Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Sunday outlined Democrats’ strategy to push back on President Trump’s and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to reshape much of the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and other means of executive authority.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Booker said Democrats are fighting back through the courts, in Congress and through public and media engagement with constituents.
“I think the plan right now is working is four parts. One is a legal strategy to stop him from violating the separation of powers, from violating our civil service law, civil rights laws. And we’re winning,” Booker said when asked why Democrats weren’t more prepared to challenge some of Trump’s bold moves since many of them were described in the Project 2025 framework.
Booker said there are 41 cases Democrats took to court and, just last week, 12 of them “were successful in stopping some of his illegal actions.”
He said the next step is “a legislative and oversight effort to really try to expose” some of Trump’s actions.
“Not to treat this as Democrat versus Republican, right or left, but really right or wrong,” Booker said, “and continue to try to use our positions procedurally, as well as legislatively, to stop what he’s doing.”
He said another key step in Democrats’ plan is to communicate to the public various actions the Trump administration has taken and what Democrats are doing to fight back.
“And then finally, perhaps most importantly, because all of us have to have a role, from the media to everyday citizens, which is shining a light on the dark corners of what they’re doing and how it is actually endangering Americans’ lives, is threatening to raise the costs of people’s everyday goods and inflation and more,” Booker said.
He noted the public pressure has been effective before, pointing to the failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his first term and “even when he did one of those awful illegal acts of trying to stop government funding of our first responders or veterans or meal programs.”
“The outrage of Americans actually stopped them from what they were doing, and then our legal strategy further put a bar on their ability to stop sourcing and funding vital resources for communities,” he said.
Democrats have fumed about their party leadership’s early response to Trump’s first couple weeks in office, with many saying it has been inconsistent and not aggressive enough to combat Trump, who has taken a series of actions to remake the government.
