PHOENIX (AP) — The Democratic base is angry.
Not just at President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the “Make America Great Again” movement. Rank-and-file Democrats are mad at their own leaders and increasingly agitating to replace them.
Arizona Democrats pushed out their party chair, and Georgia Democrats are on their way to doing the same. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York postponed a book tour in the face of protests amid calls from progressives that he face a primary challenge.
The losing party after a presidential election often spends time in the wilderness, but the visceral anger among Democrats toward their party leaders is reaching a level reminiscent of the tea party movement that swept out Republican incumbents 15 years ago.
“They should absolutely be worried about holding onto power, because there's a real energy right now against them,” Paco Fabián, deputy director of Our Revolution, a grassroots group allied with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, said of Democratic incumbents. “And as soon as somebody figures out how to harness it, they're going to be in deep trouble.”
Elections on Tuesday could give national Democrats a boost. In Wisconsin, the officially nonpartisan race for a state Supreme Court seat has become a test of Musk's influence as his political organization boosts conservative Brad Schimel and progressives back liberal Susan Crawford, who has made anti-Musk messaging a centerpiece of her campaign. And two U.S. House special elections in Florida feature Democrats who are outraising their Republican counterparts in sharply pro-Trump districts.
But the current depth of frustration among Democrats is clear and shows no signs of going away.
According to a February Quinnipiac poll, about half disapprove of how Democrats in Congress are handling their job, compared with about 4 in 10 who approve. That’s a stark contrast from the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency in 2021, when more than 8 in 10 Democrats approved of how their party was doing its job in Congress, and the start of Trump’s first term in 2017, when about 6 in 10 Democrats approved. In 2017, as they do now, Democrats lacked control of either congressional chamber.
A February CNN/SSRS poll found about three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents thought Democrats in Congress weren’t doing enough to oppose Trump.
Facing a coordinated and long-planned Republican effort to remake government and fire tens of thousands of federal workers, Democrats have struggled with a unified response.
Frustration on the left with elected Democrats began early, when some Democratic senators backed Trump Cabinet nominees and supported legislation targeting illegal immigration. It escalated following Trump’s joint address to Congress, when Democratic lawmakers protested by wearing coordinated clothes and holding up signs expressing their discontent. A handful of Democrats then voted with Republicans to censure U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who interrupted Trump's speech to Congress and was escorted out of the chamber.
Schumer faced the most serious backlash after he refused to block a Republican-led government spending bill and shut down the government. Schumer said blocking the bill would have backfired and played into Trump’s hands, but many on the left saw it as capitulation.
“I want the opposition to be a lot more animated,” said Stefan Therrien, a 22-year-old engineering student in Tempe, Arizona, who called Democratic leaders in Congress “very passive” in a misguided effort to appeal to centrists. “Democrats should attack harder.”
Ken Human, a retired attorney who went to a town hall organized by Democrats in Lexington, Kentucky, said: “You have to stand up to bullies because otherwise they’ll walk all over you.”
Anger from a party's base is not unusual after a party loses the presidency.
Establishment Republicans faced fierce backlash after Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, which fueled the rise of the tea party movement that overthrew some of the party’s most powerful incumbents and brought in a new cadre of lawmakers laser-focused on obstructing Obama’s agenda.
Democrats, likewise, were dejected after Republican President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, but his popularity soon tanked and Democrats could foresee the massive wins they would notch in the 2006 midterms, said Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University professor focused on American politics.
Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 was a bigger shock to Democrats because it brought with it a period of Republican ascendance. The GOP won a Senate majority for the first time in nearly 30 years, though Democrats retained control of the House.
“The setback was significant and startling, but not as much as what’s happened today, where you have Trump winning the election at the same time the Republicans have control of both houses of Congress,” Shapiro said.
Grassroots Democrats were incensed by Trump’s first victory — with some talk then of primary challengers to leaders — but they mostly channeled their anger toward the president and the GOP, planning marches and organizing community groups to prepare for the midterms.
