WASHINGTON — Outraged Democrats are testing the limits of their diminished power as they try to stop the stunning power grabs of President Donald Trump and his chief lieutenant, Elon Musk.
The tech billionaire’s maneuvers, which include the hostile seizure of taxpayer data and the apparent closure of the government’s leading international humanitarian aid agency, have riled many Democrats, who have been mired in a post-election funk and struggled to identify a cohesive strategy in the earliest days of Trump’s presidency.
Democratic members of Congress threatened to try to bring Trump’s agenda, including his Cabinet nominations, to a grinding halt. Operatives assembled a new war room in their party headquarters. And Democratic protesters, backed by a sudden influx of elected officials, warned of a looming constitutional crisis at ballooning rallies across the nation’s capital.“With one voice, we can push back and resist the excesses and extremes of the Trump administration,” newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in an interview. “Only two weeks in, Elon Musk is already our worst president ever.”
It’s unclear, however, if such attempts at obstruction would realistically stop Trump and Musk.
Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, while the Supreme Court is led by a 6-3 conservative majority. And Republicans who control Congress, so far at least, have cheered Trump and Musk’s provocative moves.
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday shared one of the billionaire’s social media posts in which he claimed to have discovered roughly $700 billion in government fraud.
“When Elon and the team started I was very supportive but thought the waste and fraud would top out at $250 billion,” Vance wrote. “The real number will end up much higher.”
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, oversees a team of people at the Department of Government Efficiency in Washington. With Trump’s blessing, the billionaire CEO is moving to fire or sideline career government officials, gain access to sensitive databases and dismantle agencies he disfavors.
On Monday, some of Musk’s agents were spotted at the Department of Education, which Trump has vowed to abolish. And on Tuesday, Musk called for National Public Radio to be stripped of federal funding.
None of it is happening with congressional approval, inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.
Democratic activists want their elected officials to do more.
More than 1,000 protesters gathered outside the Department of Treasury building in downtown Washington on Tuesday evening. Their chants of “Elon Musk has got to go!” echoed off the building’s marble columns as more than two dozen House and Senate Democrats lined up to speak.
It was the same building where Musk’s team last week gained access to the U.S. Treasury payment system. The system is responsible for 1 billion payments per year totaling $5 trillion and includes sensitive information involving bank accounts and Social Security payments.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer tried to lead a chant of, “We will win.” He was quickly drowned out by chants of, “Shut down the Senate!”
Another protest speaker, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said in an interview that no elected Democrat should help Republicans govern in the GOP-controlled House, even if that leads to a government shutdown.
“I don’t know that there’s anything in modern day history that comes close to the moment we’re in,” Crockett said. “As we typically say in the Black community, the hoods are off.”
In the Senate, some Democrats said they would break personal tradition and oppose all of Trump’s remaining Cabinet nominees.
“I plan to oppose every cabinet level nominee that is considered on the Senate floor going forward,” said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del. “The administration has carried out unlawful budget freezes, massive civil servant layoffs and unconstitutional firings, directed federal funding specifically to places with ‘higher birthrates,’ allowed an unelected and unchecked billionaire to determine what our tax dollars are worthy of funding, and more.”
