Trump, Musk Roll Over Republicans With Grab for Congress’ Powers

(Bloomberg) -- Congressional Republicans have managed barely a whimper as President Donald Trump wages a historic push to expand executive branch power, steamrolling them along the way and unleashing anxiety across the federal government.

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Trump’s not only made a play to snatch authorities that are constitutionally in Congress’s remit, particularly how to spend billions of federal funds, he’s empowered his most-visible adviser, Elon Musk, to case federal agencies for sensitive information and cut staff.

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The world’s richest man is so emboldened by Trump’s imprimatur that over this past weekend his own underlings held a standoff at the US Agency for International Development that’s resulted in the 60-year-old agency being essentially idled. Musk, hand-picked by Trump but not Senate confirmed, has been given “read-only” access to “coded data” of the government’s payments system, the Treasury Department confirmed on Tuesday.

There appear to be few guardrails for either man.

Trump looks increasingly likely to have his cabinet picks confirmed, including some who have drawn questions about their fitness for the roles. Only former Representative Matt Gaetz, who faced accusations of illicit drug use and paid sex with a minor — allegations that he’s denied — proved too much for GOP senators to stomach through the confirmation process.

Republican lawmakers are unwilling to challenge Trump on almost anything, said a senior House Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they said they otherwise fear reprisal. The senior Republican likened the treatment of the president’s directives among their colleagues to Holy Scripture, with any contradiction considered a breach of faith.

Such a dynamic was a staple of Trump’s first term in office, when Republicans contorted themselves to avoid being crosswise with the vindictive and mercurial president. Trump now is term-limited, but his grip on the party has never been tighter.

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In the roughly two weeks that he’s been back in the White House, congressional Republicans, who control the House and Senate, have displayed remarkable acquiescence alongside Trump’s extraordinary power grab.

There were a few instances of special pleading for particular programs and a few senators, when asked by reporters, suggested Trump would likely need congressional approval to shut down USAID or fold it into the State Department.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune demurred on Tuesday when asked if Trump had the power to eliminate a department. “I do think they have the right to review funding,” Thune told reporters.

On Monday, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told reporters that before shutting down USAID “a consultation would have just been helpful.” But Tillis, who is up for reelection in 2026, offered justifications for overhauling the foreign aid agency.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, usually one of the GOP’s more independent-minded voices, simply told reporters that after the unprecedented moves at USAID and Treasury, “We’re all trying to figure out what happened.”

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It was a repeat of last week, when congressional Republicans were largely silent when Trump pushed the envelope of his authority with a now-dead executive order freezing payments on federal grants that Congress had already funded.

The White House ultimately backtracked after the order provoked chaos and uncertainty nationwide in public services from school lunch programs to health clinics, along with a court injunction temporarily blocking it.

But the die had already been cast: With Democrats out of power, Trump’s only barrier to snatching Congress’s purse strings would be found in the judiciary, where a 6-3 conservative majority controls the Supreme Court. That, and Trump’s own sensitivity to public and market backlash.

Several House Republicans, gathering last week at Trump’s Doral resort in Florida when Trump signed the payment-freeze order, said they were too busy with their retreat to read it. Dinner one night included hamburgers with the president’s name emblazoned on the top bun.

Even the House Appropriations Committee’s Republican chair, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, whose panel’s prerogative to dictate federal spending line by line has been jealously guarded by his predecessors, offered excuses for Trump’s intervention, describing the freeze as “prudent.” In the Senate, Thune sought to portray the move as normal.

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After the White House countermanded the budget memo freezing payments last week, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested the administration still intended to withhold congressionally mandated funding for programs it considered inconsistent with Trump’s views on climate action, diversity, equity and inclusion, and other priorities.

The White House is also considering dozens of options to allow Trump to take greater control of federal spending, including challenging the constitutionality of a 50-year-old law which restricts the president’s ability to refuse to carry out congressionally approved spending, according to people familiar.

Many Republican lawmakers are mindful that Trump performed better than they did in the November vote in their districts and fear alienating him, the senior Republican said.

Even behind closed doors, there was little outrage or even disagreement with the spending freeze expressed among Republican House members, said another senior GOP lawmaker.

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain told reporters at the Doral retreat she was “excited” about Trump’s freeze of federal grants and contracts. “Thank God” he is keeping his promise for fiscal responsibility, she added.

House Speaker Mike Johnson also doesn’t have the political footing to stand up to Trump, with a tenuous hold on his own leadership over a fractious party and his position dependent on Trump’s support, said several Republican lawmakers.

On Wednesday, Johnson defended the moves by Trump and Musk as an “active, engaged” executive branch operating within the scope of their legal authority. Congress, he said, will “vigorously defend” its powers.

The speaker is fully occupied trying to keep his job amid fierce Republican infighting over spending and tax priorities and anger that he hasn’t been able bring the party together around a coherent budget plan, they added. Alienating even a small group of Republicans could cost him his job.

Still, several Republican lawmakers said they expect their colleagues will become less deferential to Trump over time, particularly when it comes to relinquishing core congressional powers such as authority over spending.

Plenty of American presidents have begun their terms with formidable political power only to see it quickly dissipate. In fact, one reason the Trump administration is rushing its agenda is fears that Republicans will lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in midterm elections in 2026.

Some Republicans vowed to protect their authority should Trump seek to unilaterally divert funding for his priorities or permanently block congressionally approved spending, including Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Republican who represents Democratic-leaning Maine.

“Our will prevails,” she told reporters last week. “The power of the purse is a constitutional power and I think it’s important that Congress stand up for it.”

Still, Collins said she was inclined to vote to confirm Trump’s choice for budget director, Russell Vought. Vought has been a leading advocate of a legal theory that the president can ignore a law Congress passed during the 1970s and simply refuse to spend money lawmakers have appropriated.

--With assistance from Derek Wallbank.

(Updates with Johnson in 24th paragraph)

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