Voters Rejected Trump, But Dems Still Have To Earn Their Trust, He Argues
In the wake of the largest mid-term change election since Watergate, grass-roots Democrats have been calling for change in their congressional leadership as well. So have a majority of newly elected Democratic senator. Against that background, on Nov 11, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen announced he was running to become Senate Majority Leader on “The Briefing With Jen Psaki” on MSNOW.
“This is not about any one individual, but it is about answering the call of the American people,” Van Hollen said. “We saw a huge outburst of democracy on Election Day, red states, blue states, purple states. And it wasn’t only a rejection of Donald Trump and his corruption and his wars and his cruelty.
It was also about a call for a larger change, to take on a broken economic system that’s rigged in favor of the very wealthy against working people, and it’s fueled by a corrupt political system. And the call was really to reject the status quo and to reject business as usual,” he said.
“And to do that, I think we need new leadership,” he concluded.
Van Hollen went on to say that while voters had rejected Trump’s policies, ‘They’ve not yet hired Democrats. They’ve given us a chance. We have to earn their trust. And my view is that you can’t earn that trust with old leadership. You need to move on to new leadership.”
Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) and Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed (MI) immediately endorsed Van Hollen, followed by Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan (MN) the next morning.
“Minnesotans are demanding change. Democrats need to deliver. That starts with new voices in our leadership,” Flanagan posted on Bluesky. “I believe Chris Van Hollen is the leader and fighter we need to bring about real change, so no American is left behind.”
Jeff Merkley (D-OR) also quickly endorsed Van Hollen. And Indivisible released a poll conducted by Yougov Nov 7-9 which found that only 10% of voters said that Democrats should choose Schumer as Majority Leader vs 57% who said they should chose someone else. Specifically addressing the issue of trust Van Hollen spoke about, 35% of voters said choosing Schumer as Leader again would decrease their trust in the Democratic Party vs. just 8% who said it would increase their trust.
“Last week’s election sent a clear message that voters want new energy and leadership that’s ready to fight for them. This data only corroborates what we already knew: voters see Schumer as the face of an old, unpopular politics,” said Leah Greenberg, Co-Executive Director of Indivisible. “It’s time to unify behind a less divisive leader for the future,”
In the Senate itself, Schumer and his allies tried to portray Van Hollen as the divisive one, calling his challenge a “distraction” over worries that Democrat’s message on affordability could be “derailed” by stories about the leadership fight, according to reporting in The Hill.
But with the election over, it’s not clear why this would be a bad thing. Schumer’s leadership has been questioned repeatedly over the past two years, and now is the official time for his colleagues to assess it—and for the public to weigh in as well.
In contrast to Schumer, Van Hollen distinguished himself as a leading member of “team fight” early in Trump’s second term. In April 2025, when street protests were growing, but most DC Democrats were still ineffectively frozen, he flew to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a crucial step in eventually securing his return to the US. Garcia, a constituent of Van Hollen’s, had been illegally captured and deported by ICE in violation of a 2019 protective order forbidding his deportation. The reason was simple: sending him back to his home country would put him in grave danger from gangs that had caused him to flee.
So it’s no surprise that Van Hollen calls for intense oversight over ICE. He also called for immediately ending funding for the Iran War—a step that Schumer has refused to take.
Another main concern Van Hollen addressed in his first interview was healthcare legislation, which is increasingly urgent as the GOP’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” sends costs skyrocketing and kicking millions off of health-insurance.
In the past, he has co-sponsored legislation for Medicare For All—a goal he still expressed support for in the interview. But said “I don’t see us getting there all at once,” and then ticked off some steps.
“Number one, we actually need to increase the benefits under Medicare. We need to add vision and dental and hearing,” he began. “Number two, we need to open Medicare immediately to people of more ages. So 55 to 65, we should look at kids. Andy Kim, for example, has a bill for Medicare for Kids, we need to do all that,” Van Hollen said.
Finally, he went on to say, “We also need to look at a public option within the Affordable Care Act because we need to end the system where we have a health care processing system that is essentially become a money-making operation,” adding, “Over 30 cents of every health care dollar goes to administration and profit. In Medicare, 2 % goes to administration. So do I believe that would be a good end result, I do.”
But he cautioned, “I don’t say that we have to get there right now. I don’t think we have the political ability to do that. But what we can do is improve it right away. Get away from a system that’s focused on profits over patients and put patients first.”
He noted that Medicare For All has 18 co-sponsors in the outgoing Senate. “That’s not nothing,” he said, but “It’s not the majority of the caucus.” So, he said, “I think that would be a good end state, but I don’t see us getting there like in the first hundred days.”
Another top concern is filibuster reform, without which virtually all of the Democratic agenda won’t even get a vote. It didn’t come up in the interview, but Van Hollen clearly called for it in some form in a press briefing the next day.
First, he made clear his personal views.
“My personal opinion is that we need democracy in the United States Senate and that means allowing ultimately a majority of senators to answer the call of the American people. So that means 51 votes,” he said. “My personal view has been all along that the filibuster is an anti-democratic small-d provision. It’s not in our Constitution. It was put in there by senators to enhance their power over the power of the people.”
He didn’t say he wanted to abolish it entirely, but “My view is we need to have a system where you have lots of debate, lots of debate, but at the end of the day a majority reflecting the will of the people should be able to hold a vote on an important measure.”
But his personal view is just that, for now.
“This is an issue that I think we need to talk to the caucus about and I think it’s going to be very important on certain measures, especially democracy protection measures, that we find a way to make sure that the American people’s will governs.”
One of Schumer’s supporters in the Senate made the argument that if a manager takes a team to the World Series, you give him another contract, and Psaki asked Van Holen about that. His response was quite telling, both in terms of who he thought was responsible, and what it said about him as a potential leader.
“I think if you look at this election, this was not like a Washington, D .C., orchestrated victory. This was a huge movement around the country,” he said. “One of the things that kept me hopeful in the last two years were all the people who showed up for No King’s Day events, the people who took to the streets of Minneapolis, the people who refused to shut up and go away when Donald Trump wanted them to shut up and go away.
“And on Election Day, they came out in huge numbers. It wasn’t orchestrated from Washington, D .C., or the DSCC. It was a people-powered movement. That’s why we won in places like South Carolina. That’s why we won in Mississippi.”
The more people hear from Van Hollen, hear him talk like this, the more likely they are to support him, which is just what Schumer and his supporters seem to fear, in light of reporting by The Hill.
Along with Schumer supporters’ claims that he’s got the election sewn up they are also considering moving the leadership election up a few weeks from its current schedule in November. An un-named former Senate Democratic chief of staff highlighted the contradiction involved.
“This is a classic ‘tell versus show’ situation,” the former staffer said. “What he’s telling is that he has the votes and this isn’t competitive but what he’s showing by trying to change caucus rules is panic.”
