Attacked by the right for noting that Musk and Trump don't have monarchical powers, the member of Congress refers her critics to the nation's founding document.
Right-wing defenders of Elon Musk’s assertions of virtually unlimited authority over the government of the United States are pushing the big lie that the richest man in the world has been legitimately (and legally) empowered to make federal agencies his personal fiefdoms. But Americans who are familiar with their country’s history know better. Even as Musk and his cronies rush to shut down the US Agency for International Development, implement a “wholesale removal of regulations,” and seize the financial and data systems of the Department of the Treasury – a move that could give the billionaire a possible role in making determinations regarding trillions of dollars in government spending – the richest man in the world’s assignment as the Trump administration’s “special government employee” does not make him more powerful than the Congress of the United States.
That’s a basic premise of American democracy, as US Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, pointed out Monday during a press conference with fellow Democratic members of Congress, where Musk’s assault on USAID—the federal government agency that is responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance—was decried as “a constitutional crisis.” Musk may say that he is going to feed the agency into “the wood chipper,” but Congress has a bigger say, explained Omar.
“We get to decide, we have the power of the purse. We get to decide where money is allocated, and it’s the executive’s power to make sure that that money gets to where it needs to get,” said the elected representative, who added, “The idea that a billionaire can wake up one day and decide to end life-saving international aid programs is undemocratic and outright dangerous.
That was not a radical statement.
Other members of Congress, who joined Omar outside the USAID headquarters building in Washington on Monday, echoed the sentiments of the Minnesotan who serves as the vice-ranking Member on the House Budget Committee and who—since her 2018 election as “the first African refugee to become a Member of Congress, the first woman of color to represent Minnesota, and one of the first two Muslim-American women elected to Congress”—has emerged as one of the most well-informed and consistently engaged observers of international aid issues in the House.
“What Trump and Musk have done is not only wrong, it’s illegal,” explained US Rep. Don Beyer, D-Virginia. “USAID was established by an act of Congress, and it can only be disbanded by an act of Congress.” US Rep. Jim McGovern, the Massachusetts Democrat who serves as the Ranking Member on the House Rules Committee, said, “This is a brazen attempt by a billionaire who nobody voted for, to illegally and unconstitutionally steal from taxpayers so he can give himself a tax break.”
But, as is so often the case, it was Omar who took the hardest hits from right-wing pundits. While Musk labeled Omar “a major grifter who hates America,” Fox News ran a report headlined, “Omar slams Trump, Musk for changes at USAID, accuses president of running dictatorship.” Fox host Laura Ingraham claimed Omar had a “meltdown” outside the USAID headquarters and suggested the representative’s assertions were “pure comedy.”
Ingraham posted a video of Omar speaking at the USAID building and ripped the Minnesotan’s remarks with a claim that “@IlhanMN accidentally told the truth: ‘We get to decide where money is allocated!’ That’s the problem. Trump is ending the reckless spending spree she helped create. The gravy train is over.”
That’s where Omar decided to push back. She said, “Yes, ‘we’ in Congress pass bills that fund the government and allocate funds, not the President. Maybe open up the Constitution and educate yourself about the branches of government and how things work in America.”
That was a sharp comment. But it had the benefit of being true.
The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power of the purse. This isn’t some obscure provision. It’s a power outlined in the first section of the founding document, reflecting the intention of its drafters to rest the superior authority in these matters with the legislative branch of the federal government, not the executive branch. When Congress authorizes money to be spent for a specific purpose, Sally Katzen, a professor at New York University’s School of Law, explained this week to public media’s Marketplace, “It is not up to the president to decide, ‘I don’t want to spend it.’”
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Because the Constitution gives budgeting powers to the legislative branch, Katzen said, “That means that when Congress has appropriated funds, they should be spent on what Congress had in mind.”
This was Omar’s point when she spoke about Musk’s overreach. When an unelected political crony of the president points to a federal agency and claims that he has been empowered to shut it down, as Musk has said with regard to USAID, that should set off alarm bells in any democracy—particularly one whose Constitution was written to protect against the monarchical abuses that inspired the American revolution against King George III and his “crowned ruffians.”
So, despite the attacks from the right, Omar was not out of line when she warned, “We are witnessing a constitutional crisis. We (were concerned during the 2024 election campaign) about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one. And here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution, and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made.”
John NicholsTwitterJohn Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.