Those midterms led to at least one primary upset with future implications: New York Rep. Joe Crowley, the No. 4 House Democrat, fell to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a virtual unknown.
Thousands have packed rallies to hear Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, outsiders who rose to prominence for their sharp criticism of the Democratic establishment.
Democrats are getting an earful from constituents at some of the town halls, including events they’re organizing in GOP-controlled districts to draw attention to Republicans avoiding unscripted interactions with voters.
In Arizona, which went for Biden in 2020 before flipping to Trump last year, furious party leaders ousted their chair, Yolanda Bejarano. The result was a shock; Bejarano had support from every prominent Democrat in the state and was widely expected to get a second term.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, the chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, is in a similarly perilous position after Trump flipped Georgia in 2024. The Georgia party's state committee approved a rules change Saturday making its chairmanship a full-time role, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. That will make it increasingly likely that Williams, keeping her congressional seat, will step down as chair before her term ends in 2027.
Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old liberal journalist with a big social media following, decided to run for Congress, saying most Democrats “work from an outdated playbook” in an announcement video that’s fiercely critical of party leaders.
“They aren’t meeting the moment, and their constituents are absolutely livid,” Abughazaleh said in an interview. She said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the 80-year-old Democrat who has represented a suburban Chicago district since 1999, has an “admirable” progressive record, but “something needs to change culturally ... about how we do politics and how we campaign.”
“I’m done sitting around waiting for someone else to maybe do it,” Abughazaleh said.
Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Lexington, Ky., contributed to this report.
Protesters hold a demonstration outside a Tesla showroom in Santa Monica, Calif., on Saturday, March 29, 2025, against U.S. President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Elon Musk, left, shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the finals for the NCAA wrestling championship, Saturday, March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, greets Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as they speak during a stop of their "Fighting Oligarchy" tour that filled Civic Center Park, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
FILE - Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is pictured during a television interview at the Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
After weeks of White House hype and public anxiety, President Donald Trump is set to announce a barrage of self-described “reciprocal” tariffs on friend and foe alike.
The new tariffs — coming on what Trump has called “Liberation Day” — is a bid to boost U.S. manufacturing and punish other countries for what he has said are years of unfair trade practices. But by most economists’ assessments, the risky move threatens to plunge the economy into a downturn and mangle decades-old alliances.
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After a few months of shaking up Washington with DOGE, President Donald Trump has made it clear that he’s ready to move on.
Trump has been praising Elon Musk’s work but suggesting that he’ll be going back to running his companies. In addition, he told reporters that DOGE “will end.”
The White House has not set a timeline for Musk’s exit, and DOGE was never supposed to be a permanent part of the government. However, it appears to be winding down faster than originally anticipated.
Musk recently told Fox News that he hopes to accomplish his cost cutting goals in the near future.
Jeffries suggested Democrats’ performance in Tuesday’s elections was the latest sign of the party’s strength in a series of 2025 elections.
He cited Democrats’ strength in special elections in Iowa and Pennsylvania earlier this year, before focusing on the liberal candidate’s victory in last night’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
“It wasn’t even close,” Jeffries said at a news conference. “They got wiped out in Wisconsin.”
“Despite the effort by some to project this notion that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, the Democratic Party is cowering — we’re not cowering,” Jeffries said. “We’re beating them over and over and over again.”
The sanctions include people, firms and ships from Russia, Turkey and other nations who are accused of working in coordination with sanctioned Houthi finance official Sa’id al-Jamal.
The Treasury Department says the network has procured tens of millions of dollars’ worth of commodities from Russia, including weapons and sensitive goods, as well as stolen Ukrainian grain, for shipment to Houthi-controlled Yemen. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also identified eight digital asset wallets used by the Houthis to transfer funds.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday’s action “underscores our commitment to degrading the Houthis’ ability to threaten the region through their destabilizing activities.”
