See Schumer confronted with AOC, Pelosi, Jeffries criticism on MSNBC I Primetime Exclusive.

The last time I had you on on Friday was on the day of the shutdown being averted. And you came on the program, you said why you thought it was important, and since then we've had this enormous backlash. And obviously you're in politics a long time, you understand this comes to the territory. Has it made you rethink anything? No, look, I knew when I made this decision I'd get a lot of flack. I'm a smart politician, I can read what people want. But I thought even though the CR was a terrible, terrible bill and would allow within the CR the administration to move things around, I thought a shutdown was so much worse, 20 times worse. And let me explain why so people understand it. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has absolute power to determine what is quote essential. Right. They have the sole power. Court rulings have said the courts have no say. Now, under normal time, if it was a shutdown, okay, it'd be a Republican government. They do that. You have these fanatics, these anti-government vicious nihilists in charge. They can say anything. Anything is not essential. So it could have been today if we were in the shutdown, they said, feeding hungry children, not essential, eliminate SNAP. Two days from now, the only thing we need in transportation or air traffic controllers, cut off all mass transit funding to New York and the other cities of the country, all transit funding. Day six, Medicaid. They could cut off Medicaid almost totally. So within two weeks, they could just so decimate the federal government, almost throwing a bomb at it, that we could never recover. And wait, one more thing that's worse. There's no exit ramp. In other words, how do you get out of the shutdown? Solely up to the executive branch. And one Republican senator who's close to these horrible Doge Musk people said that they expected to close it down for six months, nine months, till the whole federal government was obliterated. Musk's dream, Musk's dream to get $2 trillion out of the federal government could happen under a shutdown. So I felt the very people who are upset now, if we went through with the shutdown and all these things happen, would be coming two, three weeks later and saying, get it open, get out, snap open, get mass transit open. I'd say, well, it's a shutdown. We can't. They said, well, why'd you let that happen? So one more thing. I knew I'd take a lot of flack, but you know, when you're a leader, sometimes you have to do things that you know are right, despite the consequences. I've always said to people in politics, the higher up you climb, the more fierce the winds blow. The only thing that keeps you from being from blown off course is your internal gyroscope. That's what I used. So I take that seriously, that that sort of catastrophic nature. I thought so long and hard about it. Well, here's let me let me just I want to sort of pivot it a little to a more of a tactical decision, because there was something that happened here that doesn't normally happen, which is they knew they needed Democratic votes and they cut you out entirely entirely. Now, when that has happened in the before, Republicans have filibustered successfully and forced Democrats to the table. And so just purely at the level of how the tactics brought us to this point, I want to play some of the criticism again, not from like backseat drivers or not for me on cable news, but people like Joaquin Jeffries or Nancy Pelosi. Take a look. Chuck and I disagreed as it relates to the approach and outcome. I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal. And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board, the entire party. I still support Senator Schumer as leader, but I think the only way that we are going to be effective as a caucus is if we change our tactics. I would have liked to see when Chuck Schumer had leverage here to say we need A, B, C and D for the Democratic Party and force the Republicans to meet him halfway on those issues. I myself don't give away anything for nothing. I think that's what happened the other day. They said, OK, he said leverage. I think it was the Nancy Pelosi said, I myself don't give away anything for nothing. I think that's the only leverage we had. They weren't going to negotiate with us. So there were two choices only. It would be nice if we had a third choice. We tried to get that third choice with the 30 day extension that Patty Murray tried to get some moderate, more moderate Republicans on the Appropriations Committee go along. They wouldn't. So we were faced only only the Senate, not the House. They had a little easier because they could vote no against the CR and not cause a shutdown. But in the Senate, the only two choices were these choices, period. And the choice of the shutdown was so severe. You're giving them the keys to the city. Why would we look this guy? The worst of them all is this guy who's head of OMB named Vote V o u g h t. But people hear the word vote. He already has a plan to shut down a large church right now. No, he cannot. Now, if you don't have a shutdown, you can go to court. And we've had some successful results in the courts. A lot of the judges we put in, Chris, you know, the 235. We've won about 85 percent of the cases shut down. No court. They make the decision and they can make it quickly, easily and across the whole federal government, not just the things that were in the CR. But here's here's to me my understanding of the critique that's broader than the specifics here, which is about the level and depth of crisis we're in. We are the appropriate tactics to meet that. And so what I think people think is, first of all, we all know the Senate functions on unanimous consent. It's how anything happens. We've watched real pains in the butt. Tommy Tuberville. Yes. Basically bring the place to a halt. Yeah. Just denying unanimous consent because he was mad. The Department of Defense might somewhere pay for abortion. Right. The idea of how cataclysmic that shutdown. I hear what you're saying. But what I'm hearing from people and there's a lot of them is right now a crisis is happening. Unlike anything the republic has faced, maybe since even the Civil War, most Americans don't quite grasp it. And it's your job as the most powerful Democrat to use whatever tactics you have to communicate that. And by going along with this, you have missed this opportunity to tell the nation there's only just how bad it is. There's only one choice to going along with it. Shut down this. We have to pick the fights. And I want to fight Trump as much as anybody and stop him and not give Republicans sucker help. But in this situation, but there was no question. But doesn't it call the question? Doesn't the crisis create the attentional vortex that is necessary? Because right now, people have no idea that they're going to basically get rid of all of American universities and all of American science funding. We try to communicate it every night, but there's nothing like a crisis to drive that. But the drama of the shutdown eliminating all of these things would do such damage, such damage, substantively, substantively that I couldn't tolerate it. I couldn't live with it. You know, I know there's the idea that, OK, people will they will sit and negotiate with us because they're doing