MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend announced live on air that she’s quitting her beloved Democratic Party because she is so “pissed” at Chuck Schumer siding with the Republicans on the latest spending bill.
Sanders Townsend — a former press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and senior adviser for both former President Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris — said she was done with her party because Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY) folded “like a paper napkin” to President Trump.
“There’s actually little that the Senate minority leader can say, and the 10 Democrats that voted with the Republicans can say, to appease somebody like me,” she told panelists on her show, “The Weekend.”
MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend left her panel speechless after declaring live on air that she will leave the Democratic Party to become an independent. MSNBC“I’m about to change my registration to independent, first and foremost,” she told her shocked fellow panelists in anger at how her party “blew it.”
“I’m pissed,” she added, noting that the bill cut some funding from Washington DC, where she lives, as she appeared alongside fellow “The Weekend” co-hosts Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele.
Her outburst came in response to Schumer announcing last week that he would support a GOP-led continuing resolution to maintain government funding through most of the remaining year.
The 74-year-old had earlier claimed the Democrats were united in opposition to the Trump-backed Republican proposal, risking fears of a government shutdown.
Schumer’s decision sparked fury among leftist pundits, as well as Senate colleagues and dozens of House Democrats.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to back Schumer when asked whether the Democrats should find new leaders in the Senate on Friday.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters at the US Capitol on March 14, 2025. Getty Images“Shout out to High King Jeffries, though, because the congressional Democrats stayed together,” Sanders Townsend said, although she had nothing but scorn for most major Dems.
“In 2024, Democrats ran on warnings that Trump was going to destroy democracy, and now that he and his team are very much in the process of doing just that, these same politicians are questioning whether or not to stand up to him and his party at one of the first opportunities they have to meaningfully do so,” she fumed.
“The only opportunity, I would add, there’s not another option for Senate or Democratic or Senate Democrats or House Democrats to effectively push back. This was it! They blew it!
“The Democratic Tea Party was born the same day that Chuck Schumer took to that podium to read that very well-crafted statement that told us he folded like a paper napkin.”
Thousands of demonstrators, including union members and advocacy groups, marched through Lower Manhattan to protest federal budget cuts to health care, housing, food assistance and student loans. Gina M Randazzo/ZUMA Press Wire / SplashNews.comSchumer’s Friday night U-turn came after ten other Democrats joined him in voting to push the measure over the line by 54 to 46 votes, with President Trump signing the bill into law Saturday afternoon.
Almost all Republicans backed the bill except Kentucky Senator Rand Kapul.
The bill means the government will keep running at the cost of billions in spending cuts, coming amid the swingeing federal layoffs instigated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.).
Other liberal media talking heads were deeply critical of the move, including former Democratic Congresswoman turned MSNBC analyst Donna Edwards.
“The reality here is there was no message, no strategy, and at the end of the day, no leadership,” she said.
“This is really a black mark on Chuck Schumer. You cannot signal on Wednesday that you want to fight, and then on Thursday, you cave. And so now Republicans know that all they have to do is play Democrats, and it will work.”
