Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, a minority leader, defended himself on Friday to face a democratic resistance to his decision to vote with Republicans for expenditure on stopping to avert government shutdown and say that he is willing to take political hits to protect his members and their components from a long -term disaster.
On the day of white anger among many democratic lawmakers and activists, some of whom gathered away from Mr. Schumer Brooklyn to protest against their decision to reduce the shutdown, the five -year senator shrugged the prospect of a primary challenge that could cost him his work, and said he was doing the right thing.
“There is no off-ramp,” Mr. Schumer said for the government weaning from his office just outside the Senate floor on Friday. “Off-ramp is in the hands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Doga.” We could be off for six months or nine months. ”
He considers his work as a leader as a long -term perspective and tries to avoid this result, which would lead to the democrats were “much more liberated” by angry voters and activists than they are at the moment.
So far, Mr Schumer said, “I’ll take some bullets.”
Criticism flew quickly and furiously on Friday.
House Democrats, including some of the highest members of the party, and progressive activists characterized the attitude of Mr. Schumer to measures for expenses such as disgraceful surrender to Mr. Trump and GOP
Grass Roots Democratic group is going through a torch that upset former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to end his campaign last summer, on Friday morning the leader of the Senate called for a minority to retreat aside.
“Chuck Schumer is reluctant and unable to fulfill this moment,” the group said in its statement. “His only work is to fight Maga’s fascist takeover of our democracy – instead it allows it directly.”
The call came the day after the representative of Alexandrie Okasio-Cortez, Democrat New York, refused to exclude the primary call against Mr. Schumer and said CNN that his decision on the ongoing law was “a deep feeling of outrage and betrayal”.
(Mr. Schumer refused the term in an interview and said, “It’s four years away,” he added that his focus focused on the struggle before him and in 2026 won the majority.)
Previously, Mr. Trump considered the political kiss of death to Mr. Schumer and congratulated him on “doing the right thing”.
“Uncomfortable would be a rural destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights,” he wrote on social media. “Again, a really good and smart movement of Senator Schumer.”
Many of his colleagues admitted on Friday privately that Mr Schumer does the work of the leader: he protects his members from damage to votes and due to difficult decisions.
In the interview, Mr. Schumer said that his two-stage expense measures-the center was published in opposition, just to retreat on Thursday and say that it would allow a negotiating tactics to give the democrats to their fight against legislation.
“Our task was to help Hakeem to ensure that the bill did not pass,” he said, referring to representatives of Hake Jeffries, Democrat of New York and minority leaders. However, the House Republicans held together behind the plan of temporary expenses, promoted it through a democratic opposition, and gave the burden of Democrats in the Senate to either accept it or be accused of weaning.
In the face of the selection, Mr. Schumer said that he decided that the struggle for financing, which the government will only thwart the much larger combat democrats that are carried out: pushing back against Mr. Trump’s plan to enact tax cuts for billionaires funded by the expenditure of the middle class impact expenditure.
“This is much more efficient than arguing back and forth, who is the cause of shutdown,” Schumer said, adding, “My inner gyroscope tells me I am right.”
But when liberal activists and democrats are desperately looking for party leaders to stand in opposition to Mr. Trump, the will was intense.
Even former spokesman for Nancy Pelosi, one -time partner Mr. Schumer in the leadership, proposed that he did badly. On Friday she issued a repeated statement that did not name Mr. Schumer, but said that Mr. Trump and Elon Musk created a “false choice” between government weaning or an empty check to make devastating cuts across the deck – and said that some Democrats had fallen into their trap.
“This fake choice some buying instead of fighting is unacceptable,” she said. “The leader of Hake’s greeting for his bold rejection of this false choice and I am proud of my colleagues in the House of Democratic Corps for their stunning vote against this bill.”
House democratic leaders have been on the winning tour since Monday, when they managed to maintain their members almost completely unified in contrast to the bill on the financing Act. At the same time, the pressure on the Democrats of the Senate intensified to do the same.
“I don’t know why Bill would support,” said Pete Aguilar of California, Democrat No. 3. “Elon Musk and Donald Trump are already systematically closing the federal government.” Why we want any part, I have no idea. ”
On Friday, he asked at a press conference if it was time for the new Senate leadership, Mr. Jeffries said briefly: “Another question.”
The representative Ritchie Torres, the New York Democrat, who carved a strip for himself as a pragmatic progressive, said that Mr Schumer had made a strategic incorrect calculation that the party writes to live to regret it. The bill on financing said “represents the best (and perhaps only) leverage that we as Democrats will have to prevent the systematic decimation of the Social Security Network Donald Trump.”
Their vote in the house, however, was easy: with the Republicans united by Mr. Trump to support the bill, the democrats had no votes to stop it in the chamber. In the Senate, where at least eight democrats would have to vote with all Republicans to clean Filibuster, the picture was more complicated.
As part of the democratic case of the Senate, members acknowledged this and did not want to criticize Mr. Schumer. Some even privately appreciated him for allowing members to vote “no”, while privately hoped that the bill would pass.
Some of them agreed to the argument of Mr. Schumer that weaning would give Trump’s administration more power to consider the whole agencies and programs “irrelevant” and never return them after Furlough. In an interview, Mr. Schumer used signs of food as an example. “The day after switching off, they can say that all Snap is not essential, we do not finance it,” he said. “When weaning, only the executive branch, which is necessary and what is irrelevant, determines. There is no judicial control. ”
Some members expressed confusion about why government weaning in March, just a few weeks after the new administration, suddenly became a certain determination of the moment Neville Chamberlain for the leaders of the democrats of the Senate.
“Did we have a lever effect?” said Senator John Hickenlooper, a democrat of Colorado, who said he was planning to oppose a bill he described as the obvious power of GOP “We had two terrible decisions.”
“Chuck Schumer is in a very, very difficult place,” added Mr. Hickenlooper. “Made a real and hard decision.” His supporters in New York are also a large part of the base. He knew how he would be attacked and still decided. It deserves my respect. ”
However, Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and the highest Democrat in the Committee on the Resources, was stunned by Mr. Schumer’s reversal and continued in a loud against the bill known as the continuing resolution or “CR”
“In this case,” she said on the floor of the Senate on Friday, “CR means” complete resign “.”
