Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday criticized what they called the Trump administration’s “extreme” efforts to reshape the U.S. government, vowing to oppose those changes despite limited political capital in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.
“If you want to make cuts, then you do it through a debate in Congress, not lawlessly, by just implementing them,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. “We want to make sure waste isn't done, but they're cutting out the meat that's going to hurt millions of American families.”
But with Republican control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, Democrats have limited options at their disposal.
“There's no identified leader of the party,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said of Democrats’ attempts to stop [President Donald] Trump. “They don't have a clear vision. They seem rudderless. In hopes of finding themselves, they've latched on to this new, shiny object called the rule of law. Well, we'd like to welcome them to the concept. It would be admirable if they hadn't spent the last four years with their heads buried in the sand while [former President Joe Biden] literally trampled over the rule of law with no objection.”
Congressional Republicans say Trump is exercising broad presidential authority to reevaluate government agencies. Trump is accomplishing this through Elon Musk, a multibillionaire who he put in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, whose aim is to reduce federal spending.
“The Democrat Party's tantrums are exactly why they hold no majority in Congress, and their candidate is not in the White House,” Republican Majority Whip Tom Emmer told reporters on Tuesday. “DOGE is rightly pulling back the curtains that have been closed for years, and the outrage we are seeing across the aisle is baffling, but not surprising, given their record of mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.”
Democrats have had some success temporarily stopping Trump’s executive orders in the U.S. court system, but other changes may take time, said Casey Burgat, legislative affairs program director at The George Washington University.
“We haven't seen the grassroots mobilization yet, but that's the one most indirect levers of power within Washington, D.C. It takes time for those messages to resonate with the American people, for them to coordinate with each other to gain enough volume to reach members of Congress, or enough members of Congress,” Burgat said.
“Even now in this era of polarization, if you have a united Republican majority in the Senate and House, and obviously Donald Trump in the White House, it’s really tough to be in the minority in any of those positions because you just simply don't have access to the levers of power to slow things down," he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries framed the agency closures as a failure to help the American people. On the House chamber floor on Monday, he said Republicans were departing from their campaign pledge not to follow Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for reshaping the U.S. government.
“This year, Republicans have spent all of their time implementing the most extreme parts of Project 2025 and have done nothing to lower the high cost of living,” Jeffries said.
Schumer wrote in a letter to Senate colleagues that Democrats have a four-pronged strategy to oppose the Trump administration’s actions: oversight, litigation, legislation, and communication and mobilization.
Schumer also said Democrats would continue to support litigation in the courts to stop the funding freeze and to prevent federal employees from being laid off.
Vice President JD Vance criticized those judicial decisions, writing on X, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.”
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy responded on X Monday: “For those of us who believe we are in the middle of a constitutional crisis, this is the meat of it. Trump and Vance are laying the groundwork to ignore the courts — democracy’s last line of defense against unchecked executive power.”
Senate Democrats also announced a new whistleblowers portal for federal civil service employees and public servants to disclose information about wrongdoing.
In a statement, they said, “As Senate Republicans refuse to fulfill their constitutional duty to provide a check on the Executive Branch, Senate Democrats remain steadfast in our commitment to uncovering the truth. We are prepared to issue demand letters, preserve public records, conduct public hearings, and pursue legal action where necessary.”
Schumer said Democrats would support legislation funding the U.S. government but called on Republicans to negotiate in a bipartisan fashion. A short-term resolution funding the U.S. government expires on March 14. Any bill funding the government past that date needs 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to pass. Republicans currently hold the majority in the chamber with 53 seats.