The Treasury Department announcement includes the deletion of Karina Yurevna Rotenberg from the sanctions list. Rotenberg, also known as Karina Gapchuk Fox, is the wife of Russian oligarch Boris Rotenberg — a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jeffries told reporters Wednesday that President Trump’s rollout of new tariffs would increase prices and ultimately drive the United States into a recession.
Trump is calling today “Liberation Day,” arguing the new tariffs would free the country from unfair trade practices.
“This is not Liberation Day,” Jeffries, a Democrat, said. “It’s Recession Day in the United States of America.”
“That’s what the Trump tariffs are going to do: Crash the economy, which has been happening since January 20 of this year,” he continued.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Baltimore issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday night that protects those workers while the lawsuit continues.
“Only states have sued here, and only to vindicate their interests as states,” Bredar wrote. “They are not proxies for the workers.”
The order requires the 18 agencies originally named in the lawsuit to follow the law in conducting any future reductions in force. Bredar has now added the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management to that number.
Judge Bredar previously found the firings amount to a large-scale reduction subject to specific rules, including giving advance notice to states affected by the layoffs.
▶ Read more about the Trump administration’s mass firings
Senate Republicans are facing pressure Wednesday from Trump to oppose the Democratic resolution that would nullify the presidential emergency on fentanyl he’s using to implement tariffs on Canada.
Just hours before Trump was set to announce his plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on China, Mexico and Canada — his so-called “Liberation Day” — the Senate was expected to vote on a resolution that offers Republicans an off-ramp to the import taxes on Canada. It’s a significant test for Republican loyalty to Trump’s vision of remaking the U.S. economy by clamping down on free trade. Many economists are warning the plan could force an economic contraction and GOP senators are already watching with unease.
The votes of at least four Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rand Paul of Kentucky — were in doubt ahead of the vote.
▶ Read more about the Senate resolution on tariffs
Speaking at a news conference, DeSantis said the results Tuesday evening went exactly as he predicted for Republican Florida state Sen. Fine — that “he would win but underperform” in the District 6 special election.
DeSantis represented District 6 from 2013 to 2018, under some different boundaries before redistricting. Before the election, DeSantis said President Trump got “bad advice” to endorse Fine, when speaking in an interview to a radio host.
“Just the way he conducts himself, he’s somebody that repels people,” DeSantis said Wednesday morning.
It comes as her government has sought “preferential treatment” by the Trump administration because of a free trade agreement between the two nations and Canada.
Sheinbaum said she would wait to take action Thursday when it was clear how Trump’s announcement would affect Mexico, and that her government was constantly in contact with his administration.
“It’s not a question of if you impose tariffs on me, I’m going to impose tariffs on you,” she said in a news briefing Wednesday. “Our interest is in strengthening the Mexican economy.”
While Trump has already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, economic forecasters have warned that broader 25% tariffs could thrust Mexico’s economy into a recession.
She stressed that it would harm both sides and would have “heavy” consequences for the Italian economy.
“I remain convinced that we must work to avoid in all possible ways a trade war that would not benefit anyone, neither the United States nor Europe,” Meloni said at a public event celebrating Italian food and agricultural products.
Meloni added, however, that her view “does not exclude, if necessary, having to also imagine adequate responses to defend our productions,” in reference to a possible European response to President Trump’s much-awaited announcement on new trade tariffs, expected later Wednesday.
Meloni recalled that Italian food and agricultural products are widely exported in Europe and globally, with the U.S. representing the second wider market, with exports up 17% in 2024.
After TikTok was banned in the U.S. earlier this year, Trump gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that was passed in Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court that said the ban was necessary for national security.
The Republican president’s executive orders have spurred more than 130 lawsuits in the little more than two months he has been in office, but this one barely generated a peep. None of those suits challenges his temporary block of the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline passed for it to be sold by ByteDance, its China-based parent company.
Few of the 431 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who voted for the law have complained.
Despite a bipartisan consensus about the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China, “it’s as if nothing ever happened,” said Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.
