Schumer Attacked Over CR Vote to Reopen Government

The big loser in the fight to reopen the federal government was U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, despite his voting “no” on a continuing resolution to do so.

“Progressive” leaders are furious and want Schumer replaced because eight Democrats defected and helped Republicans pass the bill. On the other hand, Senator John Fetterman (D-Penn.) roasted his party for putting politics ahead of country.

But Fetterman and “progressive” rage aside, a top reason the bill passed was President Trump’s agreement to rehire federal workers who were fired during the shutdown. That was a concession to far-left Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. His constituency, of course, includes hundreds of thousands of highly paid government bureaucrats.

Trump’s Fault

As GOP U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri wrote on X, one reason Democrats shut down the government was their visceral hatred of Trump.

Prime example: Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who famously said that illegal aliens “are the people we care about most,” which explains why, as Republicans noted, Democrats were obsessed with providing healthcare to illegals in the bill.

Murphy disgorged his Trump Derangement on X. “This CR is a major mistake,” he raged, naming Trump nine times in 517 words.

“Trump and his Republican enablers caused the shutdown,” Murphy lied:

And even more egregiously, Trump has gone out of his way to make it worse, most recently by illegally trying to use hungry kids as leverage to compel Democrats into submission. He is hurting people in order to enrich himself, destroy our democracy, and stay in power forever. His actions over the past month confirm this.

Bullies gain power when their misconduct succeeds in causing righteous people to yield in the face of their wrongdoing. That’s why voting for Trump’s continuing resolution — without any protection against his health care cuts or his growing illegality — is a mistake.

Trump is corrupt, he wrote, and “Americans will die when millions cannot afford health insurance next year because of Trump’s massive premium hikes.”

Schumer in Trouble

Still, despite the obvious putative pain Schumer and his colleagues visited upon Americans, Murphy averred that “they wanted us to continue that fight, even knowing that victory was not certain.”

“What Trump has put people through these last few weeks is abhorrent,” he continued:

Of course I want to end the shutdown too. But not at any cost.

Standing up to a tyrant who is willing to impose pain in order to compel loyalty or capitulation is hard. Especially for people of good heart who never want to see people suffer. But there is no path to saving our democracy that doesn’t involve hard choices — some that involve enduring pain in the service of proving the demagogue’s bullying tactics do not work.…

Despite my deep disappointment at this deal, make no mistake — the evil that is about to be done on families with sick kids and high medical bills lays solely at the feet of Donald Trump and his Republican enablers.

This will not be the last test put to the defenders of democracy.

But at least he didn’t blame Schumer. Other Democrats did. “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” far-left Democrat Representative Ro Khanna said:

If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?

Wrote “progressive” Democrat Representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin:

“Don’t endorse or say who you voted for in NYC despite there being a Dem candidate,” he wrote of Schumer’s refusal to endorse Marxist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York:

Get Dem Senators to negotiate a terrible “deal” that does nothing real about healthcare.

Screw over a national political party.

Profile of scourge?

Next.

Democrat political guru David Axelrod predicts that Schumer is finished. “I think he’s been in trouble. I think he is in bigger trouble now,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

Sen. Schumer has been there since 1982. My guess is that he won’t be leader of the party in 2027, after this election, unless something really surprising happens.

For his part, Schumer’s lament on X closed with a weak “we will keep fighting.”

Democrat Dissent

Not all Democrats agreed with keeping the country shut down, notably the eight who voted for the bill: Kaine, Fetterman, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Angus King of Maine, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez of Nevada, and Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.

“My party crossed a LINE of now putting 42 million Americans with their SNAP benefits, and making flying less safe, that kind of chaos, and not paying our military!” Fetterman said on Fox & Friends:

I mean, that was a red line for me that I can’t cross as a Democrat!

“I’m sorry to our military, SNAP recipients, gov workers, and Capitol Police who haven’t been paid in weeks,” he wrote on X. “It should’ve never come to this. This was a failure.”

Kaine Gets What He Wants

Politico explained that Kaine was a key vote, and with good reason: Some 81,000 federal civilian jobs are in Northern Virginia, and 175,000 residents of the area work for the federal government.

His vote for the bill required a “moratorium on mischief,” he told GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the website reported. And that meant “undoing the firings President Donald Trump and budget director Russ Vought had carried out since the start of the shutdown, as well as protections against future firings of federal workers, who make up a significant portion of Kaine’s constituency.”

“There was a lot of resistance but they needed my vote,” Kaine told Politico.

The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.