Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) said in an episode of his podcast on Sunday that President Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk could be “a lot worse” under government shutdowns.
“Their goal of cutting agents after agency after agency, decimer, shutting down the entire federal government would occur under closure,” Schumer said. He told the New York Times Lulu Garcia-Navarro from the “Interview” podcast. “That's devastating.”
“Two days from now, they said, 'Well, snaps, kids food stamps are not essential. It's gone. Every veteran office in the rural area is gone. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, they're not essential. We'll cut them back,” he added. “So it would be scary. The damage they can do under the shutdown is far worse than any other damage they can do.”
Schumer's comments followed his vote to move forward with the Republican-raised fundraising bill along with nine other Senate Democrats despite intense opposition from many Democrats. The 10 Democrat vote to move the bill forward helped to avoid the looming government shutdown.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) followed Schumer on Thursday after saying he would vote to move the bill forward.
“There's a deep sense of anger and betrayal,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the time. “And this isn't just progressive Democrats. It's all over the board – the whole party.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) supported Schumer's leadership on Sunday, but said the Caucus “has to change tactics” to be effective.
“I think the only way we can be effective as a caucus is to change our tactics,” Murphy told NBC's Kristen Welker. “And we need to have a conversation within the caucus to make sure we're going to do that.”
Hill reached out to the White House and the spokesman for government efficiency for comments.
