Summary
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) announced he will block all of Trump’s State Department nominees until USAID is reinstated.
His move comes after Elon Musk took control of USAID, placed senior staff on leave, and seized classified information.
Schatz condemned the administration’s “authoritarian behavior” and vowed to delay confirmations until USAID operates normally.
His blockade could significantly slow Trump’s ability to fill key diplomatic positions, forcing Senate Republicans to spend more time pushing nominations through.
I think we’re way past this. The democrats are showing up to the game when it’s already over. Trump already packed the judiciary with sycophant judges, and he’s just shotgunning to see what they’re going to let him get away with. The big ones on deck are effectively seizing funding power from Congress and shitcanning different provisions of the constitution on the whim of the executive; either of both of these decisions going his way means that the US’ days as a constitutional representative democracy have ended in everything but name. Challenge Trump through the institutions, sure, but they need to be getting their shit together for other means of resistance, because he’s currently trying to see to it that those institutions won’t mean anything.