Dem Senator Unleashes Fury Over Trump’s Cuts to Foreign Aid, Warns of Looming Constitutional Crisis
“For 4 years the office of the President of the United States was controlled by unelected aides and political activists who were hiding an incapacitated president. THAT was a constitutional crisis.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) was breathing fire on Thursday night. Irate over President Donald Trump’s decision to end 90% of the United States Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts, he warned that the U.S. is “barreling toward a full blown constitutional crisis” in a lengthy – and disingenuous – thread on X.
Considering that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency exposed USAID as little more than a global slush fund for progressive causes earlier this month, it takes an incredible amount of chutzpah to make such a dishonest statement.
We are barreling toward a full blown constitutional crisis.
Trump's announcement that he's ending thousands of aid contracts FUNDED BY CONGRESS is unconstitutional and illegal – and horrible for our security.
1/ A quick🧵on what's going on.https://t.co/2KaPRykzs3
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 28, 2025
In a sharp retort to Sen. Murphy’s misguided declaration, Republican strategist Matt Whitlock reminded him of what a true constitutional crisis actually looks like: “For 4 years the office of the President of the United States was controlled by unelected aides and political activists who were hiding an incapacitated president. THAT was a constitutional crisis. Cutting off taxpayer funding of trans surgeries in South America is not.”
For 4 years the office of the President of the United States was controlled by unelected aides and political activists who were hiding an incapacitated president.
THAT was a constitutional crisis.
Cutting off taxpayer funding of trans surgeries in South America is not. https://t.co/0IADaPtAEx
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 28, 2025
Sen. Murphy is prone to hyperbole. Earlier this month, he told ABC News host Martha Raddatz that the U.S. was facing its most serious constitutional crisis “since Watergate.” He called it “a red-alert moment.”
“The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes,” he claimed. The president wants “to be able to reward his political friends and to punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy.”
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) echoed Murphy comments several days later on NBC News’ Meet the Press. He claimed that the U.S. is on the “cusp of a constitutional crisis” and that “his party is ready to shut down the federal government” over Trump’s actions, including shuttering USAID and DOGE’s access to federal payment systems.
This is exactly what Democrats have been doing for decades, and they took this behavior to new extremes under the Biden administration. Now, shut out of power, they are lashing out in a desperate attempt to convince their base that Trump’s exercise of authority is somehow corrupt.
Yet, when pressed on these accusations, Democrats struggle to name even a single instance where Trump has violated the Constitution. This dynamic was on full display in the exchange below between CNN’s conservative commentator Scott Jennings and left-wing panelist Touré.
After Touré and another panelist claimed that Trump’s control over the military somehow “shredded” the Constitution, Jennings posed a simple yet revealing question: “How is Trump shredding the Constitution?”
The reaction? A mix of surprise and irritation, as if the very notion of being challenged was somehow off-limits.
“I mean, seriously? Do we have to give you a civics lesson?” Touré shot back. “That we have put all power in the executive branch, the legislative branch, the FBI. Now we’re in control of the military, silencing media. This is what you do in a dictatorship.”
Jennings asked, “Are you suggesting that the president is not the commander in chief of the military?”
Touré doubled down. “I am suggesting that the president is going to put in charge somebody who is going to contravene the Constitution. And at some near point,” he added condescendingly, “this conversation will look very silly for you because it will be obvious. And now you’re gaslighting, and when we get to the actual rubber of the road of this, it will be clear.”
When Jennings pressed him with follow-up questions, Touré showed no interest in continuing the discussion.
What even was that?
The Democratic Party has devolved into an anti-American faction of liars, propagandists, and, in some cases, outright thieves. They stand for nothing. They no longer even pretend to champion freedom or the working class. They make bold accusations yet refuse to be challenged on them. Obsessed solely with power, their efforts are entirely focused on destroying the Trump administration.
In just the past week, the Democratic National Committee reposted an AI-generated video of Donald Trump Jr. saying, “I honestly can’t imagine anyone in their right mind picking Ukraine as an ally. … Honestly, the US should have been sending weapons to Russia.” Mary Chastain covered this story here.
The anti-Trump leadership of the FBI’s New York field office withheld hundreds of pages of Jeffrey Epstein documents from Attorney General Pam Bondi after officials had repeatedly assured her the set was complete.
