NEW: Chuck Schumer's flip phone is 1 of the hardest working artifacts in DC. In reality, his most prized assets in the evenly-divided Senate are VP Harris' tiebreaker vote, & arcane budget rules that allow him to overcome GOP opposition. by @WARojas ($) businessinsider.com/senate-schumer…
Ask Schumer & of course he'll insist the partisan route is not his preferred method. "I'm trying to have the Senate be far more bipartisan than it was," he told reporters Tuesday in reference to a pending anti-Asian hate crimes bill the GOP is now interested in collaborating on.
"When the Senate's given the opportunity to work, it can," Schumer added.

But the Brooklyn native is also no dummy.
He knows he's trapped in a post-Trump DC where Ds & Rs have little incentive to cooperate w/ each other, and where the wonky ways of process and procedure are shaping up to be the go-to strategy if he's going to succeed in his new role as the most powerful of all 100 senators.
This is personal for Schumer. What he's able to accomplish over the next 18 months will go a long way toward determining if Ds hold their Senate majority in 2022, an election where he's expected to make a run at securing a history-making 5th term representing the Empire State.
The way Schumer sees it, fulfilling Biden's agenda in the COVID era ultimately mandates doing whatever it takes to get results.

"We're gonna work very hard to get it done," Schumer told Insider. "America demands it."
One of Schumer's many regular check-ins on Capitol Hill is with an inner circle of advisors ranging from progressive icon Bernie Sanders of Vermont to swing vote Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
"When you start out having Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin at the same table with Elizabeth Warren, Mark Warner, and Amy Klobuchar you've got the wide views of the caucus," a senior Democratic aide told @thisisinsider - namechecking along the way Ds from MASS, VA and MINN.
Typical daily Schumer interactions include touching base via back-to-back calls with newcomer Raphael Warnock of Georgia via Zoom and discussing infrastructure strategy with Tom Carper, the chairman of the Senate EPW Committee and a well-known Biden sounding board.
Keeping those conversations flowing is one thing. Locking down votes on divisive issues is another. And that's where things start to get wonky.
Check out the full @WARojas deep-dive on Sen. Schumer with a @thisisinsider subscription. Click through from here: businessinsider.com/senate-schumer…

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More from @dsamuelsohn

23 Apr
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Gaetz, then 31 years old, served as chair of the Florida House of Representatives' Criminal Justice subcommittee. He cosponsored bills that increased the mandatory prison time for convicted sexual offenders, calling it some of the most important work his subcommittee would do.
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businessinsider.com/doj-lawyer-wom…
Netter is corporate lawyer who recently represented the World Cup-winning women's national team in an equal pay case against US Soccer. He'll have a top role at Justice overseeing the defense of Biden administration policies in court.
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23 Apr
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NEW: DOJ appears to be taking a backseat to state & local investigators as they pursue investigations competing for the distinction of being the first to turn former President Trump into a criminal defendant. by @cryanbarber & @WARojas ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/biden-trump-ju…
As Merrick Garland has settled in as attorney general, there have been no public signals of his department pursuing Trump. At the same time, state and local prosecutors in NY & Georgia have only ramped up their scrutiny of Trump as a businessman and his actions as president.
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22 Apr
NEW: Marjorie Taylor Greene is still trolling a congressional colleague — the mother of a transgender daughter — with an anti-trans poster from across their Capitol Hill hallway by @TinaSfon ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylo…
Rep. Marie Newman (D-ILL) says she hasn't spoken with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) since their initial dust up. Nor has her staff spoken with Greene's staffers about the issue, to Newman's knowledge.
"I'm not surprised at [Greene's] behavior at all because I think she's going to continue to display the disrespectful behavior. She always has," Newman told @thisisinsider on Wednesday.
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20 Apr
NEW: Robert Mueller has receded from the headlines since overseeing the Russia investigation, but his proteges are positioned to steer DOJ through the Biden administration as it seeks to shed the political turmoil of the Trump era. by @cryanbarber ($) businessinsider.com/robert-mueller…
The Senate is expected to confirm Lisa Monaco on Tuesday to be deputy attorney general. She served as Mueller's top aide during his tenure leading the FBI.
Monaco's confirmation would reunite her with another onetime Mueller aide, John Carlin, who has served since the beginning of the Biden administration as the acting deputy attorney general.
Read 6 tweets

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