With a government shutdown looming due to Democratic budget demands, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is having trouble leading anything.
According to reporting from the inside-the-Beltway outlet Axios, Schumer privately floated a way to fix the shutdown if it happens before he publicly denounced the same idea as a way to prevent the shutdown in the first place.
He was facing an “open mutiny” in his own party, Axios reported.
Schumer’s idea was a bill to fund the government for seven to 10 days to provide a chance for Democrats to negotiate with Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump to restore funding Democrats want for Obamacare subsidies, among other Democratic priorities. Without a deal of any kind, the government is due to run out of funding at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday.
The leftiest wing of his party was having none of it.
Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the vocally anti-Trump chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, blasted it in a post on the social media platform X.
Hell no.
We don’t need a delay and a pinky promise to negotiate — we need a deal that keeps the government open and saves health care for Americans. I’m in D.C. ready to vote for that.
Republicans have refused to come to the table for months. Why would Democrats acting weak… https://t.co/DqQQu3aJpN
— Congressman Greg Casar (@RepCasar) September 29, 2025
“Hell no,” he wrote.
Will the government shut down?
“Republicans have refused to come to the table for months. Why would Democrats acting weak change their behavior?”
The table was set for Schumer when he led a group of Democrats in March to fund the government and avert a shutdown.
“I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people,” Schumer said on the Senate floor at the time, according to Politico.
“Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
After Democrats erupted in outrage — and talk spread of leftist New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demolishing Schumer in a Senate primary race — “the best choice for the country” has apparently changed, in Schumer’s mind.
At a news conference Monday, he was asked about the potential for a short-term funding bill and shot it down.
Schumer just adamantly said he wouldn’t support a shorter, 10-day CR https://t.co/nnlAePiBrY
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) September 29, 2025
“No, we have to do it now. The time is a wasting,” he said, according to The Hill. “We have to do it now. We’ve delayed and delayed and delayed.
“As Martin Luther King once said, later means never,” he said.
But Schumer’s decision might have less to do with MLK than AOC — and his own future with the Democratic Party.
House Democrats who spoke to Axios were openly scornful of Schumer’s behavior.
“I’m not sure why grandpa is doing this,” one unnamed Democratic representative told Axios.
“This just shows how out of touch he is with where the American people are at.”
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