“We didn’t win with Betsy DeVos, because only two Republicans would cross over, but everyone now is going to watch her like a hawk when she tries to mess with public education,” Schumer said. “We didn’t win with Jeff Sessions, but he’s going to be watched like a hawk when he deals with immigration and voting rights and civil rights because his record has been made so clear.”

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Schumer said the spotlight may mitigate some of the damage Democrats think the two could cause.





“That will probably limit them in some of the bad things they can do. It certainly will encourage us to go after them in every way when they do those things,” he said.

Schumer said Sessions’s confirmation “churned my stomach.”

“He’s probably almost certainly the most anti-immigrant senator of the hundred. On civil rights and voting rights he’s probably one of the top three or four against these sacred rights,” Schumer said. “He doesn’t belong there, and I think a lot of Republicans know it.”