Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer is dealing with the largest revolt from Democrats in years, however in a dialog with The Interview after his essential vote supporting a Republican federal spending invoice this previous week, he tried to brush off questions on whether or not he ought to step apart. Democratic officers appeared shocked when Schumer did an about-face on the spending invoice, arguing that the selection was the lesser of two evils. Schumer defended his choice within the second a part of our wide-ranging interview, at the same time as questions over his management by senior celebration officers continued.
Listed below are three takeaways from the shutdown portion of our dialog.
Schumer defined that he forged his vote to forestall additional decimation of the federal government by DOGE and Trump.
Schumer stated that he made a “very, very troublesome” choice to assist the Republican invoice so as to avert a authorities shutdown that, he stated, President Trump and Elon Musk wished. He referred to as Trump and Musk “anti-government fanatics” and “nihilists.”
They wish to shutter “company after company,” he stated, which might create a state of affairs far worse than the Republican invoice. He continued:
Two days from now in a shutdown, they may say, properly, meals stamps for teenagers just isn’t important. It’s gone. All veterans places of work in rural areas are gone. Social Safety, Medicare, Medicaid. They’re not important. We’re chopping them again. So it’d be horrible. The injury they’ll do beneath a shutdown is way worse than some other injury that they may do.
Isn’t this simply — Wait, let me simply end, Lulu. It could final perpetually. There is no such thing as a off ramp. One of many Republican senators informed us: We go to a shutdown, it’s going to be there for six months, 9 months, a yr. And by then, their aim of destroying the federal authorities can be gone. And eventually, one closing level right here, and that’s that proper now beneath the C.R., you’ll be able to go to court docket and contest an govt order to close one thing down. Below a shutdown, the chief department has sole energy.
He acknowledged that he and Hakeem Jeffries haven’t spoken because the vote.
Whereas he accepted that there have been “divisions” inside his celebration round his vote, he insisted that he and his fellow Democrats have a respect for one another and that they’re united of their battle in opposition to Trump.
Schumer reluctantly acknowledged that he and the Home minority chief, Hakeem Jeffries, who discuss usually, haven’t spoken since Schumer’s stunning vote, suggesting that there’s a rupture between the 2 most senior Democrats in Congress.