Chuck Schumer should feel the fire, according to a generally level-headed Democratic lawmaker. Rep. Glenn Ivey suggested that “maybe he needs to go” if the Senate minority leader does not take a firmer stance in the upcoming major negotiation in Washington.
On Wednesday morning, Ivey talked to HEADLINESFOREVER, just hours after enduring a contentious town hall meeting in his suburban Washington district. During the meeting, he initially proposed that Schumer think about resigning. In the midst of the immense dissatisfaction with the party leadership’s strategy in resisting President Trump, Ivey issued an ultimatum and elaborated on his impression of the leading Democrat in the Senate.
“Please, if he can gather himself and come up with a proper vote, we will have another chance, alright,” Ivey said. “However, we will not be able to afford it if he repeats this behavior when the bill is due in six months.”
House Appropriations Committee member and second-term Congressman Ivey credited his fellow Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, with convincing all but one Democrat to reject a budget package written by Republicans. However, Ivey emphasized that the divisions that emerged when the two Democratic leaders used different measurement strategies were intolerable and must not occur again.
“Our options for responding to the actions of the Trump administration are limited,” Ivey went on to say. “We must not let this opportunity pass us by.”
“Hakeem encountered the moment last week,” he emphasized. Rumer failed to notice it.A number of individuals who identified as federal employees or contractors affected by the mass firings carried out by the Trump administration and by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s attempts to reduce government expenditure addressed these issues during Ivey’s town hall meeting on Tuesday inside an overflowing high school auditorium. Others asked pointed questions regarding the Democrats’ capacity to resist the Trump administration and Ivey’s own capacity to advocate for his constituents. They probed further into the party’s lack of direction by asking more general questions.
Ivey was mocked by some when she insisted that the party’s greatest chance to rein in Trump would be in the midterm elections in 2020. This infuriated a portion of the audience, and as they were leaving, several of them told this reporter that they hadn’t heard enough when the town hall formally ended.
Many in the crowd were irritated when Ivey rejected such stereotypes. Even while he empathized with his voters’ displeasure, the congressman from Prince George’s County—a county with a Black majority—reiterated that the Democrats had few levers to pull as a minority in the House.
Several House Democrats were singled out for praise throughout the interview for their leadership in resisting Trump and encouraging party leaders to fight fiercely. Among them were New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly, and Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the Oversight Committee, respectively. According to Ivey, these elected leaders don’t necessarily display the “fire and brimstone kind of stuff” that certain members of the Democratic base like to see.
According to him, “as long as they’re doing what they need to do to win their seats,” there’s no rule that says everyone has to act a certain way or use a certain message.