Why Chuck Schumer Hasn’t Put the Squeeze on Joe Biden

No one likes to be the bearer of bad news. And when the news is as bad as telling the president of the United States that he should rethink his re-election campaign, because the bulk of voters think he is too old for the job, vanishingly few people have the stature or spine for such a heart-to-heart.

There’s one leader who would, though, if he felt moved to intervene in the Democratic Party’s current pickle concerning President Biden. And he is the rare leader Mr. Biden might just listen to: Chuck Schumer.

We know Mr. Schumer is feeling a bit twitchy about the situation. He has privately been “signaling to donors” that he is open to the idea of an alternative nominee, according to a Wednesday evening report by Axios. And while allies of Mr. Schumer say he would never tell Mr. Biden flat out that he had to quit the race, given his respect for both the president and the enormity of such a decision, the voice of the Senate majority leader would carry disproportionate weight if he wanted to shape the president’s thinking. Mr. Schumer speaks not just for himself, but for the chamber’s Democratic caucus, to which Mr. Biden proudly belonged for so many years. The president may thumb his nose at Democrats in the perennially twitchy House. But his former Senate colleagues? They are harder to dismiss. Some of Mr. Biden’s senior advisers are headed to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters Thursday to huddle with members at a special caucus lunch.

So why hasn’t Mr. Schumer interceded (as far as we know)? I’ve been talking to people who know him well, rereading his 2007 book on politics, going through old interviews and profiles. My sense is that he is not averse to weighing in — the man is hardly a fragile flower. But Mr. Schumer’s political career suggests he moves strategically and with an endgame in mind. He is not one to rush ahead, certainly not without a plan and a mandate from his caucus. His leadership style relies on consensus building, and as yet there is nothing approaching consensus among Democrats about whether Mr. Biden should be pressured to leave the race.

Mr. Schumer knows the political landscape. He has chaired the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee and understands the electorate in battleground states. He keeps close tabs on his troops’ political needs and vulnerabilities. (He has put some minutes on that old flip phone.) And unless Mr. Schumer is pretty darn confident that a ticket led by Mr. Biden would be more disastrous than one led by Kamala Harris, or possibly a nominee to be named later, he is unlikely to change his public stance. “I’m with Joe,” he stressed repeatedly at a news conference Tuesday.

Mr. Schumer has worked with Mr. Biden for three decades. In the mid-1990s, while still in the House, Mr. Schumer joined forces with Mr. Biden to pass the Brady gun control bill and the assault weapons ban. “That’s how we really got to know each other, bonded over those kinds of bills,” Mr. Schumer told a reporter in 2020.