Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) apparently had no real interest in ending the government shutdown — in fact, reports suggest he was doing everything he could behind the scenes to drag it out until at least November. Rather than looking for an off-ramp to help struggling Americans, Schumer seemed far more focused on playing political games and keeping the pain going long enough to score points with the Democratic Party’s increasingly far-left base.
USA Journal has dubbed it — correctly — the “Schumer Shutdown.” According to an Axios report, the Democrat leader wasn’t just complacent — he was actively working to keep the lights off. When some members of his caucus started getting antsy just two weeks into the standoff that began October 1, Schumer reportedly stepped in to make sure they didn’t break ranks and end it early. In other words, the suffering of federal workers and the American public was just collateral damage in Schumer’s political chess game.
SCOOP: Schumer privately fought to extend government shutdown https://t.co/Poeezwkg9E
— Axios (@axios) November 10, 2025
Axios noted:
Two weeks into the shutdown, a group of moderates told Schumer they were ready to vote to open the government, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.
It’s unclear if that group was big enough to end the shutdown. But Schumer persuaded the moderates to hold out until at least the beginning of November, when open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act began.
In mid-October, he made it clear to his entire caucus that he was likely to come out against the emerging bipartisan deal that a group of moderate senators were pushing.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) stated to the outlet that she and several colleagues were opposed to keeping the government closed and had informed Schumer of their intention to seek a compromise:
It comes in mens and womens and lets your friends know you're happy to express your views and don't care what anyone thinks! Cheers!
“We let him know what we were doing,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who led the bipartisan talks to find a compromise.
Asked if she ever felt that Schumer was working against her compromise package, Shaheen declined to comment.
“I don’t really want to get into the private discussions we had,” she told reporters Monday afternoon.
By Sunday, even a handful of Senate Democrats could see the disaster unfolding before their eyes — chaos at airports thanks to the Biden administration’s failure to staff air traffic controllers and millions of Americans losing their SNAP benefits.
Reality finally set in: the Democrats’ strategy was backfiring. Eight of them broke ranks, admitting the obvious — the shutdown was a self-inflicted wound — and signaled they’d side with Republicans to pass a deal that would actually get the government running again:
In exchange for their support of a bill to reopen the federal government, the eight Democrats were promised a future vote on continued government subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Those subsidies have been at the heart of the Democrats’ overall objection to the clean continuing resolution [CR] passed through the House but stuck in the Senate since September.
Also a part of the deal is reversing mass firings from the federal government that were central to the [President Donald] Trump administration’s stated goals of shrinking the federal government—an effort spearheaded at the time by OMB Director Russ Vought. The new plan would retroactively eliminate those mass firings. The plan also pushes through a “minibus” of appropriations for the following three areas: Agriculture-FDA, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction-VA.
The Senate is set to hold a final vote on the amended continuing resolution. Once it passes, the resolution will be sent to the House for a vote. If approved there, it will then go to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign, allowing the government to reopen.
But if not for Schumer – and, let’s face it, weak-kneed Democrats in his caucus – this shutdown would have ended weeks ago, and troops, air traffic controllers, and all of the other truly vital federal workers would not have had to suffer nearly as much.
