Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reportedly not only had zero interest in finding an off-ramp for reopening the government, but actively worked behind the scenes to make sure it extended until at least November.
RedState has called it the Schumer Shutdown, and that couldn’t have been more accurate, given the Democrat leader reportedly worked to keep some in his caucus from terminating the shutdown when they got restless two weeks into the shutdown that started on October 1, according to an Axios report.
SCOOP: Schumer privately fought to extend government shutdown https://t.co/Poeezwkg9E
— Axios (@axios) November 10, 2025
READ MORE: Bipartisan Senate Deal to End the Shutdown Passes, Heads to the House
RELATED: It Begins: Top Democrat Calls on Chuck Schumer to Be Replaced After Shutdown Surrender
The report read:
Two weeks into the shutdown, a group of moderates told Schumer they were ready to vote to open the government, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.
It’s unclear if that group was big enough to end the shutdown. But Schumer persuaded the moderates to hold out until at least the beginning of November, when open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act began.
In mid-October, he made it clear to his entire caucus that he was likely to come out against the emerging bipartisan deal that a group of moderate senators were pushing.
Speaking to one of those senators, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said she and several colleagues didn’t want to keep the government closed and notified Schumer of their plans to find a compromise.
It read:
“We let him know what we were doing,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who led the bipartisan talks to find a compromise.
Asked if she ever felt that Schumer was working against her compromise package, Shaheen declined to comment.
“I don’t really want to get into the private discussions we had,” she told reporters Monday afternoon.
SEE: ‘Stupid Should Hurt More’: Sen. Kennedy’s Savage Response to Schumer Over Latest Shutdown Proposal
ALSO: New Deal Emerges to End the Schumer Shutdown, White House Signals Support
As my RedState colleague Joe Cunningham reported, by Sunday, this group of Democrat senators could see the writing on the wall with all the chaos at American airports due to the shortage of air traffic controllers (ATCs) and the ongoing termination of SNAP benefits.
In the end, eight senators decided that the Democrats’ plan wasn’t working and signaled they would vote with Republicans to advance a deal that presumably would end the shutdown.
Cunningham wrote about the details of the deal to get the government open:
In exchange for their support of a bill to reopen the federal government, the eight Democrats were promised a future vote on continued government subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Those subsidies have been at the heart of the Democrats’ overall objection to the clean continuing resolution [CR] passed through the House but stuck in the Senate since September.
Also a part of the deal is reversing mass firings from the federal government that were central to the [President Donald] Trump administration’s stated goals of shrinking the federal government—an effort spearheaded at the time by OMB Director Russ Vought. The new plan would retroactively eliminate those mass firings. The plan also pushes through a “minibus” of appropriations for the following three areas: Agriculture-FDA, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction-VA.
Next, the Senate will hold a final vote on the amended continuing resolution. After that, it goes to the House for a vote and then, if it passes, to the White House to be signed by President Donald Trump, before the government can reopen.
Editor’s Note: After more than 40 days of screwing Americans, a few Senate Dems have finally caved. The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle—just inflicting pain for political points.
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