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Facing Calls to Resign for Caving to Trump and GOP, Schumer Postpones Book Tour
"The only way to stop an authoritarian advance is to disrupt it, to make every step costly, to slow its march through whatever means necessary," wrote one Democratic strategist. "Instead, Schumer is helping smooth the path."
Mar 17, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has opted to postpone events promoting his forthcoming book amid sustained outrage over his decision to back a Republican-authored government funding plan that bolsters President Donald Trump's lawless assault on federal agencies.
Schumer's (D-N.Y.) office attributed the decision to reschedule the book tour events—including one that was supposed to take place in Baltimore Monday night—to "security concerns."
The anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace was planning to hold a demonstration outside the Baltimore venue. Other progressive activists highlighted Schumer's upcoming tour dates after he announced he would vote with the GOP on the funding package, rebuffing calls from Democratic lawmakers, advocacy groups, and the largest union of federal workers to oppose the legislation on the grounds that it would effectively greenlight Trump's destruction of federal departments and illegal spending maneuvers.
Much of the Democratic Party erupted in fury following Schumer's decision to support the Republican bill, and he quickly faced calls to step down as Senate minority leader.
"The passage of this dangerous Republican funding bill is a travesty," Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, said in a statement Saturday. "The ongoing administrative coup led by Donald Trump and Elon Musk is a constitutional crisis. The authoritarians stripping away our rights and trying to loot the government to enrich the billionaires are a five-alarm fire."
"Senator Schumer should step aside as leader," Levin added. "Every Democrat in the Senate should call for him to do so, and begin making plans for new leadership immediately. Indivisible will be encouraging our groups and activists to talk to their Senators at town halls, community events, and office visits about the urgent need for a minority leader who’s up for the fight this moment demands."
Schumer has thus far brushed off calls to resign, telling The New York Times in an interview published over the weekend that while there is "spirited disagreement on which was the right vote," he and members of his caucus "have mutual respect" and "are all united, no matter how people voted on this vote, to continue fighting Trump."
But Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid argued Monday that Schumer "is stuck in 2005," believing that "if Democrats just wait long enough, if they hold the line and play nice, Republicans will suddenly come to their senses."
"Democrats like Schumer still behave as though the system will self-correct, that if they abide by procedural norms long enough and let Trump-Musk exhaust themselves, the fever will break. But the people dismantling democracy aren't waiting," Shahid wrote. "They are exploiting every available lever of power—hollowing out agencies, capturing the courts, stripping Congress of oversight—at a breakneck pace. The only way to stop an authoritarian advance is to disrupt it, to make every step costly, to slow its march through whatever means necessary. Instead, Schumer is helping smooth the path."
"Defending democracy requires more than safeguarding institutions in the abstract—it requires upholding the values those institutions were meant to serve," he added. "Right now, we are witnessing Musk's corporate coup and state capture in real-time. Politics is about knowing what time it is, and I'm not sure Chuck Schumer has the answer."
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Why Schumer Should Resign Now
At this critical inflection point for democracy, America cannot afford a rudderless resistance from a compromised leader.
Mar 17, 2025
Maybe Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer was correct.
Maybe it was more important for him to align himself with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans than to resist them with one of the few weapons that Democrats possess—the Senate filibuster.
Maybe calling the Republicans’ bluff to shut down the government would have been worse than the pain that Trump, Musk, and their allies continue to inflict on the nation and the world.
Or maybe Schumer just blew it.
Rather than walk the confident path of a leader, Schumer’s missteps undermined his future effectiveness and empowered Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans.
We’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter. Regardless of his ultimate rationale, Chuck Schumer failed a critical test of leadership and should resign as minority leader.
Hanging on Too Long
Age isn’t the reason that Schumer should step aside, but it’s a contributing factor. At 74, he’s one of the youngest of an aging old guard. Like his elderly colleagues, he had to sacrifice a lot personally to reach the heights that he now enjoys. The allure of power and prestige causes too many leaders across numerous professions to hang on too long.
