Senate Democrats are uniting to block — or at least delay — the confirmation process for Russ Vought, the self-described “Christian nationalist” architect of Project 2025, as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. To push back against his confirmation, they plan to hold the Senate floor starting Wednesday afternoon, vowing to speak “all night.”

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), who has urged Democrats use their power to stall Trump’s agenda, announced that “more than 35 United States senators on the Democratic side” will “take the floor for 30 hours.”

“Russ Vought is the main author of Project 2025,” Senator Schatz said. “He’s the guy that established this federal funding freeze. He is the architect of the dismantling of our federal government, harming us with Medicaid portals shut down, with Head Start shut down, with agencies illegally stormed and the servers being seized. We’ve got to fight back and we’re united, all 47 Democrats in opposition to Russ Vought’s nomination.”

We’re holding the floor all night to oppose the nomination of Project 2025 author Russ Vought. pic.twitter.com/7KHR7mxH5G

— Senator Brian Schatz (@SenBrianSchatz) February 5, 2025

“If confirmed, Russ Vought may be the most important man that no one’s ever heard of,” declared Senator Schatz on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.

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Vought has been getting some attention in the press.

“In times past, Vought — who famously asked ‘Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’’ in Newsweek in 2021 — would have been seen, and dismissed, as an over-the-top extremist well outside the boundaries of mainstream politics,” wrote Thomas B. Edsall in a New York Times opinion column on Tuesday. “Today, he is a lauded Trump loyalist on the verge of his second tour of duty with the president, in one of the most powerful posts in the federal government.”

“In Vought’s vision of the apocalyptic battle for the soul of America,” Edsall continued, “Democrats are ‘increasingly evil.’ The federal work force, in turn, is the enemy that must be forced into submission. ‘When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,’ Vought, who is 48, declared last year. ‘We want to put them in trauma.’ ”

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to have Vought confirmed this week.

Senate Homeland Security Democratic Ranking Member Gary Peters last month during Vought’s confirmation hearing told him that when he ran OMB during President Trump’s first term, “you consistently ignored laws passed by Congress that directed how taxpayer dollars should be spent.”

“In 2020, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that OMB, under your leadership, broke the law eight times.”

Peters said Vought “inappropriately delayed disaster relief funding for Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria,” and “knowingly delayed getting critical resources to communities following a disaster even after Congress passed a law specifically requiring the funds be disbursed on time.”

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He also, Peters charged, “pushed for” replacing “nearly 50,000 nonpartisan, career civil servants with appointees whose only qualification was their political loyalty.”

Russ Vought willfully broke the law during his first stint as OMB Director. He illegally blocked money for national security and hurricane relief.

We can’t confirm someone who thinks he’s above the law. I oppose his nomination. pic.twitter.com/d1OtjU01HQ

— Senator Gary Peters (@SenGaryPeters) February 4, 2025

Senate Democratic Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray has called Vought “incredibly alarming,” and one of Trump’s “anti-abortion extremists.” She noted that Vought was “the lead author of Project 2025, which called for ripping away birth control, allowing states to nigh women, lifesaving emergency care, and effectively banning all abortion nationwide.”

“He has said he wants abolition of abortion in the United States,” Murray added. “In other words, a national abortion ban without any exceptions, even in the cases of rape or when a mother’s life is at risk.”

“Vought has called to outlaw medication abortion, block funding, for Planned Parenthood, and advocated for President Trump to appoint a new special assistant in the White House to coordinate anti-abortion policies across government.”

Russ Vought—Trump’s nominee to manage our nation’s budget—is an abortion abolitionist, meaning he supports *prosecuting abortion as homicide and putting women in prison* even in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk. He’s an extremist who has NO place in government. pic.twitter.com/JWhokIbF42

— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) February 5, 2025

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Image via Reuters 

During Wednesday’s heated House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Chairman Jim Comer and his Republican colleagues blocked a vote on Democratic Ranking Member Gerry Connolly’s motion to subpoena Elon Musk. The Director of President Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been accused of systematically dismantling federal agencies one by one, while his associates have allegedly gained access to the private data of potentially millions of Americans, as well as vast amounts of federal government information—including, reportedly, some classified material.

In Wednesday’s hearing on “Rightsizing Government,” Ranking Member Connolly was quickly blocked when he attempted to subpoena the person in charge of all those efforts testify before them.

The Oversight Committee’s mission is to “ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies,” according to its website. “We provide a check and balance on the role and power of Washington – and a voice to the people it serves.”

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Connolly had filed formal notice on Monday requesting that Comer “invite” Elon Musk “to appear as a witness.”

“Who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement, and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight, or concurrence?” Connolly asked on Wednesday. “Mr. Chairman, given his prominence and his importance, I move that the committee subpoena Elon Musk to come to before it as a witness at the earliest possible moment.”

But Chairman Comer quickly squelched the Democrat’s motion, declaring it was “not debatable.”

A direction to “table the motion,” apparently from Comer, came, as Connolly asked, “Mr. Chairman, why don’t we want to debate Elon Musk coming in and talking to us about his work and how he’s enriched himself by 64 billion dollars?”

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) then moved to formally block the motion, sparking a chaotic exchange as members talked over one another while Comer reprimanded a Democrat he deemed “out of order.”

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) blasted Comer: “You will not even entertain a motion to bring him (Elon) in front of the Oversight Committee?”

“Yes, let’s have order in this country,” she exclaimed before adding, “Mr. Elon Musk is out of order!”

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Comer accused her of “demagoguery.”

CLIP from House Oversight Cmte hearing

“This is demagoguery. This is out of order”@RepJamesComer: “You’re out of order. You know you’re out of order. You know the rules.”@Rep_Stansbury: “Mr. Elon Musk is out of order!”

