Politics
Schumer keeps his job as Democrats wonder if he’s on borrowed time
Chuck Schumer is bruised but not beaten — at least not yet.
Two weeks after the Senate minority leader joined with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown, Democrats are still fuming over how he handled the standoff. But many in the party are conceding that they’re stuck with him for the time being.
With no obvious alternative to Schumer emerging nor any appetite among the vast majority of Senate Democrats for a messy leadership contest, lawmakers are indicating they are falling in behind the New Yorker and hoping for the best as they prepare for upcoming fights. Some frustrated Democratic donors have made the same calculation.
After Schumer enraged his party by voting to advance the Republican stopgap measure, he went into damage-control mode making a flurry of media appearances, pleading his case to lawmakers, and working the phones with liberal groups. Even as a handful of House members and outside progressive activists called for him to step aside, he avoided any defections inside his own caucus. And Schumer’s seeming omnipresence enabled him to run out the clock until another news cycle — this one over the Trump administration’s war plan group chat — began.
“Chuck’s been reaching out to everyone and having conversations with folks, which I appreciate,” said Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) on Wednesday. Asked if there were discussions about replacing Schumer as leader, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) added: “Not within the caucus.”
Instead, Schumer is working to convince his members that he understands they need to ramp up their tactics. “Leader Schumer is, in fact, demonstrating the kind of vision and energy that we need right now in a renewed or a stronger way,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), pointing to the closed-door discussions, Democrats’ floor strategy and forthcoming actions from the caucus.
Some Democratic lawmakers, donors and activists warned that Schumer is now under a political microscope, with many in the party closely watching how he handles upcoming battles in Congress over the debt limit, Republicans’ planned domestic policy agenda and the next government funding bill.
Even some members of Schumer’s caucus said he still has work to do to win their confidence. Asked about Schumer’s leadership on Wednesday, Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said, “We’re still talking it through.”
“I want to see what the strategy is going forward,” he said. “If I feel like it’s moving in a direction, I can go and I’ll have some greater confidence. But if not, then I’ll certainly make that known.”
Schumer’s vote exposed a broader rift in the party over how to counter President Donald Trump in his second term. The vote prompted a handful of House lawmakers to publicly suggest or outright call for Schumer to step aside. Some liberal groups have piled on with demands for stronger leadership.
“Schumer made a disastrous decision,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, adding later that he “hopes” Schumer and Senate Democrats see that the voters want them to fight Republicans. Otherwise, he said, “the voters are going to make them see it if they don’t see it themselves.”
A few weren’t just after Schumer’s leadership role. They were angry enough to call for his seat.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has received private encouragement from Democratic House members, including even those in battleground districts, to mount a primary challenge to Schumer in 2028. But Ocasio-Cortez is currently noncommittal about moving forward.
“My focus is our strength in this particular moment and what we can do right now to be the party that stands up for working people and protects against Republican cuts,” she said in a brief interview. Asked whether Schumer should remain leader, she said the issue was “less about any one specific person.”
But the decision by some House Democrats to step into a Senate leadership discussion has rankled some senators, including former House members. Lujan, asked about the criticism from his former colleagues, quipped: “I’m not aware of my colleagues voting for the leader of the Senate.”
Inside the Senate, Schumer has taken steps to acknowledge the anger and disappointment over the spending-bill surrender. Kaine said on Wednesday that Schumer “was very candid and humble” in addressing his colleagues at a private lunch Tuesday “and then focused on the next steps.” Unlike the lunches in the days leading up to the government funding vote, where senators could be heard yelling, moments of applause were overheard during their first meeting after the break.
The result, he said, was a “very productive discussion” about “‘what do we need to do different?’”
Schumer’s spokesperson did not provide a comment for this article.
Senate Democrats acknowledge that they haven’t yet fully landed on what they believe eluded them just two weeks ago — a strategy that both unifies them and gives them a foothold for fighting despite their limited leverage. But they are making clear that their public focus, at least, is on the Trump administration and gearing up for looming battles over the debt ceiling and a sweeping GOP tax plan.
“My top priority is ending the lawlessness of the Trump administration. My next priority is ending the lawlessness of the Trump administration. … I think you get my drift,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), when asked about questions on Schumer’s leadership.
