GOP lawmakers grapple with fallout from Trump executive actions
Republican lawmakers are grappling with the fallout from President Trump's first week in office, which has brought a dizzying array of changes to Washington and has already spawned major controversies.
Trump's firing of 17 inspectors general, his sweeping pardon of Jan. 6 protesters and a stop order on most foreign assistance has left Republican senators scrambling to keep up.
That’s to say nothing of Trump’s threats to impound congressionally appropriated funds, his terminating of personal protective details for former national security officials and skipping background checks for short-term security clearances.
“Look, there’s going to be a lot of disruption. We know that,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who cited the president’s decision last week to fire Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan.
A Republican senator who requested anonymity said Trump is pursuing a “shock and awe” approach by taking so many executive actions during his first week in office.
“Our majorities are very small here so he knows that most of what he gets done is going to be by executive order,” the lawmaker said.
The latest bombshell to drop Monday afternoon was news that the Department of Justice had fired officials involved in prosecuting Trump on charges of trying to overturn the 2024 election and mishandling classified documents. The Justice Department also suspended several environmental lawyers.
It came only a day after Trump rattled Colombia, a close ally in South America, by threatening to slap it with a 25 percent tariff for turning away U.S. military planes set to deport a group of Colombian migrants.
Many of the decisions have caught Republican lawmakers by surprise, such as the freezing of funding for key infrastructure projects across the country.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, expressed “concern” over the fate of key infrastructure projects that Congress funded during the Biden administration.
“We’re following that very closely. I’ve talked to Sean Duffy a couple of times,” she said, referring to former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), Trump’s nominee to head the Transportation Department.
“We’re concerned about road and bridge projects and formula funding. Want to make the case to the president that they need to move forward. As it is right now, it’s not moving forward.”
Sullivan said Duffy has been asked about the future of infrastructure funding by GOP senators.
“It’s a definite important issue,” he said. “We’re all looking at it.”
One GOP senator said the executive order to freeze infrastructure funding “was not drafted precisely enough.”
Republican senators were stunned by the dismissal of 17 inspectors general late Friday night, despite statutory requirement that Congress be notified 30 days in advance of such an action.
“You have to take each one of the actions separately. For me, I’ve asked for more information on the support or the legal ramifications of actually firing the individuals,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).
Rounds said GOP lawmakers need to “work our way through them.”
“I think the president wanted to hit the ground running and I think he really has a concern about a bureaucracy that could be in his way,” he said.
Rounds said he’s personally used inspector general reports in the past and found them helpful.
“I personally have used a number of their reports in the past and so I don’t know why he chose those particular ones. I’d like to learn more why he chose those,” he said of the terminated government watchdogs.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) over the weekend said she had difficulty understanding why Trump would fire a big group of inspectors general since those are the officials in charge of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, which Trump says is one of his priorities.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he wanted “further explanation from President Trump” about the decision to dismiss the government watchdogs.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Monday “there’s some question” about the interpretation of the law requiring the administration to notify lawmakers in advance of decisions to fire inspectors general.
“I’m looking forward [to] a reason. I think Sen. Grassley was the one who pointed out that there is a notice requirement and would like to know what the rationale was,” he said.
GOP lawmakers were also scrambling to grasp the impact of Trump’s orders to freeze most foreign assistance and parts of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, two of former President Biden’s biggest legislative accomplishments, which happened to steer a lot of money to Republican-leaning states.
“I think it’s appropriate for the administration to review all of this stuff. They said they were going to. The mechanics they’re using to do it is up to them,” said. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But Risch wasn’t entirely sure exactly what foreign assistance would be impacted and what would be exempted. And he advised people “wringing their hands” about disrupted diplomatic and economic assistance programs to contact the White House directly with their concerns.
“People are wringing their hands about some specific soft points. I said, ‘Look, what you need to do is convey your concerns to the White House and an executive order can [be] amended,’” he said.
“They’re looking at that stuff,” Risch said of the White House’s evaluation of unintended consequences from executive actions taken last week.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Trump’s order on foreign aid has brought the work of a dozen nongovernmental organizations distributing humanitarian assistance to a total halt.
He said it’s having “dramatic negative immediate impact” on humanitarian work.
“It is being interpreted by a dozen major global nonprofits as requiring them to immediately stop, whether it’s delivering medication, running health care clinics, distributing food. There are nonprofits all over the world that are abandoning lifesaving medication on a dock or shutting down a clinic,” he said.
Coons and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), all members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday about the negative impacts of the order.
“It is my hope that there will be some action taken to minimize the immediate harm. I think that there are some real misunderstandings about exactly what is intended,” Coons said. “I am hopeful that there will be a bipartisan effort to reduce the very real and harmful impact of this executive order.”
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