The Interview - Chuck Schumer on Democrats, Antisemitism and His Shutdown Retreat

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

The Senate minority leader discusses the backlash to his vote on the Republican spending bill, how he sees his role within the party and his new book.

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to keep making them for you. So that's our big news. You can go to nytimes.com slash podcasts to learn more. Enjoy the show and thanks as always for listening. From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. I spoke to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York twice last week in what turned out to be quite a week for the Senate minority leader. In our first conversation, we talked about a lot of things, the direction of his party, how Democrats are communicating their opposition to President

Trump, and also, on a more personal note, his fears about the rise of anti-Semitism in America. Schumer's written a new book on that topic. It's called Anti-Semitism in America, a Warning. It's part history, part memoir, and in it he tracks the long record of prejudice against Jews in the world and its recent surge here at home. That was Monday. When we spoke again on Saturday afternoon, it was after an extraordinary few days in

Congress where Democrats had to decide whether or not to vote for a Republican federal spending bill or allow a government shutdown. House Democrats had voted in near unanimity against the bill. Schumer initially said that he would as well, but in a shocking about face on Friday, he joined Republicans and it passed. The aftermath has been brutal and led to open warfare in the party and questions about Schumer's future as its leader. So when I called him back, we had a lot to discuss.

Here are my two conversations with Senator Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer, in your book, you write that you rarely faced anti-Semitism when you were growing up in Brooklyn. What was the moment that you felt that things changed in this country that made you want to write the book now? So, I was born in 1950, and for the first 50 years, it was sort of what you might call the Golden Medina, the golden age for Jewish people, not only in America, but forever, because we had never seen such acceptance. We were accepted in ways we never

thought. I was so proud when I was, I guess, about 12 years old that Sandy Koufax, a Jewish pitcher, not a scientist or a teacher, didn't play ball on Yom Kippur. And that made us so proud. I experienced a little anti-Semitism. There was a moment, for instance, when I was eight years old and we were driving home from my grandma's house, and someone rolled down the window and said to my nice, decent father, you fucking Jew. I think of that almost every week, but it didn't happen very much. And the Jewish people, all the kinds of discrimination that we had seen, Jews couldn't work here, Jews couldn't do that, even the sort of innuendos went away.

And there was one reason above all, the Holocaust hung over a curtain, not only for Jewish people, but of course us, we always thought about it. I get a little emotional. People on my block, little older ladies would come and roll up their sleeves and show us the numbers on their arms that the concentration camp made them do because they were just a number, you know, probably scheduled to die. Okay. When did that change?

It began changing in the beginning of the 21st century. And what I've written in the book is when things get bad or a little rough, that's when anti-Semitism sort of bubbles up and then can get worse. Conor Cruz O'Brien, the great Irish poet, said anti-Semitism is a light sleeper. So in 2001, for the first time after 9-11, we saw these conspiracy theories. Oh, the Jews did it, all the Jews evacuated the building, et cetera. But okay, it was not good, but it didn't lead to a huge spread of anti-Semitism. 2008 got a little worse because of the financial crisis and the international conspiracy, and there were all kinds of theories, George Soros.

Thirty years earlier, they never would have dared use George Soros as the sort of way to talk about the international conspiracy because he was Jewish and because of the Holocaust. But it was October 7th that changed it all. And all of a sudden, anti-Semitism explodes in ways we've never seen and overt anti-Semitism. Jewish bakeries being called Zionist bakeries and rocks thrown through their windows. People who are yarmulkes or Jewish stars being screamed at, yelled at, vilified,

even punched and cursed. All the kinds of things that we had not seen in America for a very long time. And it shocked us. For the first time, Jews I know, I'm part of this generation, started saying, oh, God, maybe it could happen here. No one thought it would happen here, but for the first time, the thought, maybe it could happen here.

And as the highest ranking Jewish elected official, not only now, but ever in America, I felt an obligation to do what I could to combat this rise in anti-Semitism. So I felt I had to write the book. I had to write the book and hopefully it'll do some good. I'm also not sure that everyone understands the important relationship between Jews and the United States itself. What did you want people to understand about the way American Jews feel about their place here and the way that that's changing? Yeah. Okay. Very good question. That's your job.

I appreciate the endorsement. I think the American people think the Jews have had it very good. And we have. You know, I used to say when I was younger, oh, America's been so good to the Jews, and the Jews have been so good to America. The Jewish values and the American values are a very good mix and potent combination and have yielded a lot of success for the Jewish people. But I think people don't realize how fragile we think that success can be because of our history through the generations.

