President Donald Trump delivered a speech last week to Congress that was met with some cheers, some jeers and a lot of head-scratching.

“It was a 100-minute speech, and he spent two minutes talking about the cost of living, and of those two minutes, half of it was him saying prices were going to go up,” Auchincloss said.

There are 46 more months of this presidential term, and Democrats are trying to determine the best way to get through those 46 months with as much of the federal government intact as possible.

“It’s not enough to defend the rule of law, nor is it enough to draw a contrast with chaos and corruption and higher costs for Americans. We also have to have big, new ideas for how we’re going to govern if given the mandate,” he said.

Uncertain times

Meanwhile, Auchincloss said the impacts of the Trump administration’s first two months reach far and wide. Federal employees are being fired by the thousands, foreign aid is being cut off and communities are at risk of losing federal funding.

He had just spoken with a concerned teacher whose husband—a retired Marine—is working for the federal government, currently in Ukraine, as the Trump administration shuts off support and intelligence sharing for Ukraine.

“He’s putting in danger American troops right now who are there in a training capacity,” Auchincloss said. “It’s taking her family’s finances and making them worried about their safety. And I have had conversations like that across the whole district.”

And the layoffs—part of a federal government purge executed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—have caused chaos and panic without actually saving any money, Auchincloss said.

“The numbers they’ve put forward [claiming savings] are fraudulent numbers,” he continued. “Even the ones that might be valid, in terms of dollars that they’re saying they saved, impose much higher costs on the economy at large.”

Auchincloss cited an example from last week in which DOGE canceled leases for labs run by the FDA.

“One of those labs was the Office of Pharmaceutical Safety in St. Louis, a state-of-the-art lab with dozens of expert scientists testing the safety of the drugs that we take. This lab has caught toxins in our pharmaceutical supply chain multiple times before.”

The money saved by closing that lab, Auchincloss explained, could lead to much bigger costs down the line.

“Do you think that anybody with two neurons to run together thinks that shutting down a lab that tests for pharmaceutical safety saves the U.S. bio-economy money?”

And speaking of health, the Trump administration announced a few weeks ago that the U.S. Agency for International Development would be dismantled.

President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order, directing the State Department to establish a permanent, autonomous agency to provide medical help and disaster relief to third world and developing areas.

The agency has helped contain pandemics, famines and environmental catastrophes worldwide in the decades since.

Auchincloss estimates that hundreds of thousands of children will suffer with polio as a result.

“The United States is the most powerful, wealthiest nation in the history of the world. And we have it within our power to prevent kids from becoming paralyzed with polio, and this president decided he didn’t want to do that,” Auchincloss said. “And that is just as shameful as his oval office exchange with [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”

‘Easy to break things’

Abandoning countries like Ukraine and closing agencies that provide health and environmental aid to developing countries will come at a cost, the congressman warned.

Auchincloss said the Democrats in Congress need to focus on offense, not defense, and bring big ideas to the voters.

“It’s easy to break things. Donald Trump can break things. He breaks our alliances. He breaks public health,” Auchincloss said. “It’s hard to build things. And we’re going to have to build things again. But in order to do that, Democrats are going to need new and improved ideas, because we can’t emerge from this administration as the part of the status quo.”

As Newton braces for federal funding cuts due to its status as a sanctuary city as well as its embrace of DEI programs, Auchincloss said he’s working closely with Mayor Ruthanne Fuller to assess—and strategize around—the impact to the city’s coffers.

“Ruthanne and I have worked together on the Newtonville commuter rail safety improvements, we’ve worked together on other transportation issues, and we’re going to continue to be in close collaboration, just as I am with the governor.”

Will the republic survive the next 46 months?

“Americans are called to action,” Auchincloss said.