Chuck Schumer Claims Trump Set Government Shutdown ‘Trap’ as He Defends Backing Spending Bill

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has claimed President Donald Trump and Republicans set a government shutdown “trap” for Democrats as he defended backing the short-term spending bill that passed Friday.

Schumer was among 10 Senate Democrats who allowed the bill to proceed on Friday, ultimately preventing a government shutdown. The decision marked a sharp reversal from his stance just days earlier when he had vowed to oppose the measure.

The leading Democrat then faced backlash over the weekend for siding with Republicans to advance the bill, a move that frustrated many in his party who are pushing for stronger opposition to Trump’s agenda, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — who offered a jab that she would not have given away “anything for nothing.”

Speaking to Morning Joe on Wednesday while promoting his new book, the hosts and panel were keen to interrogate Schumer on his justification for having voted for the bill.

I knew there’d be a lot of controversy, and I’d get a lot of flack if I voted the way I did. But I knew just what you’re saying. If they shut the government down, people don’t understand how catastrophic that would be for America and eventually for the Democrats. When you have a shutdown, it is solely the determination of the executive branch. What is essential and what isn’t. The whole government shuts down, and then they pick and choose what is essential and what isn’t.

Schumer continued, listing out a hypothetical shutdown where Trump would shutter Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), impacting “poor kids”, shut down “mass transit” and hit Medicaid. He continued, explaining that his party had become aware of the Republican aim to give Trump the “keys to the kingdom” by provoking Democrats to initiate a shutdown scenario.

One of the Republican senators told us that if there’s a shutdown, they’re going to keep the government shut down for six months, nine months, a year, till they decimate the federal government. The $2 trillion that Musk and DOGE and this horrible guy Vought, who’s the head of OMB, which controls all this, wanted a cut from the government. They could do easily and no recourse. People forget, it’s the executive. There have been court decisions that say only the executive determines what’s essential. So unlike a CR where you can at least go to court and challenge the executive orders, you can’t do it here. So I knew it would be a disaster.

Now, there was a clamor, you know, ‘Stand up to Trump!’ and we should be standing up to trump in many ways. But let’s stand up to him smart. Let’s not give him the keys to the kingdom.

…I knew I’d get flack. You know, I’ve learned in politics through the years. The higher up you climb on that political mountain, the more fiercely the winds blow.

Pressed by host Mika Brzezinski on disagreement about his handling of the bill from within his own party, Schumer added:

There’s a huge anger at Trump and it’s justifiable. And people think that he’s doing horrible things. People think he won’t obey the law. He has said he wants to be a king, right? And so the anger says, just stand up to him, which we are doing in many different ways. But you got to be smart when you stand up to him, you got to pick the fight.

Just as [host] Joe [Scarborough] mentioned what happened in the congress when we were there, you got to pick the fight. That’s smart. And I think a lot of people are so angry they say: ‘Look, this is a moment. Just stand up.’

If we shut down the government and they started doing all these bad things in a month, those folks would be saying, ‘Hey, save Medicaid, save our rural hospitals, save this, save that.’ And we’ll say: ‘We can’t. There’s a government shutdown.’ And then they would come to us and say: ‘So why’d you let it happen?’ I prevented that from happening. And I think my caucus, no matter which way they voted, understands that.

…There are going to be some bigger issues where we’re going to make a stand as well. As I just said, you got to do it in a smart way and not let him drive you into a trap and let your anger at him end up hurting you.

Watch above via MSNBC.