The Jewish holidays are all about escaping being killed. There's a joke. How do you sum up the Jewish holidays in three sentences? How do you sum up the Jewish holidays in three sentences? They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat. I don't know if I wrote that in my book. I hope I did. You did write it in your book, but it's true. It is a very good summation of Jewish holidays. We seem to be at a moment in American life where issues of identity have become very

charged. When you were entering politics, how did you navigate how much to make Jewishness part of your brand in your life? Not that much. Jewishness was always part of me. People know I'm Jewish. You know, when a new candidate comes to me and says, what's your advice? I say, my best advice is be yourself. The public may not know

the difference between your education platform and your opponent's, but they can smell a phony a mile away. And then I say, I'm from Brooklyn. Sometimes it helps me, sometimes it hurts me, but I know one thing. If I tried not to be from Brooklyn, I'd be worse than whatever I am. Well, that's a synonym for Jewish. So I was always Jewish, and I enjoyed telling the stories of my family to my caucus and things like that. But it was never that vital to my career. And when I ran in 1998, I would go to upstate. You know, before that I was from Brooklyn and Queens. I was wondering wondering how would I be accepted as somebody who was obviously Jewish, although I didn't go talk about it a lot. I was. I was. It was very gratifying, you know,

very little anti-Semitism. And when I got to Congress, the same. There was some anti-Semitism. One of the senior guys when I got on the Judiciary Committee said, Schumer, And one of the senior guys when I got on the judiciary committee said, Schumer, welcome to the judiciary committee. So there was some of that. Who was that? I can't say. He's dead. He's from Texas.

That's all I'll say. You can figure it out. But it was not the thing that I was most known for in any way at all. You just mentioned this idea of inauthenticity when you were talking about recruiting. And you wrote that in the book. You said voters can smell inauthenticity the way bloodhounds track a scent. And it did bring to mind the situation Democrats find themselves in at the moment. Do Democrats have an authenticity problem? I don't think we have an authenticity problem. We have a real direction now. I feel good

about it. It's this. First, you got to look at who the Democratic Party is and who the Republican Party is, who they really are. We are the party of working people. We feel that very, very strongly. That's who we have always been. The Republican Party is a dramatic contrast to that. In the last 20 or 30 years, in my judgment, they have been taken over by a cabal of greedy, very wealthy people. And their whole goal is to reduce taxes, cut their own taxes, even though they're extremely rich, and get rid of any government regulation. You know that's not how the American people views the Democratic Party right now. That's right. And that's where we're on, that's where we're moving. That's where we have to move.

So the contrast is real. What are we saying? And this is not just Chuck Schumer. I've talked to my whole caucus. I've talked to Hakeem in his caucus. I've talked to Martin, the new head of the DNC. I've talked to some of the others. It's a simple little phrase. Donald Trump is making the middle class pay for tax cuts for billionaires. And then you can add things to it, is making the middle class pay for tax cuts for billionaires. And then you can add things to it, is making the middle class pay for tax cuts for billionaires

by cutting your healthcare, your Medicaid, by adding in tariffs and raising your prices, by cutting education so your kids don't get an education. That has a number of, I think, virtues. I've heard this from Democrats before, though. This isn't new. I mean, I think that that is something that has always been the rallying cry of Democrats against Republicans. Correct.

But it unifies us. In my caucus, from Bernie to Federman, everyone in each believes in this. Second, the public understands it. 80% of the public doesn't like tax cuts for billionaires to hurt the middle class, 60% of Republicans. It's true. So what happened? Because you asked, that's your question. Well, I... We think we always cared. I'm sorry. We always cared about the working people. But in the last few years, while we did a lot for working people, here's what we didn't

do. We didn't tell people about it. We thought just by legislating, people would know about it. They don't. I am glad you brought this up. What I'm hearing you say is that you need to get back to the original message the Democrats have had. Yes.

There is a sense, though, that whatever messaging Democrats are doing right now is either too little, too late, or, to use a little bit of internet speak, a little cringe. I mean, I've noticed a discernible increase in the way of party leadership, including you, is attempting to use social media since the election. Yeah. With more direct-to-camera videos, more explainers. party leadership, including you, is attempting to use social media since the election. With more direct-to-camera videos, more explainers. It feels though that it's coming from consultants. I use that word again, authenticity, is it?

No. We feel it, but we never talk... We talked about legislation and passing legislation. Now one of the liabilities we have is a lot of the good things that'll come out of this legislation, take a few years to happen, you know, to build the road, to build the bridge, etc. But frankly, when we did talk about it, it worked. We had five battleground states that we had to win in the Senate, okay? And every week, I met with each of the senators about implementing, as we called it, implementation.

If we said that to the public, that would be a bad idea, but it was a concept. And they did. So Jackie Rosen was in Las Vegas saying, that infrastructure bill, I am now getting you the thing we've dreamed of in Nevada for a long time. Las Vegas has about three quarters of their population. A high-speed rail from Los Angeles to Las Vegas so people could get on the train, spend their money in Las Vegas, and go home. Tammy Baldwin delivered this bridge that northern Wisconsin had been dying for for 30 or 40 years.

