In the first couple of weeks of the Trump Administration, the president has made it clear that he plans to reshape the federal government, not with a scalpel, but a sledgehammer.
With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump has frozen federal hiring and tried to freeze congressionally approved government spending. His advisor, billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who is serving as a “special government employee,” and his small team at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have effectively shut down USAID and are trying to entice hundreds of thousands of civil servants to leave their jobs.
“I have never seen anything like this in my entire life and it is frightening,” Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, the dean of the delegation, told CPR News.
DeGette is particularly concerned that Musk has access to the Treasury Department's payment system. “Elon Musk does not have any kind of legal authority to set up his agency, DOGE, or to access these records.”
Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse added it’s dangerous that Trump has allowed “unelected officials who were affiliated with his campaign unfettered access into some of our sensitive systems of our government financial nerve centers.”
Neguse, who serves as House Democrat’s Assistant Leader, said the “unprecedented circumstance that has developed” deserves a response and that Congress needs to “defend its constitutional prerogatives.”
Democratic Reps. Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen have also called out Musk’s moves on social media. Crow noted that Musk wasn’t elected, wasn’t confirmed by the Senate and there’s “no transparency or oversight of his efforts.”
Pettersen said House Democrats will do everything possible “to stop this overreach of power.”
Democrats have planned a multi-pronged approach, from introducing legislation to speaking out, at the same time that outside groups mount legal challenges to Musk and Trump’s efforts.
If Democrats are loudly speaking out against the moves, Colorado’s Republicans are sounding a very different note.
CPR News reached out to freshman Reps. Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Freshman Rep. Jeff Hurd said he’s been hearing from his constituents about public safety issues and water infrastructure, not Elon Musk.
He added he hasn’t looked through all the executive orders, “but certainly Congress should make sure that it’s protecting its role in governing our country. And that’s something that I think we’ll have to look at on a case-by-case basis.”
However, Colorado’s senior Republican, Rep. Lauren Boebert, defended Musk’s moves, saying “I love it.”
“Certainly, we need help and oversight and reducing that spending and ending funding,” Boebert told CPR News, saying she supports Musk’s closure of USAID.
She said USAID had funded the Wuhan lab which has been investigated as a potential source of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a GAO report, USAID sent money to the University of California, Davis, in 2014, which then gave a sub-award to EcoHealth Alliance and a second-tier sub-award to Wuhan University and Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Boebert is supportive of DOGE’s effort to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, even if it means the administration is taking unilateral actions on funding and agencies.
“Having extra eyes … Yes, we used to call that Congress, but obviously Congress has not done a very good job at having that oversight and reducing spending and that's why we're $36 trillion in debt,” she said.
The conservative Republican said she would support a Democratic president if he or she made these types of moves to cut spending without Congressional approval; “Any president that wants to come in and shrink the size and scope of government and get government more efficient and honor those tax dollars by Americans, I'm absolutely for that.”
During the Biden Administration, Boebert often referred to Congress as holding the power of the purse. But if a president could cut or change spending however they want, without Congress signing off, why have the legislative branch at all?
“I think America has been saying, ‘Why do we need Congress?’ for a long time,” Boebert said. “Congress has probably a lower approval rating than root canals and so much more. So that's been a question that's been asked for a very long time.”
Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet said he is “not at all surprised” that his Republican Senate colleagues aren’t speaking up and defending Congress’ power of the purse, but he thinks they should be.
“We didn’t elect a king in November. We elected a president and a president needs to act according to the laws, not according to his own dictates,” he said.
Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper said what has surprised him is “how fast and how many different directions [Musk] is moving.”
Hickenlooper first ran for office as Mayor of Denver, on a platform of smaller, more efficient government, “but we spent tons more time” looking for exactly how to do that, without hurting the services people rely on.
Hickenlooper thinks Musk may be driven, but that he, like many of the people around him, just doesn’t have experience in how government actually works.
And the senator stuck up for the federal workers in Musk’s crosshairs. people who chose public service, Hickenlooper said, “They’re on a mission. They want to make the world better for the citizens of Colorado.”