“Oh my God!” pic.twitter.com/DRzo01Tzns

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2025

U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) wrote, “I’m in Oversight Committee right now. Ranking Member Connolly just called for a vote to subpoena Elon Musk. Republicans out-number us on this committee, but many aren’t in the room. We’ll see who wins this vote. We deserve transparency and answers.”

Just minutes later he added: “Republicans ran into the room to SHEILD Elon Musk from having to come and speak to Congress. They want their billionaire takeover done behind closed doors. The people deserve transparency. No one elected Elon Musk.”

Responding to a video of the event Connolly wrote: “You read that right – blocked without debate. If Republicans are such big fans of Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of our government, why are they so afraid to hear from him? Because they know you, the American people, aren’t gonna like what he has to say.”

“They will stop at nothing to cover up Elon Musk’s lawlessness,” he added.

In a press release, Chairman Comer accused Democrats of “hyperventilating and sensationalizing the Trump Administration’s efforts to advance necessary reforms,” while he vowed to “continue working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on solutions to make federal operations more efficient and effective for all Americans.”

the Oversight Committee immediately devolves into chaos after Democrats call for Elon Musk to come and testify pic.twitter.com/HiG7CoIY4a

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2025

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attempt to systematically dismantle the United States government, agency by agency, they are working to eliminate vast numbers of employees, removing public data and institutional knowledge, and reportedly accessing sensitive government records and personal information of American citizens. In response, many grassroots Democratic voters are demanding to know what their party’s elected leaders are doing to stop them.

There appears to be a growing sense among some on the left that top elected Democrats are out of touch, unable or unwilling to grasp the severity of what some say is a constitutional crisis and others are simply calling a “coup.”

And while a few House and Senate Democrats this week showed up at the Washington, D.C. offices of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and were denied access, and others held a press conference, few elected Democrats appear to have understood this extremely volatile moment — or at least publicly communicated what is actually going on.

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U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has been leading the battle against President Trump and his director of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk.

For the uninitiated, here’s how The Washington Post summed up recent events on Tuesday.

“U.S. government officials privately warn Musk’s blitz appears illegal,” the headline reads. “The billionaire’s DOGE team has launched an all-out assault on federal agencies, triggering numerous legal objections.”

“Over the past two weeks, Musk’s team has moved to dismantle some U.S. agencies, push out hundreds of thousands of civil servants and gain access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive payment systems,” The Post reported. The paper noted that “many of these moves appear to violate federal law, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, one audio recording, and several internal messages obtained by The Washington Post. Internal legal objections have been raised at the Treasury Department, the Education Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the White House budget office, among others.”

Financial Times’ columnist Ed Luce, on MSNBC Wednesday morning, put this moment in starker terms.

“This is a coup that’s happening. It is happening here. It’s happening now,” he declared, as Mediaite reported. “So I think this requires a far more radical and drastic sort of rethink of what the Democrats’ democratic strategy should be.”

On Tuesday morning, Senator Murphy spoke with MSNBC political analyst Anand Giridharadas, who praised him as a “real leader” who started “early” in the Trump-Musk battle.

Giridharadas said that “the Democrats’ transition from being asleep during a coup to being awake during a coup is a trend in the right direction — being awake is certainly preferable to being asleep, and some of that, you know, I think Chris Murphy has been someone who’s been a real leader early in this.”

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“But at the end of the day, the Democratic Party right now is completely leaderless,” he lamented. “There’s no real clear sense of fight. You still have these messages of, well, ‘we gotta trust in God,’ or well, ‘we’ll pass a law to regulate the Treasury.'”

“There’s no understanding that this is a very serious concerted an anti-constitutional coup being waged by very determined actors.”

Senator Murphy shared his concerns—and plan—with Giridharadas.

Giridharadas told Murphy he thought the Senator’s “present-level thinking about the future of the Democratic Party…has been clearer and starker and more honest.”

But he also charged, “I would imagine that 90% of people watching this right now feel profoundly undefended by the Democratic Party.”

Murphy replied, “I do think that people understand that we are the minority party. We don’t run the White House, we are the minority in the House and in the Senate, but we need to act like a real opposition party in the middle of a constitutional and democracy crisis.”

And he offered a plan for his colleagues and grassroots Democrats.

“That means we should not be moving forward nominees or legislation in the United States Senate. Democrats should not be giving votes to nominees or to legislation in the United States Senate until Republicans get serious about this crisis. Democrats should not help Republicans raise the debt ceiling in order to pass their massive tax cut for billionaires and millionaires.”

“Democrats should be leading public gatherings all weekend, all across the country to bring Americans out to show Republicans if they will pay a price. And then Democrats need to speak in really stark terms about what is going on here.”

Calling it “a billionaire power grab,” Murphy said, “I think Elon Musk is trying to steal our money, is trying to steal our data. I think Elon Musk is shutting down the USAD because he wants to do deals with China and make more money. And and I know that there are some in the Democratic Party that, you know, don’t like jumping to conclusions, that there are some of the Democratic Party that don’t like to call out specific billionaires for what they are doing to all of us, but this is a moment in which we’ve got to engage in very, very simple and strong terms about what is happening.”

“Side by side with being a true opposition party in the Senate, using our tools to make life difficult for complicit Republicans, and then going out there and leading a a public engagement, which is I think the next step that we have to do, don’t just fight on the inside, go fight on the outside.”

On social media, Murphy added, “We still have the power to stop this billionaire power grab, but Democrats need to act like our democracy is weeks away from disintegrating—because it is.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

I laid out this morning what a real opposition can look like at this moment of crisis. We still have the power to stop this billionaire power grab, but Democrats need to act like our democracy is weeks away from disintegrating – because it is. pic.twitter.com/XSxX05QXVR

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 5, 2025

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