Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer again rebuffed calls to step down as retiring Democrats call for new leadership and members of his caucus urge him to make way.
“I am staying put, and I’m fighting the fight every day, as is our caucus, in a united and successful way,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “We’re showing America how bad Trump is, and showing that Republicans who embrace Trump do so at their peril.”
Schumer’s remarks came as multiple Senate Democrats have urged the party to embrace younger talent.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate minority whip who has served in the chamber for 44 years, said in his retirement announcement last week it was time to “pass the torch.” Outgoing Sen. Gary Peters used the same phrase in his retirement post in February.
“I always knew there would come a time to pass the torch to the next generation of public servants and allow them the opportunity to bring fresh energy and ideas to our nation’s capital,” Peters said.
Schumer last faced calls to step down in March after opting not to shut the government down over a Trump-backed funding bill. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet had urged Democrats to “have future conversations” about the party’s leadership in response to constituent anger over Schumer’s move to help Republicans, a call he repeated last week.
“[Trump is] the first president to strip us of a fundamental civil right since Reconstruction … That begs real questions about what it is we’re presenting to the American people,” he told Semafor.
But Schumer was defiant then as now, telling Meet the Press the choice was necessary to keep Trump away from levers of executive power.
“Sometimes when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger that might come down the curve,” Schumer said last month. “And I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was. People disagree.”
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