Politics
Schumer Forced To Cancel Book Tour After Bruising Budget Battle With Trump
A lucrative new book tour by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been suspended after hosts were forced to call off his appearances out of fear that far-left protestors would disrupt the events.
Those well-founded concerns came in response to a growing chorus of online critics who accused the Democratic leader of selling out by acquiescing to Republicans’ continuing resolution keeping the federal government open for another six months. Schumer on Friday said he would vote to pass the CR and that a shutdown would be “far worse.”
“I know a lot of members didn’t like the CR — the government shutdown would be far worse. A government shutdown gives Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE almost complete power … to close down because they can decide what is an essential service,” Schumer told CNN.
“My job as leader is to lead the party,” he added. “And if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it.”
Progressive activists immediately began mobilizing to disrupt Schumer’s tour promoting “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” in which he writes that a troubling rise in antisemitism across America portends a deeper crisis of identity politics. Schumer, who is Jewish, vocally denounced antisemitic elements of anti-Israel campus protests last year but has decried President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport key protest leaders as “un-American.”
Tour stops were planned for Baltimore, New York City, D.C., and Philadelphia, according to Axios.
A spokesman for Schumer told New York Times reporter Annie Karni, “Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.”
Much of the organizing appears to have taken place on Reddit, a progressive bastion of online discussion, where thousands flocked to a thread encouraging protests at Schumer’s upcoming book signings. Some of the top-rated comments are especially sharp criticisms of the New York Democrat.
“It’s rich that a man who wrote a book on antisemitism just handed the country over to Nazis,” one user wrote. Another encouraged attendees to make a sign reading “Chuck the Cuck.”
Even U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), a fellow Brooklynite, is not standing by Schumer. He deflected multiple times when asked if Schumer should still remain the top Senate Democrat while members of the House Progressive Caucus and “Squad” have privately begun encouraging Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to run against Schumer in next year’s Democratic primary.
Brendan Buck, a top advisor to Republican former House Majority Leaders John Boehner (R-OH) and Paul Ryan (R-WI), wrote in an op-ed on Monday that Schumer was caught between a rock and a hard place, straddling the achievable and what his party’s base found unacceptable. Democrats, he wrote, did not understand the political danger they would have found themselves in if they initiated a shutdown.
“Mr. Schumer understood this and spared the country and his party from the damage. It is dangerous territory for members of Congress to try to convince their base — or themselves — that they have more power than they do. At some point the bill comes due,” Buck wrote.
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