Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer is going through the most important revolt from Democrats in years, however in a conversation 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 surprised when Schumer did an about-face on the spending invoice, arguing that the selection was the lesser of two evils. Schumer defended his resolution within the second a part of our wide-ranging interview, at the same time as questions over his management by senior occasion officers continued.
Listed below are three takeaways from the shutdown portion of our conversation.
Schumer defined that he solid his vote to stop additional decimation of the federal government by DOGE and Trump.
Schumer mentioned that he made a “very, very tough” resolution to assist the Republican invoice in an effort to avert a authorities shutdown that, he mentioned, President Trump and Elon Musk wished. He known as Trump and Musk “anti-government fanatics” and “nihilists.”
They need to shutter “company after company,” he mentioned, 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, nicely, meals stamps for youths will not be important. It’s gone. All veterans workplaces in rural areas are gone. Social Safety, Medicare, Medicaid. They’re not important. We’re chopping them again. So it’d be horrible. The harm they’ll do beneath a shutdown is far worse than some other harm that they may do.
Isn’t this simply — Wait, let me simply end, Lulu. It could actually final without end. There is no such thing as a off ramp. One of many Republican senators instructed us: We go to a shutdown, it’s going to be there for six months, 9 months, a yr. And by then, their objective of destroying the federal authorities could be gone. And at last, one closing level right here, and that’s that proper now beneath the C.R., you may go to court docket and contest an government order to close one thing down. Below a shutdown, the manager department has sole energy.
He acknowledged that he and Hakeem Jeffries haven’t spoken for the reason that vote.
Whereas he accepted that there have been “divisions” inside his occasion round his vote, he insisted that he and his fellow Democrats have a respect for one another and that they’re united of their combat in opposition to Trump.
Schumer reluctantly acknowledged that he and the Home minority chief, Hakeem Jeffries, who speak typically, haven’t spoken since Schumer’s stunning vote, suggesting that there’s a rupture between the 2 most senior Democrats in Congress.
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