Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill are getting caught in a political web created by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s showdown over U.S. foreign aid amid their threats to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
But the issue may not be the call to battle that soul-searching Democrats have been hunting for since Trump reemerged in the White House last month.
That’s according to three veteran Democratic strategists with decades of experience in the trenches of political campaigns. Speaking to Politico, the strategists cautioned others in the party to choose their battles with the new Trump administration wisely and offered a preview of what fight they see as fit for party leaders to set their sights on.
“My heart is with the people out on the street outside USAID, but my head tells me: ‘Man, Trump will be well satisfied to have this fight,’” former Obama adviser David Axelrod told Politico. “When you talk about cuts, the first thing people say is: Cut foreign aid.”
Former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also served as Obama’s chief of staff and as ambassador to Japan under the Biden administration, agreed, but added his own spin: “You don’t fight every fight. You don’t swing at every pitch. And my view is — while I care about the USAID as a former ambassador — that’s not the hill I’m going to die on.”
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MAGA world, meanwhile, is thrilled to see Democratic lawmakers outraged over the foreign aid issue, Politico wrote in their report, which noted that many in Trump’s orbit believe them to be “wasting political capital defending an agency that they believe the public doesn’t give a rip about. Musk himself spent the following 24 hours posting videos of Democrats protesting the move.”
Longtime Democratic political strategist James Carville told Politico he sees a winning message for his party as being tailored to attacking an unelected billionaire gutting government services for Americans.
“I know this: When the public doesn’t have the bureaucracy, they notice it pretty quickly,” Carville is quoted as saying. “Here you have some nice people doing a good job, then some billionaire comes in and takes a wrecking ball to everything.”
All three Democrats interviewed by the publication agreed that Democrats should save their rage “for issues that will resonate with voters: Cutting benefits. Rising prices. Not slashing foreign aid.”
Trump’s threat to dismantle the Department of Education could offer Democrats a more promising avenue, as government initiatives like special education programs and federally subsidized student loans could also be axed.
“A third of the eighth graders can’t read ... and now he wants to close the Department of Education?” Emmanuel asked. “I’m for USAID, but that makes your coastal Democrats really, really comfortable about our moral principles. I care about the kids who can’t read.”
