The Daily Signal - Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Receives Backlash After Threatening Supreme Court Justices

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, joins The Daily Signal Podcast to talk about the impact of this year's gathering. He also explains why they chose the theme of "America vs. Socialism" this year and how CPAC plans to expand in the future. We also cover these stories: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer received harsh criticism after he made threatening remarks against two Supreme Court Justices on Wednesday at a rally in front of the Supreme Court. The Senate has approved a $8.3 billion emergency Coronavirus package. Secretary Mike Pompeo says the U.S. will take 'all necessary measures' to bar the war crimes probe of the military. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, March 6th. I'm Jared Stepman. And I'm Virginia Allen. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer received harsh criticism after he made threatening remarks against two Supreme Court justices on Wednesday at a rally in front of the Supreme Court. The Senate has approved an $8.3 billion emergency coronavirus package. Secretary Mike Pompeo says the U.S. will take all necessary measures to bar the war. war crimes probe of the military. And our colleague Rob Louis talks with Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union about the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or

five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying Schumer's remarks about Justice Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were inappropriate. On Wednesday, during a rally at the Supreme Court, which was hearing a major abortion case, Schumer said this via Gravian. I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.

You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions. McConnell addressed Schumer in remarks he made. on the Senate floor Thursday via C-SPAN. The Democratic leader traveled to the workplace of the two judges and in front of a crowd of activists. He told those judges, you will pay the price right in front of the Supreme Court building. And you won't know what hit you, he said, right in front of the Supreme Court building. If any American had these words shouted at them from a sidewalk outside their office,

they would hear those threats as personal. And most likely they would hear them as threatening or inciting violence. That's how any American would interpret those words if they were directed at us. And that's certainly how the press and leading Democrats would have characterized them if President Trump or any senior Republican had said anything remotely, remotely similar. We've seen much more hay made out of much left. On Thursday, Schumer backed off comments he made about Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh-Gorsuch while accusing Republicans of manufacturing outrage.

Schumer said, I should not have used the words I used yesterday. They didn't come out the way I intended to. My point was that there would be political consequences, political consequences for President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans of the Supreme Court with the newly confirmed justices stripped away a woman's right to choose. Schumer then went on the offensive, accusing Republicans of distorting his comments for political gain. This from a Schumer floor speech on global news. Of course I didn't intend to suggest anything other than political and public opinion consequences for the Supreme Court.

And it is a gross distortion to imply otherwise. Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona and Chairman of Arizona and Chairman of the Conservative House Freedom Caucus announced Thursday he was introducing a resolution against Schumer. In a statement, Big said, threats towards any elected or appointed member of the three branches of our constitutional government are wrong and cannot be tolerated. Minority Leader Schumer is the leader of his conference. And while he may offer public criticism about decisions with which he disagrees, he should not use rhetoric that is threatening and intimidating towards members of our independent judiciary. And I am introducing this resolution today to send a message

that this threatening rhetoric has no place in our Congress, especially from a leader of one of our parties. The Senate approved an $8.3 billion spending package on Thursday to combat the spread of coronavirus. The bill now just requires the president's signature. The legislation passed through Congress just 24 hours after the text was released, according to Politico. Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, said that while the money will likely be enough to boost U.S. efforts to stop the disease, Congress is willing to spend more if it's required. We think this is a good bit of money, but if they need money, we'll provide it, Shelby said. Money should be no problem, no object when it comes to the health of the American

people, especially to prevent something this contagious. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo harshly condemned the International Criminal Court's decision to investigate possible war crimes in Afghanistan. According to the Associated Press, the International Criminal Court would be investigating actions of U.S. forces, including the CIA, Afghan forces, and the Taliban. In a statement, Pompeo said, it is all the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan, the best chance for peace in a generation. Indeed, the Afghan government itself pleaded with the ICC to not take this course. But the ICC politicians had other goals. The United States is not a party to the ICC, and we will take all necessary measures to protect our citizens from this renegade, so-called court. He added, this is yet another reminder of what happens when multilateral bodies lack oversight and responsible leadership,

and become instead a vehicle for political vendettas. Now stay tuned for an interview with Matt Slap, chairman of the American Conservative Union. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage.

that you can watch online as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. We are joined at the Daily Signal by Matt Schlapp. He's the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts this great event, CPAC. Matt, welcome. Great to be with you again, Rob. Congratulations on another great CPAC.

