There was no leverage”: Schumer says voting to avoid shutdown sidestepped harm from “evil people

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer faced some tough questions during a stop by NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. A week after his controversial decision to break with his party and approve a GOP resolution to fund the federal government, the New York Democrat is still convinced he did the right thing. 

Schumer said a shutdown would have been catastrophic for Democrats policy goals, giving President Donald Trump’s administration carte blanche to dismantle portions of the federal government they dislike.

“I knew when I cast my vote against the government shutdown that there would be a lot of controversy, and there was,” he said. “The [continuing resolution] was certainly bad..but a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power to determine what is ‘essential.'”

Schumer painted a picture of the Trump administration slashing federal programs without the backstop of the judiciary. He said that Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk would have even more power to wipe agencies out of existence.

“With Musk and DOGE and Trump and this guy [Russell] Vought, they would eviscerate the federal government,” he shared. “They could say, ‘Oh, SNAP? Feeding hungry children? Not essential’…Their goal is to eviscerate the federal government so they can get more tax cuts.” 

Schumer viewed a government shutdown as a Pandora’s box, unleashing chaos with no guarantee that the federal government would ever be set right again.

“There’s no off-ramp. Who determines how long the shutdown would last? Only those evil people,” he said. “I thought that would be so devastating to the republic.” 

The Senate leader brushed off calls from the Democratic Party base, who feel that his lack of fight shows he’s not the man for the moment. Host Kristin Welker directly asked if Schumer was digging in his heels in a manner similar to former President Joe Biden, leading Schumer to wax about the hard decisions that come with leadership. 

“It was a vote of principle. Sometimes when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger,” he said. “There was no leverage point. We could have asked for things, they just would have said ‘no.'”