So all these things helped them win. We won. We won in four of those five. I don't think the presidential campaign did enough of it. And I don't think Democratic Party as a whole did enough of it. We just assumed we were on the side of working people so they would just naturally assume it. And it didn't happen. We lost them because they didn't think we cared about them enough. We always did care about them, but we didn't convey it. So now, as you said, we're learning to convey in different ways. I put Cory Booker and Tina Smith in charge of the social media. We had like 60 influencers at the State of the Union, and again, learning how to communicate, not just Chuck Schumer talking about the legislation we passed, but I brought people there who

were affected by what's happening. I brought a veteran and they went on all the social media and according to the people tell me because I get all these reports, it had millions and millions of views. And the bottom line is I think the party as a whole neglected how the social media has become so much more important, but we're learning it quickly and we're doing it much better and we're going to do it better still. As you know, you got a rough ride because of your protests that you had. I know. Yeah, that's in the past. What did you think about that? Why did that... whose idea was that? It just happened. I got excited. I wanted to tell people I didn't do it right.

But it's one day. You know, you can't get because a bunch of people on, you know, the social media attack you and most of the attacks on me even on that were from the right wing. Former Ohio representative Tim Ryan called it depressing. Yeah. Wrote it on X. Is it Saturday Night Live or Real Life? Look, there's always going to be people who take a shot at you. That's how it is. You just got to move forward. I guess it brings in just this wider concern that I've heard from democratic voters. You

know, there's real grief, anxiety, worry. I don't have to tell you that. Absolutely. And many feel that democratic leadership are operating with an old playbook. I don't think it is. I think first of all, talking about the difference between the two parties is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to give the contrast. And we have a unique opportunity now. When Trump ran, he could say anything. He said, I'll lower your costs on day one. And once he's not running and he has to govern and he is so enthralled by tax cuts for the billionaires, and he has to govern, and he is so enthralled by tax cuts for the billionaires, it gives us an opening to talk to the people who were listening more to Trump before because we

didn't talk to them. The negative that Trump is doing, A, is spreading, but gives us an opportunity to regain the ear of the working people and middle class people so that we can connect with them the way we always used to. And it did succeed in the past. It even succeeded, even a long time ago, different media world, of course. But 2005, Nancy and Harry, I was at Harry's side. I was his little lieutenant in those days. We said, we're going to wait for the issue to pounce on, and then we're going to do it every day. George W. said, we're cutting Social Security.

They don't change, the Republicans. And we pounced and we had huge success. You describe yourself as an institutionalist. You've been a democratic leader through a period of American politics though, where the rules were understood, politicians on both sides of the aisle operated under mostly agreed upon norms. Yes. And I think it's fair to say that that no longer feels true.

Especially with the Trump people, absolutely. So are you the right person to lead the party at this moment as someone who basically championed the rules-based order, which is now fundamentally offensive? Let me put it this way. First, I don't think there's anybody, well, I think I know how to win seats back in the Senate, which I've proven. Okay, I proved it in 2005 when we gained, I proved it in two, three, four years ago, they said, you'll never get back to Senate.

I said, we're gonna. We won the two seats in Georgia, everybody's surprised. So my, you know, one of the talents that I have, and I miss some and have some, is how to get the right candidates, get the right campaigns, and win back. And even this year, winning four out of those five seats against big headwinds was trouble. But basically, I'm not the only person, nor should I be. This idea we need one person, that's a residue when you have a president. We don't.

I'm sort of like an orchestra leader. And there's a great deal of talent in the orchestra. And my job is to highlight all those talents and emphasize those talents and get Chris Murphy out on television and get Bernie out doing the rallies and get everyone to talk to their constituencies. So that's my job. All right.

I want to talk a little bit about the Democrat strategy more broadly. Last month you said in an interview that Trump will screw up. Yes. He can't help himself. Do you really think, though, that there's something that will move the needle for either Republican legislators or voters? I ask because that feels like a familiar argument against the president. Surely this will be the final straw for someone. There's no final straw. It's a whole, it's all the things he is doing. But let me say this. Last time

he was president, which is the closest experience we have with him, admittedly, the world has changed some, particularly on the media side, how it works. We kept pushing and pushing and pushing and chipping away. And when he went below 40% in the polls, the Republican legislators started working with us. He was at 51, he's now at 48. We're gonna keep at it, keep at it, keep at it, until he goes below 40. Look, I talk to a lot of these Republican legislators,

I've worked with them. Some of them are Trump devotees and advocates and all that, but many of them don't like him, don't respect him and worry about what he's doing to our country. Right now he's so popular, they can't resist him. So many of them came to me and said, I don't think Hexseth should be defense secretary or RFK should be HHS. But Trump wants him.

