“During his campaign, Donald Trump promised his wealthy donors that he would make them even richer by cutting their taxes. He invited many of them to his inauguration, some even got to stand on the stage with him as he was sworn in. This is who Donald Trump is for; he is for them. He is for the really, really rich. That is whom he represents. We are for you.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor to remind Americans that President Donald Trump is working for billionaires at the expense of hard-working Americans.
Watch his full remarks HERE. Download remarks HERE.
Key Excerpts:
On Trump weaponizing the Justice Department:
Since Donald Trump’s first day in office, he has methodically and meticulously purged the Department of Justice of anyone who is not blindly loyal to him. Not loyal to the rule of law, mind you. Not loyal to their oath. But loyal to the person of Donald Trump.
That is and will be the only standard in this department. It is not a coincidence that the top three lawyers running the Justice Department — including Attorney General Pam Bondi — are all, all former Trump criminal defense lawyers. Their client was and always will be the multiply indicted and convicted felon who occupies the Oval Office.
So how does this hurt everyday Americans? It does so in a few ways. First, it means the department’s resources will be focused on all the wrong things. The DOJ should be focused on keeping Americans safe. It should be focused on cracking down on violent criminals and addressing the fentanyl crisis. It should be hunting down fraudsters who scam Americans. But instead, they’re focused on retribution. On going after Trump’s enemies. On helping those who were loyal to him. And wasting countless hours and resources in the process.
On the gutting of essential programs in exchange to benefit the ultra-rich:
[…] The reality is, these tax cuts aren’t free. Somebody’s going to pay for them. Well it won’t be the real wealthy that pay for them, everyone else is going to pay for them. Working Americans are going to see their costs skyrocket, they’re going to see their retirement accounts plummet, and their Social Security and Medicaid ripped apart to give more money to billionaires. And here’s the thing, they don’t even pretend anymore. They are happy to admit their multi-trillion dollar check that they’re about to write to billionaires will be paid for by everyone else. Not just in dollars. But in the programs you rely on. Programs you paid into your whole life.
Medicaid – on the chopping block. Social Security – offices closing, phones lines unanswered, they want it to slowly die on the vine. Food assistance – going the way of the Dodo bird. The list goes on and on. Life will get harder and harder. That is, of course, unless you’re a multi-billionaire who wrote a big check to Donald Trump. Which, if he doesn’t bring about a global recession, just might turn out to be a pretty damn good investment.
During his campaign, Donald Trump promised his wealthy donors that he would make them even richer by cutting their taxes. He invited many of them to his inauguration, some even got to stand on the stage with him as he was sworn in. This is who Donald Trump is for; he is for them. He is for the really, really rich. That is whom he represents. We are for you.
Read the transcript of his remarks as delivered below:
The Trump administration is corrupt. It is easily, the single most corrupt and lawless administration in American history. And it would be exceedingly difficult to debate that simple proposition. Because, notwithstanding all of the “what aboutism” we occasionally hear, there is really no denying it.
The self-dealing by unelected billionaires like Elon Musk. The presidential meme coins. The quid-pro-quos. The dismissal of corruption cases in exchange for help on the president’s policy agenda. The dismissal of national security personnel, not on the basis of national security, but on the word of right-wing cranks. The deportation of someone to a maximum-security prison in another country on the basis of a clerical error. The mass illegal firings. The reckless use of commercial apps for classified information. The scorning of court orders. The phony math to hide the deficit exploding impact of tax cuts for billionaires. The attacks on Social Security, calling it a Ponzi scheme, when people making the attacks, those that are making the attacks are the con-men who want to raid the hard-earned retirement funds belonging to our nation’s seniors and veterans. The swamp is full. It is overflowing. And Donald Trump is standing right in the middle of it, up to his ears in the filth.
And it is plainly obvious to anyone who is watching that the president simply doesn’t care about anyone, but himself. Not you. Not your families. Certainly not the American people. He is in it for himself. While your retirement savings are being wiped out, he’s playing the back 9 at his country club. “Oh caddie, caddie, would you hand me a number 6.”
Now, the Trump administration’s abundant corruption doesn’t happen in a vacuum. His corrupt self-dealing doesn’t just boost his own bottom line and that of his wealthy donors. It hurts everyday Americans. It hurts Californians. It hurts all of us.
So let me give you some examples.
Days before Donald Trump was sworn in, he took one of the most obviously corrupt actions of his political career. And that’s saying quite a lot. The president took to Twitter to announce he was launching his own cryptocurrency. A meme coin. He would maintain a vast ownership of the stock in it. But anyone in the world could buy in. From a Chinese national under indictment in the U.S. to any Sultan in the Middle East looking to buy influence. And predictably – the meme coin just skyrocketed.
