Feb. 6, 2025, 8:15 p.m.
In the 19 days since taking office, President Trump’s White House has washed over the federal government like a tsunami, freezing billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated spending, pushing out swaths of the federal workforce and, in some cases, moving to shut down entire agencies.
Trump has exercised power that Democrats and some experts say is reserved for Congress under Article 1 of the Constitution, which lays out the legislative branch's power of the purse, to craft law and conduct oversight of the federal government. Trump has delayed implementation of a law that would have shut down the social media app TikTok, fired the inspectors general for 12 federal agencies, and threatened massive tariffs whose implementation could stretch the executive’s existing powers.
The push-and-pull of authority between the executive and legislative branch is nothing new, but the size and scope of Trump’s actions across only two weeks is historic. The administration and its makeshift, cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, are well on their way to reshaping the federal government in a fundamental way, testing the limits of a permissive GOP congressional majority.
Democrats in Congress are livid. Congressional Republicans are offering little pushback, despite the White House treading on authorities closely guarded by legislators. Many Republicans say Trump is simply fulfilling the campaign promises voters endorsed to eliminate waste in government and root out what they describe as corruption.
“We don’t see this as a threat to Article 1 at all,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at a Wednesday press conference when asked about DOGE dismantling government agencies. “We see this as an active, engaged, committed executive branch authority doing what the executive branch should do.”
Other Republicans took a more historical approach and pointed to other executives leaning into an imperial presidency.
“The struggle between the various branches of government is as old as the republic, and so I see this as normal, not like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is unusual,’” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole said. “Strong presidents are going to be assertive and are going to strain the limit of executive authority.”
Cole, a mainstream, old-guard Republican in his first term as the chamber’s top appropriator, said President Biden pushed similar boundaries with his cancellation of up to $400 billion in student loans, even battling over the issue in the Supreme Court and ultimately losing.
“Nobody was worried about the republic collapsing,” Cole said of that episode.
Cole is working on government-funding legislation due March 14, the first spending bill Trump would sign in his term. The Oklahoma Republican said he still has red lines when it comes to meddling with appropriated spending over which the White House shouldn’t cross, but he didn’t want to disclose them.
“I'm a big believer in [former Sen.] Roy Blunt’s old saying, ‘Never say what you'll never do,’” Cole said.
As of Thursday, DOGE has effectively shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development and has turned its sights on the Medicare and Medicaid programs. While the White House rescinded a separate executive order freezing trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans—and a federal judge has ordered the administration not to move forward—some states say money still isn’t flowing, Reuters reported.
Some Republicans, traditionally skeptical of the steady expansion of executive power, nonetheless back Trump’s moves. When reporters asked libertarian Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky Wednesday if he was concerned about Congress not having a role in any DOGE cuts, Paul said, “I am,” then qualified his response.
“But I’m mostly concerned about the destruction of our currency and the destruction of our country by having a $36 trillion debt that nobody’s paying attention to,” Paul said.
The majority of Republicans back Musk and Trump’s aggressive efforts to shrink government, though some have leveled criticism.
“There’s no doubt that the president appears to have empowered Elon Musk to go far beyond what I think is appropriate,” centrist Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told reporters Wednesday. But she stressed that Trump was not the first president to overstep his authority, citing the Biden administration diverting money appropriated to build Trump’s border wall to other uses.
When Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general for federal agencies, including the departments of Veterans Affairs, State, and Defense, the president got additional criticism from one of the Senate’s top IG defenders, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary committee, helped author a letter seeking further explanation on why the White House did not give Congress 30 days notice before removing the watchdogs, as required.
“The communication to Congress must contain more than just broad and vague statements, rather it must include sufficient facts and details to assure Congress and the public that the termination is due to real concerns about the Inspector General’s ability to carry out their mission,” the letter said.
Democrats were caught off guard on the torrent of cuts and unilateral actions emanating from the White House since Jan. 20. They’re beginning to develop a plan, however. House Democrats introduced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act on Thursday to bar Musk’s access to detailed Treasury Department data on government workers and taxpayers.
“House Republicans don’t appear interested in working for everyday Americans and solving problems for hardworking American taxpayers. Why? Because they are working for Elon Musk and doing the bidding of an unelected, unaccountable, out-of-control billionaire puppetmaster,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a press conference.
The measure would need at least three Republicans to join Democrats and force a vote in the House, an unlikely prospect. Options remain limited for Democrats to push back against Musk and DOGE.
“We will introduce legislation, we will move legislation aggressively, we will work through the court system, and we will continue to communicate to the American people about what’s happening, why it’s happening, and why the promises that were made by Republicans to lower the high cost of living aren’t being kept,” Jeffries said.
