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WASHINGTON— In the weeks since Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer infuriated much of his party by voting with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown, the New York Democrat has worked hard to repair the damage.
He called his fellow Democratic senators one by one. He spoke with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who during the standoff pointedly declined to rule out challenging him in a primary. And he acknowledged that he needs a different strategy for the next funding fight.
But even at one of his most vulnerable moments in eight years leading Senate Democrats and more than four decades in Washington, Schumer, 74, remains convinced he was right.
In an interview in his office this month, Schumer defended his handling of the showdown with Republicans and imagined the flood of complaints he would be fielding if Democrats had forced a government shutdown.
"I would've said: ‘It's a shutdown. You can't do anything,'" Schumer said as the sun set behind him on the National Mall. "And then they would've said, ‘Why'd you let that happen?' So I felt I did the right thing."
Schumer was determined from the start to prevent a shutdown. He believed one could last nine months or longer, giving President Donald Trump and Elon Musk freer rein to slash the federal workforce. But Schumer, who prides himself on his ability to see around legislative corners, was surprised that House Republicans managed to pass a funding bill written without Democrats' input despite the GOP's perilously narrow majority. The House vote put Senate Democrats in a jam, giving them only days to decide whether to back a bill that included billions of dollars in cuts - or block it and risk triggering a government shutdown.
Schumer has argued for years that the party that instigates a shutdown gets blamed for it, and he has described his decision to support the bill as "no choice at all." Still, the tense discussions among Democrats were uncomfortable for a conflict-averse senator who prizes consensus.
"His core principles were in conflict here," said Daniel Squadron, a former New York state senator and onetime Schumer aide who co-wrote Schumer's 2007 book, "Positively American."
On one hand, Schumer's instinct is to listen to his liberal constituents and try to bring his fellow Democratic senators to agreement, Squadron said. But Schumer is also determined to do what he thinks is right on important issues - even if it's unpopular.
Some Senate Democrats have defended Schumer, arguing that his approach prevented a potentially ruinous shutdown. "Senator Schumer has one of the toughest jobs in the country right now," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), one of nine members of Schumer's caucus who voted with him.
But others have made clear they want a different strategy next time. "It was a big splash of cold water, and we're committed to have it not happen again," said Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, who voted to block the Republican bill.
Sen. Patty Murray (Washington), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, urged her colleagues to reject the Republican bill last month. She warned in an interview that her party will find itself in a precarious position ahead of the next funding deadline, Sept. 30, unless Democrats refuse to vote for legislation written without their input.
"We have to make it very clear that we stand firmly united as a caucus - that we're not going to give our votes away for nothing," Murray said.
In the interview, Schumer rejected the idea that he could have wrung concessions out of Republicans.
"If I would've tried to bargain for something, they would've said no, because [Trump and Musk] wanted a shutdown," Schumer said. "They wanted it. So there was nothing to bargain for."
He also stressed that he is as committed to taking on Trump as his progressive critics are.
"I hate Trump as much as they do," he said.
Even as Schumer has defended his strategy, he has started discussing a different approach to the next funding fight. Senate Democrats will try to negotiate bipartisan appropriations bills with Republicans in the coming months, he said. At the same time, they will work to chip away at Trump's popularity to make it easier for Republicans to break with him next time.
If negotiations with Republicans collapse, Schumer said, Democrats will shift to a more confrontational posture long before the Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a repeat of last month's fight. Still, he did not rule out voting for another bill written without Democrats' input.
"I can tell you that if my strategy works, we won't be in that position," Schumer said.
Some Democrats have already questioned his approach.
"Let's say you negotiate a deal. Every single Republican is going to cave the moment Trump or Elon Musk or JD Vance or Laura Loomer tells them they can't do that," said Ari Rabin-Havt, a former aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Harry M. Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was Schumer's mentor and predecessor as minority leader. (Loomer is a provocateur and conspiracy theorist who met with Trump this month in the Oval Office.)
Rabin-Havt and other former Democratic leadership aides said they sympathized that Schumer was in a tough position but thought Reid might have handled the situation differently, even if they were not sure exactly what he would have done.
One former Senate Democratic leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said, "‘I miss Harry Reid' is among the most common under-the-breath utterances in Democratic politics in D.C. these days."
Rebecca Kirszner Katz, a Democratic strategist and former Reid aide, suggested Schumer might encourage Democratic senators such as Chris Van Hollen (Maryland), Cory Booker (New Jersey) and Ruben Gallego (Arizona), who have stepped forward to confront Trump, to lean into the spotlight.
"Reid sometimes would recognize that he wasn't the right face for every fight," she said.
The liberal backlash against Schumer forced him to cancel events to promote his new book and even field questions about whether he would step down as minority leader. ("I'm not stepping down," he told NBC's "Meet the Press.")
Schumer would not be the first Senate leader to face a rebellion in his own party.
At least six Democratic senators refused in 2014 to vote to reelect Reid even though no rival stepped up to challenge him. Ten Senate Republicans backed Sen. Rick Scott (Florida) in 2022 over Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), the party's longtime leader.
One Democratic Senate candidate, Mallory McMorrow, who is running for retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters's seat in Michigan next year, has already said she won't vote for Schumer to lead the caucus if she wins. Two other Democrats running for Peters's seat, Rep. Haley Stevens (Michigan) and Abdul El-Sayed, have declined to say whether they'll back Schumer if they win.
Schumer said McMorrow's pledge didn't bother him. He is determined to regain control of the Senate next year, even though it would require Democrats to prevail in states that Trump carried by double digits, and he predicted last week that he would be majority leader again in 2027.
"The electorate will desert the Republican candidates who embraced Trump in an overwhelming way," Schumer said in an onstage interview with Semafor.
In the meantime, Schumer must contend with Democratic voters who have soured on him. An Economist-YouGov national poll conducted this month found that 34 percent of Democrats approved of the way he was handling his job as minority leader and 44 percent disapproved.
Schumer has angered the Democratic base in the past. He opposed the nuclear deal that President Barack Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015. Activists organized rallies outside his apartment building near Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza at the start of Trump's first term to press him to stand stronger. The tagline: "What the F*ck, Chuck?"
But Schumer has maneuvered as his party has shifted politically over his decades in Washington. In 2022 he prioritized progressive causes such as canceling student debt and combating climate change ahead of a potential primary challenge, which never materialized.
This time around, Schumer has worked to shore up his relationships with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) - who conspicuously declined to defend Schumer during the showdown last month - as well as Ocasio-Cortez, who said in a brief interview that she had talked with Schumer about "how we set ourselves up to be successful in September," when government funding runs out again.
Schumer laid out what he had heard in his one-on-one conversations with senators in a caucus lunch last month and discussed how Democrats could do things differently, according to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), who described Schumer as receptive to criticism.
"He does take stuff in," Kaine said. "He's been around a long time. He's seen it all. And even if he doesn't initially embrace it, he does not dismiss it, either. He kind of tends to turn it over in his head. I think he is trying to really do that right now in a way I appreciate."