Schumer Faces Growing Calls From Democrats to Resign Over Cowardice

Democrats aren’t so sure that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should continue to front the party.

Several Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives believe that the New York lawmaker should “step down” after he pushed his caucus to back the GOP budget resolution Friday.

They include Illinois Representative Delia Ramirez and Maryland Representative Glenn Ivey.

“I’ve got no personal beef with Schumer, I think he’s a talented guy, but for me the bigger question is: Is he going to do this again?” Ivey told Axios Wednesday, looking toward the next government funding deadline in September. “When this comes back up in six months, is he going to take the same approach or not? If he’s still on that track, I’m for moving on.”

But Ivey and Ramirez’s colleagues believe that more lawmakers interested in a Schumer resignation are hiding in the woodwork.

“I think there are some already there but just haven’t been asked directly or avoided the question,” an anonymous House Democrat told Axios.

The progressive group Indivisible called on Schumer to “step aside” on Saturday, accusing him of having “surrendered leverage” while handing Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their congressional allies the keys to dismantle government agencies and public services.

Schumer, along with eight other Democrats in the upper chamber, voted in favor of a budget that will strip billions from Medicaid in order to pay for an extension to Trump’s 2017 tax plan, a proposal that overwhelmingly benefits corporations and is projected to add as much as $15 trillion to the national deficit.

Republicans could not have passed the short-term budget without their help.

Schumer saw the vote as a potential salve on the eve of a government shutdown that he and his allies believed would temporarily hand Trump more control. House Democrats, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, strongly disagreed, arguing that the party should instead have pushed for an extension that would give them more time to negotiate the details of the resolution.

Frustration has apparently bubbled all the way to the top. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dodged a question last week on Schumer’s future, though by Tuesday, he clarified that he still believes Schumer should be involved in Democratic leadership.

Medicaid insures more than 70 million Americans. The popular social program, established in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson, represents nearly $1 out of every $5 spent on health care in the U.S. It pays for more than 41 percent of births in America, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, and is the largest financier of nursing home care in the country, according to HuffPost.

The White House made a confusing claim on Wednesday: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is welcoming American ownership of his country’s nuclear and electric power plants.

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt proudly announced the news during a press briefing.

On their call, Trump and Zelenskiy “discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants,” Leavitt said, according to CBS News’s Jennifer Jacobs. “He said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants. With his electricity and utility expertise, American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.’”

This development leaves many more questions than answers. Why would Zelenskiy make this ask? And what would American ownership actually look like: boots on the ground? Is Trump done being obsessed with the rare earths? All these questions and more remain unanswered as Trump has yet to comment on the statement.

Rattling America’s longest-standing alliances is starting to cost the U.S. military industrial complex.

U.S. arms makers were shut out of the European Union’s enormous defense spending plan released Wednesday.

“We must buy more European. Because that means strengthening the European defense technological and industrial base,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The U.K. was similarly frozen out of the deal. Instead, the EU tapped South Korea and Japan to join the military program, which aims to spend more than $800 billion by 2030 as the bloc prepares for potential conflict with Russia.

“We need to see not only Russia as a threat, but also … more global geopolitical developments and where Americans will put their strategic attention,” said European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, according to Politico.

The sales pitch from American arms manufacturers simply isn’t as persuasive as it was under previous administrations. For decades, purchasing American fighter jets and weapons came with an added bonus of U.S. protection. But as global leaders have witnessed Donald Trump defy long-standing military treatises and aggress U.S. allies, that promise no longer feels like a guarantee.

Trump’s shocking hostility toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during critical peace negotiations, his nonsensical trade war, his threats to annex Greenland, his whiplash decisions to suspend and un-suspend military resources and intelligence with Kyiv, and his insistence on making Canada the nation’s fifty-first state have all called the reliability of American protection into question.

And European nations aren’t the only ones thinking of nixing their American contracts. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Wednesday that he was reviewing a $13.3 billion contract from 2023 for dozens of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters for “geopolitical” reasons, as well as “the possibility of having substantial production of alternative aircraft in Canada.” Portugal announced similar plans last week, apparently wobbling on whether it would replace its aging air force with American made products.

“An important factor in the purchase of the F-35 by European governments was the idea that European defense would be built on a transatlantic basis in terms of strategy, institutions, and capabilities,” Gesine Weber, a Paris-based fellow at the transatlantic think tank, German Marshall Fund, told Politico Wednesday. Weber further noted that Trump’s intention to overhaul NATO makes the purchase of American arms systems “no longer have any added value for Europeans.”

Other defense experts who spoke with the publication were more candid.

“If you keep punching your allies in the face, eventually they’re going to stop wanting to buy weapons from you,” an anonymous Western European defense official told Politico. “Right now we have limited options outside of U.S. platforms, but in the long run? That could change in the coming decades if this combativeness keeps up.”

Foreign sales are crucial to the U.S. arms industry. Historically, two-thirds of EU defense spending has gone to American contractors. Losing that could have ramifications for the U.S. economy.

But despite the Trump agenda, U.S. arms makers are still hoping that the looming threat of war will leave foreign nations with few other options than to buy their goods. Countries that surround Russia, including Poland and Romania, are still rushing to scoop up as many rockets, artillery, tanks, and warplanes into their arsenals as they can.

