Press Releases

oday during a press conference at the Portland International Jetport, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree spoke out against the litany of illegal and unconstitutional actions President Trump, his Administration, and Elon Musk have taken since Inauguration Day. Pingree shared that her office has received an unprecedented number of phone calls from concerned constituents, who have expressed fear and frustration over what is happening under the new Administration. 

“We had all read Project 2025. I've got my own copy. I quoted it all the time. So we knew some of the things [the President] was anticipating—we'd heard about DOGE and their plans to cut $2 [trillion]—but I don't think any of us expected this last two weeks of chaos and illegal activity,” Pingree said. “I just want to say that people are panicked. We had an unprecedented number of calls to our office yesterday. [...] Not only are we getting calls from people who are panic stricken about how our government is conducting itself, but as you know, over the last week, we've had all these funding stops. We heard from people who are in the middle of affordable housing projects, [from] Head Start about daycare. We've heard from farmers, small businesses, people working on organizing community revitalization, just such a wide range.”

She said the most upsetting development to constituents who have reached out is how “DOGE has taken over.” 

“[...] That this unelected billionaire and—as they describe it, six kids between 19 and 24—are now locking the doors of our government agencies, blocking computer access for long time employees, and really reshaping the federal workforce, whether it's the return-to-work orders, which impact many people who work remotely in Maine for government agencies,” Pingree said. “The retaliation going on at the Justice Department, where prosecutors who worked on January 6th are being fired, or accessing Treasury payments and getting access to people's secret information and how we spend our money.”

Photo: Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

“What baffles me is the Republicans in this election won the White House. They won control of the House. They won control of the Senate. They have controlling votes on the Supreme Court. They could do all these things by coming to Congress and doing it in the way the Constitution specifies: three co-equal branches working together to make these decisions. But they are going to do whatever it takes to just get what they want—using DOGE and Elon Musk invading our privacy.”

Pingree also outlined the ways she and her Democratic colleagues are pushing back against these illegal actions, including working with state Attorneys Generals to file lawsuits, calling for investigations, and keeping Americans informed. 

“People want Democrats to do everything we can, and we are. And I want people to know that,” Pingree said. “There are more than 20 lawsuits in operation right now coming in on the 11 executive orders that we're most concerned about. We're going to do everything we can. You saw my colleagues yesterday showing up outside the doors of the USAID, we’ll be outside the doors of the Department of Education or wherever we can, to try to block this. People often don't understand that because we're in the minority, we don't have the power to sue the executive branch. Only the speaker of the House does. And he won't authorize any of our lawsuits. So we're going to continue to see the bluster and the chaos, this blatantly unconstitutional and illegal activity. And we're going to do everything we can to fight back to the people of Maine.”

A complete transcript of Pingree’s remarks is copied below:

Thank you, everyone, for coming this morning. […]

It is really hard to know where to begin.

It's not surprising that I didn't support President Trump getting elected. But like so many members of Congress, we start a new session and we think about, okay, there will be areas of agreement. We'll start working through the Appropriations process, and we'll see how this could all happen.

We had all read Project 2025. I've got my own copy. I quoted it all the time. So we knew some of the things he was anticipating, we'd heard about DOGE and their plans to cut $2 [trillion], but I don't think any of us expected this last two weeks of chaos and illegal activity. I just want to say that people are panicked. We had an unprecedented number of calls to our office yesterday, and we've had so many calls.

And I just want to quote a couple of them. You know, just people saying, “Please protect our Constitution, protect taxpayer dollars at all costs, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. ... Please stop the access to sensitive information and federal funds that were granted to Elon Musk and his associates.” 

Here's one that says, “I've never called my congressperson before, but I just read the article about Elon Musk” goes on and it says, “I've been a taxpayer all my life. I'm a United States citizen. It really bothers me that somebody that wasn't confirmed by Congress, hasn't gone through any security clearance, would just be able to get all that information on the United States citizen just at the drop of the hat. It's not right. It's wrong. It's very wrong.” 

So not only are we getting calls from people who are panic stricken about how our government is conducting itself, but as you know, over the last week, we've had all these funding stops.

Now, these are illegal funding stops ... “impoundment” as we call it. As we all know in the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse. We heard from the state when the Medicaid portals were blocked. ...

You know, we heard from ... people who are in the middle of affordable housing projects, [from] Head Start about daycare. We've heard from farmers, small businesses, people working on organizing community revitalization, just such a wide range. 

