Punchbowl's Desiderio: For His 'Political Benefit,' Schumer Couldn't Help Solve Shutdown, Had to Be Seen as Fighting

On Friday’s broadcast of PBS’s “Washington Week,” Punchbowl News Senior Congressional Reporter Andrew Desiderio said that Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “was not going to be part of the solution” on the government shutdown because “For his sort of political benefit, Chuck Schumer had to be seen as basically fighting this fight the entire way because of how poorly he managed this back in March.”

Desiderio said, “I thought it was very interesting that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who kind of led the eight of them to vote for this and was negotiating with Republicans, she would not pointedly answer the question of, did Sen. Schumer at least support you sitting down with these Republicans to try to cut a deal, right? Typically, in the past, when we have these crises on Capito