Nia-Malika Henderson, Columnist

Schumer Had No Plan for This Budget Fight

The Senate minority leader appeared caught off-guard by a spending showdown that had been on the calendar for weeks.

March 14, 2025 at 12:30 PM UTC

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.

This is no way to run a party.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

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Nothing sums up the fecklessness of the Democratic Party more than Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to back the House Republicans’ plan to fund the government. In many ways, Schumer had only bad options and no real choice. But, Schumer, 74, also had no real plan. It was as if he was caught by surprise by the possibility of a government shutdown, which had been on the calendar for weeks.

Initially, he suggested that Democrats would block the six-month spending bill hatched by House Republicans and rejected by all but one House Democrat. The next day, he backed down, delivering a floor speech laying out why he would support the measure.