Michael Bennet stopped short of calling for Chuck Schumer to step aside as Senate Democrats’ leader — though he pointedly compared the situation to the party’s internal strife over then-President Joe Biden serving as the party’s nominee last summer.
“On the leadership question, it’s always better to examine whether folks are in the right place, and we’re certainly going to have that conversation,” the Coloradoan said in a town hall in Golden, Colorado, Wednesday evening.
Bennet sidestepped a question about whether he would call for Schumer to step down, referencing the end of Biden’s disastrous 2024 election bid where the president ultimately stepped aside after growing agitation from other elected Democrats.
“In dodging your question, let me just say: It’s important for people to know when it’s time to go, and I think in the case of Joe Biden, and we’re going to have conversations I’m sure in the foreseeable future, about all the Democratic leadership,” he said.
Bennet’s statement comes almost a week after Schumer backed a GOP funding bill that most of his caucus voted against.
Bennet — a one-time 2020 presidential candidate — was one of the earliest Senate Democrats to publicly grapple with Biden’s position at the top of the ticket in 2024. He has publicly expressed interest in a potential run for Colorado governor next year.
Schumer has since faced intense scrutiny from his party — and particularly members of the House — but has repeatedly contended the move was necessary to stave off a government shutdown that he believes would have allowed President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to accelerate their crusade to hollow out federal agencies.
That, he has said, could also shunt critical public services like food benefits or mass transit funding.
“I’m a smart politician, I can read what people want,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Tuesday night. But Republicans, he continued, put forward a “terrible, terrible, bill,” and a shutdown would have been “so much worse.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said at a town hall earlier this week that Schumer “was wrong,” WBUR reported, but otherwise did not address if he should remain leader.
Much of this resentment is concentrated among House Democrats, who were largely united in voting against the GOP bill. Senate Democrats have largely held their tongues.
Earlier this week, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — a longtime partner of Schumer’s — added to the fire, saying, “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. … I think that’s what happened the other day.”
