Schumer Redux

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Jordain Carney at POLITICO:

Chuck Schumer has served as a punching bag for angry Democrats for more than a year — taking flak on everything from his 2026 recruiting to his handling of government funding talks.

But with about five months until the midterm elections, the Senate minority leader is gently starting to punch back — pointing out how some of his bets are paying off as his party
moves within striking distance of taking back the majority in November.

“There’s no victory lap to take in June,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office suite.


But he ticked through moves he oversaw in the past year — from leading opposition to GOP safety-net cuts to picking shutdown fights over health care and immigration enforcement funding and orchestrating national intervention in several Senate primaries — that he argued have strengthened Democrats’ hand for the midterms and beyond.

“We made a lot of strategic decisions that got us to this place — it didn’t happen by accident,” Schumer said. “I knew from the beginning that if we recruited strong candidates, found paths to victory, focused on the issues the American people cared about, and forced … the Republicans, to carry Trump’s water, we’d be in much better shape, and that has happened.”

The Thumpin' Redux? 2006 and 2026 Parallels

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Theodoric Meyer at WP:

“A year ago, no one thought we had a chance to take back the Senate,” Schumer said. “I was one of the very few. And I laid out a plan which is now working.”

For months, Democrats have been far more bullish about retaking the House, which requires flipping only a few seats. But Trump’s unpopularity has made Republicans in both chambers appear more vulnerable.

Thirty-seven percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. Sixty-two percent disapprove, the highest level of either of Trump’s terms. Trump’s approval rating was even lower for his handling of the economy and inflation, which both parties view as crucial to the midterms.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found Trump faring even worse: 34 percent of Americans approved of his performance, and 64 percent disapproved.

Schumer said the political environment feels similar to 2006, when Democrats capitalized on discontent with the Iraq War in President George W. Bush’s second term to pick up six Senate seats and flipped the chamber against the odds.

“There’s a very unpopular president, there’s a war on, and it’s a really hard Senate map,” J.B. Poersch, who runs Senate Majority PAC, the flagship Democratic super PAC in Senate races, said in an interview. “Those are all similarities to ’06. We won in a scenario where we weren’t supposed to win [in 2006] because the map was so challenging — and this one’s challenging, too.”

Leaders Under Fire From Their Parties

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Robert Birsel at Newsweek:

Seven Democratic senators and one Democrat-aligned independent voted with Republicans on Sunday to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the deal, which failed to address the key Democratic demand of extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expiring on January 1.

Schumer was being criticized for failing to get Democrats to fall into line, underscoring growing tensions within the party over legislative strategy and leadership as it prepares for the run-up to midterm elections next year.

Alexander Willis at Raw Story:

An Arizona Democrat who was elected to Congress in September but still hasn’t been sworn into office is gaining new support from Republican lawmakers as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces growing scrutiny over an alleged attempt to block the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“We're all hoping that Speaker Johnson is going to read the tea leaves and get to work, swear me in so we don't have to go seek judicial support in him doing his job, but that's where we are,” Adelita Grijalva, who won her election on Sept. 23 and has since launched a lawsuit to force her swearing in, told MSNBC Saturday.

Grijalva and others have accused Johnson of delaying her swearing in to avoid the passage of a discharge petition that would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The petition, which currently has 217 signatures, needs 218 signatures to force the House to vote on the matter — and Grijalva has pledged to sign it.

Grijalva told MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that a growing number of Republican lawmakers have joined her cause, however, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who told CNN recently that Grijalva “should be sworn in.”

 

Trump's Solution to Funding Stalemate: Post Racist Video

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.

Kit Maher at CNN:

As the US government barrels toward a shutdown, President Donald Trump shared a racist video on social media, which appears to be AI-generated, depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice.

Jeffries and Schumer met with Trump just hours before at the White House to discuss the looming shutdown.

