Donald Trump and Leon Musk are breaking laws left and right and the Republicans know it! Impeach Trump NOW!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/04/opinion/republicans-cowards-trump-musk/
Echo opinion published in The Boston Globe
Republicans are complicit in the constitutional crises that Trump and Musk are unleashing. In a moment demanding courage, the GOP has only cowards. By Renée Graham
Standing in solidarity with US Agency for International Development employees who were abruptly banned from entering their headquarters in Washington on Monday, Democratic lawmakers did more than call out Elon Musk and President Trump for trying to disband the long-established agency.
“What Trump and Musk have done is not only wrong, it’s illegal,” Representative Don Beyer of Virginia said during a news conference outside the building that included, among others, Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Like USAID employees, they were also blocked by security from entering USAID headquarters.
“USAID was established by an act of Congress, and it can only be disbanded by an act of Congress,” Beyer said. “Stopping this will require action by the courts and for Republicans to show up and show courage and stand up for our country.”
Federal judges have done their job in temporarily blocking two Musk/Trump directives — ending constitutionally protected birthright citizenship and Trump’s sprawling freeze on federal loans and grants.
But craven congressional Republicans have largely gone stone silent as Musk and Trump step all over the Constitution and execute a coup right before our eyes.
Don’t let them get away with it❗
Since Trump’s inauguration just a few weeks ago, Republicans have somehow escaped the kind of harsh criticism that’s been heaped on Democrats for their sluggish response to Trump’s shocking overreach.
But Democrats are finally reacting with the urgency this moment demands. (Although too many keep voting, for no discernible reason, to confirm some of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.)
On Monday, Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii announced that he is putting a “blanket hold” on all of Trump’s State Department nominees “until … this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again."
A hold can slow down the process for confirming nominees, but a minority party alone can’t stop their confirmation.
As Trump and Musk, who has been mysteriously dubbed a “special government employee" by the White House, continue to unmake America, with the White House and Congress controlled by Republicans, Democratic lawmakers don’t have the power to obstruct a ham sandwich.
That means the fate of this nation rests in the unworthy hands of congressional Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who aren’t doing anything to stop this madness.
During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate confirmation hearing last week, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was praised for interrogating Kennedy on his anti-vaccine views. But on Tuesday, Cassidy, a doctor, cast the deciding vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination.
Cassidy is up for reelection next year. In November, an unnamed Trump adviser told ABC News, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary” and “there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.” It’s not party over country. It’s a political career over everything else.
When Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana was asked about Musk’s undefined and seemingly infinite power, he could have been speaking for all of his fellow Republicans.
“To my friends who are upset, call somebody who cares. You better get used to this,” Kennedy said. “It’s USAID today, it’s going to be the Department of Education tomorrow.”
Congressional approval is required to abolish a federal agency. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Having spent nearly $300 million to buy an election and a president, Musk is doing whatever he wants with the government that Trump was narrowly elected to run.
By now, it’s obvious that Musk is running our country as an unelected president. He’s not even hiding it. Trump gets to appear on camera, sign stacks of executive orders, tell bombastic lies, and name-check his billionaire pals, like right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison, cofounder of Oracle, hanging out in the Oval Office. But it’s Musk driving the evil clown car.
As far as Trump is concerned, he doesn’t need Congress so long as he has the world’s richest man leading him around by his too-long red tie. Whatever Musk wants, Musk gets, and Republicans refuse to do anything about it.
They know most of Trump’s Cabinet nominees are unqualified or too extremist to have access to real power. They know that Musk is unconstitutionally wielding more power right now than both houses of Congress combined. They know Musk has no business making major changes without a whiff of congressional involvement about policies that will impact hundreds of millions of lives here and worldwide.
But their inaction is being excused in the same way that Trump has long gotten a pass on his hideous behavior. To the detriment of the country, it’s all been normalized as just the way they do things.
As America — and the world — shuddfrom er this ongoing coup, Republicans are guilty of a dereliction of duty. And to save their political necks, they’ve surrendered the Constitution and this fragile nation to the destructive whims of a billionaire Nazi-salute enthusiast and a convicted felon.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist.
