Schumer is trying to drum up support. But not every Democrat is on board.
And Chuck Schumer was blindsided by a betrayal he never could’ve expected.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state went on NewsNation’s On Balance and torched Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s stubborn refusal to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown fight.
Smith, a senior Democrat with years in the House, made no effort to hide his frustration with his party’s top negotiator in the upper chamber.
“I disagree, at the moment, with the strategy of not taking the offer as it’s put on the table,” Smith declared, directly challenging Schumer’s hardline tactics that have kept the standoff alive.
He reminded viewers that the Trump administration had already delivered real concessions on the issues Democrats claim to care about most.
“I do think, as you said, there [are] things that the Trump administration has agreed to on body cameras, on ID, on no warrantless searches,” Smith continued.
The congressman’s comments landed right after Senate Majority Leader John Thune laid out the simple choice on the table: Democrats could have opened nearly all of DHS while protecting a sliver of ICE operations, exactly what they said they wanted.
Yet Schumer keeps blocking the path forward, turning a solvable problem into another Washington crisis that ordinary Americans are forced to endure.
Host Leland Vittert pressed the obvious question: with Schumer digging in his heels and refusing to negotiate in good faith, are Democrats even being well-led in the Senate anymore?
Smith tried to defend his party boss at first, insisting the New York senator has stayed at the table the whole time.
“He’s been negotiating. He’s been negotiating. He’s just been pushing for a very, very hard agreement,” Smith explained, before adding that Schumer remains obsessed with rewriting ICE rules to supposedly shield American rights.
“He’s also worried about actually reforming ICE so that the rights of Americans are protected, and they’re not killed, as they were in Minneapolis, so — and that’s not a trivial issue, again, it is important,” Smith added, repeating the same talking point that has become a tired excuse for weakening immigration enforcement.
Even so, Smith could not bring himself to fully back Schumer’s delay game.
He circled right back to his core complaint, repeating word for word that the offer on the table should be accepted because the Trump team had already met key Democrat demands.
Vittert followed up by asking whether other Democrats in the Senate are starting to sweat the political and policy fallout from this manufactured crisis.
Smith admitted the truth many in his party won’t say out loud: Democrats are nervous because the shutdown is inflicting real pain.
This public split shows the growing fracture inside the Democrat machine, where even longtime insiders like Rep. Smith can see that Schumer’s rigid ideology is costing working families while border security hangs in the balance.
