Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer defended his decision to ultimately vote for a Trump-backed funding bill to prevent a government shutdown, telling hosts of The View that Democrats have to “fight smart.” 

Senator Schumer, D-N.Y., faced heavy criticism from fellow Democrats after he and nine other senators of the party voted for a Republican continuing resolution that would fund the government and avoid a shutdown. 

“It gives me no pleasure to say this to you… but I think you caved. I think you and nine other Democrats caved,” The View host Sunny Hostin told Schumer. “I don’t think you showed the fight that this party needs right now, because you’re playing by a rule book where the other party has thrown that rule book away.” 

But Schumer hit back, saying that “nobody” wanted to fight the Trump administration more than him, but argued that blocking the spending bill would have made programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid “far more susceptible to being eliminated” by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

“If you have two choices — one bad, the other devastating — one chops off one of your fingers, the other chops off your arm? So I wanna fight, and we are fighting. We’re gonna fight every day,” Schumer said. 

Democratic campaign strategist James Carville said that Schumer’s decision to back the spending bill may “turn out to be a wiser decision than people think” and that Democrats should give the Congressional party leaders a chance to prove themselves, but warned failure could ultimately bring a leadership challenge. 

“I do think that Senator Schumer is right. I think [he] and [House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries] do have a plan in place,” Carville said Tuesday. “And look, if this … is not evident here in the next three or four months, then there will be an uprising within the Democratic Party.”