Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has been among President Donald Trump‘s fiercest and most vocal critics. Murphy has not minced words aiming at Trump’s power grabs as his administration continually seeks to remove barriers — dissenting judges, corporate apostates, judicial watchdogs, inspectors general, disobedient DOJ lawyers — to the acquisition of total executive branch power.
Murphy sees everything Trump does through this autocratic lens, and cautions Americans not to be “naive” and think there is any other priority. Absolute power, Murphy says, is Trump’s true aim.
It’s in this regard that Murphy characterizes Trump’s unilateral implementation of tariffs, which others are treating as an economic policy issue, as another instance of the Trump plan to compel loyalty by exercising his power.
Murphy asserts that the President wants to “collapse our democracy” and set up a situation where every business “will need to petition Trump for relief” in order to survive, making him omnipotent.
The scenario Murphy describes is called a protection racket, a process in which money or favors are exchanged for relief from trouble caused by the purported protector.
Tariffs as Political Weapons
9/18: And the sabotage is already rippling outward. Senator Chris Murphy put it bluntly:
“This is about breaking institutions. Making Americans poorer. More desperate. More dependent.”
CNN’s Abby Phillip didn’t mince words either: “Liberation… pic.twitter.com/MHnIZQhtrR
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) April 4, 2025
Wikipedia gives us the following definition for “pizzo (Italian: [ˈpittso]): protection money paid to the Mafia often in the form of a forced transfer of money resulting from extortion.”
Murphy also points out how that pizzo — or tribute — can be collected.
Good morning.
Today is the 80th day that the U.S. President is running a backdoor bribery scheme in which any CEO or foreign oligarch can send him money secretly through his crypto coin scam in exchange for favors.
It’s the biggest scandal in the history of the Presidency.
— Chris Murphy
(@ChrisMurphyCT) April 9, 2025
Speaking below, Trump talks about having created powerful negotiating leverage vis-a-vis other countries through the tariffs, saying that other “countries are calling me up” because they are “dying to make a deal.”
Murphy asserts that Trump expects the same importuning from corporations in America, which will be forced to ask Trump to shield them from the very costs he has saddled them with.
Trump: I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass. They are. They are dying to make a deal. pic.twitter.com/vuYHYX7Pqe
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 9, 2025
As if to support Murphy’s dire assertion, MSNBC reported that “just hours after the tariffs were announced, oil and natural gas were carved out. The American Petroleum Institute issued a public thank-you,” saying “We welcome President Trump’s decision to exclude oil and natural gas.”
Bob Woodward: Trump Believes ‘Trade is Bad’
6/18: This isn’t a conspiracy theory.
It’s exactly what Bob Woodward warned about—again—in a recent interview with The Washington Post’s Colby Itkowitz.
Woodward recalled that back in 2018, a senior Trump staffer handed him a… pic.twitter.com/C9mugGcWJp
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) April 4, 2025