He won. Let's give him. That's not going to be the same. The Republicans would like to have some freedom from Trump, but they won't until we bring him down in popularity. That happened with Bush in 2005, it happened with Trump in 2017. When it happens, I am hopeful that our Republican colleagues will resume working with us. And I talk to them. One of the places I told them to go in the gym, you know, when you're on that bike and

your shorts panting away next to a Republican, a lot of the inhibitions come off. I'm sure. Yes, it's not a sight you want to see. Before we move on from this, I do want to ask you about the last election, especially around President Biden's decision to run for a second term. Yes. Did you know about President Biden's declining faculties before that disastrous debate? No.

Let me tell you a little. I dealt with Biden and his staff often. And whenever I dealt with him, you know, the right wing was saying, oh, he's mentally declined. He wasn't. He had rational, good, strong conversations. Did he ramble from time to time? He's done that when I knew him when he was 45 years old. Did he sometimes forget a name?

Who doesn't? But he was fine. I didn't realize, I didn't, because of my dealings with him, we're just fine. And we worked on many things and had a lot of success. 2022 was regarded as one of the greatest legislative sessions we had. And we did it together, Senate and him, until the debate. And then I realized he couldn't win. Now I did think the fact that he spoke lower a little bit and he walked slower allowed the right

wing to portray him incorrectly as, you know, not competent. But I didn't find that. And if you didn't know, why didn't you know? Was it because they were keeping him secluded? I can't give you the answer to that. When I dealt with him, he was fine. There have been allegations of a cover-up. What do you say to those allegations? They're just BS. Just BS. There was no cover-up.

I want to come back to your book. That's good. Senator, Jews in America have always been closely allied to the Democratic Party. Yes. But Trump, in this past election, clearly saw an opening to win some of them over. And it does seem like the events of the past year and a half have shifted things for American Jews. Do you think the political landscape has changed in any lasting way when you look at sort of

that alliance? There are different polling numbers, you know, the exit polls, but most of them show, the ones that are most reliable show that still like, you know, a very high percentage, 70, something like that, of the Jews voted Democratic this year, okay? Some of the more vocal people are on the right, and the Republican Party has made an attempt to make Israel and even anti-Semitism a political issue, which is horrible for Israel. I told that to Netanyahu actually years ago, not to make it a political issue, but he did. He embraced Trump and did it.

But I do think the progressive values of the Jewish people, the fact that we've been oppressed for so long, we've always had a sympathy for the underdog. That doesn't go away. Obviously, with the situation in Israel, there are some people who felt the Democrats weren't strong enough, but Biden was. He's stuck by Israel very strongly and most everyone recognizes that. And it cost him. It cost him a little. I'm not sure how much, but okay. I think that basically the rank-and-file Jewish person, who is not that political, no more than anybody else, is fundamentally a Democrat and will stay that way.

There is this big debate, though, about where the line is between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel's government. I mean, where is that line for you? First, I've criticized the Israeli government. I know. And I've criticized Netanyahu, as you know. So criticism of Israel and how it conducted the war is not anti-Semitic, but it begins to shade over

and it shades over in a bunch of different ways. When you use the word Zionist for Jew, you Zionist pig, you mean you Jewish pig. There's an incident on the New York subway and a bunch of people got on, you know, protesters or whatever and said, all the Zionists, get off the, who's a Zionist? Raise your hand, get out of the subway car. When the head of the Brooklyn Museum, who was Jewish, or the chairman of the board she was, but the Brooklyn Museum had nothing to do with Israel or taking positions on Israel, her house is smeared in red paint. That's antisemitism. And a lot of the slogans that people use either are or slide into anti-Semitism, okay?

So from the river to the sea, which is a Hamas expression. Well, what does Hamas believe? People don't pay enough attention to the evilness of Hamas in this whole discussion. What does Hamas believe? That there should be no Jews living from the Jordan River to the ocean. And their view in their charter, they cite an old Arab proverb, is that a Jew behind the tree? Chop him down and shoot him. So when people say from the river to the sea, it edges on anti-Semitism, even though some of them may not know it. How about by any means necessary?

Does that mean kill any Jew by any means necessary? And the one that bothers me the most, which I want to take a minute on, is genocide. Genocide is described as, this is the definition, a country or some group tries to wipe out a whole race of people, a whole nationality of people. So if Israel was not provoked and just invaded Gaza and shot at random Palestinians, Gazans, that would be genocide. That's not what happened. In fact, the opposite happened.

