Democratic strategists warned pushing back on President Donald Trump’s anti-bureaucracy efforts could be a “monster miscalculation” in the president’s favor.
Several Democratic politicians have attacked Trump and billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk for announcing plans to cut funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Though the issue has reignited the “resistance” side of the party, some Democrats told Politico on Tuesday that they had “strategic reservations” about attacking spending cuts and whether they could be “walking into a trap.”
“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,’” said veteran strategist David Axelrod. “When you talk about cuts, the first thing people say is: Cut foreign aid.”
Former U.S. ambassador, Chicago mayor and Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel also criticized Democrats’ intense focus on USAID funding as opposed to several other more popular issues.
“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,” Emanuel said.
Several Democratic lawmakers protested Trump and Musk’s efforts to dismantle the foreign aid agency at an event outside the USAID building in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., made some of the most inflammatory comments, accusing Trump of starting a dictatorship.
“It is a really, really sad day in America. We are witnessing a constitutional crisis,” Omar said. “We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one. And here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution, and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made.”
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Despite Omar’s enthusiasm, both Axelrod and Emanuel warned how “voters could simply tune them out” if Democrats come out against every issue posed by Trump.
Defending an agency like USAID, Axelrod feared, could exacerbate the party’s growing image as a “party of elite institutions.”
“Part of the problem for the Democratic Party is that it has become a stalwart defender of institutions at a time when people are enraged at institutions,” Axelrod said. “And they become — in the minds of a lot of voters — an elite party, and to a lot of folks who are trying to scuffle out there and get along, this will seem like an elite passion.”
Instead, Emanuel suggested the party focus on issues beyond what the “coastal Democrats” like.
“A third of the eighth graders can’t read … and now he wants to close the Department of Education?” Emanuel said. “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.”
Politico’s article followed another critical report from the Wall Street Journal that revealed Democrats have been struggling to define themselves since the 2024 election.
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“Twenty big cities, Aspen and Martha’s Vineyard—that’s what’s left of the Democratic Party,” former congressional candidate Adam Frisch said. “And I’m not exactly sure those 20 big cities are getting the best version of the Democratic Party.”
