It’s really weird that Congress decided not to treat this as a constitutional crisis. The chief executive is constitutionally obligated to execute the laws that Congress passes. Trump has just decided he doesn’t have to do that—and Congress hasn’t done anything. Now, we’re post-constitutional.
Next he will look to take credit for it 🙄
It doesn't help that SCOTUS has given Trump permission to bypass Congress.
This is how Putin and Hitler became dictators.
we need to stop calling him the chief executive and stop calling it the executive branch. it is officially the chief extortioner and the extortioner branch.
'mafia' works, too....
Because he can
Nothing is weird with this Trump-adoring Republican Congress. The Republicans 'forgot' all about their constitutional duties.
Now do tik tok.
No kings, no masters!
This point, a basic constitutional tenet, escapes them.
As discussed here... www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...
Republicans. Only Republicans. Not "Congress", that spreads blame wildly too far.
The rich are OK with socialism for the billionaires as children starve. The fuck🤬! Stop voting for millionaires & their children to serve your interests they literally don’t understand them or care, the sociopaths simply want the power over your life to control & hurt you. 💰 doesn’t = qualified
People should not say “Congress” when they mean specifically the GOP in Congress.
This really is one of those things that would’ve been called tyranny back in the olden days.
Fuck this motherfucker. It's releasing money that was appropriated by Congress. It's his fucking Constitutional Duty!
Trump has already told us that the Epstein case is boring. Maybe he finds the Constitution boring too.
Thank you HOSFLE for subpoenaing DOJ to RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES and give US OUR JUSTICE! Trump and his cronies have defied subpoenas before. WHAT WILL CONGRESS DO IF THIS HAPPENS AGAIN? Nothing. THE PEOPLE MUST HOLD THE CORRUPT OLIGARCHICAL ELITE ACCOUNTABLE! NO EPSTEIN FILES NO WORK!
Why the title is misleading, it should say ...withholding illegally... We are used to seeing Trump doing things illegally, but the news should still underline this explicitly every single time.
And all it took was this. Our courts are not the fastest, and trump is losing when the truth must be told under oath but what to do when he ignores the rulings? www.npr.org/2025/07/14/n...
k. he's still a child rapist.
As long as it’s MAGA controlled, Congress is a captured power.
maga congress, maga executive, maga judicial ( via scotus ). As phrased by someone far more learned in these things -- decapitation strike. It is not at all clear how this gets turned around....
The 2026 midterms need to be absolutely decisive in Dem favor. Which seems iffy given how absolutely useless the party apparatus is. There are stand out stars who are leaders and fighters but the old gaurd centrists just don't seem to get it.
If we make it that far -- there is a serious, absolutely serious chance there will never be another election. Can you spell 'national emergency' ? Remember, the maga cult is the same one that defined a day to be a year - 'legally' - so the 'emergency powers' they gave the Executive would not end.
Yeah, it definitely feels like half the country is just sleepwalking into worst case scenarios.
Why isn't the criminal president being impeached for delaying these disbursements?
I might offer a slight tweak to your statement that Congress decided it’s not a constitutional crisis. Let’s speak clear Maga decided it wasn’t a crisis. And I don’t know that I can trust a cult to be thoughtful, accurate thinking critically in making their decisions.
Congress is willingly making themselves weaker, their jobs smaller, less important. Idiots
I think, at the root of it, this is what has "radicalized" me, by which I mean turned me from liberal to someone who believes that the entire leadership and most of the senior members of the Democratic party need to go. On the whole, they simply refuse to treat this with the urgency it demands.
Tell us all how you plan to accomplish your purge.
I'm unclear as to why you think because I support something I'm in charge of it. But it's going to take primary challengers who are willing to stand for something.
It’s the fault of the Republican members of Congress, not senior members of the Democratic Party (who do not control Congress). What do you let the Republicans off the hook? They have agency they choose not to deploy.
Six years ago he had the phone call with Zelensky, to try to shake him down in exchange for weapons that were already authorized and funded by congress. He was impeached for this. It's a long pattern, Congress has no excuse.
You've been post-constitutional since Trump's Jan 6 2021 insurrection went unpunished.
HE may think he's post-Constitutional. We do not.
It’s not weird. There is no Congress. What’s weird is that people don’t seem to grasp that checks/balances/Constitution no longer apply.
Well, this started when he refused to shut down Tik Tok on the very first day of his administration.
I can understand why from a public messaging perspective that “rescissions” doesn’t hit as hard as all the other stuff happening right now. But, from a constitutional perspective, it’s really an open and shut issue: this is wildly unconstitutional in ways that undermine the entire system.
If the president can just arbitrarily decide when and how he has to spend the money that Congress allocated, then Congress does not meaningfully have the power of the purse. If our elected representatives don’t decide how to spend our tax dollars, then we don’t meaningfully control our government.
Well, yeah. Back in March: www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
I guess it's technically an impeachable offense, but the legislative branch has no self-respect and so he gets away with it?
This is the stuff I’ve been saying all along - why want congress calling it out? All the illegality. It astounds me, still.
They can't. Trump owns both parties. Trump owns the GOP directly and the Democratic Party is defined by what Trump says about them.
One way to interpret this situation is that the written Constitution is being ignored, but its reductive structure is still in effect. And what I mean by "structure" here is that if all 3 branches agree that this admin's actions are "legal," then that becomes the law.
I don't know whether this is truly a reductionist or a holist take on the Constitution, but the system is designed so that all 3 branches must agree, and right now, they unfortunately do.