How Trump and Musk could be stopped by Congress and judges

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🗓️ 11 February 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

The Washington Post's Libby Casey, Rhonda Colvin and James Hohmann break down the pushback to President Trump and Elon Musk's attempts to drastically downsize the federal government – from what Congress is or isn't doing, on both sides of the aisle, to lawsuits and federal judges who have started to put some of Trump's efforts on hold.

And is the GOP's rhetoric about the judiciary getting dangerous?

Plus, Washington Post Investigations Editor David Fallis joins the show to discuss how listeners can share tips with Post reporters in secure ways.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Look what happened. Is this crazy?
0:03.7	We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in the history.
0:08.5	Make America great a good way.
0:11.6	How can you be against them?
0:16.7	Welcome to Sidebar from the Washington Post.
0:19.0	I'm your host, Libby Casey, and I'm joined in our studio by senior political correspondent Rhonda Colvin and columnist and editorial writer James Howman.
0:28.0	While the Trump administration, including Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency or Doge, is moving fast to remake American government.
0:36.3	Here are just some of the things they are doing,
0:38.9	killing USAID in its humanitarian work and soft diplomacy, cutting billions of dollars from
0:44.4	biomedical research funding, which will affect universities, medical centers, and clinical trials,
0:49.8	shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which helps Americans not get swindled,
0:54.8	threatening federal workers with imminent job cuts and collecting the names of FBI employees
0:59.7	who were assigned to investigate the January 6th Capitol attack and forcing out some high-ranking FBI
1:05.5	officials. And that is just really a partial list. So what are the courts doing to monitor,
1:12.5	pause or even stop some of these efforts? And what is Congress doing about it? That's what we're talking about today,
1:17.4	the pushback or the system of checks. Okay, James, there are three co-weekle branches of government.
1:22.5	This is like our schoolhouse rocks test, the executive branch, which is the White House,
1:27.2	legislative, which is Congress white house legislative which is congress
1:28.4	and judicial which are the courts is the emphasis really on co-equal the founders were very clear that
1:34.4	they saw these as separate and equal branches of government that would check and balance each other it is
1:40.2	the the brilliance of the design along with by the way which will come into play when we talk about lawsuits state governments too federalism isiance of the design, along with, by the way, which will come into play when we talk
1:44.5	about lawsuits, state governments, too. Federalism is part of that pie that the founder's
	...

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