Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP Images
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) leaves a Senate Democratic caucus luncheon outside the Senate Chamber in the Capitol Building in Washington, March 13, 2025.
UPDATE: On the roll call invoking cloture and proceeding to a vote on the continuing resolution, Schumer was able to get nine other Democrats to vote with the Republicans, so the motion passed, 62 to 38, two more than the 60-vote minimum. Had he not decided to lead a crusade against the vast majority of Senate Democrats, the resolution would have easily failed.
In exchange, Schumer got an agreement to allow separate votes on four other issues, including restoration of funding for the District of Columbia, but with no guarantee of Republican support. We await further congratulations from President Trump.
For three days, Senate Democrats privately debated whether to support a House-passed continuing resolution (CR) keeping the government funded through September 30, or to block it with a filibuster, thus letting the government temporarily shut down.
At midweek, it looked as if Chuck Schumer had devised a deft plan: Propose an alternative resolution to keep the government open for 30 days and send that back to the Republican House. That way, if the House did not go along, the shutdown would be on the Republicans.
On Wednesday, Schumer emerged from two days of meetings to declare that the caucus was unified against the Republican six-month resolution and supporting the 30-day plan instead.
But it turned out that he was simply floating the idea to keep Senate progressives happy. He was confident that the more centrist Democrats would reject the idea and vote cloture to end a filibuster and send the six-month continuing resolution to President Trump. In a more sinister maneuver, he would allow Republicans to end debate on their CR in exchange for a vote on the 30-day resolution—a vote that would fail, leaving Republicans able to pass their bill by majority vote.
Why did Schumer sabotage his own plan? Taking him at his word (always risky), he was worried that one way or another, the Democrats would take most of the blame for a shutdown. He was also worried that any shutdown would give Trump even more power to decide which government departments to keep in permanent shutdown once the government reopened (as if that’s not already happening).
By Thursday, Schumer was appalled to realize that his too-clever-by-half ploy was failing. Most of the more centrist Senate Democrats were prepared to filibuster in order to force a vote on the 30-day plan. One by one, relative centrists John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia all said that they would not vote for cloture.
The only ones who strongly favored giving Trump what he wanted were Schumer’s longtime toady, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. With 53 Republicans in the Senate, one of whom, Rand Paul of Kentucky, opposes the continuing resolution, it would take eight Democrats to pass cloture on a 60-vote threshold.
So Schumer, smoked out, decided to defy the majority of his own caucus. Late Thursday, Schumer took the Senate floor to announce that he would be voting for cloture to advance the Republican six-month plan.
“The Republican bill is a terrible option,” Schumer said. “But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option. The Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise that they would ever be rehired.”
But of course Trump would have exactly the same power and more, if he can point to a continuing resolution in which Congress effectively suspends its power of the purse for six months.
The final vote will be held this afternoon, and while it’s expected to be very close, usually when the party leader steps out, they have the votes.
It would be an understatement to say that the majority of his caucus is furious. Each senator went through the same agonizing calculations that Schumer did and came out the other way. Better to demonstrate a show of force. And House Democrats, who did make a show of force with only one defector, Jared Golden of Maine, are even angrier.
Nancy Pelosi, who still wields a lot of power behind the scenes, released an extraordinary statement that blows away Schumer’s logic. “Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America … this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.” She closed by advising to “listen to the women”: the ranking Democrats on the Appropriations Committees, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who devised the 30-day resolution and who have warned that the House CR will allow Trump to “steal from the American people.”
Fifty House Democrats wrote directly to Schumer urging him to reconsider. The House Democratic leadership held a press conference in Washington—even though the House is out of session—maintaining their opposition to the Republican CR.
Schumer broke two prime rules of politics for leaders. First, don’t defy your own troops. More importantly, when you have the votes, as Schumer did, don’t capitulate without getting something in return. But Schumer folded a fairly strong hand, unilaterally. As a thank you, Trump rubbed it in, with a post on Truth Social: “Really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. Took ‘guts’ and courage!”
Schumer was a decent floor leader for Joe Biden, but for most of his career he was known, all too accurately, as the “Senator From Wall Street.” Now we can add to that “Trump’s Favorite Democrat.”
