EXCLUSIVE — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) doesn’t have much to say to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), his Democratic counterpart, these days and, more strikingly, believes the way out of the shutdown doesn’t involve Schumer at all.
“I’ve always felt like the solution to this isn’t going to come from him. It’s going to come organically from rank-and-file Democrats who eventually just decide this is not the path they want to be on,” Thune told the Washington Examiner in an interview this week from his leadership suite.
In the three weeks since government funding lapsed, Thune has managed to win three crossover votes for a short-term spending patch backed by Republicans, and his appeal to the other five Democrats he needs to overcome the Senate filibuster is to be “brave” and defy Schumer.
That cut-Schumer-out approach is taking time to bear fruit, with most of the Democratic caucus digging in on healthcare demands at the center of the shutdown fight. But it has come to define what, at least in their first nine months working together, has been a limited and at times chilly relationship between the two leaders.
Republicans have passed pretty much all of their agenda through reconciliation, a budget process that lets them sidestep bipartisan cooperation entirely. Meanwhile, Democrats have refused to give an inch of ground when it comes to President Donald Trump’s nominees, forcing so many procedural hurdles that Thune and his conference went “nuclear” last month and changed Senate rules to confirm them in batches.
In the interview, Thune said he and Schumer have occasionally met in a back room off the Senate chamber to discuss important matters, and in one glimmer of common ground, the Senate did pass its annual defense bill earlier this month, even amid the shutdown gridlock.
Still, Thune conceded their relationship is transactional when it needs to be, and so far little more than that.
“Hopefully, there’ll be some bipartisan things that we’ll be able to work on at some point,” Thune said. “Obviously, the shutdown is not an example of that.”
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Schumer, for his part, has made clear the feeling is mutual and is taking the same shutdown approach as Thune, except in reverse. He is trying to drive a wedge between Thune and the White House and, earlier this week, requested a meeting with Trump to discuss expiring Obamacare subsidies Democrats want extended in exchange for the votes to reopen the government.
The White House swiftly dismissed that request, and with Trump leaving for a trip to Asia, he appears uninterested in wading into what for now is a Capitol Hill fight. But Democrats generally believe the president is more willing to buckle to their demands, or is at least ideologically flexible enough to sit down for a meeting Thune won’t have.
A spokesman for Schumer did not respond to a request for comment on this story by time of publication.
In theory, Thune has an open-door policy and frequently retorts that Schumer has his cellphone number or can make the short walk to his office. But in reality, the statements are little more than a rhetorical device meant to make clear he sees the ball in Schumer’s court, not his, as reporters question why the two men aren’t talking.
Thune has said he will negotiate over the Obamacare subsidies, but only after the government is reopened, and an initial meeting Thune did have with Trump, Schumer, and the rest of congressional leadership took place shortly before the shutdown began, with little discussion since then.
“Right now, I don’t know that there’s anything particularly productive that we would gain by having a conversation about this, because I think everybody’s kind of dug in,” Thune said.
The spectacle of the Senate’s top leaders trying to circumvent one another speaks to how bitter the partisan rancor has become since Trump returned to the White House. It also suggests that the protracted shutdown is due, at least in part, to a lack of goodwill.
Schumer is under pressure not to cave, as he did in a March fight over government funding, with the threat of a primary challenger in 2028 driving speculation that he is protecting himself from his left flank.
But it’s also hard to overlook the fact that Thune had little opportunity to work with Schumer directly before being thrust into the shutdown fight. By contrast, Schumer had an eight-year relationship with Thune’s predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who stepped down from his post at the outset of this Congress, brokering in that time repeated spending deals and compromises on gun safety, infrastructure, and more.
“You know, it’s new,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who was an adviser to McConnell in the last Congress. “I mean, if you think about it, Mitch and Chuck had many, many years to develop kind of a personal relationship. And so, I think it’s a natural settling in.”
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Schumer isn’t making that settling-in period any easier, taking a direct shot at Thune last month when he, in a surprise move, took control of the Senate floor to force a vote on the Epstein files.
Republican leadership is still fuming over that vote, with Thune calling it a “hostile act” that violated the courtesy leadership of each party extends to one another.
“It’s not helpful. It’s a reminder that, I mean, Schumer is Schumer,” Thune said. “He’s a political animal, and he’s very transactional. So, you just have to keep that in perspective, and so you understand that going in.”
Their relationship is also unfolding against the backdrop of weakening Senate norms that in the past forced some semblance of bipartisanship. Thune took the step last month of allowing Trump officials to be approved in batches, essentially diluting the power of senators in the minority party to register their complaints. But there has been a steady decline in bipartisan customs that predates Thune and even Schumer.
Over the last decade or so, both parties have gone “nuclear” to allow nominees to be approved at 50 votes, rather than the traditional 60, and the budget process of reconciliation is increasingly becoming a tool to overcome the filibuster altogether.
The funding bill is still subject to 60 votes, meaning Democrats have been able to block Republicans from sending the measure, which already passed the House, to Trump’s desk 12 times.
But with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, Thune feels he can outlast Schumer, so long as he stays in close coordination with his GOP counterparts in leadership.
He speaks “regularly” with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the phone, and the two have weekly in-person meetings. As for Trump, Thune said there is a “lot of coordination, discussion” on shutdown strategy with the White House. Most recently, Trump hosted Senate Republicans for a Rose Garden lunch during which the impasse was discussed.
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“We both have jobs to do,” Thune said of his relationship with Schumer, offering a lukewarm acknowledgment that the two can work together when their interests align.
“I’m going to do what’s in the best interest of my conference and the country. And I think there will be times where we have to, you know, interact, and I’m sure we will,” he added.
