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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, U.S. and Iranian officials are holding talks in Geneva as America stands at the brink of another potential conflict in the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Senate leaders and I met with Secretary Rubio. Everyone is asking what the plan is with respect to Iran, and we are all looking for answers that the administration has refused to give.

The issues we discussed in our classified briefing were very serious, and the American people deserve to hear it directly from the President and his administration. The administration should come clean and tell the American people exactly what the goal is in Iran.

I have always said that confronting Iran and halting its nuclear ambition requires a strategy, clarity, and transparency. Thus far, we are getting none of that from the administration. The American people deserve answers. Epstein Files

Mr. President, on Epstein, the way Pam Bondi and the Justice Department handled the release of the Epstein files has all the stench of a coverup.

Yesterday, news outlets reported that several memos detailing a woman's accusation against the President from when she was a minor have been withheld from the public. We know these memos exist. An index of all the investigative materials confirm their existence, and under law--the law we passed unanimously here in the Senate--they need to be made public.

Pam Bondi does not have the right to pick and choose which Epstein files to release to the public. Protecting the President from embarrassment is not her job. The American people were promised the truth, and Pam Bondi's job is to give Americans full access to the truth.

What else is the administration keeping behind a lock and key? Is this incompetence, or is it a full-blown coverup? Pam Bondi owes the American people some answers.

Remember, the law Congress passed had very specific criteria for withholding the Epstein files: protect victims' identities, protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation, or avoid duplication. Protecting Donald Trump's image does not--does not--fit any of these buckets.

So I ask Pam Bondi: Whose side are you on, the victims or the perpetrators? State of the Union Address

Mr. President, on the ``State of Delusion'' and Democrats' plan to lower costs, there has never been a State of the Union where the President spoke for so long but had so little substance, so little truth.

Tuesday night was 2 hours of Donald Trump's ``State of Delusion.'' He is in a bubble. He doesn't know what is going on with the American people. All he wants to do is stroke his own ego. Donald Trump told the country that everything is great, that costs are coming down, that manufacturing is up, that he is going to fix healthcare, and that we are going to win so much that we don't know what to do. That is what he said. It is amazing.

I ask very seriously: Who else in America feels this way, that we are winning so much we don't know what to do? Maybe billionaires, but that is it.

Today, I want to talk about a couple of things that Donald Trump didn't mention during his 2-hour ``State of Delusion.''

For one, Donald Trump didn't talk about how he will bring down the cost of living. Ground beef is up 11 percent. Coffee is up 14 percent. Rent is up. Thanks to Donald Trump's tariffs, American families are spending over $1,700 more this year--$1,700 out of the average working family's pocket. That is a heck of a lot of money when people are struggling to pay the bills.

Where is Donald Trump's plan to fix any of this? He said nothing.

In a moment, I will talk about what Democrats plan to do about this.

Donald Trump also talked about manufacturing, but he failed to mention that America is not creating manufacturing jobs. We are bleeding them.

So many lies--he says we are growing manufacturing jobs? Well, look at this chart.

These are the numbers of manufacturing jobs that were lost in the last year--in May, in June, in July, in August, in September, in October, in November, and in December. We lost in every month. We lost manufacturing jobs, and Donald Trump just lies about it.

This is the state of manufacturing in the United States. Manufacturing jobs are down by 100,000. We shed manufacturing jobs every single month--every single month--right after Trump's ``Liberation Day.'' Yet he lies about it. He just makes it up.

Donald Trump has this uncanny ability which misserves human beings and which particularly misserves Presidents. He thinks that by saying it is so, it is true and that everyone will just believe him. Well, his minions believe him, no matter what he says, but no one else. He talks past America.

Again, we lost manufacturing jobs, Donald Trump. We didn't gain them.

Trump also failed to speak about his plan to fix healthcare because he has none. Donald Trump claims he will always protect Medicare, but that is false. The CBO found that, thanks to Donald Trump's ``Big Ugly Bill,'' the Medicare trust fund will run out 12 years sooner than before. In other words, Donald Trump has accelerated Medicare's demise by more than a decade with one single bill which every Republican voted for in this Chamber but no Democrat because we knew the damage to healthcare he was doing.

Donald Trump also failed to mention anything about China. It is the second leading power in the world. The United States has lots of issues with China, but when was the last time a President of the United States avoided talking about America's biggest rival on the world stage during his State of the Union?

The way Donald Trump has handled China is an embarrassment. He has promised to be tough on China, but he is playing with them with kids' clothes, giving them critical American technology, and his tariffs have failed to win any meaningful concessions.

It doesn't have to be this way. Americans deserve better than a President and a Republican Party that think ``affordability'' is a made-up word. Later this morning, I will join my colleagues--Senators Cantwell, Lujan, Booker, and Welch--and experts from across the country to talk about how we lower food costs, how we make trips to the grocery store less painful for families, and how we fix the structural problems that keep prices high, like the consolidation of the food industry.

Today's roundtable is part of a larger Senate effort by Senate Democrats to, all year long, talk about how we will drive costs down, because we don't believe affordability is some kind of hoax. He called it a hoax. That was insulting to America. He seems to have fun insulting people. That is what it seemed like up there on the ``State of Delusion'' stage that he occupied. Affordability is the most real thing in the lives of the American people economically.

In the weeks and months ahead, we are going to go issue by issue, taking the time to dig in and roll out serious, practical battle plans to bring costs down. We started a month ago with housing, and I am proud of the work Democrats are doing to lower housing costs. We will soon take on energy and electricity. We will take on childcare, and we will take on healthcare.

Lowering costs will be Senate Democrats' North Star in 2026. Let me repeat that so America and our Republican colleagues hear it: Lowering costs will be Senate Democrats' North Star in 2026.

The conversations we have today about high food prices will lay the groundwork for real legislation so that, when Democrats have the majority, we can deliver real relief and bring down the cost of living.

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