Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tells The New York Times that his job is not “a lot of fun right now” because he views it as his responsibility to help “hold this together” until President Donald Trump leaves office.
In his forthcoming book, “The Violence Inside Us,” Murphy writes about the “demoralizing daily cadence of political life in the age of Trump.” During his interview with the Times, he was asked what political life is like for a sitting senator.
“This job is not a lot of fun right now. You have a chief executive who is an administrative nightmare and intent on dividing us — it is exhausting,” Murphy said.
He continued, “I have a real belief that democracy is unnatural. We don’t run anything important in our lives by democratic vote other than our government. Democracy is so unnatural that it’s illogical to think it would be permanent. It will fall apart at some point, and maybe that isn’t now, but maybe it is.”
Murphy added, “So I feel like my job is to hold this together so that it survives to the next administration. That’s not the reason you go into any profession: to keep it from falling apart.”
He was also asked if his party’s leadership — specifically House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — has been “forceful enough.”
Murphy admitted that “the Legislature as a branch is particularly ill-equipped to lead when faced with a public-health crisis that dodges and weaves in different ways every day.”
Murphy noted that Congress has limited powers to control the Department of Health and Human Services or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “All we can do is provide those agencies with funding and guidelines.”
“Only President Trump can. I’m stuck trying to advocate for him to increase his power,” he added.
Finally, Murphy said that his conversations with Republican lawmakers are “often devoid of much policy talk,” and he is “just trying to maintain the relationship.”
“My colleagues are still going to be around in 2021, when we’re hopefully stitching democracy back together, and I’m going to need some of them to help do it,” he added.
