President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press as he prepares to depart the White House aboard Marine One on Jan. 24 in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images).
Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not care who gets hurt in their chaotic efforts to gut the government. Missouri’s Republican senators are doing nothing to stop them.
When Trump’s first memo freezing federal funding came out, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley assured us that the White House had told him “Medicaid was categorically not covered” and there would be “no interruption to Medicaid or Medicare or any grant that floats to individuals.”
Then the Medicaid portals in every state went down.
When the Trump administration rescinded that memo following political pressure and a court order, Hawley said:
“I think it’s good to have the clarity. To be honest, it was very unclear when that memo came out, what exactly, what was covered, what wasn’t covered, and you saw the White House start to clarify that immediately. But again, I think a lot of people, myself included, initially, were under the impression that this was a new [executive order] that somehow mandated an across-the-board freeze for using all these programs, which is not the case.”
What? Lack of clarity was not the problem. The problem is the upending of our constitutional system and the suffering that will result.
What an actual “constitutional conservative” would have said is: “These funds have been allocated by Congress and the president is not free to take any of them from my constituents. Withholding those funds violates the Constitution’s separation of powers, the Impoundment Control Act, and many contracts that the government has entered into with Missourians. I’m all for spending cuts, but the Constitution requires that they go through Congress.”
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If the president was free to ignore Congress, there would be no point in having a Congress. There would be no reason for Hawley to have a job, yet he is cheerleading for his own impotence as he abandons Missourians.
In an appearance on Fox News, Hawley was gleeful about Trump’s withholding of funding to USAID. Our purportedly “pro-life” senator is fully on board with Trump and Musk leaving nearly half a billion dollars of food intended for starving people – some of it bought from Missouri farmers – to rot or be stolen.
Hawley is in full support of the usurpation of his authority that is causing hundreds of babies a day to be born with HIV for lack of treatment that Congress already funded.
It is the opposite of “efficiency” to let food rot and medicine go undelivered as Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” is doing (“DOGE” is named after a memecoin because our lives are a joke to Musk).
Hawley’s endorsement of pulling the plug on programs like these without notice requires a horrifying indifference to human life.
U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt also endorsed Trump’s unlawful actions.
Schmitt apparently believes that it is justified, for example, to cut off funds to Missouri child care centers because “a lot of these grants were predicated on” DEI. He made this comment at a Republican retreat that was held at a Trump property because enriching the president personally is now required while delivering promised funding for the care of Missouri children apparently is not.
If Schmitt and Hawley follow the news in Missouri, they should know how much suffering has already resulted from Missouri’s abject failure to get federal funds to their recipients. This is a longstanding failure that has caused our day cares to close and children to be hospitalized due to lack of treatment for manageable conditions.
The progress our state is finally making on administering these federal funds means nothing if Trump and Musk can just disappear the promised funds.
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Schmitt and Hawley have also shown total disdain for the tens of thousands of Missourians who work for the government. They did nothing wrong by pursuing careers in public service. In fact, serving our country was once considered noble.
But now these workers are being portrayed by the billionaires as villains or incompetents and left to wonder if they will have jobs tomorrow. Trump’s latest move is to fire everyone who has worked for the government for less than three years. That means losing all of our young, eager and inexpensive talent while Trump is also firing the experienced workers.
Trump and Musk don’t care about the upheaval they are causing. They have never endured a nanosecond of fear about being able to pay a mortgage or take care of kids. The livelihoods and dignity of their employees in Missouri mean nothing to them.
Schmitt, Hawley and all our Republican House members need to care. Their job is not to please the president and other billionaires. Their job is to represent Missouri’s interests. They are instead helping Trump and Musk steal funds that Missouri’s people and institutions negotiated for, acted in reliance on, and are entitled to.
The judicial branch has been doing its job by enjoining illegal orders one by one, but it isn’t easy to put the toothpaste back in the tube. There is massive confusion about what executive orders are in effect and tons of federal workers and federally-funded workers needed to administer those funds have been put on administrative leave or fired.
And the Trump administration is floating the idea of defying the courts. J.D. Vance has suggested the courts don’t have authority over Trump. Musk tweeted about impeaching judges for ruling against Trump. Yet the “constitutional conservatives” have nothing to say.
A Missouri farmer who voted for Trump, Skylar Holden, explained in TikTok videos that he was at risk of losing his farm after investing $80,000 in reliance on a contract with the federal government that was funded under the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump halted all promised IRA funds.
Holden has spoken to U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner and Hawley’s office but still doesn’t know if he’ll ever see the contracted funds.
When U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was asked about the plight of Holden and other farmers, he failed to call for the government to honor its contracts: “Right now, it’s a little bit disruptive, but that’s what this administration promised.”
Trump never met a contract he wouldn’t breach and he’s endeavoring to make that true of the entire U.S. government. Trump won big in this state, but that doesn’t mean anyone voted for Trump and Musk’s unconstitutional macheteing of everything that makes this country run. During his campaign, Trump repeatedly denied any intention to implement Project 2025, the right-wing plan to remake the government.
Trump won big in our state, but that does not relieve Hawley and Schmitt of their obligation to defend what is owed to Missourians and the constitutional order that we are losing with each passing day.
This post was originally authored and published by Bridgette Dunlap from Missouri Independent via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.