Democrats used the overnight Senate session that ended early Friday morning as a platform for their outrage over what President Donald Trump has wrought during his first month in office.
The budget resolution from Republicans was on the agenda in the Senate, but the late-night debate encompassed so much more.
Democrats used the overnight session that ended early Friday morning as a platform for their outrage over what President Donald Trump has wrought during his first month in office and their warnings of what is still to come.
From Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slicing through the federal workforce to Trump’s attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the GOP plan to extend tax breaks including for the wealthy and cut safety net programs, far more than the $340 billion budget framework on border security and deportations came under scrutiny.
Out of power in Washington, D.C., the Democrats instead brought to the Senate floor pages of amendments, keeping the chamber long into Thursday night and early Friday morning.
“People don’t send us here to make their lives worse. But that’s exactly what Trump and Musk are doing,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., launching the debate. “They are looking at our most pressing problems — and making them so much worse. And this budget proposal will only add fuel to the fire.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, test-drove a new term — “Trumpflation” — and asked what in the president’s “big, beautiful, bill” would help Americans.
“Take this plan and put it in the ‘woodchipper,’” Merkley said, repurposing Musk’s quip about chopping up the federal government.