▶ Read more about Trump’s executive order on TikTok
The S&P 500 was 0.7% lower in early trading Wednesday morning, but it’s had a pattern this week of opening with sharp losses only to finish the day higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 240 points, or 0.6%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% lower.
Tesla helped pulled the market lower after it said it delivered fewer electric vehicles in the first three months of the year than it did in last year’s first quarter. Its stock fell 4.7% to extend its loss for the year so far to nearly 37%. Tesla, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, has faced growing backlash due to anger about CEO Elon Musk’s leading the U.S. government’s efforts to cut spending.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
The president is hosting a morning meeting with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee to discuss a framework for his big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts.
The Senate is hoping to launch all-night voting later this week on the blueprint but deep differences between House and Senate Republicans over the details of the plan remain.
The Republican stands to win big if state officials award one of three available gaming licenses to Bally’s Corp., which wants to open a casino at a city-owned golf course that used to be run by Trump’s company.
In 2023, Bally’s paid Trump $60 million for the rights to operate the public 18-hole course on the Bronx shoreline, near where the East River meets the Long Island Sound.
The gaming company promptly took down the massive “Trump Links” sign that was, at one time, all but impossible to miss for drivers going the Whitestone Bridge, and renamed the course Bally’s Golf Links at Ferry Point.
But under a little-noticed side deal, Bally’s promised to pay Trump another $115 million if Bally’s were to get a license to open a casino on site.
▶ Read more about New York casinos and Trump
Some of the preschool centers had to close or furlough staff earlier this year because of glitches with a funding website. Now scores of government employees who help administer Head Start have been put on leave.
Preschool operators say they’ve received no communication from the Office of Head Start and don’t know who to turn to if they have questions about grants.
Head Start is federally funded but run by schools and nonprofits. It serves more than half a million low-income children.
▶ Read more about the Head Start program
Tesla sales declined in the first three months of the year, another sign that Musk’s once high-flying electric car company is struggling to attract buyers.
The drop of 13% is likely due to combination of factors, including its aging lineup, competition from rivals and a backlash from Musk’s embrace of right wing politics. It also is a warning that the company’s first-quarter earnings report later this month could disappoint investors.
Tesla reported deliveries of 336,681 globally in the January to March quarter. The figure was down from sales of 387,000 in the same period a year ago. The decline came despite deep discounts, zero financing and other incentives.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected much higher deliveries of 408,000.
▶ Read more about Tesla’s sales
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is traveling to Greenland on Wednesday for a three-day trip aimed at building trust and cooperation with Greenlandic officials.
Frederiksen announced plans for her visit after U.S. Vice President JD Vance visited a U.S. air base in Greenland last week and accused Denmark of underinvesting in the territory.
Greenland is a mineral-rich, strategically critical island that’s becoming more accessible because of climate change. Trump has said the landmass is critical to U.S. security. It’s geographically part of North America, but is a semiautonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark.
Frederiksen is due to meet the incoming Greenlandic leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, after an election last month that produced a new government. She’s also to meet with the future Naalakkersuisut, the Cabinet, in a visit due to last through Friday.
▶ Read more about the Danish prime minister’s trip to Greenland
Trump will hold a meeting Wednesday with aides about possible investors who could buy a stake in TikTok, a deal that could potentially stop the social media site from being banned in the United States.
The details of the meeting were confirmed by a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
There has been uncertainty about the popular video app after a law took effect on Jan. 19 requiring its China-based parent, ByteDance, to divest its ownership because of national security concerns. After taking office, Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve by signing an executive order that delayed until April 5 the enforcement of the law requiring a sale or effectively imposing a ban.
Among the possible investors are the software company Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone.
Likely to attend the Oval Office meeting with Trump on Wednesday are Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
▶ Read more about the potential sale of TikTok
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to meet at the White House with a top adviser to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss plans for a Ukraine ceasefire.
