Chuck Schumer Says He Won't Step Aside As Democratic Leader

The party's leadership is trying to move past a shutdown debacle with a focus on protecting health care coverage under Medicaid.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) rejected calls for him to step aside as top Democrat in the Senate over his handling of a government funding bill last week.

“I should be the leader,” he said in a Tuesday interview on ABC’s “The View.” “One of the things I am known to be very good at is I know how to win Senate seats. In other words, I’m a strategist in terms of recruiting candidates, helping the candidates run campaigns, and winning.”

He compared his job leading Senate Democrats to a conductor of an orchestra who ensures the unified performance of assembled musicians.

“I have a lot of talent in that orchestra, I show them off,” he said of his colleagues. “We are totally united in one thing, we are united in going after Trump and showing the American people that he’s making the middle class pay for the tax cuts on the rich.”

Schumer is facing a barrage of intraparty criticism for refusing to block Republican legislation funding the government last week. A progressive organizing group called on him to step aside as leader over the weekend, while Democratic voters have urged their senators to embrace new leadership in Washington.