Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) speaks during a press conference following a Senate Democrats weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., November 13, 2024.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said he expected “a lot of controversy” for his vote to advance Republicans’ spending bill to avert a government shutdown and that he will not give in to calls for him to step down from his leadership role.
Schumer told NBC’s Meet the Press that while Republicans’ continuing resolution was “certainly bad,” that a shutdown “would be 15 or 20 times worse.”
“Under a shutdown, the Executive Branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, ‘essential,’” he said. “And they can determine without any court supervision. The courts have ruled it’s solely up to the executive what to shut down.”
Schumer said President Donald Trump, Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk and OMB Director Russell Vought would “eviscerate the federal government.”
“Here’s what makes it worse. There’s no off-ramp,” he added. “Who determines how long the shutdown would last? Only those evil people at the top of the Executive Branch in the Trump administration.”
Democrats have directed their ire at Schumer after he elected not to filibuster the spending bill.
While most Democrats had called for an end to the Senate filibuster in 2022 to pass legislation codifying Roe v. Wade, many of those same Democrats suddenly embraced the 60-vote threshold as a means to block the Republican-backed spending bill, which ultimately passed after Schumer and nine members of his caucus decided that passage was preferable to a government shutdown.
Former Senator Kyrsten Sinema took a victory lap last weekend after many of the same Democrats who attacked her for supporting the Senate filibuster suddenly changed their tune. Sinema and former Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) voted against a measure to end the 60-vote threshold in the Senate in 2022, splitting with the rest of their party. Their decision to preserve the filibuster led to widespread outrage among fellow Democrats.
Sinema shared an article about Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticizing Schumer for saying he would vote for the CR. “Change of heart on the filibuster, I see!” Sinema wrote on X.
Ocasio-Cortez, for her part, argued she was not being hypocritical.
“Still no,” she replied. “In fact, the same Dems who argue to keep the filibuster ‘for when we need it’ do not, in fact, use it when we need it. It’s only used to block Dem policies. Never to block harmful GOP ones. Could have proved us wrong. Instead they proved the point.”
But Sinema wasn’t having it.
“Literally zero Senate Democrats support the filibuster. 38 voted to filibuster the continuing resolution yesterday. 8 who previously voted to eliminate the filibuster (1/19/22) did not filibuster. 1 who previously campaigned against the filibuster did not filibuster.”
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