The Emergency Rally to End Musk's Government Takeover and Demand Our Senators Step Up

“Rhode Islanders do not want unelected billionaires in charge of our government – and we expect our leaders in Washington to be leading the resistance to these brazen violations of the Constitution.”

Over 800 Rhode Islanders rallied outside of Senator Jack Reed’s office on a chilly Saturday afternoon with a clear demand for Rhode Island’s federal delegation: Use every possible tool to protest, obstruct, and fight Elon Musk’s illegal takeover of the Federal Government.

The event, which was organized in partnership with Indivisible Rhode Island, Climate Action Rhode Island, Rhode Island Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter Rhode Island PAC, and Common Cause Rhode Island, featured members of the public, community leaders, and State and local elected officials who called on Rhode Island Senators, as well as all other Rhode Island and Federal elected officials, to take all actions possible in the face of this unprecedented constitutional crisis.

You can watch the video here:

“We are grateful for Senator Reed and Senator Whitehouse’s leadership in this fight,” said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. “But the United States Senate is the institution in our government best positioned to protect the views of the minority. While we don’t believe a majority of Americans support the lawlessness we’re now seeing, there is no denying that a majority of the Senate is turning a blind eye. We need Senators Reed and Whitehouse to use every available tool at their disposal to protect all Americans from what Musk and others are doing and to get Donald Trump to tell Elon Musk, ‘You’re fired!’”

“Elon Musk now controls our nation’s finances, is overruling laws and the entire legislative branch of government, and has tried to fire all federal employees,” said Aseem Rastogi, an organizer with Indivisible RI. “Rhode Islanders do not want unelected billionaires in charge of our government – and we expect our leaders in Washington to be leading the resistance to these brazen violations of the Constitution.”

Specifically, protestors listed three concrete ways they believed Rhode Island’s federal delegation should be leading the resistance to Musk’s actions.

• Placing a blanket hold on all Trump nominees moving forward until the crisis at Treasury is resolved.

• Denying unanimous consent to grind Senate business to a crawl until the crisis is resolved.

• Using quorum calls to disrupt the flow of GOP business in the Senate until the crisis is resolved.

“These tactics aren’t solutions, but they can force the GOP to fight for every single destructive step they want to take,” said Aaron Regunberg, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen, which has filed several lawsuits challenging DOGE’s illegal actions. “And we’re here to make clear to our senators: We think that matters. Because the slower we can make them go, the less they can destroy – and the more we can demonstrate the depravity of their agenda and Musk’s coup attempt to the public. Like every would-be tyrant in history, they want us to think that we’re powerless to stop them. But we’re not powerless, and our Democratic leaders are not powerless. We need them to start acting like it.”

“Elon Musk is NOT a man who ought to be in charge of government - one, because his policies, quite frankly, suck, but two and more importantly, because we did NOT vote to put him there,” said Rhode Island State Senator Meghan Kallman. “It was just MLK day a few weeks ago. Dr. King has a famous quote about the moral arc of the universe being long but bending towards justice. It’s a beautiful sentiment. But it does not happen by itself: the only reason it bends towards justice is because PEOPLE bend it - because we take action to make the world we want to see. You are here today, taking action. Some of us are in the State House, taking action. All the organizers here are taking action. We need action from our national leaders, State leaders, and community.”

“Due to huge tax cuts for the wealthy passed by President Trump, our state and our country are being told we need to end access to healthcare, close down programs that keep us safe, and cut Social Security,” said Rhode Island State Senator Tiara Mack. “We don’t need more tax cuts for Billionaires like Musk; we need increased taxes on the wealthy, both here in Rhode Island and D.C., so we can afford to help Rhode Islanders that are struggling.”

“Musk has already ignored Congress and the Courts and continues stealing your data and shutting down millions of dollars in grants and loans already awarded to Rhode Island,” said Caitlin Sanford, Co-president of Climate Action Rhode Island. “Now he and his billionaire buddies are coming for your hard-earned Social Security and key infrastructure like the Federal Aviation Administration. He’s a virus in our government, and we need our elected leaders here to turn up the heat and get him out—now.”

The rally featured speakers from across the political spectrum. “I’m not here because I’m a progressive or a Democrat – I’m not either of those things,” said small business owner Fred Unger. “I have always registered independent. There are many moderates, conservatives, and traditional Republicans who are as shocked as all of us are by the illegal and unconstitutional coup that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are undertaking. I want to thank Senator Reed for his decades-long defense of our nation from foreign adversaries. I call on him today to rally his colleagues in the Senate to more aggressively defend against the domestic enemies now trying to overthrow our democracy.”

“It is time to take care of each other. It is time to lead with empathy,” said Harrison Tuttle of the Black Lives Matter RI PAC. “It is time to tax the rich… These efforts have real consequences because … our governor, through his latest budget, is trying to defund public transportation. He’s trying to make it harder for the people we are advocating to get around, go to their jobs, or make a living. And that requires us to fight back.”