Perhaps unsurprisingly, incoming Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is among the Democrats willing to work with President-elect Trump to pass some of his more “populist” ideas into law. But the tough liberal campaigner issued a blanket statement about cooperating with the new administration.
“We’re not going to oppose something simply because it has the name Trump on it, but we will certainly not sacrifice our principles just to get something done,” he said on ABC News’s Powerhouse Politics podcast, in a discussion of such issues as infrastructure and trade.
Schumer said Trump’s $1 trillion price tag for new infrastructure investment “sounded good to me,” and that he was closer to the president-elect’s position on trade than he is to President Obama’s. “And so are a lot of Democrats,” he said.
There’s long been buzz of a potential partnership between the two men. Last year, Trump—who has donated almost $9,000 to Schumer over the years—said he had a “good relationship” with the New York Democrat, and he followed up with Morning Joe in January, saying he “was always very good with Schumer.” He reiterated the point after the Senate Democratic leadership elections last month, describing Schumer’s elevation to minority leader as “good news.”
A Politico story about Schumer’s thinking on Trump after the election described the Democrat’s mindset as “trying to talk himself into the idea that the president-elect isn’t really a Republican, but a pragmatist with no apparent ideological mooring.”