The phenomenon is pervasive in politics. But eventually reality becomes painfully obvious. For President Joseph Biden Jr., it was a disastrous debate performance; for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), it was periodic public “freezes” as news cameras rolled; for the late Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), it was humiliating physical and mental deterioration.
For Chuck Schumer, it was his confusing rhetorical journey to a vote that intensified the GOP’s grip on the nation and made the Democratic party complicit in their destructive agenda. Rather than walk the confident path of a leader, Schumer’s missteps undermined his future effectiveness and empowered Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans.
At this critical inflection point for democracy, America cannot afford a rudderless resistance from a compromised leader.
From Vocal Opponent…
With the barest of majorities and nearly unanimous Democratic opposition, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open for the next six months. But overcoming the 60-vote threshold necessary to end a Democratic filibuster in the Senate required the support of eight Democrats. (Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had announced that he would not vote with his fellow 52 Republicans to support the resolution.)
As minority leader, it’s not Schumer’s job to govern. His responsibility is to lead the opposition, especially in the rare situations where the Democratic minority holds even a modicum of leverage. Controlling the votes needed to break a Senate filibuster provided such leverage.
At first, Schumer performed his role. Shortly after the House approved the CR, he announced that Democrats would insist on limiting it to 30 days—through April 11—rather than the six months that House Republicans had approved:
Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input—any input—from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR…
Schumer added, “Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.”
So far, so good. That was March 12.
To Apologetic Supporter…
The next day, Schumer reversed course and said that he would vote with Republicans. Rather than lead fellow Democrats in the Senate, he also said that they were on their own. In the end, nine Democrats joined him in supporting the GOP’s resolution.
But it’s not merely the debatable wisdom of Schumer’s final vote that renders him incapable of leading Senate Democrats from here. His public journey and feeble rationale are his undoing.
Schumer’s op-ed in The New York Times offered an elaborate rationale for the final decision:
- “[A] shutdown would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.” Schumer said that It would give them the ability to declare vast swaths of the government “non-essential” and close them until the budget impasse broke.
But it’s difficult to see how Musk and his team could operate more quickly or more ferociously to destroy the federal workforce.
- “[C]ongressional Republicans could weaponize their majorities to cherry-pick which parts of government to reopen.”
But congressional Republicans have ceded their constitutional responsibilities to Trump and Musk. Weaponization began on Inauguration Day.
- “[S]hutdowns mean real pain for American families.”
But the Trump/Musk agenda is already inflicting “real pain” on a massive scale.
- “[A] shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for from his awful agenda.”
But if Trump and Musk tried to blame Democrats for a shutdown, the Democrats’ rebuttal is simple: Republicans control the entire government. Instead, he gave Republicans a new talking point: Democrats joined Republicans in bipartisan approval of the CR.
More pointedly, Schumer’s stated reasons for supporting the CR also existed 24 hours earlier, when he announced his unqualified opposition to it.
To Incriminating Explanations of His Reversal
During an interview after the vote, Schumer tried to justify his flip-flop.
- He said that he didn’t expect the resolution to pass the House and reach the Senate.
That reveals a lack of foresight and planning.
- He said that his initial opposition was a negotiating tactic aimed at giving Democrats maximum leverage in their fight against the legislation.
That reflects a lack of judgment and the absence of negotiation skills.
- He said that he “hoped” they could negotiate with Republicans to get a 30-day extension, rather than the 90 days in the House’s CR.
That suggests a strategy that is no strategy at all: hope.
And Schumer remains blind to the reality surrounding him:
I think the whole Democratic Party is united on what I mentioned in the earlier broadcast, showing how bad Trump is in every way… We’re succeeding.
United? Succeeding? On the same day that the Times published Schumer’s interview, a national poll showed that the Democratic Party’s favorability rating had dropped to an all-time low: 29%. Even among Democrats, the party’s approval rating is below 50%.
And that was before nine Senate Democrats supported the Republicans’ CR. It was a Trump-Musk-GOP win for which Trump congratulated Schumer:
Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing—Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights.
Maybe Trump’s praise will be Schumer’s kiss of death as minority leader.
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Chuck Schumer: The Man Who Let American Fascism Rise Without a Fight
There is no more room for weak leadership, no more time for calculated political inaction. Schumer must go, and Democrats must replace him with a leader who understands the existential stakes of this moment.
