Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) dismissed intraparty criticism after a Democratic-led effort to revoke President Donald Trump’s global tariff emergency collapsed due to a miscount in attendance, calling the high-stakes vote a “win-win” no matter the result.
“If we won the vote, it was a good win, like we won the Canada vote, but we knew if we lost it, every single Republican, including those up for election, was the single vote that kept tariffs, kept these onerous tariffs on the backs of the American people,” Schumer said, speaking to reporters at a pen and pad briefing on Thursday morning.
“So, Republicans own it. They cared so much about tariffs, they had to bring [Vice President] JD Vance to come in and break the 49-49 tie. And they own it now … they’re stuck. So we knew it would be a win-win either way,” Schumer added.
The Senate deadlocked in a 49-49 vote on a resolution to terminate the national emergency Trump used to invoke tariffs of 10% to 50% on key U.S. trading partners. A pair of absences in the Senate deprived resolution backers of the votes needed to secure a majority.
A follow-up procedural vote forced Vance to head to Capitol Hill on Wednesday night to break the tie, ultimately shelving the measure.
.@SenSchumer begins his pen and pad with reporters: “So look, we think the President’s first 100 days have been a failure, but we think we’ve had a very good 100 days.” pic.twitter.com/ZDNMcu439p
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) May 1, 2025
The vote came just hours after the Commerce Department reported that the economy had contracted in the first quarter — an outcome largely attributed to Trump’s trade agenda.
While the Democratic leader worked to deflect criticism over his handling of Wednesday’s vote, frustration simmered behind the scenes among rank-and-file Democrats, who said the measure was rushed to the floor without accounting for key absences.
Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) signaled they would have backed the resolution but missed the vote, leaving it short of the support needed to pass. Democrats had known Whitehouse would be absent from the vote since he was traveling back from South Korea, where he had attended an annual conference about oceans.
“This was a miscalculation, since it had been known that Whitehouse would not be back in time,” said a Democratic senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect candidly on the situation. “It all fell flat because we were counting on Republicans who had previously supported a similar resolution, and that was a mistake.”
The failed resolution on Wednesday comes after the Senate voted earlier this month to revoke Trump’s narrower emergency declaration for tariffs on Canada. Four GOP senators — Sens. Rand Paul (KY), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and McConnell — supported the earlier effort.
“I was disappointed that two of our yes votes were not there, but then it ended up working out,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said to reporters on Thursday.
Kaine stopped short of criticizing party leadership, instead highlighting the striking image of the vice president rushing to the Capitol to cast a tiebreaking vote, just as new data showed the economy was contracting.
“It was disappointing, but in a way, the weird circumstance of having to drag the VP out of bed to come across town to cast a tiebreaking vote on a motion to table, a motion to reconsider, because they’re so passionate that they want tariffs that are destroying the economy, it probably got almost as much attention as if we had succeeded in getting it passed,” Kaine said. “Again, I would rather have it passed. But the way it ended was sort of like, wow.”
Paul, who introduced the resolution with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), also said he considered the failed vote a victory. He argued that public pressure has helped prompt a partial rollback of car tariffs and urged continued vocal opposition to influence further change.
“We didn’t necessarily pass a law, but [Trump has] backed off of the car tariffs now. So there’s a lot of people, including the car manufacturers, telling them we’re going to be killed by this stuff. And so the pressure is working. I think the pressure campaign is making the tariffs less bad,” Paul said.
Paul acknowledged the vote was largely symbolic, after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed language blocking Democratic efforts to curb Trump’s tariff powers and the White House issued a veto threat.
“We had two people missing — They could be missing for various reasons. We would have won, but it’s still … about the discussion, it isn’t about winning,” he said. “We know the House is refusing to take it up, we know the president will veto it, we didn’t do it to say, ‘Oh, we win.’ We did it with the expectation that we probably wouldn’t win.”
SENATE VOTES DOWN EFFORT TO REPEAL TRUMP ‘LIBERATION DAY’ TARIFFS
Schumer is insisting that there are alternative ways to bring up a similar tariff vote in the future.
“There are different emergencies, you know — and by the way, Johnson … he’s covering up for the Republicans in the House because he changed the rules so you couldn’t use an emergency vote there, it shows you they know how deeply unpopular the tariffs are,” Schumer added.