CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert pressed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., from the left Thursday over his recent decision to support a Republican spending bill.
Some Democrats have called on Schumer to step down from his leadership role following his vote, suggesting he’s not fighting the Trump administration hard enough. Colbert, the left-wing host of “The Late Show” and a Democratic Party booster who once danced with Schumer in Central Park, repeatedly asked Schumer to explain his decision to upset progressives.
“On March 14, after months of the Democrats, desperate for the leadership of the party to exercise whatever limited power a minority party may have, you voted to advance the Republican-drafted continuing resolution that averted a government shutdown,” Colbert said.
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“A lot of people got mad at you,” he added.
“Before you explain, I’m sure very reasonably, why they should not be mad at you, can you put yourself in their shoes for a moment and try to understand why they are?” Colbert asked Schumer.
“People are angry,” Schumer said. “I’m angry because Donald Trump is doing such damage to America, to the working people of America.”
“But do you know why they’re mad at you?” Colbert said, pressing Schumer again to explain his decision.
“Well, they’re mad at me because of the way I voted,” Schumer responded. “And I knew that. I knew when I voted the way I did that a lot of people would be upset. But let me tell you why I did it.”
“The shutdown would have been 10 times worse than the CR,” the senator said, arguing that the Trump administration would gain additional leverage to shut down government agencies if he had not supported the Republican spending bill.
Schumer has defended his vote, saying that Social Security and other entitlement programs were most at risk from the Trump administration.
“Look, I’m not stepping down,” Schumer said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I knew that when I cast my vote against the government shutdown that there would be a lot of controversy.”
Schumer has repeatedly warned that the Trump administration would slash funding for SNAP, or food stamps and mass transit, as well as cut Medicaid “by 20, 30, 50, 80%.”
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.