Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, broke with his party on Thursday and lined up enough Democrats to advance a Republican-written bill to keep federal funding flowing past a midnight Friday deadline, arguing that Democrats could not allow a government shutdown that many of them have demanded.
During a private luncheon with Democrats, Mr. Schumer stunned many of his colleagues by announcing that he planned to vote to allow the G.O.P. bill to move forward, and indicated that he had enough votes to help Republicans break any filibuster by his own party against the measure, according to attendees and people familiar with the discussion.
It was a turnabout from just a day earlier, when Mr. Schumer proclaimed that Democrats were “unified” against the legislation, and a remarkable move at a time when many of the party’s members in both chambers and progressive activists have been agitating vocally for senators to block it in defiance of President Trump.
In a speech hours later on the Senate floor, Mr. Schumer announced his plan to vote to move forward with the Republican measure, which would fund the government through Sept. 30. He argued that if Democrats stood in the way, it would lead to a shutdown that would only further empower Mr. Trump and Elon Musk in their bid to defund and dismantle federal programs.
“The Republican bill is a terrible option,” Mr. Schumer said in his evening speech. “It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
In a shutdown, Mr. Schumer said, “the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise that they would ever be rehired.”
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