Schumer, Democrats face heat for shifting stance on government shutdown threat

Senate Democrats earlier this year were unwilling to shut down the government over fears of mass firings and deep cuts to spending, but now with a similar threat on the horizon, they seem unwilling to keep the lights on.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus have further dug into their position in the week that Congress has been away from Washington, D.C., and they appear ready to not provide the needed votes to avert a partial government shutdown by Sept. 30.

Republicans are calling foul on their position and contend that their rhetoric is hypocritical to their stance from earlier this year, when Senate Democrats — including Schumer — voted to keep the government open.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., contended that their position now is completely counter to the one they held in March when the government was again on the brink of closure, especially given their concerns that the Trump administration and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would move ahead with mass firings.

“The argument they made was that you don’t want to give Trump — basically by shutting the government down — carte blanche to do whatever he wants to do with these government agencies, and, you know, to let the OMB make decisions about who’s essential and who isn’t,” Thune said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”

“Because they do fundamentally believe they are the government party,” he continued. “Which is why I think it’s going to be hard, can be really hard for them to sustain this over a long period of time, but we’ll see.”

The OMB circulated a memo to federal agencies this week that directed mass firings of federal employees beyond the typical shutdown furloughs, but Schumer chalked it up to “an attempt at intimidation.”

“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one — not to govern, but to scare,” he said. “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

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When asked if he was concerned by what could happen if the government closed, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., countered that it was a “political question.”

“That’s not the way I think about it,” he told Fox News Digital. “I represent a Virginia that’s been ravaged by what Donald Trump has done to the federal workforce, federal contractors.”

“Donald Trump is doing stuff that hurts the country,” he continued. “Donald Trump told Republicans not even to talk, to negotiate with Democrats on this.”

In March, when it appeared that Schumer would lead Democrats in lockstep to close the government, he backed down and argued that it was a “Hobson’s choice.” Ultimately, he and nine other Senate Democrats advanced the bill.

Congressional Democrats at the time were fuming at the power that tech billionaire Elon Musk wielded and the impact a shutdown would have on the federal workforce, given the waves of firings and buyouts already taking place at the hands of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

He said during a speech on the Senate floor that a shutdown would “give Donald Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services,” and it would let the GOP “weaponize their majorities to cherry-pick which parts of the government to reopen.”

Fast-forward to today and the only Senate Democrat publicly supporting the GOP’s short-term funding extension, or continuing resolution (CR), is Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa.

He told Fox News Digital that shutting the government down would unleash chaos that the country didn’t need, particularly if President Donald Trump and the OMB were given no guardrails to rein in cuts or mass firings.

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He said that if Democrats are concerned about the changes brought on by the Trump administration, shutting the government down is not the right answer.

“We must keep our government open,” Fetterman said. “If we shut our government down, you know, the kinds of chaos and the kinds of loss for the millions of Americans that count on that directly, it’s just not the appropriate time for that, especially after the [Charlie] Kirk assassination.”

Schumer and congressional Democrats offered a counter-proposal to the GOP’s CR that included a laundry list of demands, such as permanently extending Obamacare subsidies, repealing the healthcare title of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” and clawing back billions of canceled funding for NPR and PBS.

Both the Republican and Democrat proposals failed in the Senate last week.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., like the majority of his Democratic colleagues, was rooted in opposition to the GOP’s short-term extension because of its lack of language to address Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of this year.

When asked if he was concerned that shutting the government down would give Trump free rein to do as he pleased, Blumenthal told Fox News Digital, “I think Republicans would insist that he follow the law.”

Thune has signaled that conversations about the Obamacare subsidies, in particular, could happen after a shutdown is averted, but it so far has not been enough for Senate Democrats.

“I mean, they passed 13 short-term resolutions during the Biden administration, and 96% of the Democrats voted for it,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital. “And go check out their rhetoric. So now, all of a sudden, they can’t vote for it. It’s ridiculous.”

When pressed on whether Republicans would move on Obamacare subsidies, Hoeven said, “I think we’re gonna do something we haven’t decided. So we’re talking about a number of different things, but we’re working on it.”