🚨BREAKING: Attorney General Pam Bondi REVEALS in a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel that the FBI is WITHHOLDING Epstein documents from her. pic.twitter.com/KbOazbdsRp
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 27, 2025
The New York Times published the names and photographs of 45 DOGE employees.
DOGE: The so-called New York Times is doubling down on its efforts to dox the federal employees assigned to the DOGE team. Today they provided the names and photographs of 45 employees despite knowlege of credible threats to their lives and the lives of their families. https://t.co/ACa83luuDE pic.twitter.com/KWCAaULqtx
— @amuse (@amuse) February 27, 2025
Joy Behar, co-host of ABC’s The View, slandered Elon Musk as a “enemy of the United States” who was “pro-Apartheid” as a child.
Hateful, @JoyVBehar flaunts anti-immigrant bigotry against @ElonMusk.
She decries him because "the guy was not born in this country."
She falsely claims that, as a child, Musk was "pro-apartheid."
She calls him a "this foreigner, foreign agent," and "enemy of the United States.… pic.twitter.com/fd83ZY5u6p— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 27, 2025
These incidents have all taken place in just the past few days, further proving how toxic the party has become. Their vendetta against Trump now completely defines them.
Unfortunately for them, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino now hold the keys to the FBI. They will be held accountable for some of their most shameful actions. And unlike Touré, who easily dismissed Scott Jennings’ questions, they won’t have the luxury of avoiding answers.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
The only looming Constitutional crisis is the one the caused by democrats constantly interfering with the president’s ability to govern the country.
I think people are misunderstanding Murphy.
Trump is using his Constitutionally granted powers for voters and against corrupt Democrats. And that’s clearly a crisis for Murphy.
Hence, we have a “Constitutional crisis”. QED.
Yeah, Democrats are in shock that the ol’ “just grandstand for the dinosaur lapdog media” trick isn’t working anymore
The Constitution holds a special place in the hard of Connecticut politicians. In fact, they used to be known as “The Constitution State,” before they were “The Cannibal State.”
OMG! I read about the cannibal! I spent most of my life in CT – that was bizarre!
I spend most of my life in CT one weekend.
I’m old enuf to recall when a few decades back in 1997 the republicans took control of the a house for the first time in 30 years. A democrat leader from the house was being interviewed by the press and quoted as saying that of course the Dem chairmen of all the committees would now pay more attention to Republican concerns.
He didn’t realize that there would now be NO Dem committee chairmen, that as the house majority party the (R)s would chair. Just as for the last 20 years the (D)s had chaired.
As one famous (D) once said, “elections have consequences”.
Once again the (D)s have been feeding at the gravy troughs for so long, this time with the willing acquiescence of the uniParty (R)s, that they mistake the status quo for a constitutional requirement and any divergence as a “constitutional crisis”.
1995, and Democrats had held the house for 40 straight years, from 1955 to ’94. They’d also had it for 60 of the 64 years from 1931 to ’94.
I don’t recall that specific incident of a Democrat thinking they were going to keep all the chairmanships because reasons. Maybe it was early in the night and he hadn’t heard that they’d actually won a majority, and thought they’d merely made major gains.
Fools like that Toure clown are the problem. They have come to believe the bureaucracy is in charge of the government not the executive or legislative branch and have no idea how the Constitution works. They also seem to believe that the Judicial branch is a super legislature that can simply overturn any laws that it doesn’t like and run things as a superior branch to the other two not a co equal.
They’ve never read the constitution. Then again a lot of Republicans seem not to have read it either. But fewer of them. With Democrats it seems like none of them have read it.
Certainly the Biden-Palin debate in 2008 showed that she’d read the thing and he hadn’t.
I can understand why this is a Dem Red Alert moment, their graft is being cutoff and many, as in many-many-mant are going to be prosecuted. The fun is just beging.
I don’t know how many will be prosecuted, some I hope. But as Bob wrote in his comment, the gravy train is over.
I noticed the Times didn’t put names in the byline of their doxxing article. Cowards. They want to dox others but don’t want to be doxxed themselves. So here is the masthead: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/admin/the-new-york-times-masthead.html. Someone should get busy.
There is no “byline” as it is a collaborative article.
All of the people who worked on the article are named at the bottom of the article.
The article is still despicable, but the charge that you can’t figure out the people who wrote it because they are not listed is false.
