Inside the Dems’ strategy for responding to Trump’s onslaught of crises
By Michael Jones
While sports fans are gearing up for the Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl matchup, basketball diehards are still processing Luka Doncic’s stunning trade from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers, and I’m basking in the residual joy from A’ja Wilson’s jersey retirement at the University of South Carolina, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has a different sport on his mind.
“I’m a Yankee fan, and Aaron Judge is my favorite player, as is the case for many. He’s a great young hitter. One of the reasons that he’s a great hitter is that he does not swing at every pitch. He waits for the right one and then the swings,” the top House Democrat told me last Friday in Brooklyn about the Major League Baseball star. “We’re not going at every pitch. We’re going to swing at the ones that matter for the American people.”
This approach served national Democrats well last week when they seized on a memo the Trump administration issued announcing a federal funding freeze on grants and loans appropriated by Congress, which has since been blocked in the courts.
Members posted videos detailing calls from constituents worried about what the freeze may mean for their families, organizations, or communities. Senate Democrats held three press conferences in less than 36 hours on the freeze, which the Trump administration claimed was to ensure the investments match the administration’s policy priorities and avoid funding programs it considers unnecessary.
Meanwhile, when the House was in recess last month, Jeffries organized his members around a three-part appropriations, litigation, and communications strategy to be ready to respond to whatever Donald Trump threw at them. By the time his caucus met virtually last Wednesday, the Trump administration had rescinded the memo, and what was supposed to be a brainstorming session turned into a victory lap.
“That is why the pushback was so fierce as it relates to the unlawful funding freeze,” Jeffries told me. “Because it was a Republican ripoff scheme to steal taxpayer dollars, and we were not going to stand for it.”
The funding freeze is one of many contentious actions from the president across domestic and foreign policy in the first two weeks of his second term. Trump dismissed 17 independent inspectors general at federal agencies without the advance notice the law requires. He’s authorized a hostile immigration crackdown, including shutting down the asylum system at the southern border, halting flights for previously approved refugees, and attempting to end birthright citizenship—another move that the courts have blocked. Trump also imposed 25 percent tariffs on Canada—and Mexico— before announcing a one-month pause after the global markets experienced turbulence and the country’s two leaders reaffirmed commitments they made during the Biden administration to strengthen border security.
These actions underscore the familiar dilemma national Democrats face in the MAGA era: How does the party effectively respond to the firehouse of crises and controversies from the Trump administration? How does it hold the president accountable to his campaign promises and the limits of his executive power without becoming so distracted by the noise that their attention is drawn away from making a strong case for themselves in 2026?
The administration’s tactics follow white nationalist and former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon’s flood-the-zone strategy, which focuses on overwhelming the news cycle with a massive volume of sensational misinformation and controversy that spreads too fast for truth and facts to keep up.
But the top two congressional Democrats say they won’t be distracted.
“He’s trying to fool us,” Schumer said of Bannon’s strategy. “We’re being pointed. When this executive order and this funding freeze came out, we focused all our fire on that—even though there were many other bad things being done. And we will return to those bad things, but we’re not letting them trick us with this flood-the-zone strategy.”
Jeffries said the strategy is designed to divide Americans at a time when unity is needed.
“We’re committed to finding bipartisan common ground with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle whenever and wherever possible in order to make life better for everyday Americans, particularly as it relates to driving down the high cost of living,” he said. “But at the same period of time, we’re going to push back against far-right extremism in defense of the American people whenever necessary. We understand that extreme MAGA Republicans have a strategy. They want to flood this zone with outrage, but we can’t chase every outrage.”
Different parts of the coalition prefer varying degrees of resistance, but Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), chair of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, told me that the first Trump term taught her that Democrats can’t allow misinformation and disinformation to go unanswered.
“There’s been a lot of misinformation, a lot of propaganda out there that has been spun by Donald Trump at MAGA maniacs, as I call them, and certainly his administration,” she said. “We’re going to debunk that every step of the way, and we’re going to be focused on the American people, so we’re not going to follow every diabolical issue that he throws before us.”
Clarke said members would also refer to Project 2025, the comprehensive conservative policy agenda developed by The Heritage Foundation, since several of the president’s actions in the first two weeks of his term have closely aligned with the proposals outlined in the 900-plus-page document.
“A lot of that must go through the legislative process, ” she said. “We will certainly make sure that Donald Trump recognizes that the American people are not going to fall for his foolishness. We will not stand idly by why he tries to commandeer this democracy and turn it into a dictatorship.”
For many voters still wounded by the 2024 election results, which saw former Vice President Kamala Harris lose the presidency and Republicans hold the House and flip the Senate, there’s a burning desire for Democrats to replace the clinical, consultant-driven passive politics the party’s been long associated with the no-holds-barred approach of the MAGA right.
We’ve seen a few instances of this posture in recent days.
Jeffries said that he’s already told House Republican leadership that Democrats won’t put up the votes to keep the government open beyond next month’s mid-March deadline unless the GOP commits to excluding cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs mandated in the funding freeze memo. This is a sharp departure from Democrats’ unwillingness to allow the government to shut down despite serving in the minority since 2023.
Jeffries and Schumer are also introducing legislation to prevent Elon Musk from entering the Treasury Department’s payment system, which Elon Musk, in his capacity as a special government employee for the Department of Government Efficiency, and his aides have accessed to supposedly examine the $6 trillion the system processes for waste, fraud, and abuse.
A group of New Jersey House Democrats made an unannounced visit to a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center to ensure detainees arrested during raids are being treated humanely and with dignity.
Musk also announced his intention to shut down the US Agency for International Development, sparking a significant protest led by members of Congress at the agency’s headquarters. Sen. Brian Schatz announced he would place a blanket hold on all State Department nominees until USAID is reopened. Senate Democrats have forced Republicans to waste precious floor time on procedural votes to advance controversial Trump cabinet nominees, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Russell Vought, the president’s pick to lead the White House budget office and a lead author of Project 2025.
Beyond Congress, national Democrats are expected to sharpen their messaging following the election of new Democratic Committee Chair Ken Martin last weekend.
“We need to go on offense,” Martin, who is also the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said in his victory speech. “Trump’s first weeks have shown us what happens when amateur hour meets demolition derby. And at the same time, he’s invited all these billionaires into the Oval Office to mine, extract, and profit off of our government…It’s the people’s government—it’s not another resource for ultra-elites to exploit.”
Now, Democrats just have to convince enough voters to believe it.
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