Mar 17, 2025
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had one job: to stand between President Donald Trump and the complete dismantling of American democracy. Instead, he caved—again—handing Trump the power he craved without a fight, without a demand, without even a moment of real resistance. With every cowardly compromise, Schumer isn’t just failing Democrats—he’s enabling an autocrat in real time.
The question most Democrats want to ask of Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate appears to be, “How’s that ‘keeping the government open to hold Trump accountable’ thing working out for you?”
Everything Trump does now going forward, when people or the press complain, he will say was authorized by “bipartisan legislation” with “the full support of the Senate Democrats.”
Democrats in the Senate must stop playing defense, call out the authoritarian threat by name, use government shutdowns and the debt ceiling as leverage, and put democracy at the center of very negotiation.
In fact, just hours after Schumer and a handful of timid Senate Democrats voted to pass Trump’s Enabling Acts of 2025 legislation, the president issued an executive order gifting Russian President Vladimir Putin with the gutting of the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.
He then assaulted civil service workers by shutting down the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and attacked women and Black people by shutting down the Minority Business Development Agency, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Meanwhile, the House and Senate are both in recess: Congress is shut down, but Trump sure isn’t. Thanks, Chuck.
And this cave-in to the Mango Mussolini has Democratic voters so furious they’re reconsidering donations and even voting in 2026.
Eight years ago, as Trump was starting his first term, NBC News reported that 59% of Democratic voters told pollsters they wanted Democrats in Congress to make compromises with Trump, and only a third (33%) said they should “stick to their positions even if that means not being able to get things done in Washington.”
But that was eight years ago (and apparently the era in which Schumer is still living). Today, Democratic voters have a completely different message for their elected representatives: Fight like hell!
Fully 65% of Democrats say even if it means shutting down the government, their representatives and senators should stick to their guns and fight on both issues and principles; only 32% still want Democrats to compromise with Republicans.
The result of Schumer’s caving in to the GOP is now a shocking 27% approval level for the Democratic Party.
Democratic voters get what Sens. Schumer, Kirsten Gilibrand (D-N.Y.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Angus King (I-Maine) did, and they hate it. Those senators had seen this GOP strategy coming ever since the election was called back in November, and they never bothered to inform Americans about what Republicans were up to.
As a result, Trump now has massively more power than he did last week, and Democrats won’t have another chance to force compromise or even stop him until this summer—probably late June—when the ability of the federal government to move money around collides with the debt ceiling (which we hit this past weekend).
Republicans are already planning to punk Schumer and his “peace-in-our-time” colleagues again. And it sure appears that Democrats have already ceded the rhetorical field to them by not letting Americans know—in a way as unmistakable as were the Tea Party protests against former President Barack Obama adding a Medicare buy-in to Obamacare—about what the stakes and Republican plan will be.
As a result, Indivisible, arguably the most powerful and influential Democratic group in the nation, just openly called for Chuck Schumer to step down:
“After weeks of constituents demanding that Democrats use this rare, precious point of leverage on the government funding bill, Schumer did the opposite,” co-executive director Ezra Levin wrote. “He led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender. But Indivisible has no intention of surrendering to Trump, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans.”
Leadership of the group reached out to their 1,600 local Indivisible groups nationwide with two emergency meetings; 82% of group leaders in New York state (Schumer’s state) and 91% of Indivisible leaders nationwide voted to demand Schumer step down from his position as Senate minority leader.
“We thank him for his service,” the Indivisible press release says, “but we need new leadership in this moment and we understand to get there we need a chorus of support for change… Our democracy is in danger. The path ahead will be hard. Indivisibles are ready to do the work—it’s time for a Senate Democratic leader who is too.”
American political observers who’ve been wondering for years what Putin has on Trump are beginning to alter their perspective, based on how he’s ignoring court orders, using the Justice Department as his own instrument for revenge, and crushing any Republican who dares speak up or stand up against him.
Instead of fearing Putin, there’s a growing consensus that Trump simply sees Putin as his role model, a situation that’s actually even more dangerous.
