You Gotta Hand It to Chuck Schumer This Time

I take some pride in being a dedicated Chuck Schumer critic, going back more than a decade. Whether it’s his repeated attempts to dynamite President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, his invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, or his refusal to endorse Zohran Mamdani for the mayoralty of New York City, the bill of particulars is long and ignominious.

But in the current fight in Congress about funding for President Trump’s mass deportation machine, Schumer has deftly outplayed his Republican opponents in the House and Senate, and looks almost certain to win.

More from Ryan Cooper

Recall that ICE and CBP got a gigantic one-off funding package in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill—so much that ICE became, for the moment, better funded than any military in the world, save that of China and the U.S. itself. It’s somewhat analogous to the spending boost Democrats did for the IRS back in 2022, except instead of funding the tax police to go after rich tax cheats, Republicans funded a modern-day Sturmabteilung staffed by America’s most divorced sadists.

Yet these agencies are still scheduled to get additional regular funding during the normal budget process. It wasn’t exactly orderly or on time, but there was a full-funding deal for the rest of the year agreed to by all parties and set for mid-February.

Then, Democrats, in protest at ICE/CBP storm troopers occupying Minneapolis, and kidnapping, beating, and occasionally straight-up murdering innocent civilians, reasonably refused to vote for anything that funded the agencies’ parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security, unless the lawless violence ceased. So while bills funding the rest of the government did pass, Senate Democrats filibustered a DHS funding bill, and the department shut down on February 14.

Schumer has deftly outplayed his Republican opponents in the current fight over funding ICE.

Many (including myself) argued that Democrats should refuse outright to provide any funding to ICE or CBP so long as Trump’s illegal ethnic cleansing campaign continued. If there was any time to take a stand for liberty and democracy, this was it—and besides, Republicans pulled a similar trick to erase almost all of Democrats’ 2022 IRS funding in the ensuing years.

That’s what Democrats did—most critically led by Schumer in the Senate, because the whole strategy relied on a Democratic filibuster denying Republicans the ability to fund DHS themselves. And because DHS includes the Transportation Security Administration, this created a steadily worsening chaos at American airports, as TSA workers who had not been paid for weeks went on a sort of wildcat strike.

Trump tried to Band-Aid this by paying TSA workers via executive order, which is a rampantly illegal usurpation of the power of the purse. But this backfired, because he didn’t do it until several weeks into the standoff, leading the public to wonder why they were ever suffering in massive airport security lines in the first place.

Eventually, Republicans caved, multiple times, in humiliating fashion. The Senate GOP leadership first came up with a two-track strategy, in which everything in DHS but immigration enforcement would get funded with Democratic support, and then they would attempt to fund deportation through a reconciliation package, which only requires a majority vote. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson initially balked at this idea and Congress left town for two weeks. But the pressure continued (with a weird assist from TMZ, which started bird-dogging members of Congress at Disneyland and Scotland while TSA was closed). And after a week, Johnson caved and warmed to the deal after Trump voiced support for it.

The House whiffed in its first attempt at passing the Senate plan in a pro forma session, after the hard-right caucus raised a ruckus, and Johnson then backtracked on his previous stance. But with Democrats promising to vote for it when the House returns on April 14, it’s very likely just a matter of time.

Now, the reconciliation funding for ICE and CBP might get through. But as my colleague David Dayen has reported, it’s going to be pretty dicey. Republicans are also looking to put $200 billion in Iran war funding in that same reconciliation bill—reportedly paid for by even more health care cuts. That’s a stiff ask at a time when Trump’s approval rating is steadily falling below 40 percent, driven to fresh lows by his monumentally stupid war. Iran is consolidating formal control over the Strait of Hormuz—which could net that county a cool $100 billion in yearly tolls—while the resulting energy crisis has the price of oil shooting past $110 per barrel, with $150 or even $200 easily possible if the strait is not reopened, and soon.

When ICE Blows Through Rural America

Funding the mother- and VA nurse-murdering psychopath agency would be a tough lift at the best of times. But today, when the GOP also needs to take away your health care so they can pay for a completely senseless war that is jacking up the price of gas, and all during an election year? I wouldn’t bet on it. And if they don’t get that money now, they likely won’t get it for the rest of Trump’s presidency, given that Democrats are highly likely to take at least one house of Congress in the upcoming elections.

Trump has called for a “focused” bill to fund immigration enforcement. But when has anything Trump done been focused? Not only are war funding and health care cuts likely to be added, but some Republicans have talked about including tax cuts (because why not?), and then there’s the SAVE Act, the Jim Crow–style voter suppression bill that Republicans are desperate to pass. They’ve devised ways to do this in reconciliation, even though everything is supposed to have a budgetary purpose. What happens when the parliamentarian tells them to pound sand?

Schumer played this one just right. It wasn’t the most complex strategy, and it was made quite a lot easier by Trump’s flailing incompetence and rapidly increasing unpopularity. But given how Senate Democrats simply love to cave—or are being rapidly devoured by the MAGA mind virus, in the case of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)—Schumer deserves real credit. He held everyone together in the face of serious pressure, refused to give, and let Republicans steam. He and the rest of his party’s caucus should remember this for next time.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect Speaker Johnson’s changing attitudes.