Welcome to Washington: Where Democrats Are Wondering Whether It’s Time for Senator Schumer To Retire

If there is one takeaway from the last ten continuous weeks of the Senate being in session, it should be this: elected Democrats do not know where to go or how to operate. Yes, the “Democrats in disarray” saying is cliché and often mocked, but it appears that the actions of the opposition party in Congress have evoked a genuine rage from its base that could end up mirroring the Tea Party of more than 15 years ago. Welcome to Washington, where the Senate and House are going on their first simultaneous recess since President Trump returned to the White House. The Democrats are leaving Washington dispirited, with nothing to show for their work over the last two months to try and throw up roadblocks to the new administration. Republicans, on the other hand, are headed home with victories to spare. Every Trump cabinet nominee who stuck through the process has so far been confirmed, the House has passed its “one big beautiful” budget blueprint. Just on Friday, Speaker Johnson was able to jam Senator Schumer with a six-month government funding agreement that a supermajority of Senate Democrats ended up voting against. When Mr. Schumer announced he would vote for the spending bill — which includes more than $7 billion in overall cuts, language that removes Congress’s ability to overturn a president’s imposition of tariffs, and lacks any language that constrains Elon Musk and the DOGE team — Democrats were furious. From Senator Sanders to a former national security advisor to President Obama, Susan Rice, were apoplectic. In the end, with Mr. Schumer’s blessing, just the Brooklynite and nine other members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted for the continuing resolution to keep the government open through the end of September. On the “no” side of the Senate clerk’s vote tally sheet were a host of vulnerable Democrats in Trump-won states, including Senator Ossoff, Senator Baldwin, Senator Rosen, and Senator Slotkin, to name a few. Dispirited by the minority leader’s betrayal, Democrats began calling for his head. Axios reports that House Democrats — even those in the middle — are pushing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to lay the groundwork for a primary challenger to Mr. Schumer in 2028 after he announced his support for the spending bill. An online petition calling on Mr. Schumer to step down as Democratic leader has already garnered nearly 24,000 signatures.Senator Murphy, during an interview with “Meet the Press” on Sunday, refused to declare if Mr. Schumer was the best person to lead the caucus at the moment, saying that he and his colleagues needed to have “a conversation” about their path forward. Inside the Capitol, I can report, the mood among Senate Democrats is just as bad as it seems to outsiders. During a closed-door meeting just off the Senate floor on Thursday, Senator Gillibrand could be heard by reporters through a thick wooden door nearly yelling at her colleagues to back Mr. Schumer. As other Democrats trickled out of the room, many of them grimly told reporters that they had nothing to say to us. At one point, Senator Luján demanded members of the press talk to the GOP, not Democrats, about the spending bill. “Republicans are in charge. What are you guys all asking these questions for?” Mr. Luján demanded of us angrily.“Jiminy Christmas,” he growled as he walked onto the Senate floor. If “throw the bums out!” was a rallying cry for the insurgent Tea Party in 2009 and 2010, then it appears that angry liberals are ready to yell someone even more profane in 2025 and 2026. Beginning in 2010, conservatives successfully knocked off GOP lawmakers like Senators Bennett and Lugar in primary challenges, and installed their like-minded fighters in open primaries like in the 2010 Kentucky Senate race, won by Senator Paul, and the 2012 Texas Senate race, which was won by Senator Cruz. Those wins were less about specific policy issues, and more about the ability to fight — an ability that was missing this past week in Mr. Schumer, who could well retire in 2028 and avoid a Bennett-esque departure from Congress.

Welcome to Washington: Where Democrats Are Wondering Whether It’s Time for Senator Schumer To Retire

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