In the video, Schumer is depicted as arguing for undocumented immigrants to get “free healthcare” because minority voters hate Democrats and they could use the votes in the next election.

As mariachi music plays in the background of the video, the fake Schumer voice says, “There’s no way to sugar coat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore.”

This is real. pic.twitter.com/MSANoEbFCP

— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) September 30, 2025

Schumer Agonistes

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. 

Lulu Garcia-Navarro at NYT:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing the biggest revolt from Democrats in years, but in a conversation with The Interview after his crucial vote supporting a Republican federal spending bill this past week, he tried to brush off questions about whether he should step aside. Democratic officials appeared stunned when Schumer did an about-face on the spending bill, arguing that the choice was the lesser of two evils. Schumer defended his decision in the second part of our wide-ranging interview, even as questions over his leadership by senior party officials continued.

...

Schumer said that he made a “very, very difficult” decision to support the Republican bill in order to avert a government shutdown that, he said, President Trump and Elon Musk wanted. He called Trump and Musk “anti-government fanatics” and “nihilists.”

They want to shutter “agency after agency,” he said, which would create a situation far worse than the Republican bill. He continued:

Two days from now in a shutdown, they could say, well, food stamps for kids 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 — 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, it’s 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 C.R., you can go to court and contest an executive order to shut something down. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power.

On 3/11, Jake Lahut Leah Feiger Vittoria Elliott reported at Wired:

As President Donald Trump has been trying to keep House Republicans in line over a continuing resolution to keep the government open through the fall, Elon Musk has expressed a desire for a government shutdown, four sources familiar with his position tell WIRED.

Sources also tell WIRED that Musk has wanted a government shutdown—an aim that runs contrary to the White House’s stated desire to avoid one—in part because it would potentially make it easier to eliminate the jobs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, essentially achieving a permanent shutdown. The sources, whom WIRED has granted anonymity, specifically asked to be described generically because information about Musk’s support for a shutdown is closely held.

“A shutdown has been his preference,” says one Republican familiar with the situation, referring to Musk. “I think he’s boxed in there by the president. I think it would be really hard for him to get around that.”

A second Republican who had heard about Musk’s desire for a government shutdown tells WIRED that the billionaire’s goal is for the continuing resolution—a spending bill to temporarily fund the government—to tank, if only to achieve a brief government shutdown.

“You know none of this is about saving money, right?” says a third Republican familiar with the behind-the-scenes push from Musk. “It’s all about destroying a liberal power base.”

 

 

Schumer Gave Biden the Final Push

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses Biden's withdrawal from the race.

Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater at NYT:

It was July 13, 2024, a humid summer afternoon just before four o’clock, and Mr. Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, was about to make a blunt case to Mr. Biden that he needed to drop his bid for a second term.

If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president, no more than five would say he should continue running. Mr. Biden’s own pollsters assessed that he had about a 5 percent chance of prevailing against Donald J. Trump, Mr. Schumer would tell him — information that was apparently news to the president. And if the president refused to step aside, the senator would argue, the consequences for Democrats and Mr. Biden’s own legacy after a half-century of public service would be catastrophic.

“If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window,” Mr. Schumer said. “But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”

He would end with a directive. “If I were you,” Mr. Schumer said, “I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.”

The Democratic Party Decides

 Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

The Party Decides held that party elites largely determine presidential nominations.  That theory stopped working for the GOP in 2016.  But it still works on the Democratic side. 

Carl Hulse at NYT:

The effort by Mr. Schumer and Senate Democrats to persuade Mr. Biden to step aside was a more pivotal factor than previously known in bringing about the president’s exit from the race, as he found himself with scant support in the chamber that had been his political home for 36 years.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, who appeared on television hinting at her concerns about Mr. Biden and privately made the case that he could not win, has widely been credited as the chief architect of the quiet but intense drive to sideline the president. But behind the scenes, Mr. Schumer and his colleagues — along with Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, and former President Barack Obama — were also playing a powerful role.

