Republicans are upset that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer trashed them after they provided the votes to end the filibuster and allow Democrats to increase the debt ceiling. But what exactly did they expect?
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and South Dakota Sen. John Thune approached Schumer on the floor after his speech. South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, one of the 11 GOP senators who helped advance the vote, said that Republican senators would not cooperate next time. Apparently, these Republican senators were unaware that Schumer was still Schumer.
Schumer railed on Rs about the debt drama after 11 voted to overcome a filibuster and move to a final vote on debt ceiling.
Multiple GOP senators were angry about it. “Classless speech,” Mike Rounds told me. Says Republicans wouldn’t cooperate next time. He was one of the 11— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 8, 2021
Schumer did not need Republicans to end their filibuster. The Democratic majority could have done it through reconciliation with no GOP votes at all. Schumer complained that the process would be “convoluted and risky,” and yet Democrats used the reconciliation process in March and are planning on using it for what is currently a $3.5 trillion bill.
Schumer had nothing to be grateful for. He wanted a political victory and, by forcing Republicans to cave, he got one. He was taking a victory lap. Did Senate Republicans really expect that Schumer would try to cool tensions because they momentarily backed down from a strategy he described as “unhinged”?
Schumer’s only guiding strategy is public pressure. With cultural institutions and establishment media on his side, Schumer thinks he can browbeat his political opposition into doing whatever he wants. He’s threatened Supreme Court justices and said openly that including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the most bipartisan Republican in the chamber, in stimulus talks in 2009 and 2010 was a mistake. He is, first and foremost, a partisan, not a negotiator (which helps explain why he couldn’t become the Senate majority leader until former President Donald Trump gifted the position to him).
If Schumer were a good strategist, he would show some grace. But he isn’t. And, more importantly, Republicans already knew this. The deterioration of his relationship with Collins played out in public for all to see. Senate Republicans are mad that Schumer reacted to their capitulation exactly the way anyone who has paid attention expected him to react.
If getting their feelings hurt is enough to prevent Senate Republicans from folding to Schumer in the future, as Rounds indicated, then that’s well and good. But the only people who were caught off guard by this were them, and it’s on them to remember it going forward.
