Democrats have struggled to meet President Donald Trump’s full blast of executive orders and actions in the first dizzying weeks of his presidency, often slow to respond or just drowned out by the biggest moments.
Some in the party know it’s been a problem. But Democratic leaders say that ends this week.
“We are taking it to the streets,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove told NOTUS via text. “That is what you do with bullies.”
Democrats’ plans are taking multiple paths to target Trump’s actions, which multiply daily. But they follow similar themes: use messaging bills and other public platforms to show unified opposition, squeeze the most they can out of the few areas where they have actual legislative power and lean on the courts wherever possible.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday that they plan to introduce a bill to stop Elon Musk and his allies from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system.
House Democrats also plan to “choke off” Republican budget cuts in upcoming government-funding negotiations and support lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders, Jeffries said in a letter to colleagues released Monday.
In response to Musk’s plan to close the U.S. Agency for International Development, some Senate Democrats have said they’ll stall the confirmation process for Trump’s State Department picks.
“People want a simple, clear, easy-to-implement strategy to an agenda of chaos, defection and manipulation,” Kamlager-Dove told NOTUS. “These people are serious, but so are we. And we are going to continue to use the levers we have to harness legal and people power. It has been done before.”
Democrats are also trying to get more active at the state level. Sam Paisley, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said the party is “armed with a powerful defense” against Trump in state legislatures. The DLCC heralded legislation in states ranging from New York to Colorado intended to reduce prices and potentially counter freezes in federal aid.
Democratic-aligned organizations are separately mounting legal challenges to Trump’s agenda, with Democracy Forward, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and other organizations filing lawsuits to push back on the federal aid freeze and the removal of federal career employees.
“We’re doing everything we can with our colleagues through the courts to make sure that we uphold the rule of law,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at a press conference Monday afternoon outside USAID’s headquarters.
Though Democrats are jump-starting efforts to counter Trump’s sprawling agenda, they’re late to the party, some Democrats say. Under normal circumstances, Democrats would have made their opposition a public fixture, much like during Trump’s first term. This time around, they say the party has been crippled by a melancholic haze as it grapples with its blistering election defeats and a manic flurry of Trump action.
“Most of us go back to our home districts and try to get people’s attention. You know, the vast majority of Americans aren’t that interested,” Sen. John Hickenlooper told NOTUS on Monday. “That’s the hard thing, is how do you get people’s attention?”
Up to this point, congressional Democrats have been slow to aggressively respond to Trump even when opportunities have presented themselves. Right after the Trump administration last Monday ordered a freeze on federal aid, House Democrats scheduled a meeting to strategize their response — for Wednesday afternoon. By the time the meeting took place, the administration had already rescinded the order, entirely defanging Democrats’ response.
As one senior Democratic congressional aide put it, Democrats are “going through the stages of grief.”
“At present, we are not meeting the moment,” this aide told NOTUS. “Donald Trump has had four years to work with people around him, to think of plans, and it is clear that they thought of those plans. Now, did they think all of them through? No. But the point is that it just takes time to figure all these things out, and Democrats just need more time.”
The aide added that there’s no symbiotic relationship between House and Senate Democrats. Democrats in both chambers, the aide said, have a “natural tension” that has been exacerbated by being in the minority.
“So now, who is the head of the party? Is the head of the party Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer? It depends on who you ask and what day of the week,” the aide said.
A veteran Democratic strategist chalked up Democrats’ weaknesses to the lightning speed at which Trump has been moving. “Democrats don’t get control of the news cycle,” they said.
Senators are feeling the news whiplash, too.
“We had a strong week last week on pushing the so-called freeze off,” Sen. Ron Wyden told NOTUS. “But, you know, obviously the Trump people govern by whim. They get up in the morning and they have a whim to do something, and we got to run them down.”
Without the White House or any congressional majorities, Democrats haven’t had a default figurehead to guide the party’s response. But the party is slowly adjusting, newly elected Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg told NOTUS.
“It felt for a minute that we were a bit listless as a party,” Hogg said. “But I think that with this USAID stuff and as [Republicans] more candidly impact people’s lives, we are seeing the Democratic Party and its leadership really come together and start talking about what we’re doing to fight back against it.”
Morgan Jackson, an adviser to Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, agreed, saying that Democrats “struggled during Trump’s first week.”
“They’re really beginning to get their footing and unite for a cohesive play,” Jackson added, pointing to the coalition of attorneys general launching legal challenges at Trump.
But the climb uphill to effectively counter a president with full control of the White House and Congress is still steep, especially with a public either on his side or too tuned out or overloaded to focus.
“This is the whole point, it’s what the shock and awe is all about,” Hickenlooper said. “It creates so much to shout about and shout against. The people become anesthetized.”
The key is just figuring out how to capture attention, he added: “You can certainly vote against people like [Russell] Vought, [Pam] Bondi, the architects of some of these programs. But voting isn’t very — it doesn’t help you sleep at night.”
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Tinashe Chingarande, Calen Razor and Katherine Swartz are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.