Mr. Schumer was spurred to action after it became abundantly clear that Senate Democrats, Mr. Biden’s closest political allies on Capitol Hill, believed that he was putting them and his legacy at risk should he stay in the race against former President Donald J. Trump, an assessment that helped move the president to his ultimate choice.

The first glimmers of discontent emerged at Senate Democrats’ weekly Tuesday luncheon in early July, their first opportunity since the late-June debate debacle to assemble and candidly share their views. They were not reticent. Multiple senators were up in arms about the president’s showing and demeanor in the face-off with Mr. Trump. Of about a dozen Democrats who spoke, attendees counted just three who were supportive of the president remaining a candidate.

“It knocked my socks off how upset and angry people were, how the overwhelming majority got up and spoke really strongly,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview.

This account is based on multiple interviews with those with firsthand knowledge of the events, most of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss details of what are typically confidential meetings.

The Tuesday luncheon came the day after Mr. Biden had released a letter to members of Congress insisting that he would stay in the race and expressing frustration with “elites” who were calling for him to step aside. The missive landed like a bomb on Capitol Hill and fueled a sense of panic at Democrats’ weekly confab in the Senate, where two of the party’s most endangered incumbents — Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana — said they could not survive with Mr. Biden on the ballot.

Dump-Biden Momentum?

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

After Biden's bad debate performance last week, there has been off-the-record talk about replacing him on the Democratic ticket. Some Democrats have gone on the record, but some are supporting him.

Biden has COVID and is not looking robust:

A fragile-looking Biden was spotted slowly walking down the steps of Air Force One following his Covid diagnosis. pic.twitter.com/GcydFDAaBn

— New York Post (@nypost) July 18, 2024

Mike Allen at Axios:

In at least one conversation since the debate, Pelosi conveyed to Biden and his campaign the political peril that Democrats face if he remains atop the ticket.

Schumer had a "blunt one-on-one conversation" with Biden on Saturday, in which Schumer "forcefully made the case that it would be best if Biden bowed out of the race," ABC News' Jon Karl reported.

The intrigue: Those interventions came last week, but didn't leak out until yesterday.Late last night, The New York Times reported that Biden "has become more receptive" to hearing arguments about why he should drop out — even asking questions about how Vice President Harris could win.

The first signs of yesterday's runaway rebellion came via a statement from Rep. Adam Schiff, a top Pelosi ally poised to be the next senator from California, calling for Biden to drop out.Then came news the Democratic National Committee is delaying its plan to nominate Biden in a virtual roll call weeks before the Aug. 19 convention, following backlash from rank-and-file Democrats who want more time to address concerns about the president's age.

...

 Amid weeks of bad polling for Biden, AP-NORC dropped this bomb: 65% of Democrats believe the president should withdraw from the race and let the party pick a new nominee.The financial path forward will also be one of the key considerations Biden ponders as he remains isolated — both politically and physically.

Messaging Votes in the House and Senate

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  House and Senate leaders try to influence these elections by staging messaging votes, which usually do not result in laws.

Tina Nguyen at Puck:

Perpetually embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson appears to have found an unlikely unifying message on one of the most polarizing issues of our time: Israel’s war in Gaza. In recent weeks, Johnson has pushed a flurry of legislation aimed at bolstering support for Israel while combating antisemitism, including non-binding resolutions as well as a bill outlining prosecutable antisemitic hate crimes. Last month, of course, Johnson also went to Columbia University, the epicenter of the debate over antisemitic speech on college campuses. He followed up that culture war pilgrimage by empowering multiple congressional committees to investigate antisemitism in academic institutions across the country.

Johnson, according to those close to him, hasn’t launched this campaign cynically. A pedigreed member of the Christian Right, Johnson has long been a righteous believer in the concept that defending Israel and the Jewish people is a mandate from God, as I’ve written about recently. But there’s no question that Johnson’s pro-Israel crusade has also had the added benefit of putting his enemies on defense, both on the left and on the right.