Outside of Congress, major Democratic donors are also furious over Schumer’s handling of the GOP funding bill and his leadership in general. But without a clear successor, people close to the fundraisers said there isn’t much they can do. The next Senate leadership contest will come after the 2026 election, when they could already have a vacancy at the top of their ranks if Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) retires. Schumer, if he runs again for the top spot, would only need a simple majority of his caucus to win.
Donors “think he’s ineffective, but the question is, who else is going to step in? And that’s where things get stuck,” said one Democratic donor adviser, who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
“No senator is presenting themselves as an alternative, so that’s a major barrier to any donor momentum to pressure him out,” a second Democratic donor adviser said. “If somebody signaled to donors they wanted to be that alternative, I do think there would be real movement around that. But it hasn’t come yet.”
A third Democratic donor adviser said fundraisers think Schumer is “deeply pathetic,” but “I do think he has squashed a lot of the specific rumblings” about a new leader.
House lawmakers who publicly and privately fumed at Schumer after he and a group of Senate Democrats voted to advance the GOP funding bill heard an earful from their constituents back home last week who have demanded more forceful, public resistance to Trump.
Even swing-district Democrats who might face pressure to work with Trump acknowledged that their voters wanted them to push back. All but one House Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), had voted against the funding bill.
Constituents “want to see more from us,” said Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), who could mount a Senate bid to succeed retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). “They know there are other battles to be waged, and they’re really interested in us continuing to dig in and stand up for what counts.”
And others dismissed the speculation over Schumer’s future while they focused on the current fights against Trump.
“So this is not about, no offense, like the inside baseball political leadership. Nobody gives a fuck. They want to know, are we fighting for them? Are we going to protect them? Are we going to stop them?” said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.).
HOLLYWOOD, Florida — Colombia and Portugal’s World Cup match in Miami Gardens won’t be the only major draw pulling crowds to South Florida this weekend: Florida’s Republican grassroots are heading to Hollywood for their “Sunshine State Showdown.”
The GOP’s event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is one of the state party’s biggest of the year. The GOP sold more than 800 tickets, with the party’s most devoted volunteers and many donors coming in from all over the state to get revved up for the midterms, gameplan their messaging and hear directly from top candidates.
The shindig will feature speeches from Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, as well as gubernatorial candidates Rep. Byron Donalds, former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins. It will also include two congressional debates.
Several “Showdown” attendees said they were thrilled about the convergence of their party’s bash with a World Cup match. South Florida has already seen a huge economic boom in recent years, and the Magic City is poised to become even more prominent given Miami is set to be home to Donald Trump’s future presidential library and will host the G20 in December. “Miami is again at the center of the universe,” observed Miami-Dade County GOP Chair Kevin Cooper.
Several prominent Republicans said they see the international event as an opportunity to showcase the state. State Rep. Dean Black of Jacksonville, who also chairs the Republican Party of Florida’s fundraising committee, said he’d enjoyed seeing fans from abroad show appreciation over social media for American culture. “They have fallen in love with the greatness of America,” Black said. “By being exposed to the Republican Party event, they will learn just how that greatness came to be.”
Collins’ team said that while the lieutenant governor wasn’t attending the game, he was “happy the state of Florida is hosting so many fans from across the world experiencing the beauty of our state.”
Former Fox 35 Orlando anchor Ryan Elijah, a GOP candidate for Congress who’s attending the showdown, said he would be checking his phone regularly for World Cup updates.
“What a night for Florida to see the biggest names in Florida politics and World Cup soccer be just miles apart!” he said in a text. “It’s a dream night for tourism numbers and local businesses!”
But the packed weekend also risks turning into a logistical headache. The Hard Rock Hotel is one of the pickup points offering shuttle services to Miami Stadium. It’s less than 9 miles away from the big game.
Angie Wong, Republican executive committeewoman in Miami-Dade, attended Wednesday’s match between Scotland and Brazil. She said her family paid $200 for parking near the stadium and that it took more than an hour just to get out of the parking lot.
“We were lucky — we actually left before the game ended,” she said.
