Schumer: After Veto Should Come Compromise

Apr 08, 01:01 PM

Current Headlines: A senior senator says Democrats will not leave U.S. troops high and dry if President Bush vetoes an Iraq war funding bill, but will try to reach a compromise.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., appeared on Fox News Sunday along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step down.

Schumer said after a threatened veto the Democratic congressional majority will try to come up with a way ... to compromise with the White House that both supports the troops and yet changes the strategy in Iraq, which we feel is misguided.

Even the Reid-Feingold bill doesn't call for a pullout of all the troops, he added, but calls for continued funding after March 2008 and a change of mission to counter-terrorism, protecting U.S. forces and Iraqi retraining.

We are not going to leave the troops high and dry, plain and simple, Schumer said.

Gingrich indicated that Gonzales should step down for mishandling the controversy following the firing of five U.S. attorneys, not for the firing itself, which he said was the president's prerogative.

This is the most mishandled, artificial, self-created mess that I can remember in the years ... I've been active in public life, Gingrich said, and ... you know, the buck has to stop somewhere.