Jon Stewart expects Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to disappoint him if the Democrats win back the House and Senate in November’s critical elections.
“What’s going to happen is they’re going to have to f---ing do something,” Stewart said on The Weekly Show podcast. “They’re going to have to deliver. It will not be sufficient to make their entire personalities opposition to whatever Trump’s politics are; they’re going to have to have a prescription for rebalancing this economy in a smart and urgent way.”
Senate Minority Leader Schumer in particular has come under fire for his weak resistance to Trump. He is unpopular with Democrats both in and out of government, facing accusations of caving to Trump and Elon Musk during the government’s shutdown in the fall of 2025. Schumer’s liberal colleagues have called for him to step down.
Progressive Democrats have also slammed House minority leader Jeffries for cozying up to MAGA loyalists like Jared Kushner. If Democrats win key races in the House and Senate, Schumer and Jeffries would become majority leaders. Stewart is skeptical that they would use their new positions to create any real change.
Stewart finds a little hope in the idea that more resolute Democrats in Congress would overpower Schumer’s submission to MAGA; he doubts Schumer and Jeffries will take any decisive action against Trump’s agenda, despite their authority and agency.
“I am not confident that is in their DNA,” he said. “I’m not confident that it’s in Schumer’s DNA, certainly, which means I’m actually hopeful he won’t be there as the leader, that they will come in and say, ‘We’re not gonna go down that corporatist path again. We are going to make the changes that the American people are demanding that we make in an urgent way that is not bound by some idealized vision that the parliamentarian might think is OK.’”
“F--- that,” Stewart said. “Like, if you are granted control, if they give you the ring, do something with it, you bastards.”
