Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in an attempt to cauterize the self-inflicted wound from his decision to help Republicans pass their “CR,” continuing resolution, last week—a move backed by President Donald Trump—may have only deepened what some rank-and-file Democrats see as a crisis of leadership.
In what some are calling a “devastating” interview Tuesday evening with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, the Democratic leader appeared unwilling to grasp the full extent of the current threat level to American democracy, that our democracy is now at a crossroads—a fact well-documented by experts on democracy, and proclaimed by a Democratic U.S. Senator—and struggled to acknowledge that the nation is facing a constitutional crisis.
Trying to defend what is being seen as a lack of strategy, an inability to grasp the gravity of this moment in American history, and a refusal to fight the battle that is actually before him, Schumer made his argument to Hayes.
President Donald Trump’s approval “numbers have started to go down, from 51 to 47. If we keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, his numbers will be much lower. He will not only be less popular, but less effective,” Schumer insisted.
Schumer additionally claimed that “we will find the moments where we shouldn’t give them votes.”
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But Schumer was sitting in Hayes’s studio exactly because he did give Republicans votes. He canceled his book tour that was supposed to start this week, reportedly due to security threats, and instead has been hitting the talk shows and cable news defending his decision — and his leadership position.
“There’s this weird asymmetry right now,” Hayes observed, noting that Republicans “are acting in this totally new way, in which they are ambitiously trying to seize all power and create a presidential dictatorship in the United States of America, and the Democratic opposition is acting like, ‘Well, if we can get their approval rate down a few points.’ Then what? Then what happens?”
“Well,” Schumer, still in defensive mode, declared, saying that “what happens is, look, first, we get it way down, he’s gonna have much like we—this worked in 2017.”
For some on social media, that appeared to be the inflection point—the moment that Schumer exposed that he is using the old playbook that the Trump administration, MAGA, The Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025 burned long ago.
“You say now it’s a different government,” Schumer acknowledged.
“It’s different, though,” Hayes pressed.
“Oh, it is different, but health care: we beat them. Taxes: we beat them, and guess what we did? Guess what we did, Chris? We took back the House and won in the Senate, and that got and then we were allowed to do all those good things.”
Hayes also honed in on Schumer’s 2017 reference.
“I don’t disagree with that, but the difference to me between 2017 and now,” he explained, is that it “is a full-fledged assault on the Constitutional order that has not been seen.”
And Hayes asked, “but then the question becomes, what is the role of the minority in resisting that, that’s distinct from ‘we’re gonna beat them on health care, we’re gonna beat them on spending with Medicaid.'”
Then Schumer said, “If our democracy is at risk—”
“It is at risk,” Hayes declared.
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“Sorry. It is certainly at risk,” Schumer acknowledged, after Hayes made that declaration, but then he ignored Hayes’s question: “Do you believe” it is at risk?
Schumer moved on, appearing to say that if the federal courts ultimately fail to hold Trump, “we’ll have the court of public opinion, and if that happens, as you pointed out, we have had rule of law since the Magna Carta, okay?”
“The people will have to rise up, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just, you know, people everybody. But our democracy will be at stake then,” he said, again, not appearing to grasp that, as experts say, it is right now.
“And if the people make their voices heard as strong and stand up, and we join them, I believe we can try to beat that back.”
“We can beat that back, but it’s it’s it’s up on that one, if democracy is at risk, that’s a little different than what we’re talking about now — even a shutdown as horrible as it is.”
“We’ll all have to stand up and fight back in every way,” Schumer concluded.
Critics, and rank-and-file Democrats, and some elected Democrats, say the fight should have started when Trump was elected.
The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a noted political scientist, responded to a clip of Hayes’ interview with Schumer, declaring, “Chuck is delusional.”
That word has repeatedly surfaced.
“‘This worked in 2017’ is all you need to hear. I can understand Schumer’s logic on the shutdown, but he’s delusional if he thinks that’s a winning strategy,” observed Cosmopolitan editor Olivia Truffaut-Wong.
“You know, I watched Sen. Schumer on Chris Hayes and really tried to hear him defend his actions in good faith,” wrote Charlotte Clymer, a former Human Rights Campaign press secretary who has called for Schumer to resign, “but by the end of their discussion, it just felt impossible for me to avoid this very deep sense of dangerous foreboding. Big ‘tempting fate’ energy in the worse way. Honestly scary.”
One day before Schumer’s MSNBC interview, Clymer on Monday had already made the case for “Why Chuck Schumer Should Step Down.”
“We have lost our way not because of what we believe in,” she wrote, referring to rank-and-file Democratic voters, “but because of our party leadership’s reluctance to fight for what we believe in.”
Sam Seder, the progressive political commentator and host of “The Majority Report with Sam Seder,” declared Schumer’s interview with Hayes was “devastating for Schumer. ..ignoring the criticism from all corners of the party..can’t articulate a strategy. It’s bizarre. He thinks it’s 2017.”
He also wrote that Schumer was “trying to justify his lack of leadership and strategy on his failed dirty CR. He’s panicked and should be. He is not up to the era. Instead of fighting against every other Democratic leader he should resign for the sake of the country.”
Emma Vigeland, Seder’s co-host, wrote that Chris Hayes “nailed Schumer at the end of tonight’s interview by getting him to equivocate about whether or not we are currently at risk of losing our democracy. This is entirely out of step with how the base feels and saying this on MSNBC could (and should!) cost him his leadership.”
Elected Democrats are starting to break their wall of silence and call for Schumer to resign as Senate Democratic Leader.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) on Tuesday, as C-SPAN reported, said: “I was deeply disappointed that Senator Schumer voted with the Republicans. You know you’re on bad ground when you get a personal tweet from Donald Trump thanking you for your vote…I’m afraid it may be time for the Senate Democrats to pick new leadership…”
Christopher Webb, a social media political commentator with a strong following multi-platform following, posted edited video of the interview and also called it “devastating.”