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After 43 days, the American government finally reopened for business, with enough worry caused for millions of Americans in dozens of aspects of daily life, from food stamp recipients to air travelers. There was plenty of political blame to go around, especially among Democrats; many pundits feel the party closed the government down and got very little in return. Once the dust settled, many observers were quick to point to one man for the fiasco- New York senior Senator Chuck Schumer. Representative Mike Lawler (R- NY 17th) is among those who hold Schumer responsible for causing the chaos. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program not to praise Schumer, but to bury him.
Lawler says New York’s Democratic leadership in Congress gets to share in the blame, but Schumer in particular shoulders the brunt of the weight”: “What we learned is that Chuck Schumer is a disgrace, and he is incapable of leading, he is incapable of doing the right thing, and he put his own political future ahead of the American people. He was more concerned about appeasing a far-left radical base that wanted Democrats to show that they are, quote-unquote, “fighting Trump,” and they were willing to use them as leverage, in their own words, using them as a political hostage in this game that they played- and they failed. They failed miserably.”
Lawler says the disastrous stalemate of the shutdown means that Schumer has likely torched his career and reputation for nothing: “Chuck Schumer’s done- he’s toast. After fifty years in elected office, this will be his last term. He’s up in 2028, and at some point, either before or after the mid-terms, he will announce that he is not running for re-election, that he’ll finish out his term… and he’s rightly getting blamed by the left and right because he created a mess.”
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