Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) faced an embarrassing reminder on Monday morning as he railed against the "Big, Beautiful Bill" from the Senate floor. Schumer's remarks contained praise for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who earned the wrath of President Donald Trump for his opposition to the bill. The motion to proceed passed on Saturday night, though without the votes from Tillis or Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), The minority leader also went after the Senate Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), though. As soon as that happened, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), who was the presiding chair, brought up Rule 19.
As The Hill explained about such a moment:
At that point, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who was presiding over the Senate as chair of the chamber, interrupted Schumer to remind him of Rule 19, which states that a senator shall not impute to another senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming of a senator.
The rule also directs senators not to speak offensively toward a U.S. state.
Schumer spent minutes praising Tillis profusely, "as one of the few truth tellers on the other side." His remarks also contained a warning, though, for Republicans and the people of their states if they voted for the bill. Speaking about Tillis and North Carolina, Schumer claimed that "the bill devastates his state, but make no mistake about it, it will devastate the state of most every Republican about it." Wagging his finger for emphasis, Schumer tripped over his words as he continue to fearmonger.
Beyond his Saturday night opposition and Trump's response to it, Tillis also made news on Sunday when he announced he will not seek reelection in 2026.
"It's a piece of legislation you won't be able to [sell back home] either, my Republican colleagues," Schumer insisted, as he raised concerns about Republican senators supposedly having to apologize to their constituents and say, "'I'm sorry, I took away your healthcare because I wanted to give tax breaks to billionaires.'"
Then, at around 9:12am EST, after mentioning Tillis, Schumer ratcheted up his warnings even further, which involved calling out the Senate Budget Committee chairman.
Speaking about the vote-a-rama process, Schumer brought up what he claims are "Senate Republicans' brazen to deceive the American people about the true cost of the bill." He continue by claiming that his Republican colleagues "doing something that has never been done before in the Senate," which amounts to "deploying fake math and budgetary hocus pocus to make it seem like their billionaire giveaways don't cost anything!"
"That's obviously outrageous," Schumer continued. "And it's absurd that the Budget chair is taking the Senate down this fact-free road! He is helping a road even destroy the Senate!"
That's when Moreno interrupted Schumer with his reminder, though that was not the only time he brought up Rule 19.
Once Schumer yielded the floor, after going on to continuously rail against the bill and offer warnings, supposedly in "good faith," Moreno issue a reminder for all of his colleagues. "To my colleagues, it's going to be a long day, and I just wanted to remind everybody the rules of the Senate, Rule 19: "no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming of a Senator," he said, just before Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) gave his remarks.
Moreno (R-OH) presiding over the Senate reminded Schumer during his leader remarks and then to all Senators about Senate Rule 19 conduct that "no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or… https://t.co/10ALGJ44DK pic.twitter.com/55GKcJgkuD
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) June 30, 2025
Schumer's remarks to rail against the bill come after he also had the clerk read the entirety of the bill, which took 16 hours. Schumer even referenced the reading of the bill in his remarks from Monday morning.
Despite making such a demand, Schumer was not there for the reading of the bill, as Sam J. at our sister site of Twitchy highlighted.
After 16 hours, Senate clerks finally finish reading the One Big, Beautiful Bill. Despite demanding that the entire thing be read, Senator Schumer did not stick around to listen to it. He went home to sleep while the clerks stayed up all night. pic.twitter.com/zGwrEqZPdv
— Jessica 🇺🇸 (@RealJessica05) June 29, 2025
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