Democrats are seething after news emerged on Sunday that eight members of their Senate caucus had collaborated with Republicans on crafting a compromise to end the longest government shutdown in US history, without winning any healthcare concessions that they had sought.
But one name is coming in for more opprobrium than any other: Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who had led the Democrats’ weeks-long stand against reopening the government without an extension of tax credits that lower premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.
If the results of the crucial Sunday vote are any indication, the outcome Democrats fought so hard against is now set to happen, potentially in the next few days. And though Schumer does not publicly support the compromise, lawmakers and Democrat-affiliated groups have turned on him, criticizing his leadership and calling for his ouster.
“Last night, eight ‘moderate’ Democrats got played. Conned. Rooked. Pantsed. Pumped and dumped. Rode hard and put away wet,” Rick Wilson, the ex-Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, wrote in a piece titled “Schumer and the Hateful Eight Betray America”.
“It was a colossal leadership failure, and Chuck Schumer should resign as minority leader immediately if he had a shred of honor or shame.”
The sentiment is rife in progressive groups such as Our Revolution, whose executive director Joseph Geevarghese said: “Chuck Schumer should step down as Senate minority leader immediately. If he secretly backed this surrender and voted no to save face, he’s a liar. If he couldn’t keep his caucus in line, he’s inept. Either way, he’s proven incapable of leading the fight to prevent healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for millions of Americans.”
In the House, three Democrats have so far called on Schumer to step aside, among them Mike Levin, who represents a swingy district on the southern California coast. “Chuck Schumer has not met this moment and Senate Democrats would be wise to move on from his leadership,” he wrote on X Monday.
Fellow Californian Ro Khanna said, “Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” while Michigan representative and Squad member Rashida Tlaib said the minority leader “has failed to meet this moment and is out of touch with the American people. The Democratic party needs leaders who fight and deliver for working people. Schumer should step down.”
But none of the voices calling for a change in leadership belong to the Democratic senators who could force the issue. Nor did Hakeem Jeffries, who leads the party in the House of Representatives, join in. “Yes and yes,” he said at a Monday press conference, when a reporter asked if he believed Schumer was effective, and whether he should keep the leadership post he has held for eight years.
A spokesman for Schumer did not respond to a request for comment.
The squabble is in many ways a rehash of one that took place earlier this year, when the 74-year-old briefly found himself manning the barricades in a funding battle the ended up turning into a Democratic rout.
The moment came three months into Donald Trump’s presidency and days before government funding was set to expire. House Republicans had sent the Senate a short-term funding measure that almost all Democrats in the lower chamber opposed.
Faced with the prospect of swallowing the bill as is, or demanding changes and likely causing a shutdown, Schumer initially went with the latter, before changing his mind and voting for the measure along with his caucus’s centrists. The decision brought a backlash from the party’s base, with liberal groups such as Indivisible and MoveOn calling for new leadership.
Schumer survived, and when the latest funding battle began 41 days ago, his office collaborated with those same groups on their shutdown strategy. The Democrats held firm for weeks, even as an increasingly frustrated John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, held 14 fruitless votes on GOP-authored legislation to reopen the government, without addressing the ACA subsidies.
Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson put representatives on a lengthy recess to make clear to Senate Democrats that his party was not interested in negotiating over their demands.
At the press conferences he convened regularly after funding lapsed, Johnson repeatedly alleged that the “Schumer shutdown” was driven by the minority leader’s desire not to face a primary challenge in 2028 from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York congresswoman who Republicans allege is shaping the party’s agenda.
“He thinks AOC is going to challenge him or some other Marxist,” Johnson said in early October.
The compromise to reopen the government authorizes funding through January, and promises Democrats a vote on extending the ACA tax credits, though there is no guarantee their bill would pass the Senate, or, if it does, come up for a vote in the House. Schumer’s fingerprints are not publicly on the deal, which was worked out by a group of moderate senators who have either recently won re-election or are in their final terms in office.
“This healthcare crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home, that I cannot in good faith support this [resolution] that fails to address the healthcare crisis,” he said after the deal was announced. He did not vote to advance the bill when it cleared an important procedural vote on Sunday night.
By Monday afternoon, signs emerged that some Democrats did not like the tone of the debate over the bill. “As a reminder, the DCCC is currently targeting dozens of Republican-held districts across the country,” Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic congressional campaign committee, wrote in a memo to House lawmakers.
“We would like to encourage all of you to hold vulnerable Republicans in your state, region, and media market accountable when you’re doing earned and social media this week.” Translation: lay off Schumer.
Whether the party’s base listens is another question.
“Despite his no vote, the entire political world knows this is a direct result of Chuck Schumer’s leadership,” wrote Indivisible, as it encouraged the progressive group’s supporters to call Democratic senators and tell them to find a new leader.
“He either blessed this surrender, or was incapable of leading his caucus to hold the line.”
