A day after saying he would vote against President Barack Obama's deal with Iran, Charles Schumer couldn't be found in public, canceling his one scheduled appearance. Josh Robin filed the following report.
The Coney Island Brewery opened Friday, with circus acts and sunshine, but no Charles Schumer, who was supposed to cut the ribbon.
"I know he would want to be here," said Chris Adams with the Coney Island Brewery. "He's a beer guy. He's a Brooklyn guy."
A Brooklyn guy who may be holed up in his Brooklyn apartment. A doorman said no one would come down.
When you try to understand why Schumer rejects the deal, you instead must turn to a statement released late Thursday night, during the Republican presidential debate.
A source close to Schumer said it's not how he wanted to roll it out. The source insisted that he White House leaked word to embarrass Schumer. The White House denied it.
In the meantime, Schumer is holing up.
"Look, he's in a no-win position," said Ezra Friedlander, a public policy consultant for many Jewish clients.
Friedlander notes that Schumer has long called himself a protector of Israel, and some see the deal with Iran hurting Jerusalem.
"When someone positions themselves as he did as being the protector, that sets the bar very high for him," Friedlander said.
It was a bar apparently not as high for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who is voting to approve.
Politically speaking, this comes at an extremely sensitive time for Schumer. The Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate is retiring, and Schumer is the front-runner to replace him. Now, Schumer has crossed the president - of course, a fellow Democrat - on what is arguably Obama's biggest foreign policy goal.
"Disappointing but not surprising," said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. "The fault lines of this argument date back more than a decade."
That's a reference to the war in Iraq, which Schumer voted to authorize.
In a CNN interview, Obama didn't mention Schumer but said some opponents of the deal are no different, whether in Iran or among Senate Republicans.
"The reason that Mitch McConnell and the rest of the folks in his caucus who opposed this jumped out and opposed it before they even read it, before it was even posted, is reflective of a ideological commitment not to get a deal done," Obama said.