The last week has not been a good one for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the rest of the Democrats.
They had enjoyed a quick swing in momentum regarding the ongoing government shutdown, but a huge mistake made by Schumer changed all of that.
Schumer is still posturing, but it is clear that his signaled willingness to meet with Donald Trump is an indication that he is starting to panic about how this shutdown is going for him and his party.
If you have been reading my reports on the shutdown, you know that I believe it was a plan hatched by Democrats going all the way back to 2022.
The Democrats could have made the contested Obamacare subsidies permanent in 2021 and 2022 when they used the reconciliation process, but they specifically chose only to extend them for one year the first time, then again to the end of the fiscal year 2025 the second time. I believe this was a safeguard to create legislative leverage, because they were worried about the potential outcome of the 2024 presidential race.
Schumer all but admitted this during a recent interview with Punchbowl, in which he gleefully stated, “Every day gets better for us.”
Then he really gave up the tapes, adding, “It’s because we’ve thought about this long in advance, and we knew that health care would be the focal point on Sept. 30, and we prepared for it.” So, like I said, this was planned.
While Democrats had a small surge in support earlier on in the shutdown, I believe the American people really woke up after hearing that quote from Schumer.
That seemed evident after a recent poll on the issue was released, one in which Trump’s approval rating held steady as the country hit the third week of the shutdown.
Typically, a sitting president will be crushed in terms of approval ratings during a shutdown, as history has told us, but we are now into the second-longest such scenario in history, and the American people are still standing behind Trump on the situation.
Democrats are now clearly starting to panic while trying to keep up a strong front for the media.
Schumer’s entire political future depends on the outcome of this shutdown, so now he is publicly advocating for a meeting with Trump to end it.
He stated, "Hakeem [Jeffries] and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the healthcare crisis, address it, and end the Trump shutdown.”
Schumer continued, ‘He should sit -- the things get worse every day for the American people. He should sit down with us, negotiate in a serious way before he goes away."
Democrats can continue to push this as a Trump shutdown and a Republican shutdown all they like, but it is hard to agree with that argument when the GOP contingent has all voted -- except for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) -- to end it, and all but three Democrats have voted to continue it. The American people are finally realizing the games being played by Democrats, and Schumer knows it.
