The hosts of ABC’s The View gave Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer free rein on their Thursday show to spin for Democrats on coronavirus relief, Obamagate and the 2020 presidential election. Schumer was on for nearly half the show, excluding commercials and was only given two semi-challenging questions, both from co-host Meghan McCain.
You could tell this was going to be a cakewalk for Schumer just by how Whoopi introduced him:
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is fighting battles on a lot of different fronts right now in this crazy crisis, and he's giving us an update on what the Senate and the White House need to do next. Please welcome our friend, Senator Chuck Schumer,” she stated.
From there, the hosts gave him ample opportunities to accuse President Trump of lying and deflecting blame in his administration’s response to the coronavirus:
SUNNY HOSTIN: President Trump announced Monday that he's been taking the drug hydroxychloroquine for the last couple of weeks as a preventive measure. Now in the past, he's taken as you know, great pains to keep his personal information like his full medical records and his taxes under wraps. Why do you think he's being so transparent now about taking this drug?
...
JOY BEHAR: Okay. So yeah. We know when he's lying, sir, because his lips are moving. Now all 50 states are in some form of reopening, and now we're learning that 36,000 lives -- 36,000 lives could have been saved if we had closed one week earlier. How concerned are you that we're making a fatal mistake right now?
That first question allowed the Democrat to float all sorts of conspiracies about Trump being financially invested in Hydroxychloroquine to simply, “making it up.” Joy Behar also invited Schumer to explain why Democrats were helping Americans get stimulus funding and vote in the upcoming election, while Republicans were just being political:
JOY BEHAR: So Senator, let's talk about money because I want to ask about the HEROES act which passed through the House on Friday giving another $3 trillion in economic relief to Americans. Mitch McConnell says it's dead on arrival. Oh, it's dead on arrival! And he doesn't see an immediate need for more stimulus, okay? How are you going to help people who need it? What are you going to do?
…
Let's look ahead for a second because Dr. Fauci said that he couldn't guarantee if it would be safe to vote in person by election day. Trump has called mail-in ballots corrupt even though he actually voted by absentee ballot himself in the last election. Now shouldn't people have this option if they don't feel safe going to the polls, and what are you going to do to make sure this happens?
Of course no host followed up to ask Schumer how abortion giant Planned Parenthood was able to receive 80 million dollars through the last small business stimulus or why Democrats keep putting their own liberal wishlists into these stimulus packages that are supposed to be helping hurting Americans.
Meghan McCain did challenge Schumer on two questions about when we could reopen the economy. But she sounded just like her liberal co-hosts with her last loaded question about Obamagate:
So Senator, President Trump has been nonstop tweeting about Obamagate which stems from allegations Obama and senior officials used government power to spy on Trump's campaign. Can you say with 100% certainty that this did not happen and it's all a big Trump conspiracy theory to distract us?
You can read his answers and all the questions in the transcript, below:
The View
5/21/20
11:17:24AM-11:44:53AM EST
SUNNY HOSTIN: Thank you for joining us Senator. President Trump announced Monday that he's been taking the drug Hydroxychloroquine for the last couple of weeks as a preventive measure. Now in the past, he's taken as you know, great pains to keep his personal information like his full medical records and his taxes really under wraps. Why do you think he's being so transparent now about taking this drug?
CHUCK SCHUMER: Well, Sunny, it's hard to figure out. First I would say it was reckless for him to state it for two reasons. One, all of the experts say it doesn't help fight coronavirus. So if there were people watching, in particularly, people who might like him and listen to him and they have the illness and instead of going to the doctor and getting the proper care, they took hydroxychloroquine, that could hurt their recovery, and even worse, the FDA our federal agency has said that hydroxychloroquine, particularly in older people can cause heart arrythmias, strokes and other things likes that. Now why did he say it? It's hard to figure out. Maybe he had a friend who told him, and he never checked it out. He's not big on facts. Maybe he knows someone who owns part of the stock in the company. Maybe he just wanted to divert the attention. That was the day the IG was fired from the State Department and that made a big fuss, and maybe -- maybe it's possible he just made it up. Sometimes, you know, you never know when he's telling the truth or when not just to get attention, a bright, shiny object. So I don't know why he did it, but it's reckless, and I would tell all of the viewers out there of The View, don't take it. It doesn't work. Talk to your doctor if you have symptoms.