House Democrats, for example, are consistently voting against the antisemitism bills, whether because of a perceived First Amendment issue, or language that equates any criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government with antisemitism. Nevertheless, one senior Democratic aide told me he’s been working overtime to reassure constituents that yes, his boss does support Israel’s right to exist. “What was it Barney Frank said?” he asked rhetorically. “If you have to explain yourself, you’re losing.”

On the G.O.P. side, Johnson’s Israel advocacy has also helped box out the hardliners gunning for his job, such as far-right Christian nationalist Marjorie Taylor Greene (who voted against an antisemitism bill because she was worried it would prevent Christians from saying that Jews killed Jesus) and Paul Gosar, who had signed on to Greene’s attempt to vacate Johnson (and has an unfortunate habit of hiring people fond of antisemitic conspiracy theories). Other Johnson antagonists who have since found themselves on the wrong side of AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Committee, which are deploying many tens of millions of dollars this cycle, include Bob Good and Thomas Massie.

Carl Hulse at NYT:

In losing big votes, Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, believes his party stands to win.

Despite certain defeat, Mr. Schumer has scheduled a floor vote for Thursday on a bipartisan border security measure that collapsed almost as soon as it was made public in February, when Donald J. Trump torpedoed it as “lunacy” and “a gift to Democrats.”

Mr. Schumer sees his maneuver as a way to remind voters upset about chaos at the southern border that it is Republicans who are blocking a solution, even after they reached a deal with Democrats that could solve the problem. He insists that the potential political benefits to Democratic candidates in tough races in Ohio, Montana and elsewhere are merely a bonus.

“It’s good for the country,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview, about the legislation. “But obviously, look, if it has electoral consequences, so be it.”

With most of the heavy legislative lifting done for the year and the election that will decide control of Congress fast approaching, Senate Democrats are turning to the “electoral consequences” part of their agenda, and messaging votes will be a regular feature. Mr. Schumer, who has long played a central role in mapping his party’s political strategy, has a two-pronged plan that will unfold in the coming weeks with a focus on abortion rights and border security.

“In the next two months,” Mr. Schumer said, “we have a sword and shield.”

Democratic Senate Prospects

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

Sahil Kapur at NBC:

Trump's struggles in historically Republican states, like Arizona and Georgia, are creating collateral damage for his party's Senate candidates. Public skepticism of Trump's handling of the pandemic, and a Biden's expanding lead since the nationwide backlash to George Floyd's death, has put many GOP Senate candidates in a difficult position. They're forced to navigate a polarizing president whose ardent supporters they cannot afford to alienate and whose skeptics they'll likely need to attract to win.

Democrats currently have 47 seats — four short of an outright majority and three shy of a controlling number should Biden win as his vice president could cast any tie-breaking votes. They’re more likely than not to lose one seat in Alabama, held by Sen. Doug Jones, but have lots of pickup opportunities. GOP-held seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina are rated “toss up” by the Cook Political Report.

Republicans are defending another five seats — in Iowa, Kansas, Montana and two in Georgia — that are in play but lean GOP, while Democrats are defending a seat in Michigan, where they’re favored. Of the 11 most competitive seats, Republicans are defending nine and Democrats two.

Alex Thompson and James Arkin at Politico:

The left wing has been wiped out in Senate primaries or failed to recruit at all in states across the map this year, leaving a slate of centrist candidates more in the ideological mold of Joe Biden than Bernie Sanders. Liberal insurgents on the ballot over the coming weeks in states like Kentucky and Colorado aren't favored to fare any better, failing to gain significant traction thus far against more moderate favorites.
...

The failure of left-wing candidates in their primaries has prompted soul-searching among many progressive leaders who now believe that they neglected the task of organizing and building a downballot bench as they were caught up in the thrall of Sanders’ candidacy. It is also a victory for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited most of the primary victors, viewing them as more likely to win general elections.

