Schumer is doing damage control. It isn’t working.

 

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Schumer is doing damage control. It isn’t working.

 

The Senate minority leader and his aides have been talking privately with liberal groups.

 

By Holly Otterbein

03/17/2025 08:14 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/17/schumer-damage-control-liberal-base-00234321

 

Chuck Schumer is in damage-control mode. It isn’t going great.

 

The Senate minority leader and his aides in recent days have been talking privately with liberal groups in an apparent effort to ease tensions after sparking a civil war in the Democratic Party over a stopgap funding bill, according to five people familiar with the conversations. They were granted anonymity to describe them in a frank manner, and some of the discussions were confirmed by Schumer himself on Monday to POLITICO.

 

The outreach by Schumer and his team included officials at Indivisible. The pro-Democratic organization called for him to step down from his leadership position on Saturday over what it saw as his unwillingness to resist President Donald Trump. Schumer enraged Democrats across the party on Friday by voting for a GOP bill to prevent a government shutdown.

 

Schumer spoke with Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, the people said, and he and his staff have been in communication with the group’s local leaders in New York, as well.

 

The minority leader is in a perilous position in the party, drawing furious backlash from Democrats after his vote last week. While maneuvering privately to repair relationships, he postponed scheduled book tour events this week, with a spokesperson citing “security concerns.” The events would have taken him to heavily Democratic cities, including Baltimore and Washington, and activists had made plans to protest them.

 

Schumer’s team tried to persuade the New York leaders at Indivisible not to immediately sign onto a statewide letter that called for Schumer to quit his position as minority leader, said one of the people familiar with the discussions. Schumer spoke to the New York Indivisible officials on Sunday. They called for him to step down as minority leader anyway on Monday.

 

“The goal was to get Sen. Schumer in front of Indivisible group leaders before they made any decisions on anything,” said a second person familiar with the meeting.

 

A third person described the conversations between Schumer and Indivisible as “tense and unproductive.”

 

A fourth person said Schumer’s team has reached out to other liberal groups in the wake of his vote to head off a shutdown, but did not provide further details.

 

“I have had a long relationship with many groups, including Indivisible, and wanted an opportunity to explain my position,” Schumer told POLITICO. “Many disagree and I respect that, but I look forward to continuing to work together with them against the evils of the Trump administration.”

 

Levin declined to comment on his discussion with Schumer in a brief interview, but doubled down on his call for the minority leader to step aside.

 

“Schumer’s fate as a leader in the Democratic caucus is not in Schumer’s hands,” he said. “It’s in the hands of fellow elected Democrats. It’s in the hands of outside groups with constituencies, and most of all, it’s in the hands of grassroots constituents who can choose to organize in this moment and demand better leadership or choose to accept the failed leadership that we’ve received.”

 

Angry Democrats are hardly waiting for Schumer to come to them to voice their displeasure.

 

Britt Jacovich, a spokesperson for the progressive organization MoveOn, said it had been in touch with Schumer’s office, relaying “our members’ concerns about the lack of strategy and message around the Republican funding bill vote and the desire from our members for Democrats to use every bit of their power to fight back against Trump and [Elon Musk’s] destruction of our government.”

 

Charlotte Clymer, a Democratic operative associated with the moderate wing of the party who launched a petition to boycott donations to Senate Democrats until they force Schumer out as minority leader, said her petition is now up to 25,000 signatures. She said of Schumer’s postponing book tour events that he “doesn’t want to face the music over his caving to Trump and Elon Musk.”

 

Schumer has argued that backing the stopgap bill was the best of two bad options because a government shutdown would have given more power to Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk. In addition to his outreach to liberal groups, Schumer has done a number of interviews with news outlets in recent days, including CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

 

Both moderate and progressive Democrats have expressed frustration with what they cast as their party leadership’s lack of a clear strategy to take on Trump. Many thought that the potential shutdown was one of the only points of leverage they had since they have been shut out of power in Congress.

 

Some House Democrats, even in battleground districts, are floating supporting a primary challenge to Schumer. Still, few Democrats currently think Schumer’s leadership post is at risk, and he does not face reelection until 2028.

 

Emily Ngo contributed to this report.