Nancy Pelosi kept the heat on Chuck Schumer. She slammed his handling of the government funding battle. She accused him of giving away leverage.
“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi said. She spoke at a San Francisco town hall. She claimed Republicans wanted Medicaid cuts, despite no such proposal.
Pelosi still supports Schumer as leader. But she didn’t hold back. Many Democrats are furious over his move to advance the GOP spending bill.
“His [Schumer’s] popularity is somewhere between Elon Musk and the Ebola virus,” a senior House Democrat told Axios. Many want him to fight Republicans harder. Some say he caves too easily.
Pelosi had already criticized Schumer’s decision. She told him to “listen to the women” in the party. Those Democratic appropriators had pushed for an alternative bill, but GOP leaders wouldn’t budge.
Tim Walz also took a jab at Schumer. He said on Gavin Newsom’s podcast that Democrats “gave up our leverage.” The government funding fight didn’t have to end this way.
Some Democrats want a change. They’ve floated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a primary challenger in 2028. She hasn’t ruled it out.
“Schumer has been in politics for a long time, and I would hope that this is his final term,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She wants new leadership.
Schumer isn’t backing down. He defended his choice to support the Trump-backed spending bill. He argued that a government shutdown would have been worse.
“The higher you climb, the more fiercely the winds blow,” Schumer told the Wall Street Journal. “The only thing that keeps you from being blown off the mountain is an internal gyroscope.”
Meanwhile, Pelosi has been busy behind the scenes. Reports suggest she played a major role in pushing Joe Biden out of the 2024 race.