A group of six Democratic governors pressed Senator Chuck Schumer of New York during a tense call on Wednesday night to be more aggressive in fighting back against President Trump’s nominees and agenda, all but begging the minority leader to persuade Senate Democrats to block whatever they could.
The call, described in detailed notes as well as interviews with two participants and five other people briefed on the conversation, revealed the growing tensions among Democrats about how forcefully they should oppose Mr. Trump. Mr. Schumer convened the call to discuss a collective response to the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, which was pulled back on Wednesday.
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts each told Mr. Schumer that Senate Democrats should not vote for Mr. Trump’s nominees after the administration issued a memo freezing the funding.
Ms. Healey urged Mr. Schumer to slow down Senate votes and create more public opposition than Democrats in the chamber have generated so far. She also lamented that Democratic governors were bearing the brunt of calls from constituents affected by Mr. Trump’s policies while also leading the legal effort to block them.
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, who was chosen as the Democratic nominee for vice president last year largely on the basis of his ability to articulate the party’s message on cable news, said Democrats needed to be more visible on television presenting an alternate vision of governing — not just complaining about what Mr. Trump is doing. Mr. Walz argued that Democrats must occupy just as much media space as Mr. Trump and Republicans have been doing.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said Democratic governors whose states had Republican attorneys general needed a separate legal and communications strategy for combating Mr. Trump’s policies. He argued that Mr. Trump had appeared more focused on acquiring Greenland than on the price of eggs and said Democrats needed to focus not on what they see as the desecration of American democracy as much as how Mr. Trump was making life harder for people.
Mr. Beshear said that the hardest part of dealing with the new administration was that the American people would have to feel the pain of Mr. Trump’s actions so that they would learn not to make the mistake of electing someone like him again. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said that Democrats were not inclined to inflict pain on their constituents, but that people needed to understand the consequences of electing Mr. Trump.
Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, who is the chairwoman of the Democratic Governors Association and helped organize the call along with Mr. Pritzker, said their party needed to do a better job with its digital outreach in response to Mr. Trump. She called for Democrats’ online strategy to become “down and dirty.”
Mr. Schumer responded that Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey was in charge of Senate Democrats’ social media and praised the job he was doing.
Last week, Mr. Booker delivered a PowerPoint presentation to fellow Democrats about how to deliver their message online. In the slides, which were obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Booker offered his colleagues guidance on how often to post on each platform. Instagram: once or twice a day. Facebook: once a day. LinkedIn: three to five times a week. X: two to five times a day. TikTok: one to four times a day.
During the Wednesday call, Mr. Schumer defended Senate Democrats’ posture toward Mr. Trump. He said Senate Democrats had damaged the political standing of Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed last week as defense secretary, and of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who faced a bruising hearing on Wednesday for his nomination to be Mr. Trump’s health and human services secretary.
Mr. Schumer told the governors that he could not force all Senate Democrats to oppose every Trump nominee but that he could unite the caucus to oppose certain high-profile appointees. He said Democrats’ combined outrage over the Trump effort to halt federal government funding to a wide range of schools, hospitals, nonprofits and other groups had been successful and had forced the administration to abandon its plans.
The Senate Democratic leader told the governors that Republican elected officials in New York were asking him for advice on how best to respond to Mr. Trump’s actions.
He also said there needed to be a staff person assigned to coordinate Trump-related messaging for the Democratic governors, their counterparts in the Senate and the party’s state attorneys general.
Mr. Schumer urged the governors to push Republicans in their states’ congressional delegations to oppose policies from Mr. Trump and his administration that could hurt their states.
Aides in the offices of Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Walz, Ms. Kelly, Mr. Beshear and Ms. Healey declined to comment for this article. A spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul could not be reached late Wednesday night. Mr. Schumer’s office, in an official accounting of the call, said the group had discussed the best ways Senate Democrats could support their party’s efforts to fight policies from Mr. Trump and allies like Russell T. Vought, his nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
“Leader Schumer said that — thanks to Democrats’ work — Donald Trump and Russell Vought hit a road bump today, but we must keep fighting and work together to make sure they don’t succeed and hurt millions of Americans,” Mr. Schumer’s office said.
