Is Chuck Schumer the Left’s Unlikely Savior?
Chuck Schumer has been called many things in his life. “Leftist” was never one of them.
But in the post-election era with his new role as Senate Minority Leader, the Jewish New York senator is now proudly carrying the title, as described in a recent article in The Hill which explained how Schumer is emerging as “new champion of the left.”
Initially, Schumer was all about finding areas of cooperation with the Trump administration and creating a “big tent” policy, but it didn’t take much for Schumer to learn that Democratic constituents aren’t interested in playing nice. Shortly after, Schumer was already willing to state that his views “are exactly the same as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.”
Schumer embraced the role of chief opposer to Trump in full. In recent weeks he has taken on the fight for keeping Obamacare and shot down compromise ideas raised by moderate Republicans. He is also leading the fight against some of Trump’s cabinet nominees, mainly that of Jeff Sessions, Trump’s appointee for Attorney General.
Trump has maintained a love-hate relationship with Schumer. Back in early January, Trump told Schumer that he likes him more than Republican leaders of Congress, but later he described the Democratic leader as a “clown”.
The two New Yorkers’ special relationship did not go unnoticed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who quipped after Trump’s meeting with congressional leaders this week: “I enjoyed listening to the president and Schumer talking about all the people they knew in New York.”
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO