Did Chuck Schumer Shout Down Trump Voter At Swanky Manhattan Restaurant?

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By Daniel J. Solomon March 28, 2017

Did Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Sunday night dinner on Manhattan’s Upper East Side degenerate into a shouting match with an acquaintance who admitted voting for Donald Trump?

The New York gossip pages suggested that the Hilary Paley Byers, the daughter of Jewish CBS founder William S. Paley, started sparring with Schumer as they both dined at Sette Mezzo on Lexington Ave.

“Senator Schumer was really rude . . . Yes, I voted for Trump. Schumer … told me Trump was a liar,” Byers told The New York Post.

Witnesses differ about who started the feud. But some onlookers said that Schumer confronted Byers as she dined with her husband Joseph Califano, a prominent Democrat who once served in President Jimmy Carter’s cabinet.

“She voted for Trump!” Schumer exclaimed, according to witnesses. “ How could you vote for Trump?”

Onlookers told The Post the dispute continued on the sidewalk outside the eatery.

Schumer insisted that the couple approached him — and there was no argument about Trump or anything else.

“There were no heated exchanges with ‎anyone,” a spokesperson said.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.