- Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer found himself in an awkward spot at Biden's State of the Union. - President Biden was comparing how the Trump tax cuts benefited the rich to his American Rescue Plan.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer found himself in an awkward moment on Tuesday night during President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address.
Biden was in the middle of a line comparing President Donald Trump's tax cuts with his own administration's American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill passed in March.
"Unlike the $2 trillion tax cut passed in the previous administration, that benefited the top 1% of Americans, the American Rescue plan—" Biden said before Congressional Republicans began booing him.
Schumer, caught in the lurch, popped up to get his colleagues to clap as Biden ended the sentence.
—Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) March 2, 2022
"The American Rescue plan helped working people and left no one behind," Biden said, as Schumer was finally joined in applause by Democrats in the chamber.
Biden signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus law in March 2021. Since then, the only other major legislative victory he's been able to notch came last November when Congress approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
While the infrastructure bill was initially coupled with Biden's Build Back Better plan — a deal shepherded by Schumer to overcome fissures between the left and moderate flanks among Congressional Democrats — the original price tag of $3.5 trillion was gradually whittled away and the bill remains in limbo.
Schumer, along with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, have come under criticism from fellow Democrats over their strategy of trying to deliver wins for the progressive wing of the party while dealing with the narrowest of majorities in the Senate.