JOY BEHAR: Okay. So yeah. We know when he's lying, sir, because his lips are moving. Now all 50 states are in some form of reopening, and now we're learning that 36,000 lives -- 36,000 lives could have been saved if we had closed one week earlier. How concerned are you that we're making a fatal mistake right now?
SCHUMER: I am worried about it. Look. If we move -- I understand the anguish of people who want to get back. I understand people who are out of work and want to get to work. I understand small business people, you know, my dad was a small businessman. He was an exterminator, had a small little exterminating business. By the way he's 96, praise god and he's still pretty funny. He says, I'm 96. How bad could DDT have been? He used to pace the floor Sunday nights because his business was so difficult. So I understand that. People have to understand that if we move too quickly, this could come back. Dr. Fauci himself said it. This could come back with a vengeance and be even worse than it was the first time around. So you have to have a balance. You have to have -- you have to listen -- our states, the five or six northeastern states, they put together a panel that had economic experts who knew the damage from staying at home, but health experts who knew the damage of moving too quickly, and if we don't solve the health problem, we're not going to solve the economic problem. You know, you can open up a store, but if people are afraid to go in because they're worried they might get coronavirus, if they're afraid to go down the streets, if they're afraid to go to a big event, it all won't work. You have to handle the health part in a careful, smart way and do a balance. You can't let tabloid newspaper headlines or, you know, a thousand people demanding you open up govern the decision. It has to be a careful, balanced, scientific decision.
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Senator, it's Meghan.
SCHUMER: Hi, Meghan.
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Hello. I wanted to ask you about comments. The governor of Florida Ron DeSantis made yesterday. We're actually going to play a clip if you don't mind.
RON DESANTIS: We have a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York. Wait two weeks, and Florida will be next. Just like Italy, wait two weeks. Well, hell, we're eight weeks away from that, and it hasn't happened. Florida has the lower death rate, and I was the number one landing spot from tens of thousands of people leaving the the number one hot zone in the world to come to my state. So we succeeded, and I think that people just don't want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative.
MCCAIN: You know, Senator, The Atlantic accused people like him of engaging in, quote, human sacrifice, and it looks like Florida is doing a lot better than New York. Look, I'm a little jealous of Floridians right now. Does he have a point?
SCHUMER: Well what he's saying is premature. Most of the experts say if this is going to come back because we moved too soon, it will take several months before that happens. July, August, September, October, and to compare New York and Florida is sort of like apples and oranges. We were the hot spot. We had more coronavirus cases than anybody else, and so I think you've got to be careful, and you've got to listen to the scientists. I don't think name-calling of anybody is appropriate, but I do think, you know, getting out there and bragging that everything is fine is premature at best and could be dangerous if the disease comes back, and no one knows. We have had no experience with this virus in the past. No one, not even the scientists know exactly how and when it comes back, but too many of them warn us if you move too fast, it will come back with a vengeance, including Dr. Fauci who's regarded as one of the great experts.
BEHAR: Right. So Senator, let's talk about money because I want to ask about the HEROES Act which passed through the House on Friday giving another $3 trillion in economic relief to Americans. Mitch McConnell says it's dead on arrival. Oh, it's dead on arrival! And he doesn't see an immediate need for more stimulus, okay? How are you going to help people who need it? What are you going to do?
SCHUMER: He's in an alternative universe, unfortunately. An immediate need --
BEHAR: Yes.
SCHUMER:When you look at the TV stations and the news and you see miles of people lined up in cars to go to food pantries and the news media interviews them and they say, I've never had to do this before, but I need to feed my family. When you find people being evicted from their homes and apartments, when you find people still getting sick, so to say there's no immediate need? You know who used to say things like this? Herbert Hoover, when the Great Depression--when the stock market crashed, Herbert Hoover and some of his friends said, leave it alone. We don't need to do anything, and the Great Depression occured. There are urgent and necessary needs right now. The bill that was passed in the house, I don't expect the Republicans to agree with every piece of it, but this idea they should be sitting on their hands and doing nothing hurts the country badly, could make the economic recession turn into a depression, it could create a greater health crisis. We still don't have enough testing or enough PPE for many of our health workers. It makes no sense at all, but let me make a prediction. He's going to be forced to come to the table. The American people are going to be forcing him to come to the table. I’ll tell you, one of the big pieces in this COVID bill is help state and local governments. What does that mean? It's policemen, it's firefighters, it's bus drivers. It's health care workers. June 1st a lot of these states run out of money. These people are all going to be fired and lose their jobs through no fault of their own, and they work so hard and work so well because we don't have adequate state and local aid, and the governors, the head of the MGA Republican governor Hogan of Maryland says we desperately need that money. So I don't know what leader Mcconnell is doing, but if you looked at the senate this week, Joy, you wouldn’t even know there’s a COVID crisis. He’s the majority leader. He can control what’s on the Senate floor. There were no bills he put on the floor related to COVID. Its crazy. Crazy! It’s just so wrong. So wrong.
