With whom? The caucus's second in command, Dick Durbin? He voted to end the filibuster!
Senate Democrats have a leadership crisis brewing, Politico reports. House and Senate Dems are publicly demanding a replacement for Shutdown Chuck Schumer after the ignominious collapse of his 40-day stunt, which only accomplished the following:
- Disruption of air travel
- Preventing federal workers from being paid
- Suspending aid to the poor
Here's what it didn't accomplish:
- Repeal of Medicaid restrictions in One Big Beautiful Bill
- Extension of pandemic ObamaCare subsidies
- Reversal of the rescission package
For those not keeping score, Chuck Schumer made the latter set his "non-negotiable" demands for passing a continuing resolution. The first set were the predictable consequences of this strategy, which Schumer insisted were a reasonable cost to accomplish the latter. Having not accomplished anything, Democrats now are left holding a very expensive and stinky bag.
And guess who they're blaming for that? And on the record, too?
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called it a mistake. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called it “a very bad night.” And Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Ca.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of being ineffective and called for his removal.
“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Khanna said in a post on X following the vote. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
After 40 days of stalemate, eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted to advance the bill Sunday night, though notably none of the eight are up for reelection in 2026. But it’s Schumer — who voted no Sunday — who is now facing questions about his ability to lead the caucus.
“Don’t endorse or say who you voted for in NYC despite there being a Dem candidate,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote on X, referring to Schumer declining to endorse democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the NYC mayoral race. “Get Dem Senators to negotiate a terrible “deal” that does nothing real about healthcare. Screw over a national political party. Profile of scourge? Next.”
The progressives that Schumer attempted to impress with this shutdown fight now want him gone. Bernie Sanders' allied have come out with the long knives already:
“Caving now will teach Trump and Republicans that they can win any fight simply by threatening to cause terrible harm to regular people,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, on BlueSky. ...
Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Sanders-aligned progressive group Our Revolution, echoed the call for Schumer to quit. If Schumer “secretly backed this surrender and voted ‘no’ to save face, he’s a liar. If he couldn’t keep his caucus in line, he’s inept.”
True, and true ... but it also leaves out some context, as well as responsibility for this debacle. Shutdown Chuck is inept and a liar, but this fight wasn't entirely his idea, either. Eight months ago, these same progressives wanted a government shutdown fight when Trump had his first budget showdown as a CR came up to its expiration date. Schumer refused to engage in the fight, warning that a shutdown would be political suicide, as the WSJ reminds readers immediately after reporting on Geevarghese's comments:
The matter played out as a variation on a similar vote in March. Then, Schumer defied most of his party and joined with a small band of colleagues to vote for a GOP plan to keep the government funded, drawing criticism from fellow Democrats. This time, he has led the Democratic resistance but is still getting blowback.
Progressives wanted a fight in March and damned Schumer for pointing out the fecklessness of that strategy. Progressives wanted a fight in October, and this time Schumer played along, only to have his first instincts vindicated. Now progressives want to throw Schumer out of leadership for the failure of their own strategy when it had been obvious from the beginning how stupid it was -- not to mention how every other government shutdown ended for the party initiating it.
Needless to say, Schumer won't quit his post. Senate Democrats would have to vote to strip him of his post. But even if they did, who would replace him? Durbin is next in line, and he voted to end the filibuster. Elizabeth Warren is the "vice chair" of the caucus, but no one would seriously consider her as an opponent to John Thune. Amy Klobuchar chairs their steering committee and would probably be a more serious contender, but it's hardly clear that she would contend any better against Trump and Thune. The problem wasn't Schumer as much as it was the idiotic strategy that the extremists forced on him, and Klobuchar would have had to deal with the same lack of leverage in this situation.
At any rate, this is hardly a propitious moment for a change in the line-up. Democrats managed to get a couple of sops to save face in their surrender, but even those are still at risk. Now that cloture has been invoked, Thune can force a vote on the original CR without anything else if Democrats attempt to renegotiate, forcing the government to reopen and daring the Democrats to stall on the next CR and push another suicide shutdown in the middle of Thanksgiving.
As bad as this cave has been for Senate Democrats, another shutdown will be even worse. Schumer knows it, even if progressives don't.
Editor’s Note: After more than 40 days of screwing Americans, a few Dems have finally caved. The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle—just inflicting pain for political points. They own this.
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