What do you think? It is truly energizing. I mean, this year, it's a lot of buzz. You start off with the vice president on the first day. You close with President Trump. I mean, just jam-packed in between. What, what, since you're the expert on social media, we did okay? Oh, yeah.

I'd say you're generating quite a bit of buzz. That's good. Trending on Twitter and Facebook and every place. That's good. That's what we want. Yeah. So you're not going to take back a country. You're not going to impact the society if no one reads what you're doing.

That's right. And that's one of the reasons why CPAC is important. For whatever reason it garners all this attention, that's why we love having people like you here in the Heritage Foundation and others because this is an important moment for the movement. It certainly is. Now, I want to ask you about this year's theme, America versus socialism. What went into your thinking on that?

Did you think it was too hardcore? Well, I wondered if you had, like, you were very prescient in your timing here. Couldn't have planned it much better. That's true, because we had to pick it weeks ago. Yeah. Our view is that we want CPAC to be about what's going on in society. What is actually unfolding on there, television screens and newspapers and magazines online. And we thought, well, boy, really what this country is facing.

What the Democratic Party specifically is facing is, are we a socialist party, or are we just a central left party? But that's a bigger question for America as people worry about what's being taught in the public schools, this hatred of America. America is a bad place, a secular society that doesn't understand anymore that it's God that gives us our rights. Government doesn't get ownership. They don't have title to our rights. These types of themes are very much at threat. And we also picked America versus socialism because we didn't want to just say, capitalism versus socialism, which I know several of our speakers have gone to, but to us it's

beyond economics. The economics of socialism was pretty clearly it fails. But there's another question about socialism, which is our video, I think, I hope you've seen it, and I hope you're helping us push it around. But if you believe in socialist economics, you trample on the rights of the individual to try to help the collective. The individual loses out. What you really find out is more individuals face pain and misery and loss that are helped by the redistribution, even if it's intended to help. And under a free society, as you know, that's exactly the opposite, which is your rights are respected, hopefully. That's right. It's a real question in America. And it actually helps more people at the bottom end of the economic ladder, which Ivanka Trump,

I think, did a beautiful job of explaining today. Yeah, no, it is so true. And thank you, by the way, for the content that you do create. I think it's so important. to educate the American people about the stark contrast that we see. You know, as you hear, though, more and more young Americans, I mean, the thing that CPAC is really known for is the enthusiasm among the youth that come here every year. What does it tell you that these polls that show that young people gravitate towards socialism? What can we do to change them?

Let me explain something. I wish AC was better than it actually is. We do great things, but we actually don't orchestrate all these students being here. 50% of the people of the registrants walking down these corridors or high school or college students. And it just happens. They just get on their laptops or their phones and they sign up. And they have to pay. It's not even free, which is kind of insane.

It really should be free because we should get more to come. So they just sign up. So every year it's about 50%. Sometimes it's more. It's a marketplace. People have the right to decide whether they want to come or not. And for whatever reason, students want to be at CPAC. Now, why do conservatives all want to come together?

I think God figured this out when he inspired the Ten Commandments and said, hey, keep Holy the Sabbath. Come together. Have fellowship. And I don't view my politics as a church, but I actually think those involved in the conservative movement, we want to have our places. And the Heritage Foundation is big on this, too. Places where everyone can kind of come together.

You want to learn. You want to just make friends. You want to know you're not alone. I mean, in the era of Trump, the kind of political persecution is just terrible. It is. And when you come here, you feel like you can be full-throated in what you believe. Yeah, it's so important to convene and have those face-to-face conversations,

even in this digital age that we live in. And CPAC really provides an opportunity to do that. Not only are there great speakers on the main stage, but you also offer a lot of training workshops. I spoke at one today about social media. I mean, it is just incredible. The questions that people have, the enthusiasm they have, to want to leave CPAC and carry that energy with it.