It is standard practice that when a lot of people contributed to an article none of them go in the byline, they all go at the bottom.
I have been getting fundraising ads on YouTube for this Jackass. In one he says Trump is “Seizing power”.
How exactly is it seizing power for Trump to be President. It is insanity.
Trump is “seizing power” because he is not doing the will of the Democrats and GOPe. Rather, Trump is doing the will of the people who elected him.
Hmmmm. I recall that millions of people voted to give Trump the Power. “We” seized the power.
Blah, blah, blah
Thumbs up.
While I agree that USAID appears to be a slush fund for Leftist causes, I don’t give a rat’s axe if it is for Leftist or Rightist causes. Slush funds shouldn’t exist. Period.
Why no FOIA release of the details of the Congressional slush fund paying off sex harassment charges? Does it still exist? Probably.
Legislative branch slush funds are far outside Trump’s wheelhouse. Maybe ask your rep this.
Because Congress made themselves immune to f o i a requests.
I’m very interested in the millions of dollars Congress has used to settle sex charges behind the scenes. Who exactly has used this method to avoid scrutiny?
There is no “slush fund” to pay off sex harassment charges. There is a fund to pay all settlements with Congress’s employees, for all causes. Congress employs tens of thousands of people, in various capacities, including congressional aides, but also including janitors, workers at the Library of Congress, the Botanical Gardens, the GAO, CBO, etc.
Any employer of that size is sued many times a year for various claims, anything from slip-and-fall to sexual harassment and anything else. Most such claims are settled, and a large enough employer will fund those settlements itself rather than going through an insurer.
So of all those millions, some of it, we don’t know how much or how little, went for claims of sexual harassment, and of that subset some may have gone for claims of sexual harassment by a congressman; it’s possible, but it’s also possible that none of it went for that.
From the Statute setting up USAID: …including but not limited to the following:
(A) increase in agricultural productivity per unit of land through small-farm, labor-intensive agriculture;
(B) reduction of infant mortality;
(C) control of population growth;
(D) promotion of greater equality of income distribution, including measures such as more progressive taxation and more equitable returns to small farmers;
(E) reduction of rates of unemployment and underemployment;
(F) increase in literacy; and
(G) progress in combating corruption and improving transparency and accountability in the public and private sector.
For most of the stuff we actually saw G was being violated completely.
I guess transing the kids would accomplish C.
On the other hand not giving out money to the current grantees does not violate the law. It can be directed more in line with Trumps goals instead. If congress doesn’t like it they should be more specific in law making.
Constitutional Crisis = Democrats Removed from Power
They hate the Constitution all the rest of the time. Was written by old men, white supremacists in the service of their billionaire buddies so it’s gotta go!
Except today because convenience. And they eed a good sound bite for their boot-licking robotic low info morons.
We should encourage them to push the “constitutional crisis” narrative. At worst, it may actually get some of them to read the constitution.
Not only are Dems angry and scared that their slush funds are being dismantled and exposed, they are worried that their iron grip control of the bureaucracy is going away and terrified that Trump is asking very hard questions about where all our money in Ukraine went.
My goodness, Toure’ (aka Touche’), probably the DUMBEST commentator on cable news, is back. I thought he had been sent into orbit years ago. To a battle of wits, he comes unarmed.
Poor Scott Jennings, he’s surrounded by buffoons.
I was surprised to see Touré – unpleasantly surprised.
Not so much seeing him as hearing his annoying Touré Syndrome.
Murphy is one of the dumbest members of the Senate. He may not be a Hirono, but he’s closing in on her. Congress allocated the funds, but did not make the grants. It’s up to the Executive to make the grants and the NEW EXECUTIVE can change the grants made by his predecessor. To think anything else is to ignore the election, something I’m sure idiots like Murphy would love to do. Murphy is worse than stupid, he’s a stupid child lying to get his way.
Murphy isn’t stupid. He is counting on the American people to be stupid and not know how things work. “Constitutional Crisis” is the new “Russia Russia Russia”.
Murphy is one of the most bombastic ass holes in the senate. Only idiots believe his diatribe. Saying Musk gave a Nazi salute? Stupid. He’s either hoping to replace Schumer or will run for president.
Congress can and sometimes does specify exactly what the money is for, in great detail, and in those cases the president is required to spend it on that. But most of the time it’s like you said. And the whole point of the USAID disclosures is that no one in Congress had any idea what they were funding. It was all phrased in general terms.
