Related Articles
After caving to Donald Trump and voting for a Republican-backed short-term government funding bill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has faced calls to resign from members of his own party. But Schumer is not backing down on that fight, saying he will not quit his leadership position.
“I’m not stepping down,” Schumer said in an interview with Kristen Welker that aired Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Nine Democrats joined Schumer in voting for the legislation that increased defense spending and cut $13 billion in non-defense spending, giving Trump broad discretion to direct the funds.
Rep. Glenn Ivey was the first to publicly call for Schumer to resign. “I respect Chuck Schumer,” the Democrat from Maryland said at a Tuesday town hall. “I think he had a great, long-standing career, did a lot of great things, but I’m afraid that it may be time for the Senate Democrats to get a new leader.”
While no senators have asked Schumer to step aside, some have criticized his leadership. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Schumer was “wrong” to capitulate to Trump.
Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the problem is deeper than Schumer; it’s the party itself. “In the Democratic Party, you’ve got a party that is heavily dominated by the billionaire class, run by consultants who are way out of touch with reality,” Sanders said. “The Democratic Party has virtually no grassroots support.” This weekend, Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held a rally in Denver, drawing a crowd of nearly 34,000 people.
Schumer’s vote drew so much ire from the public, he postponed his book tour, citing security concerns due to planned protests against him. Some progressive groups have said they would support a primary challenge against Schumer.
“The CR was certainly bad, you know, the continuing resolution,” Schumer said. “But a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse. Under a shutdown, the Executive Branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, “essential.” And they can determine without any court supervision. The courts have ruled it’s solely up to the executive what to shut down. With Musk, and DOGE, and Trump, and this guy Vought… as the head OMB, they would eviscerate the federal government.”
Schumer went on to say that with a shutdown, the executive branch could decide to cancel crucial government programs like food assistance for children and families, mass transit, state aid, Medicaid, Social Security and veterans’ benefits.
“Their goal is to just eviscerate the federal government so they can give more taxes, and their tax cuts, to… their billionaire class over there. And so it would devastating,” Schumer said, adding that Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and others in the executive could have dragged out a shutdown for six months to a year until all federal employees were “furloughed and gone and quit.”
Before the vote, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi released a rare statement calling on Schumer not to support the spending bill. She later said that she doesn’t “give away anything for nothing,” arguing that Schumer should have gotten more concessions from Republicans before supporting the legislation.
But Schumer said that had Democrats “asked for things,” Republicans “just would have said no.”
Schumer did acknowledge that under the leadership of Trump and Musk, “democracy is at risk.”
Many of Trump’s actions — including broad firings of federal workesr and the dismantling of federal agencies like USAID and the Department of Education as well as the non-profit U.S. Institute for Peace — have been challenged in the courts. Schumer said that he believes if Trump defies the courts, “the public will rise up.”
“We have to fight that back in every single way,” he said.