On paper, he appears to have made billions on it. It’s possible he made more in one day from this joke cryptocurrency than he had made in his entire life up to that point. You might recall a press conference he had when a reporter asked him, at the beginning of his presidency, “Are you going to continue to traffic in this coin in this currency that is making you a lot of money.
The president’s question to him was, “Well how much is it making me?” And when the reporter said, “Oh it’s making you a lot,” the president was delighted. Turned to presumably off camera, Elon Musk or one of the billionaires and said, “Well, that may not be much to these guys.” And there was laughter to be had.
The corruption is out in the open. And the thing about this new “currency” is it’s a message to anyone who wants to curry favor with the president. Whether it’s foreign governments, or oligarchs, or wealthy Wall Street billionaires. It gives them a chance to literally buy Donald Trump’s favor. Directly, corruptly, and unmistakenly.
Now who does that ultimately hurt? Short answer is everyone else. So, maybe it’s a billionaire buying a bigger tax break – but that means hard-working Americans are going to have to pay for it. Or maybe it’s someone under indictment for fraud, who can now get their case dismissed by Donald Trump’s DOJ, for the right price in meme coin.
That hurts every American, because it just invites all kinds of further corruption. Now the president’s kids are getting into the crypto business, and there are even more opportunities for graft. In other parts of the world, where there are long traditions of such corruption, they would be called “princelings.” There’s a name for them — they’re called princelings. Well, congratulations America, we now have our own princelings, and they are called Eric and Don Jr.
As it turns out, it’s not just by buying Trump’s meme coin or the kids’ crypto investments that may help get the Justice Department to drop your case or get the Justice Department to go after your enemies. Since Donald Trump’s first day in office, he has methodically and meticulously purged the Department of Justice of anyone who is not blindly loyal to him. Not loyal to the rule of law, mind you. Not loyal to their oath. But loyal to the person of Donald Trump.
That is and will be the only standard in this department. It is not a coincidence that the top three lawyers running the Justice Department — including Attorney General Pam Bondi — are all, all former Trump criminal defense lawyers. Their client was and always will be the multiply indicted and convicted felon who occupies the Oval Office.
So how does this hurt everyday Americans? It does so in a few ways. First, it means the department’s resources will be focused on all the wrong things. The DOJ should be focused on keeping Americans safe. It should be focused on cracking down on violent criminals and addressing the fentanyl crisis. It should be hunting down fraudsters who scam Americans.
But instead, they’re focused on retribution. On going after Trump’s enemies. On helping those who were loyal to him. And wasting countless hours and resources in the process.
But also, Trump is using the DOJ now to protect his friends and allies. You don’t have to look any further than a federal case in New York. The Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, indicted on serious corruption charges. A mayor who then, seeing the writing on the wall, pursued a kind of quid pro quo with the president. He goes down to Mar-a-Lago. And the quid pro quo is as plain as day. It’s out in the open. The president’s own border czar does a joint interview sitting next to the mayor on “Fox and Friends” on their couch to lay out the stark quid pro quo in exquisite detail. All that was left unsaid was by Trump’s border czar were the words, “or else.”
The mayor would get his case dismissed and in exchange he would pursue the president’s policy agenda when it comes to immigration. If the mayor was guilty of serious corruption, of bribery and providing political favors to foreign nations in exchange for lavish gifts — and even the Trump DOJ doesn’t deny the evidence against him — that just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. Not if he’s a political ally to the president. So who does this hurt? It hurts New Yorkers. It invites more corruption in the city of New York. But this trend, of course, hurts everyone.
A big corporation screwing over their consumers can seemingly prevent investigation or prosecution now by kissing the ring. Just take a trip to Mar-a-Lago. A corrupt politician can continue to leverage government resources for their own gain, knowing that they may never be held accountable for their actions.
You can even storm this building, and they did. You can storm right into this chamber. And they did. You can trample American democracy. You can beat police officers in the name of this president, and not only will your prosecution be dropped – but you will be pardoned and celebrated.
And, beyond that, the public servants who prosecuted you will be removed, replaced, or demoted. They will be purged. By using the Justice Department as a shield to protect his friends and a sword to go after his enemies – it is the American people who will lose.
Now just down the street from the DOJ, at the Food and Drug Administration, there is something less talked about but also quite sinister going on. Elon Musk, among his many companies, owns one called “Neuralink.”
Now this is a company that is aiming to essentially implant computers into people’s brains. While I am not personally one to want an Elon-sponsored device shoved into my cerebral cortex, I do believe in responsible innovation, and I even celebrate it.
