The New York Democrat had pulled off a unanimous vote, 96 to 0, for a $2 trillion rescue package to bolster the medical response to the spreading coronavirus and to plant a floor underneath a cratering U.S. economy.
Schumer, 69, has been in the middle of critical negotiations for decades now. As a House member, he helped write portions of the 1994 crime bill. He helped negotiate recovery help for New York after the 2001 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis.
But over the past two weeks, Schumer stepped out from the shadows of other leaders and took charge in a shuttle diplomacy between the Trump administration and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), all while keeping House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) informed of every discussion to ensure the final plan could also clear her chamber.
The high-wire act may end up a legacy-defining moment for Schumer, whose career has previously been shaped by his tactical successes — and failures — in overseeing Democratic campaigns for the Senate majority over the past 15 years.
That this came on another issue so central to his hometown made it all the more bittersweet, as New York became ground zero for the deadly virus, just as it was in 2001 when the World Trade Center fell.
“In both, people doubted the future of New York. The talk after 9/11 was Manhattan was gone as a center of the globe, that no one would ever live or work south of Chambers Street,” Schumer said at a news conference after the late-night Wednesday vote.
Now, with New York’s death toll topping 450 Saturday, Schumer hears doubts about the United States’ largest city because people would be afraid of the “density of population” and want to live elsewhere.
“We’re going to come back. But it pains me, and it pains you in a certain sense, because you can’t be with the people,” Schumer told reporters. “You have to talk to them on the telephone. That bothers me; I like to mix and mingle, press the flesh. Press the flesh is a bad word right now.”
Nothing is more painful for Schumer, a doting son, than his inability to see his parents. His father, 96, and mother, 91, live in a senior development in Queens that he makes weekly visits to — until the virus, so deadly for the elderly, swept into the city.
Now, he makes a daily phone call to check on them. He raced home to Brooklyn after the vote, joining his wife and his daughter’s family, including his grandson.
Schumer’s image will not instantly transform into bipartisan elder statesman.
Many Republicans, particularly McConnell, blamed Schumer for bowing to Pelosi last weekend as bipartisan Senate talks were making headway. “We had a bipartisan bill as a starting place, then the speaker and the Democratic leader came into my office on Sunday, and that slowed down the process,” McConnell said at a news conference after Wednesday’s vote.
But Schumer and Pelosi said those talks had left out many key provisions, such as sufficient funds for hospitals and accountability and transparency measures for a $500 billion fund that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will use to shore up faltering industries, such as the airlines.
From last Sunday into late Wednesday, Schumer ran point on all negotiations among Mnuchin and McConnell, even talking by phone a handful of times with President Trump, who has for years mocked “Cryin’ Chuck” for being so emotional.
“On this crisis, I think the president knew we had to come together,” Schumer told reporters.
It’s a role that Schumer had never really played, certainly not at this level.
In 1994, he was a mid-level member of the House Judiciary Committee working on the crime bill. In 2001, after the towers fell, Schumer and Hillary Clinton were first-term senators from New York negotiating with President George W. Bush — which yielded an instant $20 billion for Lower Manhattan, a deal that Clinton got more attention for, given her status as former first lady.
In 2008, Schumer helped negotiate the $700 billion rescue plan for financial firms, but Pelosi, then in her first stint as speaker, played the pivotal role. Soon after that, Democratic campaigns targeted GOP incumbents for bailing out Wall Street, a move that Republicans blamed on Schumer.
After taking over as minority leader in 2017, Schumer’s main focus was blocking things — such as Trump’s attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act (a win for Schumer) and two of the president’s Supreme Court nominees (both defeats).
When she took over as speaker again last year, Pelosi became the Democratic focal point on everything from a new North American trade deal to Trump’s impeachment.
When the House left town earlier this month, Schumer took charge as the public face of this phase of coronavirus legislation. It started with a $1 trillion offering from McConnell on March 18 and ended up doubling by the time Schumer clapped his hands as the Senate clerk announced a unanimous vote.
Long distrusted by liberal activists because of ties to Wall Street donors, Schumer sounded more like the liberal who emerged from Harvard Law in 1974 and immediately ran for a seat in the New York State Assembly.
“When you have a crisis like this, a scourge that shakes us to our bones, private industry can’t get you out of the problem. Only government can,” Schumer said Wednesday.
The isolation so many Americans have felt is just settling in on Schumer, holed up in his home with his family. In Washington, he practiced social distancing but still saw his colleagues every day.
He has admitted to sleepless nights over the past week thinking about New York.
In an interview Wednesday with The Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis, Schumer expressed hope that the same spirit from 2001 helps his city, and the nation, recover.
“After 9/11, we all came together. We were very close in every way,” Schumer said. “Now we’re isolated. But in 9/11, we always had to believe New York would prevail and overcome, and we still have that belief now.”
