Trump and Musk’s dismantling of government is shaking the foundations of U.S. democracy

When Elon Musk debuted the Department of Government Efficiency recently at the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson enthusiastically predicted the coming Trump administration would bring “a lot of change around here.”

Three weeks in, the change the Trump administration has brought is a disruption of the federal government on an unprecedented scale, dismantling longstanding programs, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills.

Government workers are being pushed to resign. Entire agencies are being shuttered. Federal funding to states and nonprofits was temporarily frozen. And the most sensitive Treasury Department information of countless Americans was opened to Musk’s DOGE team in an unprecedented breach of privacy and protocol.

“This is an erosion of our democracy,” said Brian Riedl, a longtime economic adviser to conservative Republicans, now at the Manhattan Institute think tank.

President Donald Trump has tapped Musk, the world’s richest man, to take on inner workings of the world’s oldest democracy, and so far the results are stunning, if not alarming and unlawful, being challenged in dozens of court cases nationwide.

Congress is proving little match for DOGE as wary lawmakers watch it march through the bureaucracy. Instead, a rush of lawsuits is demanding interventions to stop the Republican president’s team from unilaterally gutting government. And protests are erupting outside government agencies and clogging the congressional phone lines.

“Whatever DOGE is doing, it is certainly not — not — what democracy looks like or has ever looked like in the grand history of this country,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said.

“An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” Schumer posted on Musk’s social media site X.

Musk responded on his platform: “Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that DOGE is doing work that really matters.”

Congress has been here before, tested during Trump’s first term by his willingness to break the norms and skirt the outer banks of legality, most notably when he steamrolled Congress and poached federal military housing and construction funds to build parts of his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But Trump’s second-term partnership with Musk, who spent some $200 million on Trump’s White House bid and employs the tech world ethos of moving fast and breaking things, is escalating the confrontation. On a stated quest to save money by rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, they are making moves to upend American institutions, decimate the civil service and leave a reformed — or hollowed-out — federal government in its place.

Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said it would be “catastrophic to our system of government” if the effort succeeds.

“Many of the things they are doing are brazenly unlawful, and we’ve seen that the courts have been willing to intervene — and intervene quickly,” Parrott said. “There’s a real readiness and understanding of the stakes.”

In many ways, Trump is pursuing by force what Republicans have long promised but have been unable to deliver by congressional action: shrinking the size and scope of the federal government. Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist quipped more than a decade ago about the goal of making government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

But facing pushback from within their ranks about cutting programs Americans rely upon, Republicans have repeatedly failed to accomplish their budget-slashing goals even when they fully control Congress and the White House, as they do now.

While Congress has the power to pass legislation to fund government operations, the president can veto bills or sign them into law. Instead, Trump is testing an idea championed by his nominee for budget director, Russ Vought, that the executive has the ability to “impound” federal funds, clawing the money back.

Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said DOGE provides “cover” for some Republicans who want to cut federal funds, when Congress has failed to do so.

And other Republicans say they are comfortable with Trump’s pause of certain federal operations, particularly the U.S. Agency for International Development, which sends aid around the world. Closing the Department of Education is next on deck.

“We’ve got oversight,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “If he goes too far, I’ll be the first person to step up.”

Taken together the actions of the administration and DOGE have been swift, relentless and wide open to debate.

Trump’s Office of Management and Budget’s move to abruptly freeze federal grants and loans drew outrage nationwide as states and nonprofit organizations feared being locked out of funds they need to provide housing, health care and other services. A day later, the White House reversed course.

The shutdown of funds to USAID is largely seen as a test case for the Impoundment Control Act, which Vought has discussed using as a way to roll back congressionally approved funding. Vought’s nomination is on track for Senate confirmation this week, despite all Senate Democrats saying they will oppose him.

And DOGE dipped into the inner-workings of the Treasury Department to access its payment system — and the private information of millions of Americans — in what is widely viewed as a way for the White House to eventually stop federal funds to various entities.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan said the administration’s actions with the federal funding “potentially run roughshod over a ‘bulwark of the Constitution’ by interfering with Congress’s appropriation of federal funds.”

“Defendants’ actions appear to suffer from infirmities of a constitutional magnitude,” she wrote, extending an order issued last week that had paused OMB’s sweeping funding freeze. “The appropriation of the government’s resources is reserved for Congress, not the Executive Branch. And a wealth of legal authority supports this fundamental separation of powers.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said what gives her pause now is how Congress moves forward with legislation to fund the government by the upcoming March 14 deadline.

“What if we do all that and come to an agreement … vote it in — and this administration says, ‘That’s bunk. We don’t have to go by that,’” she said. “So the level of trust is at the lowest I have ever seen it here.”

Asked if the administration could do what it’s doing, Johnson, the speaker, insisted, “There will be an appropriate action for Congress to take, but we haven’t yet sorted out what’s happening with it.”

Pressed if Trump had the authority to shut agencies, he said: “I don’t have all the answers.”

___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking and videojournalist Mike Pesoli contributed to this report.