In December, NATO Chief Mark Rutte told the military alliance that it was time for Europe to “shift to a wartime mindset.”

“Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us,” Rutte said, urging NATO members to “turbocharge” defense production and spending. “We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years.”

Donald Trump apparently took over the Kennedy Center to make his own stylistic changes. 

The New York Times reports that during the first meeting of the center’s board of directors on Monday, its new chairman, President Trump, said that structurally, the center is in “tremendous disrepair,” adding that “the whole place needs work” and that he plans to seek funds from Congress to “bring it back.”  

Trump mused about covering up its signature columns with marble or granite, a signature part of Trump’s own buildings. 

“They never covered the I-beam,” Trump said during the meeting, according to a recording obtained by the Times. “I think the I-beams should be covered with some incredible stone—probably marble, but marble’s a bad outdoor stone, but looks better than granite. But it should be covered. And we’ll do that. We’ll add that in. But it’s not a small job.”

Trump, who last month fired the center’s board, installed his own loyalists, and had himself voted as chairman, waxed on about a number of topics during the meeting. He reminisced about his time attending various Broadway shows, including Cats, as an example of the kind of shows that the center should be hosting. 

“I walked in, I saw all these bodies, and then I noticed those bodies were gorgeous,” Trump said, regarding his impression of Cats when he supposedly attended its premiere. 

“They had silk tights on, and they were all ballerinas, and women from Broadway. And men,” Trump continued, adding, regarding the men, “I didn’t find those particular bodies as attractive to be honest.”

Trump floated hosting the annual Kennedy Center Honors, where attendees have criticized him in the past, resulting in him boycotting the ceremonies. 

“Believe me, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it,” Trump said to the rest of the board. “I have enough publicity.” 

“They’ll say, ‘Trump wants to be the host.’ I don’t want to. But I want this thing to be successful,” the president continued, complaining that previous hosts were “always terrible” and calling himself “the king of ratings.” 

Trump also suggested honoring posthumous figures outside of the Kennedy Center’s usual domain of arts and culture, mentioning people from sports, politics, and business, such as Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley, and Babe Ruth, instead of “radical left lunatics.” In a blatant nod to one of his backers, he suggested honoring Steve Wynn, a Republican donor and casino executive whose wife was named to the center’s board by Trump. 

“You could do entrepreneurs; you could do people that, you know, that were really in charge of show business,” Trump said. “I would say you could do politicians, you could do sports stars.”

In all, it seems that Trump took over the center to remake it in his own image: honoring the shows and people he likes, particularly from the era that he enjoyed the most: the 1980s. His decision to honor deceased figures probably stems from the fact that today’s stars dislike him and have often criticized him at various awards ceremonies, including at the center.

If Trump wasn’t president, wasn’t going to use taxpayer funds, and hadn’t unilaterally taken over a center that should belong to the American people, this would be fine. Instead, Trump appears to be transforming the Kennedy Center into his own personal cultural center, where he can honor and enjoy the entertainment he likes, set up the decor the way he wants it, and escape criticism while being feted and honored to boost his ego.

Even Bill O’Reilly thinks that a third term under Donald Trump would be little more than a pipe dream.

“That’s a fantasy, and I don’t really consider those kinds of things,” the longtime conservative commentator told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo Tuesday night. “It’s not gonna happen, never will happen. It’s not worth my time or your time.”

Trump has repeatedly pitched the idea that he could stay in office after 2028, but the likelihood of that actually happening is near zero.

As outlined in Article 5 of the Constitution, any such change requires at least two-thirds of the Senate and the House to agree on the modification, with that change then requiring ratification by a minimum of three-quarters of states in the nation.

A second approach to repealing the term-limiting amendment could be via a constitutional convention, though two-thirds of states would need to support the motion to have one at all, and any proposed changes to an amendment would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Beyond that, the MAGA leader would be 82 years old in 2028—the same age that President Joe Biden was when he left office—and that’s unlikely to play well with an American public that is increasingly tired of being led by the elderly.

Still, that hasn’t kept conservatives from trying to keep Trump in power. Republican lawmakers have already started to pave the way for the unconstitutional takeover. In January, Representative Andy Ogles filed a joint resolution to amend the Constitution’s Twenty-Second Amendment so that the executive branch leader could serve “for up to but no more than three terms.”

But O’Reilly had a different vision for the MAGA movement’s future.

“Donald Trump will serve out his second term, hopefully he’ll be successful, and then JD Vance will run for president in ’28 unless something happens. That’s what’s gonna happen,” O’Reilly said.

The idea that Trump could follow in Roosevelt’s footsteps came back to the forefront earlier in Cuomo’s show after Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon said he’s “working on it.”

“Chris, as you know, I’ve had greater long shots than this,” Bannon told Cuomo. “We’ve had greater long shots than Trump 2028, and we’ve got a lot of stuff we’re working on there. We’re not prepared to talk about it publicly, but in a couple months I think we will be.”

Bannon then proceeded to dodge a direct question on whether or not that meant a “revolution” or overthrowing the government. When pressed again, Bannon said that he “firmly” believes “in the revolution you’re seeing going on now: the revolution of common sense to deconstruct the administrative state.”