And Hamas is much closer to genocidal than Israel, even when you have disagreements. And again, I told Netanyahu, you got to, I told, I said to him what I thought, you got to reduce the number of casualties and make sure aid gets in and stuff like that. Here is the difficulty. Hamas has a different way of waging warfare, of using innocent Gazans as human shields. And they do. They put rockets in hospitals. They put their military supplies in schools. What is a country supposed to do when rockets are being fired from a school? Sinwar, the head of Hamas who was killed, you know what he said?

Dead Palestinians and maimed Palestinians are a necessary sacrifice, his words, according to the Wall Street Journal, which got his documents. So Israel's been in a much more difficult position because of what Hamas did. And it's not that Israel is above criticism. Of course it is not above criticism. I just… But Hamas, well, I just, Hamas is never… Wait, can I just finish? I'm sorry, it matters so much to me. I feel so deeply about it. Sorry.

No, please. Hamas made it much… And no one blames Hamas. I mean, the news reports every day for a while showed Palestinians being hurt and killed. And you know, I see the pictures of a little Palestinian boy without a leg or I saw, one sticks in my head, there was a little girl, like 11, 12, crying because her parents were both killed. I ache for that. But on the news reports, they never mentioned that so much of the time Hamas used the Palestinian

people as human shields. And so, when these protesters come and accuse Israel of genocide, I say, what about Hamas? They don't even want to talk about Hamas. Wait, one final thing. This is very important. Jewish people were subject, at least in my judgment, to the worst genocide ever. I put in the book, on the day they got Kiev, the Nazis asked 33,000 Jews to line up by a trench, strip naked, and they shot them all dead. Every day, Auschwitz killed 20,000 people. My family was killed from a

place called Chortkiv in Western Ukraine. And this was vicious and horrible. And it is vicious of the opponents to call it genocide. Criticize it for sure. Say Israel went too far, for sure. And you know what it does? It increases anti-Semitism because they're making Israel and the Jewish people look like monsters, which they are not. I can see how passionate you feel about this issue. You know, my great-grandmother was the wife of a well-known scholar in Chordkief. The Nazis rolled in in 1941 and said to the Jewish people of Chordkief, gather in the

town square. And then my great-grandmother, who had a house on the town square, they said, your greater family should come to the porch. About 35 people from age 85 to 3 months came to the porch. The Nazis in front of all the Jews in Chordkiew said, you're coming with us. She said, we're not moving. They machine-gunned every one of them down. I was in China on the night of October 7th, and the Israeli ambassador came in and told

me what happened in the kibbutz of Be'arie. And they took like a hundred from the elderly to the children on a stage and shot them all dead. So, yes, it's very emotional. And to almost all Jewish people, we all have relatives and we know about this has happened. Again, genocide is a vicious, vicious word to use. I will say it's a word that a UN special committee has used. Please, the UN has been anti-Israel, anti-Semitically against Israel, double standard. Moynihan

was my idol. He became famous when in 1976 they tried to pass a resolution, Zionism is racism. To say that the Jewish people should not have a state when every other people should have a state is anti-Semitism, the old double standard, ipso facto. And the international organizations, I have no faith in them being fair. These same international organizations, when horrible things go in in Darfur or China or wherever, they look the other way. I'm curious how you think about how protests then should be addressed, considering the context of what you just said. The Trump administration just announced they're pulling $400 million in funding from Columbia

University, giving the reason as, quote, relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment. I'm wondering what you make of that. Columbia did not do enough. I criticized them. And believe me, I believe in free speech. I believe in the right to protest. As you read in my book, I started my career protesting the Vietnam War. I say to some people, if I were your age, you know,

the younger people protesting, I'd be protesting something or other. So I get that. And I love it. And it's about America. Protest. But when it's shades over to violence and anti-Semitism, the colleges had to do something and a lot of them didn't do enough. They shrugged their shoulders, looked the other way, et cetera, Columbia among them. Okay. So what did they do? They took away $400 million. I'm trying to find out where that $400 million, what they took away. Are they taking away money from cancer research at Columbia, you know, at New York Presbyterian, which is part of Columbia, or Alzheimer's, which are doing good things.

What is the $400 million? It could be hurting all students, students who go there who have nothing to do with the protests, students who might have protested peacefully, or Jewish students who were victims of some of those protests. So I think we have to see, my worry is that this 400 million was just done in typical Trump fashion indiscriminately without looking at its effect. And what do you make of what happened over the weekend when ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate who is Palestinian, an activist and a green card holder, who was

one of the few participants in last year's campus protests to identify himself publicly. And apparently Trump has made good on his campaign pledge and is set to deport him because of his participation. Look, I don't know all the details yet. They're trying to come out and there'll be a court case which will determine it. If he broke the law, he should be deported. If he didn't break the law and just peacefully protested, he should not be deported. It's plain and simple.

