House Democrats launched a multilateral effort Wednesday to combat the flood of executive actions from President Trump, vowing to punch back through legislation, lawsuits and a blitz of counter-messaging.
In a virtual meeting of the House Democratic Caucus — conducted on Zoom because the House is in recess — party leaders and Democratic committee heads laid out the contours of their strategy, which will lean heavily on efforts to inform voters of the real-world effects of Trump’s actions.
It was an “emergency” discussion sparked by the Trump administration’s move — since rescinded — to freeze trillions of dollars for federal grants and loans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told his troops to pursue all avenues of opposition — and take that fight to the streets, according to several Democrats who participated in the meeting.
“I don’t want to speak for the leader,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said afterward, “but it was a broad call for action — and a vigorous one.”
“House Democrats are now fully engaged. The bell has rung. I think we see this for the constitutional test that it is, and we’re going to be aggressively pushing back,” echoed Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).
“Leader Jeffries described it as a legal fight, a legislative fight and a street fight. And I couldn’t put it better.”
The Democrats have a challenging road ahead as they seek to block Trump’s aggressive agenda, which features a broad dismantling of the federal government and how it operates.
On the legislative front, Republicans control both chambers of Congress, leaving Democrats virtually powerless to bring bills to the floor.
And as a legal matter, the courts have already ruled that congressional lawmakers lack the standing to challenge presidents when they refuse to spend federal dollars as Congress directed. That’s the controversy at the center of the White House’s move this week to freeze federal spending on hundreds of programs while agency officials weed out diversity initiatives and other efforts that don’t align with Trump’s priorities.
Still, Democrats are hardly powerless in the debate, even from the minority.
That’s because House Republicans have a historically slim majority, and GOP leaders are already struggling to unify their feuding conference for the sake of passing Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda. That will lend Democrats plenty of voice in the coming fights over must-pass legislation like funding the government and raising the debt ceiling, and they say they intend to use it.
“Our votes are going to be needed at a whole bunch of key moments, starting just weeks from now,” Huffman said. “So we’re going to leverage those moments, we’re going to leverage the appropriations process, and we’re going to use whatever bully pulpits we have to awaken the American people to what’s going on here.”
Democrats also see a roundabout solution to their lack of legal standing when it comes to challenging certain executive actions like impoundment: They intend to coordinate with allies outside the Capitol who do have that power, including state attorneys general and outside advocacy groups. Indeed, many of them had already sued this week over the administration’s spending freeze, and a federal judge on Tuesday had blocked it from taking effect immediately.
Amid the outside pressure and an outcry on Capitol Hill, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Wednesday rescinded the order that had established the freeze, although the White House said agency reviews will continue to ensure that no “woke” programs are funded.
The Democrats’ virtual meeting Wednesday began just as the news of the OMB’s reversal was breaking, and some saw the administration’s quick about-face as evidence that public outreach — and voter outrage — might be their biggest allies in the fight against Trump’s unilateral designs for remaking the government in his favor. Connolly called the freeze “a profound stumble.”
“By freezing grants, loans and contracts, you have brought a lot of activity all across America — in red states and blue states — to a screeching halt,” he said. “This filters down to the most granular level of our communities, and that’s where this pain and hurt is going to be felt.”
Jeffries and his leadership team are calling on all rank-and-file Democrats to stage “a day of action” this week, while the House is in recess. And lawmakers said they’re already taking that message to heart, staging town halls with voters and Zoom calls with advocacy groups to warn against what they see as a dire threat to America’s democratic traditions.
In blue districts, that might mean preaching largely to the choir. But Huffman, for one, said he’s planning to step into more hostile territory to deliver the message.
“I had a jam-packed town hall last night — I’m going to be doing more of them,” he said. “But I am looking at going into the Republican parts of my district to show what a wrecking ball this federal spending freeze is for the very people in communities who think Trump cares about them.”
Amid the flood of executive actions, Democratic leaders have come under fire from liberals and other Trump critics who say the party hasn’t been aggressive enough in fighting back against the newly installed president.
Connolly and Huffman both dismissed those criticisms, arguing that Democrats will have to pick their battles strategically if they hope to have any success.
“It is Day 9. Everyone needs to take a deep breath,” Connolly said. “Democrats are alive and well, and absolutely prepared to provide vigorous resistance when we believe the law has been violated, or that what Donald Trump and his cronies are up to will inflict harm on our communities.”