“We have seen that the left doesn’t really have the coordinated infrastructure to compete on a statewide level,” acknowledged Evan Weber, the co-founder and political director of the climate group Sunrise Movement, which is backing underdog candidates in Senate primaries this month in Kentucky and Colorado.

“Schumer works really hard to get a candidate and then effectively pushes others to coalesce behind them,” said Sean McElwee, the co-founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress.... “Everyone wants the shitposters. No one wants the legislators,” said McElwee, who believes the left has failed in its recruitment strategy.

Still, some take heart that at least many of the candidates in swing states are more liberal than their counterparts just a decade ago. Every Senate candidate in a major race, from Mark Kelly in Arizona to Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, supports a public option to compete with private health insurance plans. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock supports repealing the Senate filibuster so that legislation can pass with a simple majority.

The Democrats' Generational Factions

In Defying the Odds, we discuss leftward drift of the Democratic Party.  The update -- recently published -- includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Ryan Grim at WP:

The way the older and younger House members think about and engage with the Republican Party may be the starkest divide between them. Democratic leaders like Pelosi, Joe Biden, Steny Hoyer and Chuck Schumer were shaped by their traumatic political coming-of-age during the breakup of the New Deal coalition and the rise of Ronald Reagan — and the backlash that swept Democrats so thoroughly from power nearly 40 years ago. They’ve spent the rest of their lives flinching at the sight of voters. When these leaders plead for their party to stay in the middle, they’re crouching into the defensive posture they’ve been used to since November 1980, afraid that if they come across as harebrained liberals, voters will turn them out again.

The Ocasio-Cortezes of the world have witnessed the opposite: The way they see it, Democratic attempts to moderate and compromise have led to nothing but ruin. Republicans aren’t the ones to be afraid of. “The greatest threat to mankind is the cowardice of the Democratic Party,” [AOC spokesperson Corbin] Trent told me.

Chuck and Donny

Trump, Schumer, Pelosi ... and Rocky

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's background.

At The Hill, Lloyd Green examines Trump's surprise deal with Schumer and Pelosi:

Trump was a Schumer donor way before he decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015. According to the Federal Election Commission, Trump gave $9,000 to Schumer’s campaigns, Ivanka threw in $4,800, and Don Jr. and Eric each kicked in a cool $1,000. At the end of the day, that comes to nearly $16,000, a pretty good haul if you ask me.

But the bond between Trump and Schumer is more than just about both guys who grew up in New York City’s outer boroughs, Queens and Brooklyn, respectively. Rather, it’s about cultural affinity and winning. In the case of Trump, Schumer and Pelosi, the two things go hand in hand.

As he points out, Trump is a thoroughly urban character who romped among white ethnics in the Northeastern primaries.  Like Schumer and Trump, Pelosi is as citified as you can get.  She represents San Francisco, and her father and brother were both mayors of Baltimore. This bond comes at a time when Trump's nominal party becomes less and less urban all the time.

Another passage:

For Trump, Schumer and Pelosi, all this was a no-brainer, at least this week. But for Republican legislators, it was a bitter pill. McConnell went out in front on the television cameras looking like he had been forced to eat a plate of broccoli, while Ryan was reportedly furious. Indeed, to add insult to injury, Ivanka walked in on her “daddy’s” meeting with the congressional leadership. Schumer may have been smiling, but the Republicans in the room were not.

In this respect, he resembles another New York Republican billionaire.  In 1982, Maurice Carroll reviewed Joseph Persico's book on Nelson Rockefeller:

New York State budget decisions were on the table at Pocantico Hills one day when Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller's 3-year-old son bounded in and climbed on his father's knee. The child babbled an interruption, and the Governor turned away from the senior state officials and gave his total attention to his little boy.

