Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) criticized Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) during a town hall on Tuesday and called for new leadership within the Democratic Party.
“I thought it was critical to make sure that we block that bill,” Ivey said of the GOP’s continuing resolution to fund the government for the remaining fiscal year, largely at the same level as under President Joe Biden.“I was deeply disappointed that Senator Schumer voted with the Republicans. You know you’re on bad ground when you get a personal tweet from Donald Trump thanking you for your vote,” Ivey continued, noting that Trump acknowledged Schumer’s decision to back the spending bill.
Ivey then suggested that the only good position for Democrats was not to work on behalf of their constituents and the country, but to behave strictly as an opposition party to Trump and Republicans, no matter what.
“We don’t want to be there. We don’t want to be there. And it’s important for us to make sure that, at this critical time, we’ve got leaders that are gonna take us in the right direction. We had [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries [D-N.Y.] lead the fight against the CR to the tune of 213 to one,” Ivey said.
“Schumer was on the other side. Hakeem met the moment Schumer did not. And so I respect Chuck Schumer. I think he’s had a great long-standing career. He’s done a lot of great things. But I’m afraid that it may be time for the Senate Democrats to pick new leadership as we move forward,” Ivey said, going on to say that his party should have moved to shut down the government despite previous predictions over years of doom and gloom if the GOP shut down the government.
Schumer strongly defended his vote on several news programs this week, including on CBS Mornings, where he argued that a shutdown would have encouraged the Project 2025-inspired reduction of the federal government while simultaneously weakening the courts—Democrats’ primary tool for countering Trump’s agenda.
Schumer also explained on CBS that “one of the Republican senators who knows said to us, ‘You’ll be in the shutdown for six to nine months until we totally destroy the federal government.’ So the shutdown was a much worse alternative.”
Ivey isn’t the only Democrat to call for Schumer to be replaced, as Axios noted:
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), asked at a town hall on Tuesday whether Schumer should “retire or step down,” nodded her head and said “yes.” Ramirez’s comments have not previously been reported.
The liberal group Indivisible has also called on Schumer to resign as leader.
One House Democrat, asked if more could follow, told Axios: “I think there are some already there but just haven’t been asked directly or avoided the question.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also took a thinly veiled jab at Schumer this week.
During a press conference in San Francisco, Pelosi stated that she was confident Schumer would be able to lead the Senate’s Democratic caucus moving forward. However, she contended that the Brooklyn Democrat had made too many compromises to Republicans when he suddenly declared that he would vote to move the government funding bill that the GOP had crafted.
“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi said. “I think that’s what happened the other day.”
“We could have, in my view, perhaps gotten [Republicans] to agree to a third way,” Pelosi stated, alluding to a desperate plan by congressional Democrats to prolong the current government spending for 30 days while they engage in discussions on a more comprehensive bill.
“They may not have agreed to it, but at least the public would have seen them not agreeing to it — then [Republicans] would have been shutting the government down,” Pelosi argued.
