Fashion
‘I Had to Do What I Had to Do’: Excerpts From The Interview With Chuck Schumer
The day after angering many Democrats’ by backing a Republican spending bill, Schumer argued that he can still lead his party in the Senate, even amid furious backlash.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing the biggest revolt from Democrats in years, but in a conversation with The Interview after his crucial vote supporting a Republican federal spending bill this past week, he tried to brush off questions about whether he should step aside. Democratic officials appeared stunned when Schumer did an about-face on the spending bill, arguing that the choice was the lesser of two evils. Schumer defended his decision in the second part of our wide-ranging interview, even as questions over his leadership by senior party officials continued.
Here are three takeaways from the shutdown portion of our conversation.
Schumer explained that he cast his vote to prevent further decimation of the government by DOGE and Trump.
Schumer said that he made a “very, very difficult” decision to support the Republican bill in order to avert a government shutdown that, he said, President Trump and Elon Musk wanted. He called Trump and Musk “anti-government fanatics” and “nihilists.”
They want to shutter “agency after agency,” he said, which would create a situation far worse than the Republican bill. He continued:
He acknowledged that he and Hakeem Jeffries haven’t spoken since the vote.
While he accepted that there were “divisions” within his party around his vote, he insisted that he and his fellow Democrats have a respect for each other and that they are united in their fight against Trump.
Schumer reluctantly acknowledged that he and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who talk often, have not spoken since Schumer’s surprising vote, suggesting that there is a rupture between the two most senior Democrats in Congress.
