Schumer on voting for funding bill: Trump, Musk 'damage' could be 'much worse' under shutdown

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a Sunday podcast episode that “damage” from President Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk could be “much worse” under a government shutdown.

“Their goal of shutting down, of decimating, the whole federal government, of cutting agency after agency after agency, would occur under a shutdown,” Schumer told The New York Times’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro on “The Interview” podcast. “It would be devastating.”

“Two days from now in a shutdown, they could say, ‘Well, SNAP, food stamps for kids, is not essential. It’s gone. All veterans’ offices in rural areas are gone. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, they’re not essential. We’re cutting them back,” he added. “So, it’d be horrible. The damage they can do under a shutdown is much worse than any other damage that they could do.”

Schumer’s comments followed his vote to advance a Republican-crafted funding bill alongside nine other Senate Democrats despite intense opposition from many Democrats. The 10 Democrats’ votes to advance the bill helped avoid a looming government shutdown.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday went after Schumer after he said he would vote to advance the bill.

“There is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the time. “And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board — the entire party.” 

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday backed Schumer’s leadership but said the caucus “must change our tactics” to be effective.

“I think the only way that we are going to be effective as a caucus is if we change our tactics,” Murphy told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “And we have to have a conversation inside our caucus to make sure that we are going to do that.”

The Hill has reached out to the White House and a spokesperson for the Department of Government Efficiency for comment.