MSNBC host grills Chuck Schumer as spending bill pushback continues to mount
MSNBC host Chris Hayes grilled Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., over his ineffectual resistance to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
Schumer, who is facing calls to step down from fellow Democrats after voting alongside Republicans for a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the federal government open on Friday, defended his decision to the MSNBC host on "All In With Chris Hayes" Tuesday night.
The minority leader claimed that Trump's popularity is still too high for Democrats to have any effective leverage against his agenda, and that Democrats must "keep at it" in order to drive his popularity down.
"We have started doing this day in, day out, every day, fighting relentlessly. His numbers have started to go down from 51 to 47. If we keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it, his numbers will be much lower. He will not only be less popular, but less effective," Schumer claimed.
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Schumer also noted that Democrats will "find the moments where we shouldn’t give them votes," and although this would likely end up in a government shutdown, Democrats "will have the higher ground and we’re going to do it," he asserted, adding, "Watch us."
The MSNBC host responded, claiming that these would be good political moves "if Mitt Romney were president," but not under a Trump presidency that is "ambitiously trying to seize all power and create a presidential dictatorship in the United States."
Schumer was then asked what his plan would be if Democrats are unable to knock Trump's favorability down a few points, the key to gaining leverage over Republicans, according to Schumer.
"Then what happens?" Hayes asked.
"What happens is, look, first we get it way down, he’s going to have much less. We, this worked in 2017. You say that ‘now it’s a different government,’" Schumer replied.
"It's different though," Hayes interrupted, adding, "My God."
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Later in the interview, Hayes put Schumer in the hot seat, having him sit through a compilation of prominent Democrats denouncing his decision to support the Trump-backed CR bill.
"Just purely at the level of how the tactics brought us to this point, I want to play some of the criticism again, not from like, backseat drivers or not from me on cable news, but people like Hakeem Jeffries or Nancy Pelosi. Take a listen," Hayes said.
The last clip of the compilation featured Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying, "I, myself, don’t give away anything for nothing. And I think that’s what happened the other day."
Pelosi's comments drew a reaction from Schumer, who objected to the critiques from the former speaker of the House.
"They weren’t gonna negotiate with us, so, there were two choices, only. It would be nice if we had a third choice," Schumer asserted.
The Senate minority leader went on to argue that a government shutdown would have been worse than passing the CR bill.