrats have tried to limit Trump’s military actions against Iran through war powers votes, but they’ve also looked at ways of leveraging government funding bills to place restrictions on the president; an annual defense policy bill has also been held in limbo for months over the issue.
Ultimately, Democrats will still need help from Republicans to pass most legislation, and Trump can always veto a bill that gets to his desk that would attempt to hem him in. Schumer, however, was bullish Wednesday about Democrats’ impending power.
“We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war,” he said, “and the founding fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people.”
He also said that while Democrats will launch investigations into the Trump administration because “there was such rampant corruption,” that it wouldn’t be their top focus.
“We’re not going to take our eye off the ball. Number one, reducing costs, ending corruption,” Schumer said.