But unfortunately for responsible innovation, within weeks of entering office, Elon and DOGE had fired essentially the entire team at the FDA’s office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices. You guessed it. The office in charge of reviewing his product – gone. That sent a pretty clear message through the agency. Get on board with Elon, or you’re out. It feels like par for the course for Elon, but it really is unprecedented in this country.
Especially damaging at the fact this occurs at a time when they are just massively laying people off at the FDA. Huge cuts in the folks that make sure our medicine and food are safe.
Not only does that mean that lifesaving medicine doesn’t get reviewed and deployed faster to the American people – it means that dangerous stuff gets into circulation much longer before it can be stopped. Or maybe it just slips through with a wink, a nod, and a big enough contribution to the Trump meme coin.
And if you thought Elon stopped at the FDA, well, I have some more news for you. DOGE has pulled the exact same move at other agencies providing oversight over him, or with which he has contracts.
The FAA, where Elon Musk has desires for contracts for his Starlink satellite system. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, where Elon’s companies face a significant threat of oversight — or at least, they did before he made that agency largely go away. Or at NASA, where Elon’s Space X has billions in contracts. The Pentagon, more contracts for Elon. And now, FDA. You can’t find more corrupt self-dealing than that.
Not in our history. You may be able to find it in other countries. But until this administration, you couldn’t find it here. Now, in the category of good news. I guess if you’re really wealthy, there’s some good news for you at the IRS. And that is Donald Trump and his buddy Elon are gutting the IRS.
Tearing apart the agency that ensures rich folks pay their fair share in taxes. So they can’t and don’t scam the system. By firing thousands of IRS employees, thousands of tax collections of rich folks will never occur – and billions of dollars that could be used to help our communities will never materialize.
They’re gutting it so that they can say it doesn’t work, and then they can gut it even further. All to reward their billionaire friends. But it’s worse than that. Much like the DOJ, it seems clear that the Trump team has every intent of weaponizing the IRS to go after their enemies. They could order audits against people who speak out. Protect those from audits who toe the line. Those attacks won’t just be on big businesses, but also prominent political enemies. They could come for anyone. Anyone who dares to speak out.
A small business that sells a product they don’t like, a nonprofit that supports a cause they don’t like. They get an audit. But the president’s wealthy buddies? Nope, they do really well.
But this gutting of the IRS, this tax give away to people by gutting the IRS, this isn’t the biggest con. This isn’t the biggest con, not by a long shot. Because the biggest con, the biggest con involves trillions of dollars. And that of course is the tax cut, how they pay for it, and how they don’t.
Donald Trump, who solicited untold sums from billionaires in the form of campaign contributions and shady schemes to enrich himself – delivers in the way that those donors could hardly image. Massive tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, paid for by cutting Medicaid and other vital services, and by borrowing a ton of money from your kids and grandkids, sinking the nation further into debt. Tax cuts for billionaires and more. Well, if you’re one of them that’s great news. That means time to buy another yacht or maybe another vacation home. More money to invest in the stock market. And they may need to given what the Trump tariffs are doing to the market right now.
But that’s what their contributions bought them. A few billion here and a few billion there. And pretty soon we’re talking about serious money for these wealthy donors and large corporations. But the thing is these tax cuts aren’t free.
Yeah, they’re using this phony math they call the current policy baseline. It’s a phony math that says if you spent $3,000 on a vacation last year, you can spend another $3,000 this year and it won’t cost anything, because it’s the current baseline in your family.
But the reality is, these tax cuts aren’t free. Somebody’s going to pay for them. Well, it won’t be the real wealthy that pay for them, everyone else is going to pay for them. Working Americans are going to see their costs skyrocket, they’re going to see their retirement accounts plummet, and their Social Security and Medicaid ripped apart to give more money to billionaires.
And here’s the thing, they don’t even pretend anymore. They are happy to admit their multi-trillion dollar check that they’re about to write to billionaires will be paid for by everyone else. Not just in dollars. But in the programs you rely on. Programs you paid into your whole life.
Medicaid – on the chopping block. Social Security – offices closing, phones lines unanswered, they want it to slowly die on the vine. Food assistance – going the way of the Dodo bird. The list goes on and on. Life will get harder and harder. That is, of course, unless you’re a multi-billionaire who wrote a big check to Donald Trump. Which, if he doesn’t bring about a global recession, just might turn out to be a pretty damn good investment.
During his campaign, Donald Trump promised his wealthy donors that he would make them even richer by cutting their taxes. He invited many of them to his inauguration, some even got to stand on the stage with him as he was sworn in. This is who Donald Trump is for; he is for them. He is for the really, really rich. That is whom he represents. We are for you. I yield back.
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