Echo opinion published in The Boston Globe
Republicans are complicit in the constitutional crises that Trump and Musk are unleashing. In a moment demanding courage, the GOP has only cowards. By Renée Graham
Standing in solidarity with US Agency for International Development employees who were abruptly banned from entering their headquarters in Washington on Monday, Democratic lawmakers did more than call out Elon Musk and President Trump for trying to disband the long-established agency.
“What Trump and Musk have done is not only wrong, it’s illegal,” Representative Don Beyer of Virginia said during a news conference outside the building that included, among others, Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Like USAID employees, they were also blocked by security from entering USAID headquarters.
“USAID was established by an act of Congress, and it can only be disbanded by an act of Congress,” Beyer said. “Stopping this will require action by the courts and for Republicans to show up and show courage and stand up for our country.”
Federal judges have done their job in temporarily blocking two Musk/Trump directives — ending constitutionally protected birthright citizenship and Trump’s sprawling freeze on federal loans and grants.
But craven congressional Republicans have largely gone stone silent as Musk and Trump step all over the Constitution and execute a coup right before our eyes.
Don’t let them get away with it❗
Since Trump’s inauguration just a few weeks ago, Republicans have somehow escaped the kind of harsh criticism that’s been heaped on Democrats for their sluggish response to Trump’s shocking overreach.
But Democrats are finally reacting with the urgency this moment demands. (Although too many keep voting, for no discernible reason, to confirm some of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.)
On Monday, Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii announced that he is putting a “blanket hold” on all of Trump’s State Department nominees “until … this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again."
A hold can slow down the process for confirming nominees, but a minority party alone can’t stop their confirmation.
As Trump and Musk, who has been mysteriously dubbed a “special government employee" by the White House, continue to unmake America, with the White House and Congress controlled by Republicans, Democratic lawmakers don’t have the power to obstruct a ham sandwich.
That means the fate of this nation rests in the unworthy hands of congressional Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who aren’t doing anything to stop this madness.
During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate confirmation hearing last week, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was praised for interrogating Kennedy on his anti-vaccine views. But on Tuesday, Cassidy, a doctor, cast the deciding vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination.
Cassidy is up for reelection next year. In November, an unnamed Trump adviser told ABC News, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary” and “there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.” It’s not party over country. It’s a political career over everything else.
When Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana was asked about Musk’s undefined and seemingly infinite power, he could have been speaking for all of his fellow Republicans.
“To my friends who are upset, call somebody who cares. You better get used to this,” Kennedy said. “It’s USAID today, it’s going to be the Department of Education tomorrow.”
Congressional approval is required to abolish a federal agency. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Having spent nearly $300 million to buy an election and a president, Musk is doing whatever he wants with the government that Trump was narrowly elected to run.
By now, it’s obvious that Musk is running our country as an unelected president. He’s not even hiding it. Trump gets to appear on camera, sign stacks of executive orders, tell bombastic lies, and name-check his billionaire pals, like right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison, cofounder of Oracle, hanging out in the Oval Office. But it’s Musk driving the evil clown car.
As far as Trump is concerned, he doesn’t need Congress so long as he has the world’s richest man leading him around by his too-long red tie. Whatever Musk wants, Musk gets, and Republicans refuse to do anything about it.
They know most of Trump’s Cabinet nominees are unqualified or too extremist to have access to real power. They know that Musk is unconstitutionally wielding more power right now than both houses of Congress combined. They know Musk has no business making major changes without a whiff of congressional involvement about policies that will impact hundreds of millions of lives here and worldwide.
But their inaction is being excused in the same way that Trump has long gotten a pass on his hideous behavior. To the detriment of the country, it’s all been normalized as just the way they do things.
As America — and the world — shuddfrom er this ongoing coup, Republicans are guilty of a dereliction of duty. And to save their political necks, they’ve surrendered the Constitution and this fragile nation to the destructive whims of a billionaire Nazi-salute enthusiast and a convicted felon.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist.
Labels: GOP, Renée Graham, The Boston Globe, USAID
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