What does breaking the law mean to you in this context? You know, it's a legal issue and it's what are Colombia's rules and what does it mean breaking them and what are the legal rules about... What did he do? I don't know what the charge against him is. So it's a little premature to make a decision Except if he didn't break the law, he should not be deported if he broke the law He should that sounds easy But when we're talking about the right to protest which you were a part of Breaking the law not breaking the law those things can be weaponized for political purposes

We still have we can arrest political protesters put them in prison, but they're actually taking part in what is their constitutionally protected right. Well, if they're just protesting and they're arrested, they shouldn't be arrested for protesting as long as they go by the rules. Look, I get protests in front of my house all the time, but they have to have a permit and they have to obey certain rules. There are rules. But the bottom line is we have courts and Khalil will go to court. And I have a lot of faith that the judge will give a fair ruling. It's not the Trump administration.

It's an independent federal judge. I want to ask about your own state, which has been seen as a bit of a bellwether these days for some of the political currents in the country. As you know, this past election, Trump improved on his 2020 numbers by six points in New York State, including a seven-point shift in New York City. What do you make of that drift? I think that there is a feeling in New York on certain issues that New York is not doing a good enough job.

Crime, now crime is actually lower, but I talk to lots of people that go on the subway and almost inevitably there's someone there who's not hurting people but disruptive and frightening them because they read in the paper that some people were hurt, you know, the pushing of people onto the tracks. And so I think that, above all, I think that influenced New Yorkers. New Yorkers are willing to put up with a lot to live in New York, but they want to be safe. And I think that's the number one reason we lost a percentage vote. Danielle Pletka Throughout your career, you've talked about this fictional couple. Yes, the Bailey's.

The Bailey's, Joe and Eileen. And you think of them as sort of your representative voter constituent. You said the Bailey's voted for Trump in 2016. They split Trump-Biden in 2020. I'm wondering who they voted for in 2024. Probably voted for Trump. Probably voted for Trump. But if you ask them why,

I think they'd say, above all crime, Long Island, you know, I think they'd say that. So what do you got to do to get them back? Well, I think there are real efforts being made by the city and state to reduce the level of crime. It's got to be more. I mean, little things- But there's some cultural issues, aren't there? I mean, there's also- There are some, but less so in New York, less so in New York. When I used to advise candidates who were running for mayor, you know, Democratic candidate, I'd say, if you can assure New Yorkers they're going to be safe, it'll almost ensure your election because on all the other

issues New Yorkers are Democrats. Well, it brings me to Mayor Eric Adams, the embattled mayor of New York City. He was indicted last year on federal charges of bribery and fraud among other things. February the Trump administration directed prosecutors to dismiss the charges against him in an apparent quit pro quo leading to these extraordinary series of resignations at the Justice Department and the US Attorney's Office. Do you think Eric Adams should resign?

I'm not getting into the mayoral race. I know you're going to ask questions about the characters in the mayoral race. I am. But I have had a tradition that has served me well. Don't mix in in primaries in New York. I haven't. And this will be interpreted as mixing in in the primary. So I'm not going to answer questions about people running. But it's about a sitting mayor. Well, but Eric Adams is a sitting mayor. So this isn't about a primary.

This is about someone who is going through very serious allegations against him and the Trump administration getting involved in that. I get it. I understand it. And it's your home state. But if we weren't close to a primary, I might give you another opinion, but I'm not going to give you an opinion on that. All right.

Let me ask you this about Andrew Cuomo. Just in this way, he obviously is another very controversial figure in democratic politics in your state, and he recently entered the New York City mayoral race. So it brings up a philosophical question about his candidacy, which is not really about him, but the kind of politician that he is. You're not quitting. No. Because I think there's a wider issue here, which is he's pulling far ahead of the rest

of the pack at this point. And I wonder what you think his popularity says about what kind of Democrat voters can get behind right now. I mean, do Democrats need to run candidates that are more like Trump? Let's see what happens in the election. That's all I'm going to say in the primary. All right. Look, I think, look, without characterizing any of the candidates. Yeah, I don't I think that Safety is the biggest issue. I think the other issues and I don't think

New Yorkers are anti-immigrant, you know, I mean people may disagree with what how how things were handled initially I don't think New Yorkers are Of the view that let the very wealthy succeed and everybody else will succeed. I don't think you need candidates like Trump. In fact, I think Trump will be the candidates who support Trump in the next election, the gubernatorial in 2026. There's none in a Democratic primary, so we can't talk about the city, are going to lose because of Trump's support.

