Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer postponed his book tour amid backlash over his handling of a Republican bill to fund the government last week.
The New York Democrat had planned to promote his new book on antisemitism, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” during a series of events in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., this week. All of them have been postponed.
“Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled,” Schumer’s spokesperson said in a statement.
Progressive activist groups had already been organizing and encouraging protests at events hosted by members of Congress of both parties. That likely included Schumer after he eased passage of legislation averting a government shutdown last week. The bill did not include language Democrats had sought forbidding President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk from continuing to freeze congressionally approved spending.
Over the weekend, the progressive organizing group Indivisible called on Schumer to step aside as Democratic leader of the Senate.
“Your recent vote to enable Republicans’ extreme funding bill paved the way for Trump and Musk to continue their power grab,” New York state Indivisible groups wrote in a letter to the senator on Monday. “In a rare moment of leverage for Democrats, you surrendered. This calls into question your ability to fight back to stop the emergency of this constitutional crisis and reckless dismantling of fundamental democratic institutions.”
Schumer had argued that as bad as the GOP spending bill was, a shutdown would be even worse since it would allow Trump to permanently shutter parts of government.
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“A shutdown would shut down all government agencies, and it would solely be up to Trump and DOGE and Musk what to open again because they could determine what was essential,” Schumer told The New York Times, referring to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its de facto head Musk.
“The bottom line is if the filibuster would have been used and the government shut down, the devastation would be terrible. You see, we’ve had government shutdowns before, but never against such nihilists, such anti-government fanatics as Trump, DOGE, Musk,” he said.