Senate Democrats are struggling to deal with a rising tide of anger inside their party as President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk run roughshod over federal agencies, with House members seething and activists demanding they “shut down the Senate” in response.
Instead, it has in many ways been business as usual in the Senate over the first two weeks of Trump’s second term. Republicans have ground through procedural obstacles to confirm nearly a dozen Cabinet nominees, a pace that alarms a broad swath of Democrats.
The lack of organized pushback has many Democrats wondering when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other party leaders will put forward a more aggressive strategy for resisting the GOP blitzkrieg that has already gutted the U.S. foreign-aid agency, halted many federal grants and left government employees shell-shocked.
“This is not business as usual, and Senate Democrats should not be treating this as business as usual,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “We need to see a halt on all Trump nominees.”
There are signs that Schumer & Co. are starting to step up their opposition. They have planned an all-night talkathon Wednesday to protest the impending confirmation of Russ Vought, Trump’s nominee for budget director, and a handful of Democratic senators have agreed to blockade Trump’s Cabinet picks until Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” initiative is reined in.
But a handful of others have continued to vote for some confirmations, and they otherwise have work to do to address the lingering sense inside the party that they are not meeting the moment.
Asked how Democrats should respond just moments after he voted to confirm Trump’s HUD nominee, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said, “I want to read that story because I'm trying to figure that out.”
After voting to confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Schumer told his members Tuesday he will vote against any remaining Cabinet nominees and urged his colleagues to do the same, an aide to the New York Democrat said.
Just hours later, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) voted for Pam Bondi’s attorney general nomination, and on Wednesday Fetterman and Welch voted for HUD’s Scott Turner.
Controversial nominees including HHS pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard have yet to come to the Senate floor, where Democrats are expected to pull out all the stops in opposing them.
Some Democrats have tried to capture a sudden wave of activism that has popped up over the past week as Trump and Musk’s assault on the federal bureaucracy has come into focus. Schumer, for instance, was among several Democratic lawmakers who protested Musk’s moves outside the Treasury Department on Tuesday.
He led a boisterous crowd of lawmakers and supporters in chanting, “We will win.” The crowd immediately followed by chanting, “Shut down the Senate.”
It’s true that the Senate minority — any one senator, in fact — has considerable power to gum up the chamber’s business by objecting to matters typically conducted by unanimous consent. But with Republicans in the majority, and the 60-vote filibuster rule no longer applying to presidential confirmations, there’s not much Democrats can do to stand in the way of a united GOP.
Schumer has been measured in setting expectations for resistance in the chamber, and he has to navigate a caucus that might not be totally united on tactics. While they forced Republicans to stay in session for one Saturday last month, Democrats have agreed with the GOP at other times to arrange votes so senators can return home for their traditional long weekends and otherwise avoid late-night or early-morning votes.
Democrats are instead taking up a multi-pronged approach that will also include legal challenges, supporting efforts in states with Democratic governments to push back on Trump and trying to win coming elections such as the Virginia governor race in November.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who spoke at a rally for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Wednesday outside the Capitol, said people there were “yelling, ‘What are you guys going to do?’ I made them quiet by saying, ‘Do you guys want to know what the plan is? … It’s courts, states, Congress and politics.'”
“We've got to make things hotter,” acknowledged Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), adding that the furor in the party will ultimately be channeled solely at Republicans: "Yes, there are people who are angry at Democrats. … But what I see now is the action is all focused, in the end, in one direction ... stopping the destruction of our democracy.”
Welch, whose office said he voted for Turner because of his home state’s housing crisis, said pushing back on Trump isn’t a job for the Senate alone. And he said mounting an effective resistance will take time.
“Here's the dilemma: We've got a Republican majority in the Senate, in the House and presidency, so we don't have the votes,” he said. “So our view is that as the reality of what Trump is doing becomes more apparent, there's going to be a lot of buyer's remorse.”
Still, their House counterparts have little patience for any pretense of normality in the Senate, preferring that senators do more to obstruct Trump’s nominees — joining, for instance, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), who publicly announced her blanket opposition to his Cabinet picks.
“If you are looking at all those dynamics and think you know what's important is that Ted Cruz is my friend, you are completely incompetent and completely misunderstanding the moment,” said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). “We're in a different ball game right now. Y'all gotta stop playing checkers.”
To be sure, the House minority has not itself been a hotbed of righteous protest targeting Trump. Much as in the Senate, members are sending sharply worded letters, holding news conferences and otherwise trying to win public attention. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, feeling similar heat as Schumer, huddled with his caucus last week on the now-paused spending freeze and sent a letter to colleagues this week laying out his plan for pushback, including using upcoming appropriations talks for leverage.
But with Trump’s Cabinet confirmations being the central pressure point at the moment, the Senate is where the action is. And many on the left want the party to pull out every procedural tool they have to stand in the way.
Ocasio-Cortez urged Democrats to “blow this place up.”
“We should not comply in advance,” she said. “We should not make it easy for them to do what they need to do if they're going to do it anyway. Make them do it anyway, but not with our help.”
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