A U.S. official said says Witkoff, who’s traveled several times to Moscow for talks with Putin, plans to see Kirill Dmitriev. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting hasn’t been officially announced.
Dmitriev runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and has been a key interlocutor in discussions between the Trump administration and the Kremlin on numerous issues, including the Ukraine war and the release of American detainees in Russia.
The official said the Treasury Department had to temporarily suspend U.S. sanctions on Dmitriev so he could legally travel to the United States.
— Matthew Lee
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker ended his record-setting speech the same way he began it, more than 25 hours earlier: by invoking the words of his mentor, the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.
“He endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this,” Booker said of Lewis’ work as a young activist during the Civil Rights movement. “He would not just go along with business as usual.”
A break from “business as usual” was what Booker had in mind as he performed a feat of political endurance, holding the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes while delivering a wide-ranging critique of Trump and his policies.
In doing so, Booker broke the record for longest Senate floor speech, a mark that had belonged for decades to Strom Thurmond, the avowed segregationist from South Carolina who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
▶ Read more about Booker’s record-breaking speech
According to the White House, at 4 p.m., Trump will participate in the “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the Rose Garden. This is when he’s expected to announce his so-called reciprocal tariffs.
The Trump administration has halted dozens of research grants at Princeton University, the latest Ivy League school to see its federal money threatened in a pressure campaign targeting the nation’s top universities.
Princeton was notified this week that several dozen federal grants are being suspended by agencies including the Department of Energy, NASA and the Defense Department, according to a campus message sent Tuesday by Christopher Eisgruber, the university’s president.
Eisgruber said the rationale was not fully clear but that Princeton will comply with the law. The school is among dozens facing federal investigations into antisemitism following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests last year.
“We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism,” Eisgruber wrote. “Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this University.”
▶ Read more about the pause in research grants at Princeton
Trump says his tariff announcements slated for Wednesday will amount to a “Liberation Day” for the U.S. But American businesses and financial markets are unlikely to be freed from the uncertainty generated by his often stop-and-go trade policy.
Some big questions will be resolved when Trump announces what are expected to be reciprocal tariffs, and companies will have a greater sense of how many countries will be affected and how high the duties will be.
But more tariffs are in the pipeline and could target specific industries such as pharmaceuticals, copper and lumber. And the United States may reach deals with other countries that could alter the reciprocal tariffs. There will also be countless details that could take months to resolve to determine precisely which imports will be hit with taxes.
As a result, few analysts expect Wednesday’s announcement to bring the certainty that many businesses — and Wall Street investors — crave.
▶ Read more about the impact of Trump’s tariffs
A trio of elections on Tuesday provided early warning signs to Republicans and Trump at the beginning of an ambitious term, as Democrats rallied against his efforts to slash the federal government and the outsize role being played by billionaire Elon Musk.
In the marquee race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, the conservative judge endorsed by Trump and backed by Musk and his groups to the tune of $21 million lost by a significant margin in a state Trump won in November. And while Florida Republicans held two of the most pro-Trump House districts in the country, both candidates also underperformed Trump’s November margins.
The elections — the first major contests since Trump’s return to power — were seen as an early measure of voter sentiment as Trump works with unprecedented speed to dramatically upend the federal government, clashing with the courts and seeking revenge as he tests the bounds of presidential power.
▶ Read more about the Florida and Wisconsin election results
The president was foreshadowing his upcoming announcement of so-called reciprocal tariffs on both friends and foes of the United States.
He calls it “liberation day” to free the U.S. from what he says are years of unfair trade practices.
Most economists say it’s a risky move that could plunge the U.S. economy into a downturn and upset decades of alliances.
Trump posted about “liberation day” early Wednesday on his social media platform.
He’s scheduled the announcement for 4 p.m. ET in the White House Rose Garden.
▶ Read more about Trump’s expected tariff announcement
Merchandise is displayed in a kitchen and restaurant supply store in New York, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Stacks of lumber are set up on shelves at a local Lowes store Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Tempe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
