WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) joined Senate Democrats at a press conference on Tuesday raising the alarm about the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo directing agencies to freeze federal funding.
Full transcript of Murphy’s remarks:
“This is an attempt by Donald Trump to seize power. It sounds like a provocative thing to say, but how else do you describe what we have watched happen over the last week? The broad immunization of political violence, the illegal firing of inspectors general there to make sure that the money of the taxpayers isn't stolen, and today, the illegal and unconstitutional decision to put the President of the United States, and no one else, in charge of who gets federal money and who doesn't.
“What President Trump is doing is seizing control of the federal budget and deciding by himself who gets money and who doesn't for two reasons. One, he wants to bank money so that he can afford his massive tax cut for billionaires and corporations, but second, so that he can hand out money to his friends, to the companies that are run by his billionaire donors, to states that voted for him, to congressional districts with members of Congress who are loyal to him, and so that he can deny money to any organization run by Democrats, to companies that are competitors to his billionaire friends, to congressional districts represented by his political opponents.
“This what a king does. This is not how a democracy works. One man does not decide how taxpayers’ money is spent so that it only gets sent to the President's political friends, and it gets used to punish his political enemies.
“The scope of the damage that will be done is enormous to poor kids who rely on Head Start programs, to families who desperately need that cancer research done, to veterans who, if they miss one or two appointments, their life falls apart suddenly overnight.
“We have to understand what is happening in context. The President wants you to be distracted by the day-to-day announcements, but put together, the pardoning of the violent rioters, the firing of the inspectors general, and today, the stoppage of federal funding, leaving the decision only to the political whims of President Trump, represents the gravest, most serious constitutional crisis of our lifetime, and one that threatens to undermine the very premise of American democracy.”
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