Marc: Senator Schumer, welcome to Defending Democracy.
Senator Schumer: Marc. Great to be here with one of the great lawyers in our country who has protected democracy in many ways and is fighting to do it at this moment, I am sure.
Marc: I have one question that I don't understand. I assume Medicaid cuts disproportionately hit a number of red states. You'd think the Republicans would look at this and be like, “This is terrible for our constituents. This is hurting us.” Do they know that this is bad for them, and they don't care? Are they just sucking up to Donald Trump?
What is the rationale when you hear Republican senators talk about this to their constituents?
Senator Schumer: It's a great question. Lisa Murkowski summed it up best. She said, “We are all afraid.” She was the only honest one in the whole bunch. They are afraid. What are they afraid of? Retribution, vicious, nasty retribution by Donald Trump.
Here's what's been reported about Joni Ernst. It's a horrifying story. Joni Ernst was a farm girl from Iowa. She enlisted in the military. She was brutally raped. The military didn't do anything to go after the people who did it to her. So she ran for the Senate, and one of the things she ran on and wanted to change was how the military treats women who were abused. She won and to her credit, she did fix up some of the stuff in the military.
Well, Hegseth is nominated. He’s been accused of rape multiple times and of course, it won't be prosecuted under a Trump Justice Department that doesn't care about rule of law. All they care about is backing up their friends who back up Donald Trump. And so she said she couldn't vote for this guy given her history.
Joni Ernst felt so pressured by Donald Trump and Elon Musk to vote yes that she did, because they're all afraid. They're just afraid of Donald Trump.
Here's the thing they don't realize. Abe Lincoln said it best: Public sentiment is everything. Even though they're going along with Donald Trump, they're not going along with the public. So they're going to get hurt electorally. In 2017 they passed this big tax cut, we beat them on health care, and they lost seats in the House in 2018 [as a result]. Being afraid of Donald Trump may solve your short term fears, but the long term damage that you'll do with your constituents could be far more harmful to them, but [Republicans] don't quite get it yet...
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