Senate Democrats are battling each other over how far to go in opposing President Trump’s agenda, a dispute that spilled out into the open earlier this week when Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) slammed his fellow Democratic senators for “willing to be complicit” with Trump.
Booker’s tirade against fellow Democrats came after Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) attempted to advance a bipartisan package of policing bills.
Booker argued Democrats wanted to “look the other way” from Trump’s attempt to bully Democratic states, elite universities and media companies.
“This, to me, is a problem with Democrats in America right now,” Booker declared on the floor. “We’re willing to be complicit with Donald Trump.”
It’s part of a broader fight within the Democratic Party over when it’s acceptable, if at all, to work with Trump and his GOP allies.
Senate Democrats are at odds over whether to expedite the confirmation of dozens of lower-level and relatively noncontroversial Trump nominees so that lawmakers can go back to their home states for the August recess after a long seven months of legislative session.
Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.), a centrist, is asking whether it makes sense for his fellow Democrats to drag out the floor proceedings for every single Trump nominee, even for noncontroversial picks to fill under-the-radar positions in the executive branch.
“In the past, there was a large number of UCs and that wasn’t controversial. I’m not [sure] why it’s controversial right now,” Fetterman said, referring to what had been a long-standing practice of approving noncontroversial or lower-level nominees by unanimous consent and skipping time-consuming votes.
Fetterman questioned the point of making Republicans jump through procedural hoops, forcing late-evening votes and burning up weeks of floor time, when Trump’s nominees are going to be inevitably confirmed.
“They have more votes than we do and that’s inevitable,” he said. “Have we blocked or stopped any? No. And that’s the reality.
“If it happens today, if it happens tomorrow, does that really mean anything? Is that resistance?” he asked. “It hasn’t blocked or stopped anything.”
Most Senate Democrats have sought to drag out consideration of Trump’s nominees as long as possible, creating a backlog of 161 nominees as of Thursday morning.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and his colleagues have required cloture votes — the procedural votes needed to limit debate — on 120 straight nominees.
Democrats only allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to come straight to a confirmation vote on Jan. 20, Trump’s first day in office.
And Democrats have not allowed a single civilian Trump nominee to pass by unanimous consent or voice vote.
A spokesperson for Schumer said Trump’s “historically bad nominees deserve historic levels of scrutiny.”
Polls show the Democratic Party with a low job approval rating — between 33 percent and 40 percent, according to recent polls — and some Democrats think part of the problem is that their base doesn’t think they’re fighting hard enough against Trump’s agenda.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 registered voters found that Democrats had their highest unfavorable rating in 35 years.
Booker on Tuesday said “the Democratic Party needs a wake-up call,” channeling the frustration of many rank-and-file Democratic voters and donors.
“I see law firms bending a knee to this president, not caring about the larger principles that free speech rights [say] that you can take on any client. … I see universities that should be bastions of free speech bending the knee to the president,” he said, referring to settlements that several prominent law firms and elite universities reached with the president.
Some Democratic senators privately agree they need to put up more of a fight when Trump runs roughshod over Congress and Democratic priorities by shuttering or reorganizing federal departments and agencies such as the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development without approval from Congress.
“There is a deep, deep interest among folks for us to try to find somewhat to better dramatize the authoritarian takeover. I hear this all the time from folks back home,” said a Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
The senator said Democratic constituents have pressed lawmakers to force Republicans to use every hour of debate time on nominees and to force late-night votes and debates — something Democrats in Washington have done to put up a fight.
But it still hasn’t satisfied the desire within the Democratic base to inflict pain on Trump and his allies.
“None of these things really quite meet the thirst, the desire for more drama about this moment in history where our Constitution is being savaged,” the lawmaker said.
Other Democrats insist they are fighting hard, even if some members of their party think they’re lying down.
“We’re fighting, no, we’re fighting,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
Democrats on Capitol Hill are now quarreling over how hard a line they want Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) to hold ahead of the Sept. 30 government funding deadline.
Some Democrats are insisting that their leaders demand that Trump and Republican leaders in Congress promise not to make additional attempts to rescind congressionally approved funding in exchange for Democratic votes to keep the government funded past September.
“If the Republicans are not willing to put in writing that they will not roll the deal back after it’s been agreed to, then they’re signaling loud and clear that any deal with them right now isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has urged a tougher approach toward Republicans on spending bills.
Warren was one of eight Democrats who voted against a motion to proceed to the military construction and Department of Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, which passed out of committee with a 26-3 vote.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) says Democrats should use their leverage on bipartisan policy priorities to curb Trump’s executive actions.
“If the Trump administration wants the benefit of bipartisan legislation on things like infrastructure, permitting reform and appropriations, they’re going to have to convince Democrats that a deal’s a deal and they will honor the deal,” he said.
“Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time so that Russ Vought can run the government on behalf of his creepy billionaire benefactors,” he added, referring to the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Other Democrats are eager to get the spending bills passed, even without ironclad commitments from Republicans to not advance another rescissions package on Capitol Hill or from the administration to stop unilateral efforts to dismantle or reorder federal agencies.
Booker, for his part, was unapologetic in arguing that Democrats should use their leverage to get Trump to back off his efforts to punish blue states.
“We have seen a consistent erosion of the Article I branch of government ceding authority to the executive in ways that violate the founders’ intention and the Constitution of the United States. We are in a crisis right now,” Booker told reporters, referring to Congress’s failure to defend its power of the purse, power to set tariffs and power to declare war against Trump’s efforts to rescind federal funding, reorganize federal agencies, impose sweeping tariffs and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities with little advance notice to congressional leaders.
“We are watching our democracy, democratic norms, traditions and rules, being violated by a president who has authoritarian tendencies. That’s why I’m saying, fundamentally, we must fight and fight harder,” said Booker, a past and potentially future Democratic presidential candidate.
