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A coalition of labor unions, political action, and community groups march against DOGE and proposed cuts to Medicaid, housing, food assistance, and other vital programs in New York, New York, on March 15, 2025. Some expressed their outrage with Senator Chuck Schumer for voting to advance the Republican funding bill.
Democrats vs. Democrats
Senate Democrats unleashed a storm last week when Schumer and nine other Democrats voted in favor of a Republican-authored funding bill. To vote no, Schumer argued, would be to risk a shutdown of the federal government, a move President Donald Trump and advisor Elon Musk might use to further slash the federal bureaucracy.
House Democrats and others were furious with Schumer’s decision. They have argued that the Republican need for Democratic votes to pass the bill gave Democrats rare legislative leverage over Republicans and a chance to strike a blow at Trump. By refusing to stand up to the president and his party when given the chance, they’re leaving the public without a positive reason to vote for Democrats.
More immediately, Congress will replay this drama in September when the next funding bill comes to the floor. Now that Schumer has set a precedent by caving to pressure, critics within his party ask, what’s to prevent Republicans from offering a bill that Democrats find even more toxic than the one that passed last week, with confidence that that bill will pass too?
A new poll finds that Democratic-aligned adults say, by a margin of 52% to 48%, that the leadership of the Democratic Party is currently taking the party in the wrong direction. There isn’t yet a groundswell within the party that favors replacing Schumer as Senate minority leader, but that moment may be coming.US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, U.S., in February 2025.
Republicans bid to avoid government shutdown
With a government shutdown deadline looming on Friday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday introduced a continuing resolution that, if passed, would effectively fund the government through September. US President Donald Trump has backed the bill. The budget battle comes as fears rise over the impact of Trump's tariff policies, and the flip-flopping nature of their implementation. On Sunday, Trump refused to rule out that his aggressive economic policies could cause a recession.
Wins and losses: In passing a continuing resolution rather than a new budget, Republicans are trying to keep government spending around the levels set by former US President Joe Biden last year. The bill contains additional funding for immigration enforcement and reduces nondefense spending by $13 billion, but it doesn’t touch two significant components of the US welfare state: Social Security and Medicaid. It is vague about its spending lines, potentially handing some leeway to White House adviser Elon Musk to continue cutting the size of government. Democrats are crying foul.
Blame game: It’s a tale almost as old as Congress that the two principal parties in the United States try to blame one another for shutting down the government whenever a contentious budget deadline comes around. Yet, the listless House Democrats — whose power has been so blunted — don’t even seem to be bothering with this game, openly suggesting that they’d be willing to block the resolution and shut down the government if they have the votes. How the tables have turned.
Analysis: Johnson aims to avoid that and plans to hold the vote on the continuing resolution by Tuesday, but it is not a done deal. Even if House Republicans maintain their united front and pass the bill, it will need the support of at least seven Democratic senators to get to the president’s desk. This means Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has some leverage. We will be watching to see whether he uses it or undercuts his Democratic allies in the lower chamber, as he did in 2019 when he accepted the Senate Republicans’ border bill despite then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s objections.Visiting U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is greeted by Chinese President Xi Jinping before their bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023.
China hawks’ Beijing trip makes a Biden-Xi summit more likely
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with a bipartisan group of US lawmakers in Beijing Tuesday, the latest in a series of bilateral meetings that appear to be the runway to a Biden-Xi summit next month.
The visiting group includes notable China hawks like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
At a time when President Joe Biden’s recent attempts to stabilize things with China have gotten a cool response on Capitol Hill, that’s significant, says Anna Ashton, an expert on US-China relations at Eurasia Group.
“It does look like Congress saying, ‘OK, there's something to this, scaling up diplomatic engagement for managing the relationship and ensuring stability,’” she says.
But just as important, according to Ashton, was Xi’s decision to meet with lawmakers directly, spending much longer with them than he had with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June.
“It’s a clear signal that this effort at détente is important to Beijing and specifically to Xi Jinping himself,” she adds.
Biden-Xi meeting on the cards. If all goes well, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies will meet during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco in November.
Alongside economic and trade issues, Taiwan will loom large: The self-governing island, which China claims as its own, holds elections in January in which China is trying to nudge things towards a candidate who favors closer ties with Beijing.