Last Friday, the Trump administration purged dozens of federal prosecutors and FBI officials who had worked on cases involving the Jan. 6 insurrection. And also shoved out the career Treasury Department official in charge of getting payments sent on time. And also removed references to gender identity and equity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. And also confirmed it would slap tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. All on one day.
The single most important battle Democrats must wage
Don’t let Donald Trump’s noise distract from his ultimate power grab.
February 3, 2025
This constant barrage of executive actions and outrageous rhetoric coming from the White House is meant to overwhelm, intimidate and distract. Don’t let it. Distinguish the signal from the noise — and focus on stopping a power grab that would fundamentally change the nature of our democracy.
President Donald Trump’s preferred modus operandi has always been to make maximalist demands and see how much he can get away with. Unlike during his first presidency, when “mature adults” tempered his instincts, this time no one has stopped him from making a claim that plainly violates Article 1 of the Constitution: He insists that he, not Congress, has the right to decide how the federal government spends the people’s money.
That is by far the most important thing Trump has done, or tried to do. Some of the rest of his decrees are substantive, most are smoke-and-mirrors, but all pale beside his attempt to usurp the power of the purse. The first thing the resistance must resist is Trump’s attempt to make this attempted theft appear to be a fait accompli.
He has frozen money that Congress authorized for foreign aid, threatening to abolish the U.S. Agency for International Development. Acting over the weekend with Trump’s blessings, representatives of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, seized control of USAID’s headquarters and began shuttering the agency.
“I went over it with him [Trump] in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk posted on X. “And so we’re shutting it down.” In earlier posts, Musk called USAID “evil” and claimed it is a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.”
Those calumnies are completely unfounded; USAID is staffed by idealists who fund lifesaving health and other services in Ukraine, Ethiopia and elsewhere for people desperately trying to survive war, famine and disaster. The agency’s annual budget is about $40 billion, which is less than 1 percent of federal spending — a bargain price. Of course, Congress may defund USAID if it chooses. An out-of-control plutocrat, elected by nobody and accountable to nobody, may not.
Even more alarming is that Musk and his aides, brought in from his various companies, have been given access to the payments systems through which the Treasury Department disburses more than $6 trillion each year. Until now, only a small number of civil servants have been allowed to access the systems because they include sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, for many if not most Americans.
Theoretically, Musk could mine the Treasury systems for information about firms that compete with his. Worse than that, he suggested that he intended to cancel some scheduled disbursements that he deemed “illegal.” Look past the rhetoric to the power grab: The White House, acting through Musk, is seeking control of spending that only Congress has the right to rescind.
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974, passed in response to a similar power grab by President Richard M. Nixon, makes it crystal clear that presidents do not have the power to “impound,” or withhold, congressionally mandated spending. Trump’s nominee for budget director, Russell Vought, declined to give a straight answer at his confirmation hearing when asked whether he would abide fully by the terms of the anti-impoundment law.
This is the most important battle that Democrats must wage — in the public square, at the Capitol, perhaps ultimately before the Supreme Court. Republicans ought to join them in the fight; they won’t like it if some future Democratic president decides to withhold spending on the GOP’s pet issues. But they’re too frightened of Trump to make a peep.
Some of the other damage that Trump and his minions are inflicting is also consequential. All of us will pay higher prices if he imposes his threatened tariffs, which the Wall Street Journal called “the dumbest trade war in history.” Dedicated public servants at the Justice Department and elsewhere are being purged for nothing more than doing their jobs. Refugees who fled Venezuela’s murderous regime will soon be sent home to an uncertain fate, as will migrant families from other countries who are being rounded up and deported to fill a daily quota. Trump’s vile rhetoric against diversity will restrict opportunity, and thus weaken the nation. And it matters, to the rule of law and to public safety, that violent thugs who sacked the Capitol and bashed police officers are free, while the FBI agents who tracked them down are in Trump’s crosshairs.
Everything gets worse, however, if Trump gets to decide who gets a check from the government and who doesn’t. He wants us to believe he is a king with the power to bestow or deny favors at his whim. Never forget that he is not.