Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer maintained on Sunday that he will not step down, despite Democrats’ growing anger at party leadership’s lack of urgency in the face of blatant authoritarianism.
The longtime New York senator recently received swift backlash from those within his party after abandoning his plan to filibuster the Republican spending bill ― instead voting for the resolution without first trying to negotiate aspects of it. All but one Democrat in the House united to oppose the bill, which was signed on Saturday by President Donald Trump.
Schumer again defended his decision Sunday while on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying he had a duty as a Democratic leader to avoid a government shutdown that he said would have been “15 or 20 times worse” than the continuing resolution and would have “no off-ramp.”
“Sometimes when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger that might come down the curve,” Schumer told host Kristen Welker. “And I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was. People disagree.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) walks to the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol on March 14 in Washington, D.C. Kent Nishimura/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Welker pointed out the similarities between the current calls for Schumer to step down as Democratic leader with last year’s calls for former President Joe Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee ― a move that Schumer himself supported at the time. The senator rejected the comparison.
“I’m not stepping down,” he said. “And let me just say this, Kristen. I knew when I cast my vote against the government shutdown that it would be… that there would be a lot of controversy, and there was.”
Schumer has also repeatedly said he believed there was no point in trying to negotiate over the bill if he knew his GOP colleagues were just going to say no ― a stunning admission that invited major criticismfrom within his party by moderates and progressives alike, who believe Democrats need to fight harder with more urgency for their increasingly frustrated constituents. And if they can’t, then they need to step aside.
“I want you to look at every level of office around and support brawlers who fight because those are the ones who can actually win against Republicans,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said at an event with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Las Vegas.
The two progressives spent the past several days traveling to Nevada, Colorado and Arizona, holding rallies titled “Fighting Oligarchy” and town halls to listen to working class Americans. The rallies have brought increasingly large crowds of people Sanders said are desperate for better representation amid Trump’s rising authoritarianism.
“It saddens me that when the Democrats had control of the Senate, they did virtually nothing for working people. I have to say that. I’m a member of the Democratic caucus as an Independent, so I’m not going to lie to you and tell you otherwise,” Sanders told Jon Karl on ABC’s “This Week” during his tour stop in Denver, which saw tens of thousands of attendees.
“And since then, do I think the Democrats have been effective in rallying the American people, in stopping Trump’s movement toward oligarchy and authoritarianism? No, I don’t.”
The senator stressed that while Democrats are frustrated by Schumer’s leadership, he believes that the party overall is failing to connect with the country’s working class.
“Look, there’s nobody more critical of Chuck Schumer than I have been, and not just on this thing. But the bottom line is [it’s] not just Chuck Schumer. It’s not just Chuck Schumer,” he said. “You’ve got a Democratic Party in general that is dominated by billionaires, just as the Republican Party operates under the leadership of a bunch of inside the beltway consultants, very well-paid, who are way out of touch with the 32,000 people who are here today.”
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