He, too, lusts for absolute, unquestioned power in a major nation, democracy be damned. He’s already taking steps to enrich his friends and imprison his enemies, regardless of the legality of either. He’s laying the foundation to shut up or break any opposition, be it in the media, in Congress, or in the streets.
This is how democracies die, from the end of the Roman republic to Germany in the 1930s to modern-day Russia and Hungary. In every case, there were opponents of the wannabe dictator who tried to warn the people, and in each of those cases they were ignored (even though they reflected majority public opinion).
Both Russia and Hungary show how democracies don’t collapse overnight—they erode step by step. Institutions are undermined, dissent is crushed, elections are rigged, and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a corrupt elite. Once these three pillars—governance, civil liberties, and economic fairness—are dismantled, reversing the slide into tyranny becomes increasingly difficult.
Last week, Trump snatched three students from their homes and is detaining them—in defiance of our nation’s First Amendment—pending deportation simply because they said things that pissed off him and his fellow criminally corrupt autocrat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He’s been in defiance of multiple court orders to restore funding and hiring to federal agencies, and just defied a federal judge who ordered his deportation planes to turn around in midair (they didn’t).
And now his Justice Department is investigating green organizations like Habitat for Humanity (having frozen their checking account) as well as people involved in movements like Black Lives Matter. It’s just a matter of time before they go after groups like Indivisible and FiftyFifty.one, commentators on TV (he said MSNBC and CNN are “illegal” on Friday), and writers on Substack (they’ve already sued Jim Stewartson for over $1 million).
Trump is punishing prosecutors for investigating his crimes, politically destroying Republicans who dared challenge him, and trashing American media and allies who don’t suck up to him sufficiently. His cabinet meetings resemble something out of North Korea (or the old Apprentice show), with his underlings engaging in effusive, slobbering, over-the-top praise of Dear Leader’s brilliance, charisma, and manliness.
He is, in other words, following Putin’s template from the late 1990s and early 2000s as if it were a checklist. Which is, in part, why Schumer’s betrayal was so destructive, both to the Democratic Party and the country.
The U.S. still has time to rescue our democracy, but only if our elected Democrats will explicitly recognize the warning signs and act decisively.
Schumer and his colleagues could have demanded Republicans fund election security (Trump just shut down that agency), reinstate ethics laws, get big money (Elon Musk, et al) out of politics, expose disinformation in media and social media (Trump shut that agency down, too), and restore accountability for the traitors who killed three police officers and smeared literal shit all over the offices of Democrats in the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Even if he got none of it, the demands and negotiations would have gotten all of them into the media.
Instead, Schumer gave it all away. He gave Trump exactly what he wanted, without even the smallest glimmer of a fight.
This is no way to run a political party or the Democratic faction in the Senate.
It’s time for new leadership that understands how communication works in the 21st century, is committed to defeating Trump and Trumpism, and can effectively tour the media and the country to galvanize the people.
Democratic decline doesn’t spontaneously stop itself; it must be fought tooth-and-nail at every level. Every time Democrats hand Republicans a win without even exacting a symbolic concession, it strengthens the GOP’s hand both in public opinion and future negotiations.
While Democrats play by the old rules, Republicans have fully abandoned them, and, so far, they’ve suffered no consequence whatever for attacking our democracy. They won’t stop until it’s too late to prevent the authoritarian slide.
Democrats in the Senate must stop playing defense, call out the authoritarian threat by name, use government shutdowns and the debt ceiling as leverage, and put democracy at the center of very negotiation. Every budget fight, every bill, every debate must include protections for our democracy.
It’s too late to screw around any more; Vladimir Putin, fossil fuel billionaires, and their neofascist and white male supremacist buddies have declared open war on our democracy, and we need a warrior, not a backroom dealer, at the front of our movement if we are to rescue this nation.
There is no more room for weak leadership, no more time for calculated political inaction. Schumer must go, and Democrats must replace him with a leader who understands the existential stakes of this moment.
If we don’t mobilize now—if we don’t demand real resistance—we won’t just lose another election. We’ll lose our democracy.
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