U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said the early days of President Donald Trump’s presidency have been harrowing as the administration moves at breakneck speed to gut government programs, alienate allies and conduct an “absolute lawless rampage” on the nation’s institutions.
“It’s a very authoritarian model,” Welch said. “And, you know, it’s so shocking that people can’t believe it. But it’s real, and it’s being implemented at warp speed.”
During a 40-minute interview in Welch’s Washington, D.C., office last Friday, the senator ticked off a list of what he called “horrors” ranging from tariffs that are tanking the stock market to attacks on law firms.
At the top of his list was the Senate tax break plan, which he described as a transfer of $5 trillion from the nation’s poorest citizens to the richest Americans. The tax cuts, which passed on Saturday in a largely party-line vote, are built on a companion House GOP proposal now in the works that Democrats fear will target the $880 billion in funding for Medicaid and $230 billion for nutrition programs.
“The only legislative agenda Trump has is this tax cut that is highly weighted to billionaires and highly skewed towards multinational companies that have been very profitable,” Welch said. “Their claim to fiscal responsibility is that they’ll, quote, ‘Pay for it,’ but they pay for it largely by cutting the Medicaid program.”
About 83 million Americans use Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to access health care, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research organization. In Vermont, 31 percent of residents rely on the subsidies for medical treatment, the legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office said in a report from January.
Cutting Medicaid would be cruel, especially because children and disabled people use the benefit, Welch said. “What you’re talking about, especially for rural America, is the destruction of our community hospitals,” he said. “The family loses their health care on Medicaid, then those hospitals are going to provide free health care for as long as they can, but then there’ll be a point where they go out of business. So this is a threat to rural health care, hospitals and to health care for the citizens.”
Welch, a moderate Democrat from Norwich and lawyer by training, is a measured politician who once tended to work behind the scenes as a legislator. These days, he’s quite outspoken and sounds more like his colleague Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent senior senator, who has made a career of railing against billionaires.
Welch, a mild-mannered guy, has become more combative and prone to “fight, fight, fight,” as he puts it. On Monday, for instance, he participated in a hearing with prominent Trump critics U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called “Restoring Accountability: Exposing Trump’s Attacks on the Rule of Law.”
Vermont’s congressional delegation is presenting a united front. In late February, Welch, Sanders and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) held a joint telephone town hall that drew 34,000 callers. Sanders has traveled to cities in battleground states on his Fight Oligarchy tour, drawing audiences in the tens of thousands, and heads to Montana, California and Idaho next weekend. Balint has also been outspoken on the House floor.
“It’s so shocking that people can’t believe it. But it’s real, and it’s being implemented at warp speed.” U.S. Sen. Peter Welch
Thousands of outraged Vermonters have called Welch’s office to complain about threats to democracy, federal cuts and tariffs. Three staffers in his D.C. office answered phones that rang nonstop last Friday morning. One of the constituents was crying on the line, a staffer reported. “First one of the day,” she said.
“When people call, they’re really upset, and they want us to do something,” Welch said. “I totally am with them on that, and we’re doing every single thing we can.”
But Democrats don’t have enough votes in the Senate to block anything. “It’s frustrating for folks, because they want us to do sometimes more than the number of votes we have will allow us to do,” he said. “We’re 47, not 53.”
During the Senate session that started last Friday and ended at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Welch sponsored 61 amendments to the tax cut bill and cosponsored another 31. He attempted to block cuts to Head Start, the early childhood education program; Meals on Wheels; child abuse prevention; weatherization assistance; and rural health centers and hospitals. Each failed on party line votes.
Constituent frustration with Democrats reached a fever pitch last month when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sided with the GOP to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open. A shutdown, Schumer reasoned, would have cut off benefits for destitute Americans, led to the elimination of more agencies and forced the closing of the courts at a time when Trump is using arcane laws to justify autocratic actions.
Welch vehemently disagreed with Schumer’s position. The Vermont senator opposed the temporary budget bill because it gives the president “enormous flexibility about spending, giving him authority to move money from account A to account B, as he wishes.”
“I’ve never voted for a shutdown, OK, but we’ve never had a lawless person in the White House before,” Welch said. “And I saw it as a very risky vote but necessary. It was the first opportunity we had to demonstrate we were willing to fight, and I was willing to accept the uncertainty of what would happen with the shutdown.”
Welch accused the Senate of capitulating to the Trump administration’s usurpation of legislative power.
“The biggest sadness for me is to see my Republican colleagues ceding Congressional authority to the executive,” Welch said. “I mean, it’s pathetic for an institution to give up its institutional jurisdiction. And, of course, our whole system has been based on checks and balances, but that means Congress has to assert its authority.”
Welch said senators in red states are making deals with Trump to protect constituents from economic risk related to tariffs and budget cuts. But blue state members of Congress have no such recourse, he said.
Meanwhile, the president has repeatedly threatened to unseat senators who oppose his agenda by primarying them with more compliant candidates. Trump incites his supporters to attack the disloyal online, Welch said — tactics that consolidate Trump’s power over Congress and undermine the authority of the legislative branch.
“It’s just every day, there’s numerous new horrors,” he said. “You’ve got a president who believes he’s a king.”
Last week, Trump imposed across-the-board tariffs of 10 percent to 49 percent on all imports, sending Wall Street into a tailspin not seen since the Great Recession. Meanwhile, his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, fired the employees who ran the heating assistance program for low-income Americans. The program, designed to protect people from extreme hot and cold weather, is now in jeopardy.
The tariffs are a coercive strategy, Welch said.
“He’s in the process of transforming our economy from one based on competition to one that’s based on access,” he said. “Because what happens with these tariffs is that he, Trump, is the one who decides whether you get an exemption or you don’t. You know, so pre-Trump tariffs, you had to compete with a good product or service. Post Trump, Company A, if they know [Commerce Secretary] Howard Lutnick’s telephone number, they may get an exemption on the tariff. Well, suddenly they’ve got an economic advantage over Company B, that may have a better product but less access.”
Welch was heartened that a few of his colleagues might have had a change of heart. Several GOP senators shifted tack last week when Democrats, with the aid of Republicans including Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), passed a resolution challenging Trump’s use of emergency authority to impose tariffs on Canada.
The Senate’s wavering commitment to maintaining the constitutional order is the central issue now, Welch said. If Republicans continue to allow the collapse of the legislative check on presidential power, “there will be no capacity to legislate in a meaningful way that helps everyday people.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Welch Talks Trump | Vermont’s junior senator on tariffs, anticipated cuts to Medicare and the president’s “lawless rampage” “
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This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2025.
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