Donald Trump will be a detriment to candidates who have embraced him. They will have to embrace him because the Republican primary and their plutocracy is so powerful in this party, but it will not serve them well. It'll serve them poorly. You know, I've heard you and I've heard other Democratic leaders talk about the next election as if it's just going to be another election like any other election, but my question is There has been all of this

discussion about Trump arguing in the end of democracy. We have seen all these measures being taken by the Trump administration You know that are pushing back these measures being taken by the Trump administration, that are pushing back democratic norms in this country. So I am wondering if you think it is going to be just business as usual. I worry about this. This is a very serious,

when I say we'll win the election, I'm assuming democracy stays, but that we have to fight to make sure that happens. Let me just say a few things. I am worried about that. I think that Trump is destroying norms that have preserved our democracy for probably for centuries, certainly for decades, and he's destroying them and he

doesn't care. What is our best bulwark? It's the courts. And one of the things which is proving very, very good is we put in 235 new judges and they're now hearing so many of the cases that attorneys general, private citizens, unions, and others are bringing. We've had a preliminary success in that we filed 100 cases. We have won with TROs, usually not a final determination, temporary restraining order, about 87% of them. They have had just this week, a judge threw out the cuts to NIH. Are they going to respect those court orders? That is the $64,000. So let us say the courts uphold this. And one of the people who will

determine that more than any other is probably John Roberts, who is very conservative, far to the right for my taste. I didn't vote for him. But I do believe beliefs in the courts in terms of somewhat of their have to be obeyed and respected. And so I think even at the highest level, if you get the Supreme Court upholding the law, it will matter. What if Trump keeps going? That's the question everybody's asking. And I worry about this. I think a lot. I wake up sometimes once at two, three in the morning

thinking about this. I believe this, and it's a little bit in concert with what I've said to you before. I believe Republican senators on this issue will stand up. I've talked to some of them. About five or six have said publicly they will work to uphold the courts and to uphold the law if Trump tries to break it. And we can do that legislatively if we have to. That's my hope. That's what we got to work towards. And I think there's a decent chance that that would happen, particularly if Trump, three months from now,

is less popular. And then if Trump goes to the highest level and violates all the court orders, I will work really hard to get a republic. This is the one place above all where a Republican colleague should and have to stand up to him. I've covered a lot of countries going through democratic backsliding all over

the world, and it's a very difficult process to roll back once it is underway. And I've seen how often opposition parties fail to recognize until it's too late that they might have been made irrelevant. And I wonder if you think that the Democratic Party might be making that mistake. No. I think we're fighting very hard on every front. And initially, we've had some successes, but we got to keep at it and we got to be open to new suggestions and ways to do it.

But I think what we're doing is working. So far. Following that conversation, it was a tumultuous week in D.C. Schumer voted with Republicans for a federal spending bill to the surprise and widespread fury of his own party. After the break, I call him back to ask about it. Hi, Senator Schumer. Lulu, nice to talk to you again. Senator, a lot has happened since we spoke on Monday, and you've been at the center of most of it.

In our first conversation, you said you had a plan going forward to fight Republicans, but then only a few days later, it looks like your own party is in a civil war. Do you think that you made the wrong choice? Let me, Lulu, say this. I don't. I think it was a very, very difficult decision between two bad options, a partisan Republican CR and a shutdown that Musk and Trump wanted. For me, the shutdown of the government would just be devastating and far worse than the Republican CR.

Let me explain. A shutdown would shut down all government agencies and it would solely be up to Trump and Doge and Musk what to open again, because they could determine what was essential. So their goal of shutting down, of decimating the whole federal government of cutting agency after agency, after agency would occur under a shutdown. It would be devastating. Two days from now on a shutdown, they could say, well, snap, food stamps

for kids is not essential. It's gone. All veterans offices in rural areas are gone. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, they is not essential. It's gone. All veterans offices in rural areas are gone. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, they're not essential. We're cutting them back. So it'd be horrible. The damage they can do under a shutdown

is much worse than any other damage that they could do. Isn't this just an- It can last for, wait, let me just finish, Lulu. It can last forever. There is no off ramp. One of the Republican senators told us we go to a shutdown, which is going to be there for six months, nine months a year. And by then their goal of destroying the federal government would be gone. And finally, one final point here, and that is that right now

under the present law or under the CR, you can go to court and contest an executive order to shut something down. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power. In conclusion, I knew this would be an unpopular decision. I knew that, I know politics, but I felt so strongly as a leader that I couldn't let this happen because weeks and months from now things would be far worse than they even are today that I had to do

what I had to do. Can I just ask you about the tactic here? Because the choice that you made to vote with the Republicans, isn't that an argument to get rid of the filibuster? You wanted to keep it when you were in the majority, but if you're not going to use it in the minority, then what's the point of it? The point here, again, I'll repeat what I said, would be how devastating a shutdown

would be. Just think a month from now, if half the federal workers in every agency were laid off. But I'm asking about the use of the filibuster. No, but the bottom line is, if we would have, if the filibuster would have been used and the government shut down, the devastation would be terrible. Terrible.

