The president was considerably more blunt when Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made another trip to the White House a week later, suggesting he simply wasn’t interested in an extended battle with an uncertain result.

Schumer was irked, according to people he’s spoken to subsequently, deeply disappointed and convinced Obama had missed a major opportunity. The White House, in turn, was incensed when it learned Schumer planned to push forward with votes — ultimately unsuccessful — on alternative Democratic proposals…

Since then, the relationship between Schumer and Obama, arguably the Democratic Party’s two most influential message strategists, has become so strained both sides are working to patch things up for fear their differences could hinder Democrats in the face of a strengthened and determined GOP opposition…

[P]rivately, White House officials, who have long viewed Schumer as a talented but essentially self-promotional operator with no abiding loyalty to Obama, think he was pursuing an irresponsible partisan fight that would delay the tax cuts and the extension of unemployment benefits for months. And Obama himself warned Schumer that the millionaire strategy could sink the stock market.