- - Schumer didn’t vote for bill to reopen the government. He’s facing liberal fury anyway.

Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju, CNNNovember 11, 2025 at 3:00 AM

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks on Capitol Hill on October 29, 2025. - Kylie Cooper/Reuters

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went out of his way to embody the anger of his Democratic base during this fall’s funding showdown with Republicans — an intentional turnaround from his capitulation in March that turned him into a villain in his own party.

He’s still taking the blame from many in his party anyway.

Despite voting against the final deal on Monday night, the New York Democrat is again being pummeled by vocal Democrats across the party, who argue he allowed his centrist members to strike a deal with the GOP that fails to prevent spiking health care costs for tens of millions of Americans.

In the immediate aftermath of the deal, many of his own Senate Democrats were mum about whether they’d continue to support him as leader. Multiple House Democrats called for him to resign. And a raft of Senate candidates trashed him as they look to survive tight Democratic primaries in key races.

There is no immediate threat to Schumer’s leadership, according to multiple Democratic sources. Not one of the Democrats calling for Schumer to step down as leader is a current member of his caucus. Still, frustrations are mounting privately among Senate Democrats that Schumer and his leadership team lacked a long-term plan to secure real concessions from the GOP in the funding fight— and that the party ultimately ended up without a tangible legislative win, according to a half-dozen Senate Democratic sources. And there is growing chatter about what it means for his future after the 2026 midterms and if he chooses to run again in 2028.

“He did the right thing in March,” Sen. John Fetterman told CNN, referring to Schumer’s decision to work with Republicans to avert a painful shutdown earlier this year. “But I think he’s discovering that you can’t get back into the good graces of the Indivisible folks,” he said, referring to the far-left activist group.

Though Fetterman has been a vocal critic of his party’s strategy, the Pennsylvania Democrat said he would not directly criticize Schumer: “I’m not going to put a blade in my leader.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona wouldn’t directly say whether he had confidence in Schumer. Asked by CNN about the Democratic leader’s handling of the shutdown, Kelly pivoted to President Donald Trump, whom he called “an irrational president who doesn’t care about the American people.”

Pressed again on whether he had confidence in Schumer, Kelly conceded that it had been a “rough” time for Senate Democrats. “I’ve been here four and a half years now, and [Schumer has] been the leader, and I understand why people look at this and say, well, this was kind of a rough period,” he said.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, pressed if he had confidence in Schumer, was also mum on the leader’s future. “I was glad to see that kind of unity,” Van Hollen said. “I’m disappointed in the result, but we will fight on another day.”

The current wave of ire at Schumer comes months after the New York Democrat faced fierce backlash for diffusing that first funding fight of Trump’s second term — earning praise from GOP leaders. But this fall as another funding cliff loomed, Schumer reversed his stance and said Democrats needed to fight for expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to help Americans pay down their premiums. Privately, Schumer was not involved in the centrist dealmaking and instead focused on keeping centrists like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire from breaking with Democrats weeks earlier, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

One of those people, who is close to Schumer, said the leader was meeting with both centrists and progressives — convincing skeptical moderates to hold out longer, through the start of open enrollment on November 1. Separately, he was also strategizing with progressive colleagues like Sen. Bernie Sanders about how to keep the momentum up in the base to keep fighting. That person said it was a months-long effort by party leaders to keep the Senate Democratic caucus in line long enough to shut down the government — and force Republicans to talk about health care — for more than six weeks.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Schumer was indeed working against the deal behind the scenes. “Senator Schumer didn’t want this to be the outcome, and pressed hard for it not to end like this,” he said.

But he also added: “He didn’t succeed. Let’s not sugarcoat that.”

Asked about whether Schumer should remain as leader, Murphy instead said there must be a caucus-wide solution to centrist Democrats bucking their party to reach a deal. “This has happened over and over. You cannot defend democracy effectively if you are not united as an opposition party, and we are repeatedly showing that we are not united,” he said.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, Schumer’s long-time deputy and former roommate, ultimately broke with the Democratic leader to supply a critical vote for the legislation.

“He wasn’t happy about it,” Durbin told CNN when asked about Schumer’s reaction when he informed him about his position. “But he accepted it.”

Asked if Schumer tried to prevent him from breaking ranks, Durbin simply said: “We passed that point.”

There’s another key difference in the circumstances of this shutdown, compared to March: Schumer is getting backup from his fellow top New Yorker, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Asked on Monday whether he believed Schumer was effective and should keep his job, Jeffries said: “Yes and yes.” In other media appearances on Monday, Jeffries has instead pinned the blame on the leading centrist in the group, Shaheen, describing her group as “random” and saying he doesn’t know her.

On a private call among House Democrats on Monday, one member after another tore into the Senate Democratic centrists, according to two people listening to the call. One progressive, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, name-checked Schumer specifically but was particularly riled up about the handful of Senate Democrats who voted with Republicans to advance the deal on Sunday night.

“Damn the senators that caved,” Jayapal said in response to those members, according to those two sources on the call. Jeffries, meanwhile, urged his caucus to direct their ire at Republicans, one of those people said — eager to avoid a circular firing squad.

Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, urged his party to stay focused on the “main prize.”

“People can have their opinions about the leaders, whether it’s Jeffries or Schumer, but all of us who are really appalled by what’s going on and the loss of health care, we have to stay focused on the main prize, and that is winning the next election so we have the capacity to push back and protect America,” Welch said.

The Democratic infighting, however, has already begun.

Outside of Washington, the loudest attacks have come from Senate Democratic candidates competing in tough primaries around the nation.

“This happened because Chuck Schumer failed in his job yet again,” Graham Platner, a Democrat who’s in a tight primary race to flip Maine’s Senate seat, said in a video posted to X.

“The old way of doing things is not working. We need new leaders in the Senate,” added Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat who is running in her own competitive primary in Maine, in a video trashing the deal.

A third Democrat running in a Senate primary, Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, tore into Schumer in a CNN interview on Monday, arguing that he’s not in control of the Senate Democratic caucus.

“He’s got eight Democrats going rogue here,” Moulton said. “That’s not leadership.”

That sentiment, however, is far more muted in the current Senate Democratic caucus.

When asked how she felt Schumer handled the negotiation, Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin told reporters, “I was disappointed yesterday.”

“We need to meet the moment and we’re not doing that.”

Freshman Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, though, made clear he does still back Schumer for leader.

Asked if he has confidence in Schumer, Gallego responded: “This was a decision made by eight people,” making clear he didn’t think the New York Democrat could have changed the minds of the Democrats who flipped.

“They clearly had a momentum. They clearly had their own goals. I think we all spoke to enough of them to bring them back, but we couldn’t get all of them, and I think it was going to be difficult for them to do that,” he said.

Pressed again, Gallego said, “I have confidence in him, yeah.”

CNN’s Ted Barrett, Annie Grayer and Alison Main contributed to this report.

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