You see, we've had government shutdowns before, but never against such nihilists, such anti-government fanatics as Trump, Doge, Musk. They've given us a playbook. By the way, Vought already has written what he wants to shut down if he got a shutdown. Trump wanted a shutdown. Musk wanted a shutdown. Ask yourself why. When I spoke to you earlier, I asked you if you were the right leader for the second Trump

term and you made the case that you were. And you said, and I'm quoting you here, I'm sort of like an orchestra leader. But with this vote, it seems you've lost the confidence of many of your players. I mean, it is from Nancy Pelosi to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have expressed genuine fury at this. Well, let me just say, look, in my caucus, for instance, I knew there would be divisions. There are. But we have respect for one another. We each respect that each of us has made the decision because we thought it was right.

And we are all unified in going after Trump. What I mentioned to you in the earlier broadcast, making sure people know. But it's how you go after Trump. Go ahead. The complaints are about precisely your leadership. I mean, there has been reporting that you were not in regular touch with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries leading up to your decision, that it took many in your caucus by surprise, that there didn't seem to be a plan.

That is what more than anything seems to be the case that many in your caucus are making against how this was handled. what more than anything seems to be the case that many in your caucus are making against how this was handled. Okay, for weeks and months, we had said a shutdown is awful. And by the way, every Democrat, no matter how they voted, wanted to make sure there was no shutdown. We thought there could be a bipartisan plan. And I talked to Hakeem regularly during this period, we didn't think that Johnson could get all his votes. He did. When it came to the Senate on Tuesday, our hope was that Patty Murray could negotiate with the Republican senators and get that 30 day CR, a bipartisan

plan. She couldn't. So we were faced with two awful choices. The choice has been made, but I think the whole Democratic Party is united on what I mentioned in the earlier broadcast, showing how bad Trump is in every way, organizing. We're organizing this week and next week in Republican districts. We're having rallies to not give tax breaks to millionaires, and we're succeeding. We're succeeding, Lulu. We're bringing his numbers down. Well, Hakeem Jeffries seemed to throw you under the bus on Friday. He was asked directly if he thought you should be replaced as leader,

and he very pointedly refused to answer that question. Have you spoken to Jeffries since the vote? I speak to Jeffries regularly. Have you spoken to him since the vote? And he and I have a good relationship. We speak all the time. But have you spoken since the vote? And I want to say this. Have you spoken since the vote?

No, we haven't spoken since the vote, but we speak all the time. We speak regularly and we have a good close relationship. Senator, you were crucial in getting President Joe Biden to step down. Do you think it's time for you to do the same? Let me say this. There is spirited disagreements on which was the right vote. But as I said, I think we have mutual respect in our caucus, and we are all united, no matter how people voted on this vote, to continue fighting Trump. We are a united and strong caucus fighting against Trump.

We disagreed on this issue, but that doesn't diminish in any way how we're going to fight every step of the way against Trump. And I believe that we're going to have some real successes. Okay. There is reporting that some Democrats are now privately urging Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to consider a primary run against you. It now seems likely that she or someone else

will primary you in New York in 2028. Do you think the base has your back after this? Because ultimately, they'll decide who becomes New York's next senator. Yeah, that's a long time away. I am focused on bringing Trump's numbers down, his popularity down, exposing what he has done to America and what he will do. That's my focus right now.

And that's what I'm focusing on 24-7. It's, you know, three years from now is a long way to speculate. I believe that my hard work against Trump will pay off. Senator Schumer, thank you so much for talking to me on a Saturday. Nice to talk to you, Lulu. Bye bye. That's Senator Chuck Schumer. His book is called Anti-Semitism in America, a warning. It's publishing on March 18th.

Since our first conversation, Senator Schumer has released a statement about Mahmoud Khalil, writing that if the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security can't show that there are criminal charges against Khalil, they are violating the First Amendment and should let him go. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabel Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano. Photography by Philip Montgomery. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew and Wyatt Orm is our producer.

Our executive producer is Alison Benedict Special thanks to Reid Epstein, Afim Shapiro, Rory Walsh, Renan Barelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddie Masiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schuman and Sam Dolnick. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash the interview. And you can email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com. Next week, David talks to Dr. Lindsay Gibson, author of the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, which has gone viral on social media. A lot of people have a lot of problem when they first hear that idea about their parent. They begin to hedge and balk at calling their parent that because they're just so accustomed

to giving their parents the benefit of the doubt. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro and this is the Interview from the New York Times.