Senate Democrat Claims Trump-Musk DOGE ‘Takeover’ is ‘The Most Serious Constitutional Crisis’ Since Watergate
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) slammed the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) attempts to upend the federal government as “the most serious constitutional crisis” since Watergate.
Recently, DOGE, under the leadership of billionaire Elon Musk, has begun cutting spending from agencies across the Executive branch including USAID. Moreover, the cost-cutting agency has attempted to access the Treasury Department payment system — but had its access temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Saturday
During a Sunday morning with anchor Martha Raddatz on ABC’s This Week, Murphy claimed that President Donald Trump wants to decide “where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends, he can punish his political enemies.”
RADDATZ: You have used incredibly strong language, a constitutional crisis, grossly unconstitutional. Pretty alarming language.
MURPHY: Yeah. Listen, I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate. The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes. The president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends, he can punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy. You stand that next to the wholesale endorsement of political violence with the pardons given to every single January 6th rioter, including the most violent who beat police officers over the head with baseball bats. And you can see what he’s trying to do here. He is trying to crush his opposition by making them afraid of losing federal funding, by making them afraid of physical violence. And so, yes, this is a red alert moment when this entire country has to understand that our democracy is at risk. And for what? The billionaire takeover of government. I’m sure we’ll talk about this, but Elon Musk is inside our federal agencies.
RADDATZ: Right now, they they want to cut the federal budget. They would all disagree that it’s corruption or anything else. They want to cut the federal budget and the force. Do you have issues with that?
MURPHY: Well, I don’t. But there is no evidence that that is the goal. Ultimately, at USAID, they sent a whole bunch of people home who were still getting paid. And I think you have to ask, why are they doing this if it’s not actually accruing any savings? And to me, again, the reason is that somebody like Elon Musk stands to gain from the closure of USAID. It makes America much less safe around the world, but it helps China. USAID is a thorn in the side of the Chinese government. Elon Musk has many major business interests at stake inside Beijing. And so making Beijing happy is going to accrue to the financial benefit of Elon Musk and many billionaires who outsource work to China.
Watch the clip above via ABC News.