bad things. That ain't these Republicans. They wouldn't sit with us for nothing because their overall goal. Look, the Republican Party is a new party. It's controlled. Wait, it's controlled by these mega right billionaires. They want two things. They want to pay no taxes. So get rid of all the spending, even if it's. I mean, I was up today. You know, we had a Medicare Day of Action, Hakeem, and I and senators and congressmen went and talked about Medicaid. I went up to a Montefiore Hospital, which covers all the Bronx. It's the only cancer center in the whole Bronx. Eighty percent. I grew up a block from Montefiore Hospital. Well, 80 percent of the people there are Medicare and Medicaid and they do can't. They're the only cancer treatment. If they cut Medicare by 20 percent, Medicaid by 20 percent, children would die. OK, children would die. OK. And that's what would happen with a shutdown. Well, I mean, so you say have leverage. We should. But in this case, the choice given to us because they couldn't die. And I don't blame them. They wouldn't negotiate with the Democrats because they had all the votes because Trump is such a hammer. Gave us only two choices. So if there's there was not a third choice. OK, so the question is, OK, these people won't negotiate. This was the one opportunity for leverage because of the need for a filibuster role proof majority. They're not going to have that on reconciliation. Right. They're going to have it right. They're going to be other opportunities. But then what's the what? Because what people hear is like we're going to lie in the cut until they don't destruct. Like, I don't buy that. But then what is the strategy? Here is the plan. Here's what we're doing right now. OK, there are two two things I want to say. One, the every day we are hammering away at Trump and we have a simple, simple thought that unites the Democratic Party from one end to the other. He's asking the middle class to pay for tax cuts for the billionaires. It unites us all. Bernie Sanders likes it. My most conservative members like it. We're hammering away at that today. It was Medicaid. Tomorrow's going to be in the next few days going to be tariffs. He's raising those tariffs, raising your cost, Mr. And Mrs. American, by two thousand dollars a year if he raises all these tariffs so that he can use that money for tax cuts for the billionaires. He's cutting your education funds and so your kids don't get a great education and your school taxes will go up for that. So we have started doing this day in, day out, every day, fighting relentlessly. His numbers have started to go down from fifty one to forty seven. If we keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, his numbers will be much lower. He will not only be less popular, but less effective. Second, we will find the moments where we shouldn't give them votes. Hakeem and I met yesterday. We're exploring that right now. And there will be times, just like this instance, where people will say, don't give them the votes because you have the leverage. It will be there will be instances not like this where a shutdown would ensue, but we will have the higher ground and we're going to do it. Watch us. OK, but here's what I would say in response to that. And again, I'm channeling people. Yes, yes, yes. Hey, this is a democracy still. Let's hope it stays. Well, here's what I say is that all of those things you enumerated, which all sound like good politics to me. Yeah. Are the kinds of things that you'd be doing if Mitt Romney were president, that like there's this weird asymmetry right now, which is that they are acting in this totally new way. Yes. In which they are ambitiously trying to seize all power and create a presidential dictatorship in the United States of America. And the Democratic opposition is acting like, well, if we can get their pool rate down a few points, then what happens? Well, what happens is, look, first we get it way down. He's going to have much like we this worked in twenty seventeen. You say now it's a different government. It's different, though. Oh, it is different. But health care, we beat him. Taxes, we beat him. And guess what we did? Guess what we did, Chris? We took back the House and won in the Senate and that. And then we were allowed to do all those good things. This is not the only tactic. We have to stand strong in certain instances and not give them the votes at all. Let me get there are instances with this. The two work together. OK, again, I don't disagree with any of that. But but the difference to me between twenty seventeen and now and I've been at this desk for both of us different. It is a full fledged assault on the constitutional order that has not been seen again. Well, that's certainly in my life. That is true. But the question then becomes that's not the spending part. That's that isn't. But then the question becomes, what is the role of the minority if he's resisting that? That's distinct from we're going to beat him on health care. We're going to beat him on spending Medicaid. Look, if if our democracy is at risk, it is. Sorry, it is certainly at risk. Well, do you believe it? But if there be if if I don't want to put you believe it's a Trump doesn't obey the Supreme Court, which may happen, you led up to it here. Then we will only we will have two courts. We will have the federal courts, which hopefully John Roberts will stand up and make it happen. But we'll have the Court of Public Opinion. And if that happens, as you pointed out, we have had rule of law since the Magna Carta. OK, and if that happens and he and the rule of law goes by the wayside, I believe that that there will be very, very terrible. You know, there will be immediate and strong reaction from one end of the country to the other in ways that we have never seen. And that's what will happen. And it's not just up to us. The people will have to rise up, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just, you know, people, everybody. But our democracy will be at stake then. And if the people make their voices heard and are strong and stand up and we join them, I believe we can try to beat that back. We can beat that back. But it's it's it's on that one. If democracy is at risk, that's a little different than what we're talking about now. Even a shutdown, as horrible as it is, we'll all have to stand up and fight back in every way. I think actually this is useful because I do think like just in and again, I mean, genuine sort of good faith way that there's a lot of people and I think I probably count myself among them who think that that's where we are right now, that the plan being deployed right now, you may be right. I don't think so. We're there. I think you think we're not there yet. Well, I think we're getting there. We have to be really vigilant. I just had a meeting today with the Judiciary Committee to decide how we're working through this as it goes further. It hasn't been up to the Supreme Court yet, which would be the classic if they disobey the Supreme Court. We're on our way there, God forbid, but I think we are and we'll have to go at it and add it and add it. And that is different than anything else. Different than anything else. It's a quantum leap different because our democracy is then 248 years of American democracy. The Magna Carta is out the window and we will all have to take extraordinary action.