WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
Musk’s maneuvers, which include the hostile seizure of taxpayer data and the apparent closure of the government’s leading international humanitarian aid agency, have energized 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 average Americans, backed by a sudden influx of elected officials, warned of a looming constitutional crisis at ballooning protests 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.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, a rising star in her party, said 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.”
“This is unacceptable and dangerous,” Blunt Rochester added.
The growing outcry from Democrats extends well beyond Washington, where some rank-and-file Democrats are upset that their representatives in Congress are not doing enough.
Ezra Levin, who leads the Democratic activist group Indivisible, said that 50,000 people joined a call on Sunday to pressure senators to take a tougher stand against Musk. He was pleased that Democrats in Washington seem to have rallied since last week’s unilateral grant freeze, but he contends that the party can take more steps, especially in the Senate.
“We don’t even have them issuing ongoing opposition to Trump’s nominees while a coup is happening,” Levin said on Tuesday, noting 22 Senate Democrats voted to confirm Trump’s nominee for secretary of veterans affairs, Doug Collins. “This isn’t about any individual program, this is about whether we have a constitution.”
Democrats have few options.
Philip Joyce, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland, noted that the Trump administration has been more than willing to work around Congress during its latest round of executive actions.
“Since the administration doesn’t seem concerned with doing things that have been viewed as illegal or unconstitutional in the past, I can’t see any other option other than taking the administration to court,” Joyce said.
Indeed, Democrats at this point hope the courts will provide the checks and balances that Trump’s Republican allies in Washington will not.
Democratic state attorneys general and nonprofit groups successfully filed lawsuits last week that led to separate court orders halting Trump-ordered funding freezes that triggered panic among nonprofit organizations, including hospitals and social welfare groups. On Monday, federal worker unions sued to block Musk and his staff from accessing the Treasury payments system. Multiple groups have also sued to prevent Trump from stripping civil service protections from a swathe of federal workers.
At the same time, Democrats and their allies are increasingly concerned that Trump may ignore court orders altogether. Already, the term-limited president is bypassing laws that establish federal funding levels and worker protections.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the AP that his union is already preparing for Trump to ignore a court order.
“We won’t give up. We’ll keep fighting until justice prevails,” he said.
In one apparent silver lining, Kelly noted that Trump has been good for union participation in recent weeks. The American Federation of Government Employees expanded its ranks by 8,693 members in January and another 3,000 people have joined so far in January, he said.
Government workers were among the hundreds who protested outside federal offices on Tuesday. And more than a dozen members of Congress were on the speaking program of a late-afternoon rally outside the Treasury 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.
Protesters outside the Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday targeted Musk almost more than Trump.
“Elon, Elon, stop the coup! Nobody elected you!” they chanted, as some waved signs that read, “Musk must go. Get out! Now.”
“It’s one thing to downsize the government. It’s one thing to try to obliterate it,” said Dan Smith, a Maryland resident whose father was a farmer, a USDA research scientist, and “one of the hardest working federal employees I knew.”
He called the Trump administration’s moves “frightening and disgusting.”
“My only hope is that they’re going to push too far, and there’s going to be a response and a retaliation — and we’re going to come out this thing with more and stronger belief in democracy,” Smith said.
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Peoples reported from New York. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed.
Steve Peoples And Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press
