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U.S. Congress Capitol Building in Washing D.C.
Capitol Building at Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. in winter.
Republicans in Congress aren't acting like they're a co-equal branch of government with the president, wrote Hayes Brown in a scathing analysis for MSNBC—and in fact, it's not just President Donald Trump they're surrendering constitutional powers to, but unelected tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force, which he is not even formally in charge of for legal reasons, Musk has been spearheading aggressive layoffs in the civil service and the unilateral suspension of funding and grants Congress has appropriated—all of which is likely illegal, and could tank the economy per some experts.
“The Republican leaders of the 119th Congress seem to have entirely forgotten their place in the federal pecking order,” wrote Brown. These days, he wrote, “There are few GOP legislators ... willing to present themselves as an equal of President Donald Trump, let alone willing to tell him what to do. Their prostration before Trump has reduced the most powerful branch on paper to petitioning the president’s court for the means to achieve even Congress’ most modest goals.”
Moreover, he argued, it's not even Trump really in command at this point: “the legislature’s new deference to the White House is compelled to take a bizarre detour through billionaire Elon Musk, who in his role as the de facto head of the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency appears to have more control over the Republican agenda than House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La).”
Nothing exemplifies this more than how Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) proudly announced he had reached a deal with Musk to prevent cuts to National Weather Service facilities in his own state, wrote Brown—something he, not the White House or anyone advising it, constitutionally has control over.
“Cole is a key gatekeeper of the power of the purse. In the past, he would have been rightly seen as one of the most powerful figures in Washington,” wrote Brown—that's how it has always worked. Instead, "the White House asserts total control over federal projects, leaving personal appeals to Musk and his loyal staffers as the only way for Republicans to stave off politically damaging cuts.”
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“When facing voters next fall, congressional Republicans are hoping to do so lauding not their own victories but those of the president and the richest man in the world,” Brown concluded. “It should be embarrassing for a member of the U.S. Congress to campaign on their proximity to power—but that seems to be good enough in the shameless vacuum of ambition that is laying ruin to the Founders’ temple to democracy.”
