Blame Game: Republicans claim Schumer forced shutdown 'because he's terrified' of AOC primary challenge

In the intensifying blame-game battle over the federal government shutdown, Republicans are relentless in who they see as the culprit and his motive.

Top Republicans charge that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's deep concerns over a potential 2028 primary challenge from a progressive rock star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow New Yorker often referred to as AOC, compelled him to rally Senate Democrats to defeat a GOP-crafted funding bill that would have temporarily averted the shutdown.

Among the Republicans making their case - Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

"This is basically Chuck Schumer," Vance said Wednesday morning in an interview on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "He's worried he's going to get a primary challenge from AOC."

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Hours later, at a White House briefing, Vance kept firing away at Schumer.

"The reality here, and let's be honest about the politics, is that Chuck Schumer is terrified he's going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," Vance argued. "The reason why the American people's government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his own party because he's terrified of a primary challenge."

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Johnson, pushing the same message, claimed Wednesday morning in an interview on FOX Business' "Mornings with Maria" that "there is one reason and one reason alone that Chuck Schumer is leading the Democrats off this cliff. He is trying to get political cover from the far-left corner of his base. He's afraid of a challenge for his Senate seat by AOC or someone like that."

While all sides are in the hot seat in the shutdown political battle, the one feeling the most heat may be the 74-year-old Schumer, who has led the Senate Democrats for nearly a decade.

The shutdown appears to offer the Democrat from New York a second chance, or a do-over after he faced fierce backlash from the Democratic Party base, which hungers for more vocal opposition to Trump's unprecedented second-term agenda after his move to vote with Republicans to avoid a government shutdown this past spring.

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Schumer's move raised questions about whether he would face a leadership challenge in 15 months when the new Congress convenes, and whether he'd face a primary challenge from Ocasio-Cortez when the senator is up for re-election in 2028.

Ocasio-Cortez, who has long grabbed outsized national attention and who this year has teamed up with longtime progressive champion and two-time Democratic presidential nominee runner-up Sen. Bernie Sanders at rallies across the country, is thought to be mulling either a 2028 Senate bid in New York or a run for the White House.

Asked about the Republicans' theory, the member of the group of progressive and diverse House members known as the Squad appeared to dodge the question about her likely political aspirations.

But she did say the shutdown is "so not about me" in an interview Wednesday night on MSNBC.

"I saw some senators speculating about this, and I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, 'Well, oh, if we have this shutdown, it's because of AOC.' Well, if that's the case, my office is open, and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly," Ocasio-Cortez said. "If those senators think that we're having a shutdown because of me, they are free to enter my office and negotiate."

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While speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday, House Speaker Emerita Rep. Nancy Pelosi dismissed the assertion from Republicans that Ocasio-Cortez is "directing" the shutdown.

"She is not," the longtime Democrat from California said.

And pointing to her successor as House Democratic leader, Pelosi emphasized that "Hakeem Jeffries is, and this takes a lot of experience, a lot of unity from the caucus in terms of the point of view. That's what this is. She's an articulate spokesperson for her point of view. Hakeem Jeffries is leading this."

And a Democratic strategist who works on Senate races also downplayed the GOP's theory on Schumer. The strategist, who asked to remain anonymous, said the shutdown was more about 2026 politics, when the Democrats aim to win back the majority in the chamber, than about 2028.

While Republicans have been framing the shutdown as the "Schumer shutdown," the Senate Minority Leader and his party are calling it the "Republican shutdown."

"IT'S MIDNIGHT. That means the Republican shutdown has just begun because they wouldn't protect Americans' health care. We're going to keep fighting for the American people," Schumer posted on social media as the shutdown began.

Democrats insisted that any agreement to prevent a government shutdown, or now to end the shutdown, must extend tax credits for the popular Affordable Care Act (ACA) beyond the end of this year. Those credits, which millions of Americans rely on to reduce the costs of healthcare plans under the ACA, which was once known as Obamacare, are set to expire unless Congress acts.

But most Republicans oppose the extension of the credits and argue that the Democrats' demands would lead to a huge increase in taxpayer-funded healthcare for immigrants who entered the country illegally.

"I think it's important for the American people to realize that the far-left faction of Senate Democrats shut down the government because we wouldn't give them hundreds of billions of dollars for health care benefits for illegal aliens," Vance said in his "Fox and Friends" interview.

But Schumer, speaking with FOX Business on Wednesday morning, argued that "the American people are on our side, completely and totally. They don't want their healthcare decimated."

And he charged that the White House and congressional Republicans "have refused to talk to us. They should come and talk to without conditions because the American people are suffering. Their health care is in shambles."

Fox News' Alex Miller contributed to this story