Are “Shutdown Chuck’s” days numbered in Senate leadership? I wouldn’t bet on it — but not because Chuck Schumer has suddenly become some master strategist or boasts a track record of real accomplishments. Hardly. If anything, Schumer has spent the last several months proving how deeply out of his depth he is.
Rep. Ro Khanna, still stewing over the inevitable collapse of the Schumer Shutdown, kept the Chuck You momentum alive this weekend. On NBC’s Meet the Press, he openly declared to host Kristen Welker he’d lost confidence in Schumer’s leadership — and remember, Schumer isn’t even in Khanna’s chamber. That’s how far the frustration has spread.
Khanna made it clear the shutdown fiasco is just one item on a growing list of failures that have drained confidence in Schumer. And his solution? He wants the party dragged even further left, pushed in a direction only the most committed radicals would applaud.
In other words: Schumer’s failures are obvious, but the alternatives his critics want might be even worse:
Rep. Ro Khanna: "Do you think Democrats around the country think that Chuck Schumer should be the face of the future of the Democratic Party? Of course not."
pic.twitter.com/elDoPhp8iD— ??? Country Over Party???????? (@gagirlpolitics) November 17, 2025
WELKER: Why do you think Leader Schumer is to blame, given that Republicans have control, as Jeanne Shaheen is saying, of the White House and both chambers of Congress?
KHANNA: Well, there`s something that I agree with both of these senators. Senator Kaine said that Senator Schumer was terrific under President Biden. And he was. I worked with him on the CHIPS and Science Act. That would not have passed if it weren`t for Senator Schumer`s leadership. Same with the infrastructure bill and IRA.
And Senator Shaheen is right that the biggest culprit is Donald Trump and Mike Johnson. The question is what is the future of Democratic leadership — who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don`t think that person is Chuck Schumer. I mean, he doesn`t inspire confidence. He`s not bold. He`s out of touch with the grassroots. He`s someone who cheer-led us into the war in Iraq. He doesn`t have the moral clarity on Gaza. He couldn`t say Mamdani`s name. And this was the final straw where he was not strong on fighting for health care.
He then mentioned a couple of replacements for Schumer:
WELKER: So, who is the person who you think should lead Democrats into the future in the Senate? Who`s at the top of that list for you, Congressman?
KHANNA: Well, Senator Kaine`s already given me a hard time for just saying that the minority leader should be someone different. I think if I endorsed someone it would probably hurt them more than help them. But we have dynamic young, new leaders —
WELKER: Who are some of the top names —
KHANNA: Chris Murphy is a top leader. Cory Booker is a dynamic leader. Brian Schatz is a dynamic leader. I mean, Elizabeth Warren is someone whose ideology I appreciate. There are a lot of great talent — and really, is Chuck Schumer — when you think about it, just from a common-sense test, do you think Democrats around the country think that Chuck Schumer should be the face of the future of the Democratic Party? Of course not.
“Elizabeth Warren is someone whose ideology I appreciate” might be the single most self-disqualifying sentence ever uttered by a politician trying to pass himself off as “mainstream.” Honestly, you’d have an easier time selling vegan barbecue in Texas. And tossing a 76-year-old far-left scold into a list of “dynamic, young, new leaders” deserves at least a silver medal in political comedy.
But, as TIME Magazine’s Philip Elliott points out in his DC Brief, all this noise is just that — noise. Khanna and a handful of Democrats can take their potshots at Shutdown Chuck, but it’s all performative shadowboxing. Schumer isn’t going anywhere.
Why? Because Democrats watched firsthand what happens when a caucus lights the fuse on a leadership meltdown — courtesy of House Republicans — and they want no part of that kind of chaos:
For his part, Schumer has professed indifference to the discontent and he had pretty good reasoning: no one who wants him gone has the power to make it happen, and no one who could do it is publicly calling for him to go. Even privately, there is little sign that Senate Democrats expect to replace Schumer before the midterm elections, according to just about every Capitol insider with a grudge and an insight. It’s pretty easy to hold onto a job when no one else is ready to step into it.
Thus is the life of a Minority Leader: all stumbles and fumbles and bumbles are of his making, all victories the work of others. The job is thankless even under the best conditions, and these are far from those. And it’s why those who are positioning themselves to potentially follow in Schumer’s shoes aren’t pressing for the position at this very moment when he seems so vulnerable. Much like House Republicans struggled in the recent past to nominate a Speaker not named Kevin McCarthy, being frustrated with the top dog is not sufficient for putting him down until there’s a new Alpha.
Naturally, Elliott then rolls out his list of supposed Schumer successors — which, amusingly enough, looks almost identical to Khanna’s fantasy roster. The one standout is Catherine Cortez Masto, who is somehow even further from Khanna’s ideological universe than Schumer. This is the same senator who backed nuking the filibuster and helped choreograph the Kabuki-theater collapse of the shutdown.
There is zero chance Democrats are going to toss Schumer overboard just to hand the reins to someone who (a) helped torpedo their own shutdown stunt, and (b) has to survive re-election in a purple-trending-red state. That’s political malpractice even for them.
Khanna isn’t clamoring for more cautious purple-state pragmatists. He wants more Mamdanis, not more Fettermans — more hard-left activists, fewer accidental moderates.
Schumer isn’t going anywhere before 2028 — and the idea that he’d graciously step aside for AOC or anyone else once that date rolls around is pure Beltway fan fiction. Let’s get real: Schumer is actually a year younger than Elizabeth Warren and turns 75 next week, which practically makes him a freshman in Senate years. Patty Murray — on Elliott’s list, though not Khanna’s — just hit 75 herself during the shutdown. Age isn’t a barrier in the Senate; it’s practically a prerequisite.
And what exactly is Schumer going to do after three decades in Congress? Ride off into the sunset? Launch a podcast? Hardly. This is his final act, and he’s not surrendering the spotlight to a 30-something socialist influencer with a congressional badge.
Meanwhile, AOC and her cohort have plenty of time to ease their way into the AARP wing of Capitol Hill.
