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Washington
CNN
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Congressional Republicans are publicly projecting that they’re in lockstep with the way President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are attempting to slash the federal workforce.
But under the surface, some GOP lawmakers are growing concerned by the effort to usurp Congress’ control of the federal purse strings. And they’re dealing with a deluge of calls from worried constituents and federal workers who are looking to their elected officials for answers.
Some are taking action, testing the waters for what a new era of pushback in a second Trump term looks like.
GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who supports the idea of auditing the federal government, has asked the Trump administration to go line by line through US Agency for International Development funding and pushed them to preserve the programs that serve the country’s national security interests.
“Instead of getting rid of everything, let’s look at it selectively,” Bacon said. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”
Even though Bacon supports the idea of shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the latest agency the administration has unilaterally shuttered, he argued that Trump can’t ultimately usurp Congress.
“Congress has to catch up to the plan or the president’s plan has to be revised. Because the law is law,” Bacon said. “We have got to follow the law. If there are things we have to redirect, let’s do it the constitutional way.”
Congressional appropriators see the government funding deadline next month as a key opportunity to advocate for the programs they want to continue to be funded while enforcing the cuts being made by the administration. GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees USAID funding, argued that Congress still has an important role to play.
“We still have the power of the purse, and I zealously protect the power of the purse,” he told CNN.
Listening to federal workers
GOP Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa, who has heard from several federal workers in his district, has been opening case files and reaching out to the White House and relevant agencies to advocate on their behalf.
“We’ve been very clear that the headache with the federal bureaucracy largely resides within the national capital region,” Nunn said of his conversations with the Trump administration. “Most of the folks that we’ve got in Iowa are frontline workers that are serving people in our community.”
Some Republicans are taking the issue head on by privately sitting down with representatives from the largest federal employee union this week, including GOP Reps. Pete Stauber of Minnesota and Pete Sessions of Texas.
Stauber, a former police officer, told CNN he supports making the government more efficient, but he acknowledged there are bright spots in its workforce.
“You’re not going to see this member demonize federal workers. I was one of them,” he said. “My wife was one of them. I know a lot of good, solid workers. But you can’t tell me that we can’t become more efficient. That’s the goal.”
Sessions is co-leading a caucus that supports Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort and broadly supports the cuts being made. But he said his message to federal workers that he’s meeting with on Tuesday will be: “I might have done it differently.”
GOP Rep. Blake Moore of Utah is also trying to connect with federal workers, telling CNN he listened to their concerns during a recent town hall in his district.
“We need to do a better job of bringing them in instead of vilifying them,” Moore said of his message to his constituents.
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a former physician, told CNN he has been communicating with universities in his state about how proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health could dramatically harm their research abilities.
“I am in active conversations with folks back home. And it’s an issue,” Cassidy said.
Stopping short of explaining next steps, he added: “As a rule, I try to understand issues before I make recommendations.”
Many Republicans are still in the dark on what changes or cuts are occurring and are using back channels to get clarity before taking any action.
“We’re just trying to get answers for people, we’re trying to get answers ourselves,” GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino told CNN.
Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has been more direct in her opposition to various cuts Trump and Musk have tried to make. She publicly criticized the administration’s mandate to freeze federal aid that was ultimately rescinded, and she released a statement Monday advocating against the NIH cuts. Collins said she spoke to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who she says assured her he would “re-examine” the initiative as soon as he is confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
As lawmakers take individual actions, Republican leadership has remained aligned with the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson sidestepped questions last week about whether Trump can shutter federal agencies without Congress and whether Trump should ignore judges’ orders. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the courts will play “the important role” of resolving differences between the co-equal executive and legislative branches instead of weighing in directly.
And most Republicans echo their leadership on Trump and Musk’s efforts, the latest example of how the party has fallen in line behind Trump even when the president’s actions have directly challenged congressional authority.
“I’m not a lawyer. I’m a pilot,” GOP Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan said when asked if Trump has the authority to unilaterally shut down agencies. “So, if you want to talk to me about aviation, I’ll talk to you about that. But when it gets into the legal side of things, let’s let the lawyers’ debate that.”
Still, while a substantial concentration of the federal workforce resides in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, at least 80 percent of federal employees work elsewhere in the country, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
That means the letters to federal employees urging them to resign now and be paid through September, and the Trump administration’s freezing of federal funds or restructuring of government agencies, have palpable impacts beyond just the beltway.
“If this was a Democratic administration with the same things happening, people would be lit up about it,” one GOP lawmaker told CNN. “So, I think we have to be careful about the precedent that they’re setting.”
How Republicans rationalize DOGE
The president campaigned on cutting the size of the federal government, and Republicans say the actions being taken now are simply carrying out his campaign promises.
GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans, who has over 30,000 civilian federal workers in her Virginia district, told CNN that she hasn’t seen the deferred resignation offers but is urging her constituents to be patient.
“I think everybody needs to take a deep breath. I know there’s a lot of change right now. This is the change that Americans voted for in November. So, we’re in a time of transition and if people are having specific questions, please reach out to us,” Kiggans said.
GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, who has nearly 15,000 civilian federal workers in his district in California, told CNN his constituents want Republicans to take on the $35 trillion debt.
“They want us to deal with it, and we’re doing so and the president’s leading,” Issa said. “My federal workers are also taxpayers, and even if they may want to preserve their job, they’ll be the first to tell me that they’re tired of going to a post office with surly attitudes, bad delivery and nothing to show for it.”
One federal workers union representative told CNN they are pushing Republican lawmakers to act behind the scenes: “We want them to step out for us, but we know the situation they are in with President Trump. I do think they will work behind the scenes with us and convince Speaker Johnson not to do certain things.”
Ruark Hotopp, national vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees, has directed his unionized federal workers to contact every congressional office in the Midwest region he represents. Hotopp, who has organized his members to meet with various lawmakers this week, explained that the Republican offices they have been calling are sympathetic until a certain point.
“Our question back to them is – what are you going to do about it? And right now, the answer is seemingly nothing,” Hotopp said.
CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.
