Just last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called President Donald Trump “lawless” and “angry.”
But not so long ago, Schumer openly praised Trump — even claiming he was a “prodigy.”
Now, the video of one of Trump’s most vocal critics has resurfaced and has gone viral across the internet, leaving many to wonder:
“What happened, Chuck!?”
Trump’s famous reality TV series “The Apprentice” has been streaming on Amazon Prime for the past month.
Recently, viewers of the show took particular interest in a re-aired episode when Schumer, now one of the president’s biggest political detractors, praised his fellow New Yorker as a business prodigy.
During Season 5, Episode 8, of “The Apprentice” in 2006, contestants were given a challenge — as was typical during each episode — and the winners of said challenge got the chance to fly to the nation’s capital and have breakfast with Schumer.
During the breakfast, Schumer sought to draw parallels between his family and Trump’s, while also showering praise on the future president, telling the contestants he always knew Trump, even as a young person, “was going to go places.”
“I was born in Brooklyn, the same place where Donald Trump’s family comes from,” Schumer reminisced with the contestants during breakfast at the famous Hay-Adams hotel in Washington, D.C. “His father, and my grandfather, were builders together in Brooklyn.”
“Wow!?” one contestant could be heard replying. “Really?” asked another.
“Yeah!” Schumer responded to the room.
The show then cut to Schumer lauding Trump as a business prodigy.
“Even when [Trump] was much younger, you knew that he was going to go places,” Schumer said, before a voice-over from one of the contestants present at the breakfast reiterated that “Sen. Schumer and Mr. Trump are good friends.”
If you missed the episode, you can see a clip here —
Fast forward to today and Schumer has done a complete reversal towards his “fellow” New Yorker.
“Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man,” Schumer said of the president during an interview last month.
“The fact that The Apprentice President Donald ‘You’re Fired’ Trump is refusing to hold people accountable just shows how weak he is,” Schumer added in a post on social media earlier this month.
Many have taken the opportunity to poke fun of Schumer thanks the the viral clip that’s resurfaced.
Michigan State GOP Sen. Aric Nesbitt, the Michigan Senate’s minority leader, remarked “How things change…” in a post that highlighted the resurfaced clip of Schumer’s scene on “The Apprentice.”
But it’s not just Republicans having fun at Schumer’s expense.
“As Schumer sells out our Constitution and democracy, you just gotta watch this clip of him sucking up to Trump on an episode of the Apprentice,” remarked former Democratic Rhode Island legislator Aaron Regunberg. “What a world class slug of a man.”
And speaking of past interviews, shortly before taking office during his first term, Trump was asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about whether he will be able to get along with Democratic leaders in Congress, such as Schumer.
At the time, Trump struck a positive chord, saying at the time that he thought he would “be able to get along well with Chuck Schumer.”
“I was always very good with Schumer. I was close to Schumer in many ways,” Trump said at the time.
My how times have changed!