Chuck Schumer is in a real shutdown mess. Can he lead Democrats out of it?

Two days out from a government shutdown, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats find themselves in a serious jam. But some of them are starting to hint at how they might get out of it.

Publicly, the Senate minority leader and many of his fellow Democrats are vowing they won’t provide the votes to allow a House GOP funding bill to pass, while demanding a vote on a Plan B. Privately, though, Senate Democrats appear to be moving toward that potential offramp: Securing a vote on their preferred 30-day stopgap bill in exchange for helping the House bill, which funds government through September, clear the 60-vote filibuster hurdle — even if they ultimately oppose it on final passage.

The emerging strategy comes as Schumer has convened his caucus for a string of meetings that have grown so boisterous at times that they've been overheard outside the room where Senate Democrats have huddled.

It’s a significant moment for Schumer: He’s trying to bridge disagreement within his caucus over how hard to fight amid fears from some of his members that a shutdown would only empower President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Meanwhile, outside groups — and even their Democratic colleagues across the Capitol — are pressuring them to reject the House GOP funding bill even if it means shuttering the government.

Where Democrats end up will say a lot about how they intend to navigate the weak position in which they find themselves, with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency. They’re under immense pressure from the left to use the scant leverage they have to slow down Trump’s early-term blitzkrieg. But the party is wary of a shutdown that could be pinned on them — and exacerbate their political woes.

The first test for Schumer and Senate Democrats will come on Friday, when Republicans have teed up the first vote on advancing the House GOP bill. Democrats will need to either back up their statement that the House GOP bill can’t get the 60 votes needed to advance or Senate leaders will need to reach an agreement that Democrats can live with.

Publicly and privately on Wednesday, Schumer sought to unify his caucus with a demand for a short-term spending patch, while pulverizing the House GOP bill. After giving his members the same message at a Democratic caucus lunch, Schumer took to the Senate floor and declared that Republicans do not currently have the 60 votes needed to advance the House GOP bill.

“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass. We should vote on that. I hope … our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday,” Schumer said from the Senate floor after his caucus meeting.

But behind the scenes, after days of listening to the disparate voices in his ranks, Schumer appears to be ready to help steer his caucus away from unilateral shutdown brinkmanship. Instead, he’s making a demand that will let his members take a unified vote and, they hope, peel off a few Republicans unhappy with a seven-month stopgap. It’s all a sign that even as Democrats are enjoying their first instance of potential legislative leverage in the Trump era, they might not all be willing to live with the political consequences of playing hardball.

“[Our] strategy kind of emerged after he heard everybody out yesterday,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) of Schumer.

He said that Schumer started the closed-door meeting on Wednesday by saying, “‘I listened to y’all yesterday’” and that he believed the emerging strategy “would seem to unify a lot of us.”

“And I think it was a productive discussion. I think it was a good idea,” Kaine continued, adding that Schumer has been good at letting the caucus air their opinions and “not starting to put his thumb on the scale.”

Nothing is finalized. Schumer notably did not say publicly that, if Republicans give them a vote on the 30-day stopgap, Democrats would help get the House bill to the finish line. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters he did not believe Senate Democrats had made an offer, though he said “we’re open to those conversations and discussions.”

But Kaine spelled out the strategy after the closed-door Senate Democratic lunch. And Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) added that his understanding was that the vote on a short-term funding extension would be taken as an amendment to the underlying bill. “I think we would have 60 votes” for advancing the House GOP bill, Blumenthal said, if Republicans agreed to give Democrats a vote on their alternative as an amendment.

The maneuvering came amid clear misgivings about the damage a government closure could do.

“If you shut down the government,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) told reporters, “[Trump] will decide, without any safeguards, what gets reopened, what doesn't. Who knows how long he'll want to keep the government shut down so that he has total control. … The president gets immensely more authority.”

Added Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.): “Especially in this environment when we have an unelected billionaire that's already shutting down parts of the government, the president could certainly give him the authority … where Elon Musk gets to decide what gets opened back up.”

But Kelly, Hickenlooper and a handful of their other colleagues who have warned that they could unintentionally empower Musk or Trump are being met with growing pressure from progressives. They include House Democrats across the Capitol who almost unilaterally opposed the House Republican bill. Democratic leaders hoped that would give senators political cover to oppose the legislation, too.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), vice chair of the House Democratic caucus, said whoever votes to fund the government owns whatever bad things come next from Trump and Musk, “so we’re asking Senate Democrats to vote ‘no.’”

“We're standing on the side of working families,” Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said. “That's why our message to the Senate is also stand with us on that side.”

Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes, Nicholas Wu and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

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