[commercial break]
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Hey. We are back with Senator Chuck Schumer. So this week, ABC news is taking a deep dive into the toll that the pandemic is taking on racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in communities across the country. In New York alone, African-Americans are twice as likely to die of the virus. How concerned are you by this, and how should the --
SCHUMER: Very.
WHOOPI: -- Senate address this since this is something that, you know --
SCHUMER: Right.
WHOOPI: We know there is a disparity. This is just exacerbating it. What should people be knowing?
SCHUMER: You hit it, Whoopi. We know there's a disparity, and this is exacerbating it. Why is it so many people of color are more likely to get the disease? Why is it so many more people of color sadly pass away of the disease? And the reason is very simple. Communities of color, minority communities and poor communities don't have adequate health care and haven't for a very long time, and so what we have to do is first make sure that resources -- I'm making sure for instance, now we have given the states money to do testing. They should do testing in the poorer communities above all because that's where you can test and can do the most good, and it's so important. We should make sure that there is better health care for everyone, that everyone has health care. In COVID 4, we said that no matter what your income, your treatment and testing for COVID will be free of charge. So many people, poor people, people of color have to stay away from getting adequate medical care because they can't afford it. It's either feeding their kids or getting the right health care. So one of the lessons, Whoopi, that I hope we learn from this crisis and permanently fix it, is getting better health care for everybody. That would make a huge difference, and when God forbid the next crisis comes, maybe we won't have these disparities. We've also asked that the administration give us detailed data so that we can see exactly where things are affected. All too often, they hide it. And one other thing. We have made sure in the second round that small and minority businesses -- we're working very hard on that, get some of the lending to the small business programs. In the first round, if you knew a big shot banker, you got the money. If you were a small businessman, particularly in the inner city, particularly a person of color who didn't have a relationship with a bank, you didn't get it. In the second bill, we have made that happen in a much better way, and things are getting better. We have to do the same which we've done in this COVID 4 bill for health care.
WHOOPI: Can you please also make sure that the testing goes around? I'm sorry, Meghan. I was just saying, can you make sure, Senator Schumer, that the testing gets to people, like, people in the projects.
SCHUMER: Yes.
WHOOPI: People in low income areas. Because I've noticing the testing is not given to everyone.
SCHUMER: Correct.
WHOOPI: That's bothered the hell out of me. I'm sorry, Meghan. I didn't mean to jump you.
SCHUMER: You're right, whoopi. Let me say one thing about testing. This has been one of the greatest failures of this administration, and I hope they learn from it. I want us to come together and solve this problem for people's sake, not get political advantage, but the bottom line is Donald Trump said on March 6th, everyone who needs a test can get a test. It's just not true, and the countries that have done a much better job at solving this problem at overcoming this problem, are countries like Singapore and Hong Kong and Australia and New Zealand and Finland and Germany that have had much stronger testing programs than we have had. It's been a great failure. By the way, you'll be happy to know the heads of state of five of those six countries have something in common. They're women. They did a better job than the men, and the bottom line is if we had adequate testing in the poorer communities, and in all communities, it would make a huge difference and we’d overcome this crisis more quickly and in reference to Meghan's question, we would avoid, more likely be able to avoid the second wave because we would know who has it early on, and we could sort of nip it in the bud.
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Yes, I hear everything you're saying and as you said earlier, you don't people to get back to work you don’t want to see people suffering, but we see a lot of people protesting these stay-at-home orders all over the country. There are businesses that are actually defying their governors and reopening local stores. Even in our own local paper, the New York Post, in your home state this is the cover.
SCHUMER: I saw that.
