WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer weathered backlash from Democrats earlier this year when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open. But he’s now willing to risk a shutdown at the end of the month if Republicans don’t accede to Democratic demands.
Schumer says he and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries are united in opposing any legislation that doesn’t include key health care provisions and a commitment not to roll them back. He argues that the country is in a different place than it was in March, when he vigorously argued against a shutdown, and he says he believes Republicans and President Donald Trump will be held responsible if they don’t negotiate a bipartisan deal.
“Things have changed” since the March vote, Schumer said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. He said Republicans have since passed Trump’s massive tax breaks and spending cuts legislation, which trimmed Medicaid and other government programs, and Democrats are now unified — unlike in March, when he voted with Republicans and Jeffries voted against legislation to fund the government.
A shutdown, Schumer said, wouldn’t necessarily worsen an environment in which Trump is already challenging the authority of Congress. “It will get worse with or without it, because Trump is lawless,” Schumer said.
Schumer’s threat comes as Republicans are considering a short-term stopgap spending measure to avoid a Sept. 30 shutdown and as Democrats face what most see as two tough choices if the parties can’t negotiate a deal — vote with Republicans to keep the government open or let it close indefinitely with no clear exit plan.
It also comes amid worsening partisan tensions in the Senate, where negotiations between the two parties over the confirmation process broke down for a second time Thursday and Republicans are changing Senate rules to get around Democratic objections. Democrats are also fuming over the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally claw back $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid just as negotiations over the spending deadline were getting underway in late August.
Republicans have said that Democrats clearly will be to blame if they don’t vote to keep the government open, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has repeatedly said that Schumer needs to come to them with a specific proposal on health care, including an extension of expanded government tax credits for many Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Some Republicans are open to extending those credits before they expire at the end of the year.
Less realistic is Democrats’ demand that Republicans roll back Medicaid cuts enacted in their tax breaks and spending cuts legislation this summer, what Trump called his “big, beautiful bill.”
Schumer said Democrats also want Republicans to commit that the White House won’t take back money they have negotiated and Congress has approved after Republicans pushed through a $9 billion cut requested by the White House in July and Trump blocked the additional foreign aid money in August. “How do you pass an appropriations bill and let them undo it down the road?” Schumer said.
Schumer’s move to support the spending legislation in March put him in the rare position of bucking his party’s base. He said then that of two bad options, a partial government shutdown was worse because it would give Trump even more control to shut down agencies and there would be “no off-ramp” to get out of it. “I think people realize it’s a tough choice,” he said.
He faced massive backlash from within the party after the vote, with some activists calling on him to resign. Jeffries temporarily distanced himself from his New York colleague, saying in a statement immediately after Schumer’s vote that House Democrats “will not be complicit.” The majority of Senate Democrats also voted against the plan.
This time, though, Schumer is in lockstep with Jeffries and in messaging within his caucus. In Democrats’ closed-door lunch Wednesday, he shared polling that he said suggested most Americans would blame Trump, not Democrats, for a shutdown.
“I did what I thought was right” in March, Schumer said. “It’s a different situation now than then.”
