CNN —
Chuck Schumer has postponed his book tour events amid anger from within the Democratic Party over the Senate minority leader’s handling of the government funding fight in Congress.
This week, the Democratic leader was scheduled to appear in Baltimore, Washington, DC, New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to discuss his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.”
“Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled,” representatives for Schumer said in a statement.
Schumer has faced heavy backlash from within his caucus and the Democratic base over his decision to vote to advance a Republican-led funding bill last week, in an effort to avert a government shutdown.
Local chapters of Indivisible, a progressive group created in 2016 after Donald Trump first took the White House, had planned protests around events for the book tour.
Dozens of the group’s New York chapters joined with other progressive groups in calling for Schumer to step aside Monday, writing in a letter: “Leadership is needed now, and your failure to coalesce your caucus in this critical moment leads us to call for your immediate resignation from your Minority Leader role.”
Ezra Levin, Indivisible co-founder, told CNN that Schumer shouldn’t be going on the tour “in the middle of a constitutional crisis.”
“The chasm between rank-and-file Democrats and congressional Democratic leadership is vast,” Levin said.
Congress averted a government shutdown Friday just hours before the funding deadline, after the Senate approved a House-passed spending bill. Senate Democrats came under intense pressure to oppose the Trump-backed bill, and Schumer faced swift backlash after helping to clear a path for its passage.
Outside of Schumer’s leadership team, many Senate and House Democrats seethed at his move, which they saw as a capitulation in the party’s first real leverage point in Trump’s second term.
The Senate Democratic leader has argued his party had only bad options: to either shut down the government – possibly for months – to challenge Trump, or accept a GOP bill that Democrats had warned would cut spending to programs like veterans’ health care or Washington, DC, firefighters and police.
But despite his opposition to the legislation, Schumer said last week that “allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Trump praised him for announcing he would support the measure, telling reporters after the vote Friday: “I appreciate Senator Schumer, and I think he did the right thing, really. I’m very impressed by that.”
Schumer’s counterpart in the House, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, had led a fierce whip operation against the bill, ultimately losing just one from his caucus on the vote earlier in the week.
The pair met in Brooklyn Sunday for the first time since they clashed over their party’s strategy to avoid a shutdown, according to Schumer’s spokesperson, who declined to provide details of the meeting.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.
