Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speak on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
A continuing resolution (CR) is an extension of current federal funding levels aimed at giving lawmakers more time to hash out a longer-term deal on the next fiscal year's government spending.
While the House passed a Republican-backed CR, that bill has stalled in the Senate, having failed multiple times as Democrats continue to insist on pairing any CR with an extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are poised to expire at the end of 2025.
Republicans have accused Democrats of holding Americans and the government hostage over partisan demands, while Democrats warned that the GOP would be responsible for hiking healthcare costs for millions of Americans if the enhanced COVID-era subsidies are allowed to expire.
"Real lives of real people are being disrupted so that Chuck Schumer can show the far-left Marxists in his party that he's having some kind of tantrum and fighting Donald Trump because he's afraid of the far-left part of his political base," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Wednesday.
And Johnson charged that Schumer is a "very far-left politician" but that he isn't "far enough left for the communists."
New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani speaks to supporters at a canvass launch event in Prospect Park on Aug. 17, 2025. (Deirdre Heavey/Fox News Digital)
Republicans have painted Schumer as the face of the government shutdown, but it wasn't long ago he faced opposition from those within his own party for voting to keep the government open.
Ocasio-Cortez called Schumer's decision to vote in favor of the GOP-backed CR to avoid a government shutdown in March a "tremendous mistake."
Flash forward several months, Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., blamed Schumer on Tuesday for shutting down the government "because he's scared of a primary challenge from AOC and a challenge to his position in Senate leadership."
"Chuck Schumer has chosen to cower to the radical side of the Democratic Party instead of coming to the table with a solution," Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, also told reporters Tuesday.
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Despite Republicans blaming Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader continues to blame Trump and Republicans who he said "won't negotiate to address the health care crisis the American people are facing."
Schumer, Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's comment requests.
Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-blames-schumer-shutdown-appease-marxist-flank-amid-aoc-primary-challenge-buzz