California senators demand answers from Donald Trump's team. Is anyone listening?

David Lightman, McClatchy Washington Bureau on Feb 26, 2025

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WASHINGTON — California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff are demanding. And demanding and demanding.

Since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, they have sent a blizzard of letters and issued statements aimed at administration officials in which the senators say they are “demanding” answers.

Go through their press releases, and you’ll find that on about 21 occasions they used the word “demand” to demand what they wanted from Trump and his team.

Virtually no one has answered them.

The White House, Army Corps of Engineers and departments of Government Efficiency, Labor and Transportation did not respond to requests for comment.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it did respond to one of the senators’ requests, but did not provide the response to questions. The senators’ offices said they were not satisfied with the response.

So why keep demanding?

Because, the senators say, constituents are concerned about the barrage of changes in the Trump-run federal government and want clarity as to what’s happening and why.

And Schiff and Padilla represent one of the nation’s most heavily Democratic states, a state Trump lost by big margins all three times he’s run for president.

“Many of these questions, they don’t want to answer, because they know how deeply revealing and disastrous it would be if the public learned the truth,” said Schiff.

On Jan. 29, Schiff joined Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, “demanding the immediate release of key information and evidence pertaining to the nomination of Kash Patel as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

They asked the Justice Department to provide material regarding Patel from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s retaining classified material after his first presidential term.

The report has not been released because of a gag order by Federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. Schiff and Durbin opposed Patel’s nomination. He was confirmed by the Senate last week.

On Jan. 31, Schiff and Padilla wrote, “demanding answers” from new EPA Administration Lee Zeldin “about the agency’s freezing of congressionally appropriated funds, including those that have already been obligated.” EPA has unfrozen some funds.

The demand-a-thon has continued into February.

The senators, either individually or together, have demanded answers about the freeze on hiring of seasonal firefighters, funding freezes at the Pentagon, potential cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s activities with DOGE and whether he’s complying with federal ethics requirements.

The list also includes demands for answers about Trump’s release of water in California in January, firing the Federal Election Commission chair, firing or reassigning certain FBI career officials, potential Medicare and Medicaid cuts, threats to zero-emission control funding and Musk’s activity.

Padilla wanted to know why the Army Corps of Engineers “directed unscheduled water releases from Lake Kaweah and Success Lake in Tulare County, purportedly to assist in fighting Los Angeles County fires that are already almost fully contained.”

Whether or not they ever get answers, the senators’ actions are commonplace among Democrats.

“I see the letters as a type of press conference, where the two Senators can question the administration in print,” said Wesley Hussey, professor of political science at the California State University, Sacramento.

Keeping up the demands “is a good way for the senators to show their Democratic constituents they are standing up to Trump. So this is potentially effective electoral politics,” said Christian Grose, academic director at the University of Southern California’s Schwarzenegger Institute.

It also sets the stage for future confrontations. “During potential future congressional hearings,” said Hussey, “they can ask the various department officials why they never responded.”

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