Since these knuckleheads seem to believe (they definitely behave) as if the bureaucracy is a Co Equal Branch of Govt I can imagine they do view a President utilizing his ART III authority as the unitary Executive to undo decades of misplaced deference to and lack of accountability for what the heck the federal employees were doing. Especially so when these same federal employees form a pillar of d/prog political power. Gotta hurt when the local bully runs into someone tougher than they are and puts an end to their shenanigans.
I admit that it very hard to dislodge the bureaucrats. But Trump and his cabinet need to walk more people out the door for their failure to follow his policies.
Fire them, and then let them take Trump to court. Then Trump should ignore any district court ruling until the SC tells him different.
By then, the charlatans will be out the door and broke.
“Joy Behar, co-host of ABC’s The View, slandered Elon Musk as a “enemy of the United States” who was “pro-Apartheid” as a child.”
Joy’s problem was that she was pro-Santa Claus as a child… and she never outgrew it. She just believes Santa works out of the West Wing instead of the North Pole.
The kids who locked Murphy in his locker in high school should never have let him out. They should have welded the door shut and buried it as a time capsule.
I there a democratic politician who isn’t lying scum besides perhaps Fetterman? I guess Richy Torres in NY might not be completely bad and Josh Shapiro told PETA to go pound sand so he has at least one redeeming quality,
Musk should sue that idiot Behar so hard her ears bleed. Another “Jew” that makes me completely embarrassed to identify as one.
Joy Behar is not Jewish, in any sense. She’s Italian-American.
Thank God!!!!!!! Only the surname is Jewish. The Italians can have her, We Jews have enough problem children.
More astroturf…. Blountville is about as Red as it gets. Probability of NE TN showing up with signs and causing a scene is ZERO. These were professional paid demonstrators.
https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/1-removed-from-event-as-crowd-becomes-loud-with-congresswoman-harshbarger/
Local news seems WILLFULLY dumb on the antics. This is 30 miles from ground zero for Helene where FEMA screwed the pooch.
These paid “protesters” are suddenly showing up all over the country at Republican townhalls as “grass root protests”. They all shout about the same thing and ask the same loaded and false questions while spewing the party line. Everyone is on to them.
Two thoughts.
1. Funded by Congress? Bullshit.
2. We are trillions in debt. Stop borrowing money we don’t have to give away to other countries. Let them bottow the money themselves.
The only crisis here is it Trump is taking an ax to the Communist slush funds and they’re afraid they’re going to lose power.
“Kash Patel and Dan Bongino now hold the keys to the FBI. They will be held accountable for some of their most shameful actions.”
And the first thing the SDNY and the FBI do is to tell Pam Bondi to go fuck herself. Then Kash comes out with a weak “We will hold you accountable” response.
This is the equivalent to “I’m gonna count to three and then you are gonna get it” response to a 4 year old.
The whole NY FBI office should have been removed on Thursday. The entire SDNY office should have been cleared out.
Proving once again that Republicans are all talk and no action.
Next up, where’s the mass deportations?
I don’t see people getting fired over this.
So the Deep State continues to rule.
Trump needs to fire people. He was better off with Jeff Sessions, and he was a piece of shit.
Well, if Congress has been so foolish as to appropriate an amount specifically for trans surgeries in South America, then it would be a constitutional crisis for the president to refuse to spend that amount for that purpose by the end of the fiscal year. But he still wouldn’t have to spend it in March. So he could still cancel the existing contract and look for someone who will do the surgeries better or cheaper, so the money will fund more surgeries. (Or, I suppose, he could find the most expensive provider, so that he’s forced to fund as few surgeries as possible.)
But the whole point of what we’ve found out about USAID is that Congress has not specifically funded these projects. The appropriation language was general enough that it could include these projects, but it could also mean other, much more useful projects. Probably no congressmen knew what the appropriation was actually intended for. So if Congress appropriated a certain amount for South America, the president has until the end of the year to find something actually worthwhile in South America to spend it on, such as helping Milei’s reforms.
“Sen. Murphy is prone to hyperbole”
No, Senator Murphy is a drama queen that is terrified that the D’s slush fund is being found out and defunded. How do elected officials become multi millionaires during decades of holding office? it’s spelled USAID kickbacks!