The Progressive Base Wants Chuck Schumer Gone

Sen. Chuck Schumer probably though his terrible few days last week would be over by now. Last week he first rejected and then did a 180 degree reversal and backed a Republican CR bill to prevent a government shutdown. The backlash over this hasn’t subsided. In fact, Schumer seems to be making a case for his job this week even as he continues to take hits from people on his side of the aisle.

Tim Walz appeared on Gavin Newsom’s podcast (out today) and said he felt Schumer had made a mistake.

“I believe that Chuck 100 percent believes that he made a decision that reduced the pain and the risk to Americans,” the Minnesota governor said in the latest episode of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast released on Tuesday. “I see it now that we’re in a point where … that pain is coming anyway and I think we gave up our leverage.”…

As a result of Schumer and a small group of other Democrats’ support for the funding patch, Walz warned Newsom that Democrats will face blame for any negative fallout from the bill.

“To the American public who doesn’t do this for a living and is out doing their job, they said, ‘well, they passed this budget and they agreed with Donald Trump, and now we all own that,’” Walz said. “I think you should have made Donald Trump justify why things were getting so bad.”

Of course Tim Walz doesn’t really move the needle much by himself but his reaction is probably representative of a lot of other elected Democrats. And so, Schumer went on CBS News this morning where he was hit with suggestions that his own party wanted him “to go.” Schumer replied that he was the best leader for the Democratic Senate.

Sen. Chuck Schumer: “I’m the best leader for the Senate.”

pic.twitter.com/yO9yqBQdrQ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 18, 2025

My own take after watching that is the same as it was a few weeks ago when Schumer was trying to lead a rowdy protest in front of the Treasury Department: He looks and sounds old and out of place. He’s not a natural rabble-rouser. Here’s a bit more of what he said.

Schumer said a “shutdown would have been the greatest disaster,” putting the government in the hands of “evil, nasty, nihilistic people” like Musk, President Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought. 

“We would have had half the federal government we have now,” Schumer said. “So I thought I did the thing a leader should do: Even when people don’t see the danger around the curve, my job was to alert people to it — and I knew I’d get some bullets.”

This is just the most visible part of a larger damage control effort going on behind the scenes. He made a special effort to talk to leaders of Indivisible after the group called for him to step down from his leadership position over the weekend.

The outreach by Schumer and his team included officials at Indivisible. The pro-Democratic organization called for him to step down from his leadership position on Saturday over what it saw as his unwillingness to resist President Donald Trump…

Schumer’s team tried to persuade the New York leaders at Indivisible not to immediately sign onto a statewide letter that called for Schumer to quit his position as minority leader, said one of the people familiar with the discussions. Schumer spoke to the New York Indivisible officials on Sunday. They called for him to step down as minority leader anyway on Monday…

A third person described the conversations between Schumer and Indivisible as “tense and unproductive.”

Meanwhile, the left-wing media is also piling on. Here’s the Nation asking him to resign twice.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is used to having the progressive wing of the Democratic Party fuming at him—hardly a surprise given he’s an avatar for pro–Wall Street centrism. But in the wake of his disastrous handling of the budget crisis, which ended with Senate Democrats throwing away the little leverage they have in order to agree to a budget whose terms were negotiated only among Republicans, Schumer is finding that even his allies in the party are turning on him. The growing calls for Schumer to step down as Senate minority leader, combined with a whispering campaign among congressional Democrats to encourage Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to primary him when he comes up for reelection in 2028, have both an immediate and long-term cause…

The bad news is that Schumer is not up for reelection until 2028. The good news is that he can resign right now—in fact, he should do that twice. He can resign as Senate minority leader…

Schumer’s colleagues should also encourage him to resign from the Senate itself.

Of course the Nation is always going to root for moderates to fall so no surprise there. But last night Jon Stewart also did an entire segment blasting Schumer.

The segment began with a montage of news clips featuring multiple congressional Democrats disparaging the bill as “terrible” and “designed to hurt the American people.” After that, Stewart played a clip of Schumer, the senior senator from New York, claiming that “Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate” to pass the budget and avoid a government shutdown.

Stewart then broke out into a bit of song, singing, “You don’t have the votes. You need congressional approval ’cause you don’t have the votes,” a lyric from Hamilton’s “Cabinet Battle #1.” He jokingly continued, making up lyrics before trailing off, then directly addressed congressional Republicans: “You see, Republicans, your little evil budget plan might have worked if you hadn’t forgotten that one Senator Schumer is Charles in Charge of the Democratic Party. I’m afraid your diabolical scheme has been foiled!”

That’s the set up for Schumer to pull the rug out from under Dems by announcing he would vote for the CR. The Jon Stewart audience spontaneously booed Schumer at this point in the monologue. That said, Schumer has been given a helping hand by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in his time of need. 

Asked at a press conference last Friday if it is time for new leadership in the Senate, Jeffries replied: “Next question.”

However, the two New York Democrats met Sunday and released a joint statement Tuesday morning vowing to fight potential Medicaid cuts in Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill.

It’s hard to imagine Schumer losing his leadership position over what was ultimately the best decision he could have made in this case, but such is the level of anger and frustration in the Democratic Party that they seem ready to boot him anyway. And as I said, he’s just not convincing as the guy who can lead a mob of torch carrying villagers to burn down the castle and destroy the DOGE monster. If that’s what the party wants, they probably need to pick someone else to lead the Senate.

Here’s the full Jon Stewart segment.

Update: Schumer just is not good at this. He rambles and it doesn’t build any energy. Whoopi just wants him to shup up so they can go to a commercial.

Schumer mocks “greedy” Americans who want to keep more of their own money: “Their attitude is, ‘I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me?'”pic.twitter.com/noNO8cgdMe

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 18, 2025