CNN admits Dems are 'powerless' amid GOP takeover of federal government

CNN admitted that Democrat lawmakers in Congress are facing an uphill battle as to how they will advance their agenda without holding a majority in either the House or Senate. The White House is also in GOP hands after the recent election gave it to President Donald Trump. CNN reported that Democrats are starting to confront their “powerlessness” as the president has come into office and has been executive orders aligned with his agenda as well as working with GOP lawmakers to push legislation through Congress.

The outlet said that they are “essentially leaderless, with prospective future presidential candidates largely sitting back and allowing others to be the first ones” to challenge the GOP and Trump. Democrats are hoping to counter Trump and the GOP with the upcoming mid-March budget deadline, but as Trump and Elon Musk work to cut back in different government agencies, the Democrats have been making attempts to show what is going on by gathering outside of the buildings that DOGE staffers are auditing.

At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Democratic lawmakers gathered outside to protest the Trump administration’s attempts to cut its operations. “We’ve got to do everything we can, every tool in the toolbox to oppose what is actually happening right before our eyes,” Rep. Hank Johnson said. Democratic lawmakers have made several shows similar to the appearance at the Department of Education as well as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker, when asked what Democrats were doing to push back against Trump, said, “Clearly this is a man that is driving an agenda that’s breaking the law, violating civil service laws, violating common sense, violating fiscal prudence, benefiting corrupt practices.” Booker said that Democrats need to “pull every lever that you have on things that you disagree on,” but later admitted that the “levers that we have are limited, but at the same time, all of us share the lever of speaking out, of raising popular sentiment.”

The Democrats are also struggling to balance between not becoming an annoyance to the American people as well as pointing out what they disagree on with Trump. Rep. Sean Casten said that Democrats have become “angry” because they are defending the Constitution while getting labeled as partisan. He compared the situation to Nazi Germany, and said, “It only took 50 days for Hitler to destroy democracy in Germany.”