Now, I know as well as anyone, people love to hear about government spending cuts because they think the government spends too much. But when they think about those cuts, they don't think it's going to come to farmers or to school lunch programs or to daycare. We got the pause memo from the executive branch. Then we've had a court decision, as you know, that has impacted Maine in 22 other states. But I can tell you, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, it's still totally confusing about what funding is allowed, what's blocked. We can't get adequate information. Imagine what it's like being some of those recipients. And we know that many of those funds are still blocked. 

We are just in the middle of a daily lawless amount of chaos and confusion from the executive branch that really is trying to take over the government responsibility of funding. 

So yesterday we saw the USAID be completely shut down. And we know that there's a pause on foreign aid. Once again, people often don't like foreign aid, even though it's less than 1% of our total budget. People often think, why are we sending money to other countries when we should spend that back at home? But when you talk to them about the government spending that went to make sure that Ebola didn't make it to our country. That helps with health care issues, that helps hungry people starving all over the world. And those hungry people are often the very people who are part of the migration into the United States. They start to understand why this has value. We have the Secretary of State down in Panama who's telling us, you know, we had to stop the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. Well, those of us who spent time in Congress or visit foreign countries, one of the reasons we are told to understand why we do this soft power spending in foreign countries is to stop the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative from Russian spending so that we can continue to have world security, and we continue to have allies around the world.

 I think what's most upsetting to people is this idea that DOGE has taken over, that this unelected billionaire. And as they describe it, six kids between 19 and 24 are now locking the doors of our government agencies, blocking computer access for long time employees, and really reshaping the federal workforce, whether it's the return-to-work orders, which impact many people who work remotely in Maine for government agencies.

The retaliation going on at the Justice Department, where prosecutors who worked on January 6th are being fired, or accessing Treasury payments and getting access to people's secret information and how we spend our money. So what's coming next? It's hard for us to know. Every day is a mystery, but we know already because they signaled last night going after the Department of Education next.

I just want to remind people that President Trump reminded, he told all of us during the campaign, he was going to shut down the Department of Education. But last year, $60 million in Title I funds came to some of our most vulnerable schools in the state of Maine through the Department of Education. The IDEA funding, that’s special ed funding. The government is supposed to spend 40%, It's only down to 15%. So we already know that we're not meeting our mandate there. And I know as a former school board member, every school needs more special education funding. We can say goodbye to that. 

We're seeing the continuing impoundment of funds from the bills that we call the IIJA and the IRA. There is no legal way that the president should be impounding those funds. Those are the monies that are currently being spent in Maine for infrastructure. That's our roads and bridges and broadband initiatives, for climate change initiatives. And to many of our farmers, a farmer who just contacted me, who got the funding set up for the hoop house, he's trying to put on his farm. The solar for all project, which makes sure that solar power is more affordable for people. Endless list of money that are meant to come into Maine that are now being blocked. 

The tariffs: We don't know what's going to happen there, happy to talk more about them. And we're about to face this reconciliation vote. We're supposed to take a vote this week from the Budget Committee on Reconciliation, and we've already been told that they're going to make these $2 [trillion] in cuts. We only spend $1.7 trillion every year. That was $2 [trillion], $1.7 trillion. That means they're going to have to go into Medicare and Medicaid to get those cuts. And all that money is [going] to go to tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country and big corporations. 

 Just to end this, I will say, you know, what baffles me is the Republicans in this election won the White House. They won control of the House. They won control of the Senate. They have controlling votes on the Supreme Court. They could do all these things by coming to Congress and doing it in the way the Constitution specifies. Three co-equal branches working together to make these decisions. But they are going to do whatever it takes to just get what they want. Using DOGE and Elon Musk invading our privacy. These spending cuts that are illegal, really forcing this administration's priorities on all of us without using Congress. 

People want Democrats to do everything we can, and we are. And I want people to know that. There are more than 20 lawsuits in operation right now coming in on the 11 executive orders that we're most concerned about.

We're going to do everything we can. You saw my colleagues yesterday showing up outside the doors of the USAID, we’ll be outside the doors of the Department of Education or wherever we can, to try to block this. People often don't understand that because we're in the minority, we don't have the power to sue the executive branch. Only the speaker of the House does. And he won't authorize any of our lawsuits. 

So we're going to continue to see the bluster and the chaos, this blatantly unconstitutional and illegal activity. And we're going to do everything we can to fight back to the people of Maine. 

###