MCCAIN:” It needs to end now.” People are desperate to get back to work. If we don't do something soon, what will be left for people to come back to? This is the question that me and all of my friends -- I feel like we're saying every night, what are we going to come back to? Is there any way to have a happy medium where we can have a slow open where small businesses just won't be decimated by this?
SCHUMER: Well, I think we have to have a balance as I mentioned. My dad being a small businessman, I know exactly how you feel. He spent his life putting his blood, sweat and tears into the business, and if the pandemic comes and you have to close down, it's just heartache as well as financial loss, and so the bottom line is very simple. We have to have a balance. You can't listen to somebody who just says, ‘we have to just listen to the health experts.’ On the other hand, you can't listen to somebody who says,’just listen to the economic experts.’ Bring them together and come up with a balance. So in New York state, we've opened upmost of the upstate areas that had much less COVID. We have been slower to open up New York City because it's had so much COVID, but with good reason. If you open up too soon, and it comes back at you, those businesses will never survive. So there has to be a balance, and I would say one thing, Meghan. You can't let newspaper headlines -- and I know that one was the New York Post. Or a thousand people protesting determine the policy. You have to have experts, true experts and what New York has done is it's combined economic experts who understand the pain of keeping businesses closed with health experts who understand that you can't move too quickly. Trying to come up with a happy medium, and it's worked out pretty well because the upstate areas are pretty much -- are much more open than New York City, and that's probably the right solution.
[Commercial break]
SUNNY HOSTIN: Yes, Senator. You know, I want to switch gears and talk about the abrupt firing of the inspector general at the State Department.
SCHUMER: Yes.
HOSTIN: After -- because he's been doing that a lot. He's been firing a lot of watchdogs. After Trump let him go, it was revealed that the inspector general had been looking into whether Mike Pompeo was using staff to run personal errands at the taxpayers' expense. Pompeo says he has no idea he was being investigated. What stands out to you about this decision to fire yet another watchdog?
SCHUMER: Well, unfortunately, Sunny, it seems to be what the president does. When he hears the truth, instead of listening to it and adapting to it, he fires people. He's fired four inspector generals. These are our independent watchdogs. They're independent of any political party. Four of them in the last six weeks. The lack of listening to the truth, this is the same president when COVID started said it was a hoax, said it will go away in a month. He didn't listen to the experts. When the president doesn't listen to the truth, we all get hurt. There should be a full investigation of these charges. I don't know if they're true, but I certainly want an independent watchdog to investigate them.
MCCAIN: So Senator, President Trump has been non stop tweeting about Obamagate which stems from allegations Obama and senior officials used government power to spy on Trump's campaign. Can you say with 100% certainty that this did not happen and it's all a big Trump conspiracy theory to distract us?
SCHUMER: Well, I didn't say it. 17 intelligence agencies -- these are nonpartisan. These are people who have risked their lives for us, CIA, NSA. They said it. This came from the Russians who wanted to divert attention for what they did, and for the Senate and President Trump to spend time on this when we have a COVID crisis is just absolutely absurd. We should be focusing on helping people through this crisis, not pursuing already discredited conspiracy theories.
JOY BEHAR: It shows his desperation, Senator, but before you go, let's look ahead for a second because Dr. Fauci said that he couldn't guarantee if it would be safe to vote in person by election day. Trump has called mail-in ballots corrupt even though he actually voted by absentee ballot himself in the last election. Now shouldn't people have this option if they don't feel safe going to the polls, and what are you going to do to make sure this happens?
SCHUMER: Great. In COVID 4, there's a provision with enough money so that every single person who wants to vote by mail throughout the United States of America can vote by mail. I can understand where maybe by November people don't want to go to the polls, but our right to vote is sacred. We're approaching Memorial Day. Millions of Americans have died for that right to vote. So brave men and women, and so for the president to try to stop voting by mail is outrageous. This is not Democrat or Republican, and, in fact, Joy, the experts don't know who voting by mail helps, which party, but we should know all Americans should know one thing. We have a right to vote. It's a sacred right. The president ought not to stand in the way. The COVID 4 bill passed in the House gives a right of every American to vote by mail, and they send them a ballot. That should happen ASAP.
WHOOPI: Thank you, Senator Chuck Schumer. We always love talking to you. Thanks for being here.
