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President Trump and his top adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, are reshaping the federal government in massive and unprecedented ways and with the support, at least so far, from Republicans in Congress. Democrats on Capitol Hill say their phones are ringing off the hook from constituents demanding action, but the minority party has little power to offer. NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt brings us this report.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
ELIZABETH WARREN: We are here to fight back.
CHRIS MURPHY: We have work to do right now.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: It's time for us to fight.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Congressional Democrats have been front and center at recent rallies, blasting the Trump administration's slash-and-burn remake of the federal government. But at a protest in response to the furlough of nearly all employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, lawmakers were at times drowned out by an agitated crowd.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Do your job. Do your job.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: What are you doing about it?
SPRUNT: It highlights the tension Democrats face with a base pushing them to be more aggressive in combating the Trump administration but with very limited power as the party in the minority. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries put it this way last week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAKEEM JEFFRIES: I'm trying to figure out what leverage we actually have. What leverage do we have? Republicans have repeatedly lectured America. They control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It's their government.
ADAM SMITH: That's not the way to do it. I mean, there's no point in talking about what you can't do.
SPRUNT: That's Congressman Adam Smith of Washington, part of the centrist New Dems (ph) Coalition.
SMITH: Now, I will give a little grace to my leader, Hakeem, in that with all the people yelling at him about how he's not magically solving the problem in 24 hours, you can get a little frustrated and want to point out to people, (vocalizing) understand the situation we're in. I get that. But the better thing to do is to talk about what we can do to get to a better place.
SPRUNT: He says his party's message should be two things.
SMITH: Let's develop a credible narrative to what we're going to do instead of Trump while at the same time, pounding him for the terrible stuff that he is doing.
SPRUNT: But other Democrats, like Vermont Congresswoman Becca Balint, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, say there is merit in being upfront about their limitations.
BECCA BALINT: It's clear from talking to my constituents and people who interact with my office, it hasn't really, totally sunk in that Republicans are in charge of the House, the Senate and the White House, so we don't get to control what bills come up on the floor.
SPRUNT: The minority party can sometimes slow things down procedurally, but it can't change math, and the math means that Democrats can't block the president's nominees, they can't schedule hearings, they can't block Republican bills. Balint says one thing they are doing is coordinating with outside groups to bring judicial action.
BALINT: This is the other piece that I think a lot of Americans don't understand. Members of Congress, we don't have standing to sue. So you have to find those outside parties who are either impacted by the executive order or organizations that see the ways in which the executive orders are against federal law or the Constitution.
SPRUNT: Democratic attorneys general and a coalition from Democracy Forward have been putting up roadblocks to the Trump administration's agenda and winning preliminary court battles on things like preserving birthright citizenship, unfreezing billions in grants and keeping federal workers in jobs. As litigation continues and more time passes, freshman Democratic Congresswoman Julie Johnson from Texas says more Americans will feel the effects of the president's actions, like the increased tariffs on aluminum and steel.
JULIE JOHNSON: People will become more engaged the more they feel the impact of Trump's policies. One of the members was saying about how a small craft brewery is going to feel the impacts of being able to get the aluminum to can their beer. Trust me - when America's small craft breweries go down, people will feel it.
SPRUNT: Democrats are also setting up a new rapid response task force in the House, led by Colorado's Joe Neguse, a member of leadership. He said he hopes public pressure may be able to force the GOP to work across the aisle.
JOE NEGUSE: I don't think we should ever assume that our public institutions are impervious to public opinion and to the responsiveness of constituents, so my hope is that we can win in the court of public opinion.
SPRUNT: It's been less than a month since the Trump trifecta took control, and Democrats are still adjusting to losing their levers of power. But they're united in taking their case directly to the public, in the hope that voters don't like this new era of GOP unified government and give some power back to Democrats in two years.
Barbara Sprunt, NPR News, the Capitol. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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