Yet this year’s “Showdown” is a more scaled-back affair than in the recent past. It won’t, for example, feature a dinner like in previous years. But that’s probably good news for any attendees who don’t want to miss the soccer match — or who are just trying to get back home without getting stuck in traffic. And it doesn’t have any major Trump administration officials attending, in comparison to last year, when the event prominently featured White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and now-former deputy chief of staff James Blair, who is currently running Trump’s political operation for the midterms.
Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis — who remains highly popular with the state’s grassroots — won’t be speaking at the “Showdown” this weekend and his office didn’t reply to an inquiry about whether he’d attend Saturday night’s game. The governor was in the Miami area during the last couple of days, including hitting the Brazil-Scotland game on Wednesday night and holding a press conference at the former Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center on Thursday.
Evan Power, chair of the state party, had already arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel on Wednesday night and said he got to watch a Brazilian victory parade happening right outside the restaurant where he was having dinner. He added he hadn’t had any issues getting in and out of the events center and that Republicans sold out their room block, “so I think we were able to get in before the craziness.”
“In our room block, people are happy because they’re not paying the market rate that is out there,” Power said. “Seeing some of the prices — they’re crazy now.”
SEATTLE — FIFA has not endorsed the Seattle host-city committee’s “Pride Match” designation, which will not be part of the official branding when Iran and Egypt meet tonight at Lumen Field.
“I think they’ve always been aware of what we’re doing,” said Louise Chernin, who as chair of the organizing committee’s Pride Match Impact Council began planning for the day nearly a year and a half ago.
Chernin began her match day at Rough & Tumble, a women’s sports bar in Ballard, a historically Scandinavian neighborhood where a crowd had gathered to cheer on Norway against France. The bar was notably free of FIFA’s commercial imprint: The World Cup posters on the walls and the merchandise for sale were all drawn by local artists without any official logos.
It all reflected the extent to which the “Pride Match” has become a gentle challenge not only to FIFA’s record of clamping down on some expressions of LGBTQ+ rights but also the corporate monoculture it creates in host cities through its restrictive sponsorship rules.
“If there’s going to be revenue spent, let us bring it to LGBTQ-owned businesses,” said Chernin, a longtime head of the Greater Seattle Business Association, an LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce.
Just down the street, fans had gathered at a “regnbue” street festival — the word is Danish and Norwegian for “rainbow” — organized by a local Ballard business association. The Norway-France match was being shown on an oversized screen, but when halftime hit attendees did not listen to any of the ads on the Fox broadcast.
Instead DJ SummerSoft took the stage as Sativa the Queen, a local drag performer, vamped through the break.
America’s stint hosting the World Cup is drawing mostly positive reviews to date — and it couldn’t come at a better time.
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, views of America across the world are worsening and confidence in President Donald Trump’s leadership is dropping.
Pew surveyed 42,000 people across 36 countries between February and May, and found that America has a largely negative impression on the global theater. Only 23 percent of surveyed adults expressed confidence in Trump’s leadership — eliciting less confidence than Chinese leader Xi Jinping (34 percent) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (31 percent).
Foreign policy is the biggest pain point for Trump’s international critics, who take issue with his handling of tariffs, Gaza, Iran, Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Pew’s findings.
Meanwhile, fewer countries — and longtime allies — believe the U.S. is a reliable partner. In Canada, where 83 percent of respondents described the U.S. as reliable in 2022, that number is now down to 35 percent.
In 2023, 60 percent of Germans said the U.S. considers international interests in its foreign policy decisions. That share has now dwindled to 23 percent — Germany’s public opinion of the U.S. is “now similar to or more negative than what was measured during George W. Bush’s presidency, when many people in Europe and elsewhere strongly opposed the war in Iraq and other major elements of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Pew.
There are only seven nations where a majority rate the U.S. well — Israel leads the pack, with 81 percent of respondents viewing America favorably. Some of the country’s lowest ratings come from predominantly Muslim publics, “such as Malaysians, Pakistanis, Turks, and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
Over the past decade, Pew’s polling has found growing concerns about the health of American democracy. A 2013 Pew survey, just as Barack Obama entered his second term, an all-time high of 75 percent of respondents in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea and the U.K. said the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal freedoms.
Since then, declining shares of world respondents believe the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal liberties — and this year, 56 percent of respondents said the U.S. does not.
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