''Little Mark went on happily having his say,'' writes Joseph E. Persico, who was the Governor's speech writer, ''while his father responded and we waited. Nelson Rockefeller was passing along an unspoken lesson absorbed from his own father - 'These people work for us. Never mind their age, their position, they defer to you.' Thus are young princes bred.''

Regretting the Nuclear Option

Eugene Scott reports at CNN:

Sen. Chuck Schumer lamented Tuesday the Democrats' move to diminish the number of senators needed to confirm Cabinet picks from 60 votes to 51, because the new rule now hurts his party.

"I argued against it at the time. I said both for Supreme Court and in Cabinet should be 60 because on such important positions there should be some degree of bipartisanship," Schumer, a New York Democrat and the incoming Senate minority leader, told CNN's Dana Bash. "I won on Supreme Court, lost on Cabinet. But it's what we have to live with now."

In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other top Democrats became convinced GOP delaying tactics were crippling Washington. They triggered the so-called "nuclear option" which -- over the objections of Republicans -- lowered the threshold to overcome a filibuster from 60 to 51 votes.

"Wish it hadn't happened," Schumer said.

Now he tells us.

You Can Keep It, Senate Edition

Byron York writes about the "you can keep it" pledge:

How many Democrats made the promise? There's no comprehensive list of all of them, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office has compiled a list of 27 Democratic senators who pledged that Americans could keep their coverage under Obamacare. The list includes the entire Democratic leadership in the Senate as well as Democrats facing tough re-election races in 2014, like Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich, and Kay Hagan. Here is that list, compiled by McConnell's office:

SEN. HARRY REID (D-Nev.): “In fact, one of our core principles is that if you like the health care you have, you can keep it.” (Sen. Reid, Congressional Record, S.8642, 8/3/09)
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: “We believe — and we stand by this — if you like your current health insurance plan, you will be able to keep it, plain and simple, straightforward.” (Sen. Durbin, Congressional Record, S.6401, 6/10/09)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “If you like your insurance, you keep it.” (U.S. Senate, Finance Committee, Bill Mark-Up, 9/29/09 

... 

NRSC has video.  It is a glorious moment to be a Republican oppo guy.

The E-Word

In a conference call last week, reporters overheard Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) rehearsed budget talking points with party colleagues: “I always use the word ‘extreme.’ That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.” In prepared remarks yesterday, Majority Leader Reid stuck to the script:

• “The Tea Party is trying to push through its extreme social agenda…”
• “This is an extreme agenda that has no place in this bill.”
• “This isn’t the time – and we don’t have the time – to fight over the Tea Party’s extreme social agenda.”

Other Democrats have been following such talking points. Some recent examples from The Congressional Record (page numbers in parentheses):

• Sen. Pat Leahy (VT): House Republicans are “reacting to the ire of a minority of vocal, anti-government extremists” (p. S2225).
• Sen. Ben Cardin (MD): “We do not have to yield to the extremists on the Republican side in the House who do not want to see any compromise whatsoever” (S2246).
• Rep. Russ Carnahan (MO): “The Republican extreme cuts are not the solution” (H2336).
• Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): “I rise today because in a few short days this body will consider an extreme and devastating anti-choice bill” (H2337).
• Rep. James McGovern (MA): “That budget takes extreme, right-wing trickle-down economics to new levels” (H2343). “Mr. Speaker, it's time that the Republican Party does the right thing for its country and not just for the extremist wing of its party” (H2422).
• Rep. James Moran (VA): “Take up the Moran-Tester bill instead of this expression of ideological extremism that is dead on arrival in the Senate” (H2345).
• Rep. David Price (NC): “Republicans may be willing to risk a governmental shutdown to appease extremist elements, but we cannot allow our country to be held hostage to their radical agenda” (H2454).
• Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD) attacked “controversial cuts and ideologically extreme poison pills that the majority knows the nation doesn't want and the Senate and the President will not support.” (H2501).