democratic congressman gerry connolly of virginia, thank you very much for joining us.you. >> more now, on that executive order, president trump signed banning transgender women and girls from competing in female sports. it is the fourth executive order he has signed targeting transgender people since he took office two and a half weeks ago. the order will be implemented in several ways. first, it will change title nine guidance to bar students assigned male at birth from participating in women and girls sports. the education department will investigate potential violations. the order also says trans women who apply for visas to enter the u.s. to compete in women's sports could be investigated for fraud. that appears to be a warning for the la olympics organizers. already, the ncaa says its board of governors is reviewing the executive order and will take necessary steps to align ncaa policy in the coming days. president trump has signed more than 50 executive orders, the most in a president's first 100 days in more than 40 years. and you can track trump's executive ord

joining me now, congressman gerry connolly of virginia, ranking member of the house oversight committee. he's also a member of the foreign affairs committee. and congressman glenn ivey of maryland. he's a member of the house of house appropriations and homeland security committees. gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. you've been sitting here this entire time through the ntsb press conference. before we went on the air, you both were commiserating, asking each other if you had constituents on on the plane that day, and you both said yes real quickly. what are you hearing from your your constituents? congressman connolly. >> just a sense of grief and mourning, especially among the ice skating community. my daughter was an ice skater, and she knew a lot of those people. one of the major ice skating rinks in northern virginia is in my district, so there's a lot of grief and a lot of mourning right now, and people trying to bind up their wounds. >> congressman ivey same. >> you know. >> we've. >> got a rink. i think it's. >> down in waldorf, which. >> is just south of my district.

well, congressman gerry connolly is going to be with us in just a moment. but this is not musk's only major move right now. according to the wall street journal tonight, musk is also leading trump's charge to essentially shutter shutter. the department of education. and then there's this. musk and his team gaining full access to the treasury's massive federal payment system. basically, the checkbook for the whole federal government. so, you know, the $6 trillion that goes in all sorts of things, you know, to households and businesses. well, it goes through there. and up until this point, only a small number of career officials have controlled the treasury's payment systems. that is until this weekend, when a top official left after a standoff with musk's team, where team musk tried to stop some payments. make no mistake, this is a major coup for musk. >> he's got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good. if we agree with him, and it's only if we agree with them. >> all right. let's begin with jeff zeleny out front, live at the white house

joining me now we have democratic congressman gerry connolly from virginia. he is the ranking member of the house oversight committee and a member of the foreign affairs committee. congressman, welcome back to the broadcast. good to see you. so you've been quite vocal about democratic elected officials and how they need to fight back against trump administration's, quote, shock and awe playbook. what does that look like? well. >> i think democrats. >> do have tools. >> in the kit box. >> we've got to mobilize. >> rank and file. >> we've got to mobilize public opinion. we've got a message. >> strategically. >> and we've got to litigate. >> and we're. >> doing all three. and i. >> know that your earlier. >> reporter talked. >> about democrats scrambling. >> i think. >> the better. >> word is organizing. >> we are. >> organizing methodically. >> there are. >> 37 lawsuits, for example. >> already filed and growing. >> we've already had. >> some early. >> successes on. >> birthright citizenship. >> on. >> the funding freeze. >> on other. >> fronts as well. >> and

by everything president trump and republicans are throwing at them right now, but congress and gerry connollyo stumble, they're going to screw up, and we are going to pounce when they do in their haste to remake the federal government. they going to make big, big mistakes. and they pointing to some of what happened this week, at least to backtrack on the omb memo. >> josh: cuts can be popular, that when you cut essential services, a head, medicaid, that could potentially lose support. it's often very important to not spend your capital too fast, because a lot of the stuff that trump has been doing, as we've been talking about, is quite popular. but when you generate a backlash can you give them something to run on. the quinnipiac poll, what was so notable, the image of the democratic party is the lowest in the poll's history. a not sure if it's automatically going to be a backlash against trump. democrats have a positive message and they have to run away from some of this identity identitarianism. >> shannon: "the new york times" says president trump is anchored by the media coverage, they we

our ranking member, gerry connolly, called for a vote to subpoena. musk caught the republicans off guard. we almost won that vote, even though we're outnumbered on the committee. so we got to keep doing things like that and hold their feet to the fire. >> yeah. so, maxwell, listen, i, i'm accused often of being too optimistic and being too kind of sunny about things, but even i am kind of frustrated with the fact that this boils down to just a numbers game. sometimes, at the end of the day, we're trying to get a certain number of republicans not to sign on to a lot of this. so it sounds to me that you're saying that some of the traditional ways that people's voices have been heard over time protesting, getting out, calling your congressmen, calling your senators, that's the route that people should be taking. because it sounds to me also, we may be delaying things from happening, but it sounds like they're happening nonetheless. >> protest is really important. it's one of multiple things people should do. obviously, we want to make sure we take back

. >> and i just want to note, gerry connolly, your colleague on the committee on the other side of the aisle, he has invited elon musk to come. he has said, please come testify to this committee. we haven't heard from anything. we haven't seen any disclosures from him, despite a federal law requiring conflict of interest disclosures. so i do want to note that we're also doing a fact check on what you said. my producer is doing that right now. but i want to ask you something, because i know some viewers might be watching this right now, congressman, and saying, well, hold on a second. so you're all on board with what elon musk and his team of staffers are doing. would you be okay if democrats were doing this? if, for example, george soros came in under a democratic administration and had his staffers gain access to sensitive programs about americans and their personal information and dismantling agencies, would you be okay with that? >> it's amazing that democrats are acting as if this is something that's novel. i've been talking to my constituents for months and months and months about

congressman gerry connolly, the ranking member of the house oversight committee, is asking chairman james comer to invite elon musk to the committee's hearing on rightsizing government this wednesday. and congressional democrats held a fiery press conference today outside of the usaid building right here in washington, d.c. >> we are. going to fight in. >> every way. >> we can in the courts, in public opinion, with the bully pulpit in the halls of congress and here at aid itself. >> this is all a smokescreen. a shell game. in order. >> to turn. >> this government over. to a handful of unelected billionaires and corporate interests. and we are not going to let them do that. >> just. >> like elon. >> musk did not create. us aid. >> he doesn't have the power to. destroy it. >> and who's. >> going to stop him? we are. >> we're going to stop him. >> okay? that's the fire. that's the life i'm talking about. >> now. >> after that. >> press conference, members even tried to get inside the shuttered usaid building. and i'm going to talk to one of those. >> members. >> senator chris. >> van hollen,

just the other day, ranking member gerry connolly and the house oversight committee called a surprise vote on the republicans to subpoena elon musk. we it was 19 to 20. we were really close. some of them ran in at the last minute. we got to keep doing that. right. there are things that we can do, and one day we will catch them slipping and we will be able to have accountability with what's going on outside of the house, though we also need to be working with groups and organizations. of course, there's litigation going on. you've seen this week that we've taken the step to actually going to a lot of these buildings to see if we can confront, confront people and talk with people from doge face to face. and unfortunately, they have locked the doors to a lot of these buildings, have sent out armed guards to not let us in these buildings today. i was in front of the department of education with about a dozen members of congress. and so the people are going to continue to rise up to protest. and there are things that we can do to resist. but, you know, we have to tell our tell ourselves we