And we drive no attendance. So people sign up for tickets. We don't market much. It's 10,000 people. It's every media conglomerate all over the world now because we had did five CPACs overseas. So in your breakout session or in your training session, we didn't really, besides just go online

or sending out the kind of the nominal emails, it's because Americans, especially conservatives, some might call themselves nationalists, some might call themselves libertarians. Some people are just MAGA and Trump. You put it all together. And the common dynamic that I see is that they are on fire to save their country. Yes.

They are joyful. They feel hope again. They feel like the Republican Party has figured out that it needs to fight. If it doesn't fight, we don't want a party that just negotiates the terms of our surrender. That's no good. We want a party that will fight. They feel like that's happening. That's why we have the stars of the House on the stage because they've really renewed hope in this whole effort.

That's right. They certainly have. You mentioned the international events. Tell us about... You've got to come with us next year. It is amazing. You really should. I mean, when I walked in, the first thing I saw was all of the CPAC events that are happening.

So tell us about that strategy and what you're hoping to do there. You know, once again, I would love to say that we're brilliant and that we thought about all this, but we actually had people who just started, like we had the Japanese conservative started a Japanese conservative union. And they came to CPAC the first year I was chairman. And I was like, what is this? And then a few years went by, Jay Aiba is the chairman. He said, hey, why don't we do a CPAC in Japan? Now we've had three.

That led to the first CPAC in South Korea this year. That led to the first CPAC in Australia. We had it in Sydney. This year, all of those countries are very worried about a resurgent China. So, you know, this whole anti-communist concern, the question of socialism, communism is very alive in that region of the globe. And they want, they're desperate for a grassroots concern. movement in their country. We were invited to go be with the protesters as the first Westerners to go stand with the protesters in Hong Kong. I'll never forget those moments. Those people are

brave. They're mostly children. I call them children. Some is young as 12 years old who have been imprisoned. They're missing. Some have died. The struggle over there. One of our speakers, Jimmy Lai, who is from Hong Kong, who's a big media tycoon. They arrested him yesterday. He was going to come here to speak. So, you know, Brazil, we're going to talk about it at the Reagan dinner tonight when we had our first CPAC in Brazil. I think we have 25 other countries that are clamoring to have a CPAC in their country. We have more demand than we know how to satisfy. This is our, what would William F. Buckley say?

What would Ronald Reagan say? None of us are perfect. I'm sure there'd be things that they might not like as much as others. But I think if they saw the conservative movement today, I think they'd be shocked. I think that they'd be very proud of the growth and the expansion. One final question for you. or somebody who brings a lot of energy and your TV appearances, you know, don't hold back in terms of debating these big ideas, tell our listeners what really motivates you every day to make sure

that you're carrying forward that conservative vision. I think it's a really bad aspect of what's going on in our culture, what some people call it the cancel culture, that there's not a place for left and right to talk anymore. And I've always had great friends on the left. And you know what most of those friends have done with me over the course the last five years, they've unfriended me. Wow. You know, Nicole Wallace on MSNBC was a great friend, and we got in a squabble a couple years ago with Michael Steele, and she unfriended me on Twitter. She basically said she didn't want to be my friend anymore.

I still want to be her friend. I kind of want to be everyone's friend, and I think we should be able to talk with each other. But I'll tell you one thing, I don't want to take the crap anymore. There's nothing wrong with what you believe. There's nothing wrong with what I believe. If you don't agree with us, fine. I love America. Because in America, that's protected.

What is not consistent with being an American is making people feel shamed for being Christian, for being pro the Constitution, for knowing and cherishing our history. That must stop. And these kids who are here, most of them are victims in this battle.

And it's got to stop. And I tell all these people that aren't students, stop whispering. Stop having your MAGA hat hidden in your drawer. Wear it. wear it with pride talk about these things with pride

come to CPAC feel pride in what you're doing and I don't think we should be shamed for it and it's wrong and I know you agree with me I certainly do I certainly do well Match Lap thank you for standing up for America

promoting conservative values we appreciate it thank you and that'll do it for today's episode thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation

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