The Schumer method
CHUCK SCHUMER’S FLIP PHONE HAS A TWO-TONE RING: BUZZ-BUZZ, BUZZ-BUZZ; two low tones, two high ones. The Senate majority leader almost always knows who’s calling, even though he doesn’t program the numbers in. “Elizabeth, I’ll call you back,” he says, flipping the phone open in the middle of a recent interview in his office off the floor of the chamber. “Where are you? You’re here? O.K., I’ll call you back.”
He sees he’s missed a call from a restricted number. “I know who’s restricted—it’s probably Warner,” he says. He punches in the 10 digits for Virginia Senator Mark Warner, which he’s memorized along with all the others. “Did you just call me?” Sure enough, that’s who it was. It’s an old Schumer party trick. Montana Senator Jon Tester, he says, just got a new number, “and now I have it stuck in my head.”
For Schumer, the Senate’s Great Kibitzer, leadership consists of talking—and talking, and talking, and talking. The other 49 members of the Democratic caucus marvel at how frequently he calls. He calls just to check in; he calls in the middle of the night; he calls when other people might send a text or email, formats he abhors. (“You never learn things by email. I hate it.”) Schumer estimates that he talks to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi two or three times a day, President Biden two or three times a week, White House chief of staff Ron Klain three or four times a day. “I talk to people—talk,” he says, feet propped on an ottoman to salve his bad knees. “Everyone should talk. If you disagree with someone, fine, be respectful—but talk!”
After four decades in Washington, Schumer is such a fixture it’s easy to forget he’s new at his current job: he only became majority leader in January. But faced with a massive task and with no votes to spare, he’s hit his marks thus far, steering President Biden’s agenda through the
