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Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) canceled the kickoff events of his tour to promote his new book amid intense backlash from fellow Democrats over his vote to advance a Republican spending bill last week.
Schumer was set to speak Monday evening at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore about his book "Antisemitism in America: A Warning," with subsequent events in Washington on Wednesday and Philadelphia on Thursday. But those events are being rescheduled because of security concerns, according to Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Schumer's book tour.
The launch was postponed just days after Schumer and nine other members of his caucus voted to advance a GOP spending bill, allowing it to pass and averting a government shutdown.
Almost every House Democrat voted against the spending bill, which many Democrats opposed because it included $13 billion in nondefense spending cuts and did not include restrictions that the party had demanded on how the Trump administration could spend the money. Schumer argued that triggering a government shutdown would be even worse than allowing the bill to pass because it would help President Donald Trump further cull the federal workforce. "I think they want to use the shutdown to decimate the federal government," Schumer said of Republicans.
House Democrats could not hide their frustration. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (New York) declined Friday to defend Schumer's leadership. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (California) urged Schumer to reverse course. And in a CNN interview, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) did not rule out challenging Schumer in the Democratic primary when he's up for reelection in 2028.
Schumer has said that he knew he would come under attack for his decision but that he thought it was worth it to prevent a shutdown. "I knew when I made this decision, I'd get a lot of criticism from a lot of quarters," Schumer told The Washington Post in an interview Friday.
But the backlash has not abated since the vote.
Indivisible, a liberal grassroots group, called Saturday for Schumer to step down as minority leader. The group has encouraged activists to press Democratic senators at town halls and other events about replacing Schumer, according to Ezra Levin, Indivisible's co-executive director. "The chasm between rank-and-file Democrats and Democratic congressional leadership is vast and growing," Levin said.
Only one person shouted a question about Schumer at the town hall that Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona held in Scottsdale on Monday to warn about potential cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as part of Republicans' tax legislation, although it was unclear whether it was a constituent, an activist or a reporter.
"This was a challenging vote, I think, for all of us," Kelly told reporters after the town hall. "And we all had to make our own decision."
"Chuck made his decision," Gallego said. "We are senators, we made our decision. I think in the future he's going to have to take more of our input."
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