The Fights Of 2027 Start Now

A brain dump.

(Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Elected Republicans in Washington have, to a person, betrayed their oaths of office. Which means Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice against Iran will continue until he chooses to withdraw or the military runs out of weapons or cash or both.

Whatever Trump decides to do, though, Congress will face questions about the costs he incurred along the way. And that debate will provide Democrats an opportunity to flex their fighting muscles once again. On the heels of the successful Homeland Security shutdown fight, they can show that they will no longer begin each Trump confrontation with a blank slate, waiting for him to act. They can demonstrate in deed how they intend to constrain him through the end of his term.

Reporting suggests the White House may request a $200 billion supplemental appropriation, which in turn points to either a long war or a very wasteful one. Two-hundred billion dollars is a significant fraction of our direct spending on the Iraq war, which lasted for years and never required a supplemental appropriation nearly that large.

If the proposition is “give us money to continue the war,” the answer from Democrats has to be no. They must not bless this war in any way, not even implicitly. Indeed, as I argued here, Democrats should announce that they won’t authorize a penny for this humiliating debacle. They can even rub GOP noses in the waste by drawing up a shadow budget: What would we spend $200 billion on, if we were in charge, to advance the country’s true interests? Restoring medical research funding? The health care Trump already took away? A clean energy and transportation program to insure against a lengthy oil shock?

But there’s also the separate question of what to do if and after Trump withdraws in the nearer term, and it gives rise to a conundrum: The war will be “over” insofar as the U.S. military will no longer be engaged in active hostilities. But a) the waste won’t replenish itself; and yet b) it’s impossible, so long as Trump is president and Republicans control Congress, to distinguish $X billion to restock depleted munitions and destroyed materiel from $X to fund the next illegal war.

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That raises the question of whether Democrats should help refill the Pentagon’s coffers at all, and under what terms. Then, assuming they do, they’ll need to consider who pays. In a real war of necessity, with real public support, we’d rightly finance war spending with debt. But nobody thinks this is a war like that. Republicans are thus (psychotically) proposing to pay for it with more cuts to health care.

One approach, defensible on its own terms, is to just say no again. You badly damaged American readiness without asking us, without asking allies, without a plan, and it ended in humiliating fashion. We’re not going to rebuild a military for you to abuse, knowing all the moral hazard that might create in the world.

I wouldn’t complain about an approach along those lines. But I don’t think anxious frontline Democrats will agree to it, and I frankly don’t think it’s optimal. It would make more sense for Dems to drive a sensible bargain they know Trump will reject. Make him veto or Republicans vote down sensible plans to rearm.

What might that look like?

First, they might insist that the war debt be paid for by the tiny few who benefited from it, or who bear the most responsibility. A tax on oil companies, and a tax on the ultra rich. They imposed Trump on the country, he did something predictably disastrous, that’s on you. Not on regular citizens who already pay too much for health care.

Second, they might insist that a supplemental appropriation include enhancements to the War Powers Act, such that Trump can’t fabricate imminent threats, begin wars, and then refuse to come to Congress for authorization. “I say ‘military [operation]’ because as a military operation, I don’t need any approvals,” Trump admitted recently. “As a war, you’re supposed to get approval from Congress.” He’s rubbed his impunity in Congress’s face, Democrats should insist on closing the loophole.

Why not, for instance, demand a rider stipulating that unilateral military action triggers the requirements of a war powers resolution on an expedited timeline. The war must be authorized within a week or two, rather than 60 days. Smarter lawyers might have better ideas. But the point is: the ideas are good; the ideas would be popular; and Trump will reject them out of hand.

So let him.

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This is a 2026 confrontation, but it’s really a dry run for the rest of the year and into 2027 and 2028.

I laid out here a few ways Dems can fight Trump proactively, to show and tell voters that they aren’t the same bump-on-a-log party that’s earned its 30 percent approval rating. But, if they win the midterms, they’ll need to carry that spirit into 2027, or people will realize it was all just an election-season feint. Fool me once, etc. etc.

If Democrats win both the House and Senate, which I believe they’re reasonably well positioned to do, they’ll gain a lot more power than they have now. But they’ll also face many more dilemmas and experience many more frustrations.

Trump may grow unpopular enough to become vulnerable to impeachment, but he suspects he’ll retain immunity via minority—it takes 67 Senate votes to remove a president—and will thus confront Dems with faits accompli: blanket embargoes on oversight requests, more unilateralism in global affairs, deadline-driven legislative brinkmanship.

Democrats thus need to think up ways they can impose real consequences, if not act first: conduct meaningful oversight around the embargo; defund uncooperative offices of the executive branch; endure lengthy lapses in federal services, without the cudgel they currently get to wield—that Republicans control all branches of government, and are thus responsible for all governing failures.

And they’ll need to do it with more us vs. him clarity of purpose than we’ve seen thus far, with the possible exception of the DHS shutdown fight.

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So for instance: A broker for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, based at Morgan Stanley, attempted unsuccessfully to make a multimillion-dollar investment in an obscure BlackRock defense fund on Hegseth’s behalf in February, just before the war began. That’s strong evidence that he tried to profit personally from his own illegal war plans.

Both now and in 2027, the goal must be to get the full story behind this episode and all the administration’s corrupt profiteering. When Democrats control Congress, they can and should subpoena Hegseth directly. But they should also anticipate unlawful resistance, which means subpoenaing testimony and documents from Morgan Stanley and BlackRock, and making a big show of it. Unlike Trump appointees, these companies can't hide behind pretextual governmental privileges. It should be made clear to them (and all companies implicated by Trump administration corruption) that they will suffer legal and reputational consequences if they help Trump et al perpetrate coverups.

They should also commit themselves to beginning the process of de-Trumpifying government well before he leaves office in 2029.

If they win the Senate, the easy part is embargoing all of his judicial nominees. But executive-branch vacancies will arise, too. And it will suddenly be possible to hold them to real standards of competence and honesty.

If you ask Trump’s nominees, “who won the 2016 election?” they’ll say Donald Trump. If you ask them, “who won the 2024 election?” they’ll say Donald Trump. But if you ask them, “who won the 2020 election?” they’ll say something like “Joe Biden was certified the winner.”

I believe, and argued from the outset, that this should have been a redline for Democrats as of January 2025. No votes for loyalty-tested Republicans.

But our Democrats were still learning. They assented to many nominees who smuggled 2020 election denialism into sworn testimony. Charitably, there was little Democrats could do about this aside from casting protest votes. But with Senate control, they could re-establish truth as a litmus test.

Who won the 2016 election? Trump. Who won the 2020 election? “Joe Biden was certifi…” DISQUALIFIED. You’re a pig, and you will not be confirmed by the Senate. Let Trump decide whether he wants to staff his government, or simply surround himself with incompetent czars who will tell him soothing lies.

Some fights are more important than others. Some can be deferred for a long while. If Trump builds a bribery-sponsored ballroom on White House grounds, or erects monuments to himself, they can all be torn down in 2029. If an opportunity to raze them arises before then, great. If not, so be it. But other fights speak volumes about who Democrats are. What degree of abuse will Democrats tolerate in the name of comity or conflict avoidance? The era of deferring those fights should be over.