TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer At Weekly Democratic Leadership Press Conference: “Our Number One Priority Is Lowering Costs, Making Life More Affordable, And Showing Americans That[...]

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke at his weekly Democratic Leadership press conference at the Capitol, alongside Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and discussed Democrats' landslide victory, the fight to lower costs, permitting reform legislation, and the need to hold Pete Hegseth accountable for his illegal war. Below are Leader Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Now, before I begin, a quick update on our dear friend Chris Murphy. I spoke with Chris this morning. I'm happy to report he sounds great, is recovering well, and we're looking forward to having him back with us soon.

Now, we just came from an incredible lunch where 11 new Senators-elect joined us. We're hopeful there'll be two more in a little while. Thanks in no small part to these extraordinary new members, we are on the verge of the single largest landslide for Senate Democrats since the 50s. These people are smart, tough, capable, compassionate, and they ran remarkable campaigns. They defied the odds and earned the trust of the voters in their state, where few thought Democrats could win.

They represent the future of our caucus. They came to our meeting today, even though they're not yet senators. And I couldn't be prouder to welcome them there. But winning the election is only the beginning. Now comes the important part, delivering for American families. That's the most important part of all of this. Our number one priority is lowering costs, making life more affordable, and showing Americans that Democrats are fighting for them every single day.

Now, on permitting reform, and I want to thank Sheldon Whitehouse for his great work there. Americans are paying far too much for energy. We have an opportunity to do something about it. Our broken permitting system has held back cleaner, cheaper energy, driven up costs, delayed good-paying jobs. We need to bring more affordable energy onto the grid. We need to make sure data centers pay their fair share and protect our land, our water, our communities. Whitehouse and Heinrich deserve huge credit for their hard work moving this forward. I still have some concerns with parts of this bill, and I intend to fight to address them through amendments. But Americans can't afford years of delay and higher energy bills. That's why I'm voting to move this debate forward. Let's get this bill right.

Now, one more issue, which is impeachment of Hegseth. Trump's disastrous war in Iran will go down as one of the greatest foreign policy fiascos in all of American history. Eight months into the war, Americans are paying the price. Our servicemembers are being put in harm's way, and this administration still, still has no plans to end it. Hegseth defied Congress, concealed the sacrifice of our servicemembers, and showed himself to be utterly unfit to lead the Defense Department or to protect our soldiers.

America needs a serious Secretary of Defense, not a wannabe warlord. Republicans need to listen to the American people, end this war, put Pete Hegseth on trial before the Senate. I support a trial in the Senate for Hegseth. And this is bigger than just party loyalty, bigger than allegiance to Trump. It's about our national security, our service members' security, and of course, our Constitution. It's time for Republicans to decide where their loyalty lies, with Trump or with the country they swore an oath to protect. End this war. Put Hegseth on trial. Get him out.

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Reporter: Senator Sanders just held a press conference where he said that he would not support you for leader. Senator Slotkin was with him. She said that she's a no until she can have a detailed plan as to what's going forward. And they both said that, "the country is crying for a new leadership overall. That was the result of the election." How do you respond to that? And are you still poised to be the Majority Leader?

Leader Schumer: I'm confident I will be elected Majority Leader. And our caucus is really united in focusing on bringing down costs, on ending the corruption, on ending the chaos, on ending the war. We have great unity in our caucus and I'll be proud to lead it as Majority Leader.

Reporter: I'd actually like to ask Senators Gillibrand, Gallego, and Whitehouse. Are you for Senator Schumer in this vote for leader?

Senator Gallego: I used to be a longtime Cubs fan, and I luckily got over that. When the manager takes you to the World Series, you give him another contract. And this has been a really good election cycle for us. Look, Chuck and I have had our differences. I am in his office a lot more, I think, than he wants me to be in his office. And sometimes I'm called to the office more than I want to be called to the office. But at the end of the day, these are historic numbers. It's time for us to unify. We're going to work together as a caucus to put a plan together about how to move forward for what the country wants us to do. And I think we have the person that's going to lead us there.

Senator Gillibrand: So, let's be clear. We won for a lot of reasons. President Trump created the most toxic agenda you can imagine by sending us to war in Iran, by having chaotic tariffs that raise the price of everything. But what made a difference for this election is that the Democratic caucus went into these elections 100 percent unified. We spent a year and a half talking about costs, corruption, and chaos. That was all Leader Schumer's decision-making and effort to keep our caucus united. We talked from one - what do we call it - song sheet, the whole time there was enormous unanimity. You saw this caucus go out and campaign for these candidates in red and purple America. You saw this caucus raise enormous amounts of resources so these candidates could at least try to communicate head-to-head. And Senator Schumer on top of all that raised another $600 million which is an extraordinary amount of money because we were so outspent by the Republican Party because they had Elon Musk dumping in his billions and they had more super PACs than you could ever imagine.

So, what I can tell you is this caucus is grateful for the hard work of Senator Schumer. No one has put in the time and effort that anyone has put into this cycle than he did. And on top of that, he worked early right in the beginning of the cycle to find the best candidates we could find. And what made a difference is when these very strong candidates got out there and raised the resources, created the grassroots advocacy, they allowed us to put more seats on the map. Because we had candidates like Sherrod Brown, because we had candidates like Roy Cooper who could take these deeply red states and start turning them blue early, because Jon Ossoff was out front, kicking ass from day one raising over $100 million, taking Georgia off the map. That event allowed another 10 races to become a part of this play that Senator Schumer made sure there were resources early. Senator Schumer and I did a fundraiser a year ago for our Mississippi candidate, for Scott Colom. He made sure there were resources in that state over a year ago to actually register 100,000 new voters. That takes vision. It takes clarity of thought. It takes strategic leadership. And that is what Senator Schumer has done and that is why you will see, despite all the grumblings, enormous gratitude for the hard work he has done to get us to this position. We are about to win nine Senate seats. That has never happened in my political history. Nine. This wave is bigger than the last blue wave which was in 2006. 2006, we won. That's me. It's when I won my two-to-one Republican House district. He was the head of DSCC at that cycle.

Leader Schumer: Who was the head of the DSCC?

Gillibrand: Chuck Schumer. But it's bigger than that wave because that wave was six Senate seats and thirty House seats. You are going to see nine Senate seats, and you're going to see plus thirty House seats. That wave doesn't come created by magic, it gets created by hard work and putting the pieces together over two years. And what Senator Schumer was able to do was galvanize this caucus to all work hard to get this done. And yes, this country voted for change. That's why they voted for so many new candidates up and down the ticket. Most of our candidates are under the age of 45, which is shocking. But it takes strategy and planning to move us to the place where we can put these players on the field and actually win, and that takes experience.

Senator Whitehouse: I was yes. I was yes early.

Reporter: Have you actually had any conversations with Senator Chris Van Hollen at this point? He said that he has not shut the door on leadership.

Leader Schumer: Chris Van Hollen and I are friends. We talk frequently, and we're united. United in lowering costs and united in ending this damn war. Thank you all.

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