02/16/2025 --dailykos
Another week of Donald Trump's presidency is in the rearview. And like the two weeks before it, it was filled with lawless actions, lies, and ridiculous behavior that Republicans lined up to defend.Trump threw Ukraine under the bus and appears likely to let murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin seize control of the sovereign nation. He also fired more independent watchdogs, let more corrupt politicians off the hook, slashed grants to medical research, and he even said he might ignore court rulings blocking his unlawful actions.And like the pathetic lapdogs they are, Republicans defended every move.After multiple federal judges of all ideological stripes blocked some of Trump’s executive actions, Republicans pushed the country further into a constitutional crisis by backing Trump when he suggested he’ll ignore those court orders and do whatever he wants.“It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So maybe we have to look at the judges. ‘Cause I think that’s a very serious violation,” Trump said on Tuesday.Trump likely got this idea from his own vice president, who wrote in an X post on Feb. 9 that judges shouldn’t be allowed to stop the president’s executive power. “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he wrote.And other Republicans agreed with the false statement that the courts are not allowed to check the president’s power—when that’s exactly what the Constitution dictates.“Of course the branches have to respect our constitutional order but there’s a lot of game yet to be played. This will be appealed, we’ve got to go through the whole process, and we’ll get the final analysis. In the interim, I will say that I agree wholeheartedly with Vice President JD Vance, my friend, because he’s right,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a news conference on Tuesday.Later that day, he said that the courts should back off of Trump altogether.“I think that the courts should take a step back and allow these processes to play out. What we’re doing is good and right for the American people,” Johnson told reporters, specifically referring to the cuts co-President Elon Musk is trying to make with his fake agency, the Department of Government Efficiency.Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah"I don't believe judges, courts have the authority or power to stick their nose into the constitutional authority of the president,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said.“These judges need to back off and get out of the way of what the executive branch is doing to administer the government,” Roy said on Fox News.Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also expressed agreement that courts don’t have the power to challenge Trump’s executive orders.“These judges are waging an unprecedented assault on legitimate presidential authority, all the way down to dictating what webpages the government has. This is absurd,” he wrote on X.Rep. Darrel Issa, Republican of California, claimed that “nowhere in our Constitution is a single federal judge given absolute power over the President or the people of the United States.”But, of course, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark 1803 Marbury v. Madison case that the judiciary has the power to declare laws or actions unconstitutional. On the other hand, Sen. Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota seemed to acknowledge that ignoring court orders is wrong, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to criticize Trump.“I think what you're seeing right now is the natural give and take between branches of the government,” he said.A handful of other Trump sycophants went a step further, saying that they would launch an impeachment effort against the judges who block Trump's actions.“I’m drafting articles of impeachment for US District Judge Paul Engelmayer. Partisan judges abusing their positions is a threat to democracy. The left has done ‘irreparable harm’ to this country. President Trump and his team at @DOGE are trying to fix it,” Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona wrote on X, referring to the federal judge who blocked Musk from accessing Treasury data.And Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia wrote on X that he is backing Crane’s efforts.“The real constitutional crisis is taking place in our judicial branch. Activist judges are weaponizing their power in an attempt to block President Trump’s agenda and obstruct the will of the American people. [Crane] and I are leading the fight to stop this insanity,” he wrote.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called for the impeachment of another federal judge who blocked Trump’s freeze on congressionally appropriated federal funds.“This judge is a Trump deranged Democrat activist. Below is proof he is not capable of making good decisions from the bench. He should be impeached,” Greene wrote on X.Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio backed those efforts, saying the judges blocking Trump’s actions “should be mocked and ignored while articles of impeachment are prepared.”“These clowns are undermining every lower court, leaving the sole burden on SCOTUS. This is not sustainable. Sadly, excesses in judicial and executive authority are a symptom of the real problem: Congress keeps failing to take action. Time for #DeedsNotWords,” he wrote on X.Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, once a fierce defender of watchdogs, was fine with Trump axing the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development who said that Trump's unlawful shuttering of the agency let hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food aid go to waste. Grassley said that he "should have been fired," and gave Trump a workaround to make the firing legal. "I'm just trying to make the president's job easier," Grassley said, completely ditching his past watchdog advocacy to bow down to Trump.Other GOP lawmakers chose Trump over their own constituents, who are being directly harmed by the president’s actions.Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio said that Trump’s decision to drastically cut back National Institutes of Health funding for medical research institutions is a good thing, even though it would decimate institutions in his own state and beyond.“Well, I think what happens is the president is exactly right. I think if you ask the average American if we were spending a billion dollars to cure childhood cancer, how much of the billion dollars would go towards during childhood cancer? They’d probably say a billion. The idea that 60% goes to indirect cost and overhead is insane. And so I applaud the president,” he told the BulwarkAnd Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri said that Trump's funding freeze, which is hurting farmers who are not being paid for contracts, is just a "little bit disruptive."“But that's what this administration promised whenever they were coming to Washington,” Smith said on CNN, “is that they would be disruptive.”xRep. Jason Smith dismisses farmers in his state who are getting stiffed by the US government not fulfilling contracts: "Right now it's a little bit disruptive, but that's what this administration promised whenever they were coming to Washington is that they would be disruptive."— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-02-11T17:38:10.608ZThank you to the Daily Kos community who continues to fight so hard with Daily Kos. Your reader support means everything. We will continue to have you covered and keep you informed, so please donate just $3 to help support the work we do.
