State Attorney General Matt Platkin is racking up some victories against the Trump administration, at least for now.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted an effort by the White House to slash federal funding for medical and public health research through the National Institutes of Health.

After Plotkin and more than 20 other state attorneys general sued another judge yesterday said the administration had defied his order by continuing to withhold federal funding.

Courts have also temporarily blocked Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency from accessing potentially confidential Treasury information after a suit from Platkin and 19 other AGs and a Trump executive order to limit birthright citizenship challenged by New Jersey and others has also been put on hold.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress fighting the Trump administration are facing a tough reality with fewer tools at their disposal to challenge his efforts to overhaul the federal government.

Now, some Democrats are considering taking drastic actions.

Joining me now is New Jersey Senator Andy Camp to explain.

Well, thank you for joining us, Senator.

Thanks for having me.

Well, the state attorney general here, Matt Platkin, has been leading efforts to challenge President Trump's orders in court.

But what, if anything, can you and your Democratic colleagues do in Washington?

Well, first of all, I'm glad to see the attorney General Platkin moving forward.

He and I have been in touch about how to be able to approach this ever since November.

In fact, we had him in a number of states, attorney generals down to the U.S. Capitol to engage with a number of senators to talk through that broader strategy.

So, you know, I always tell people, like, you got to look at all the range of tools that we have right now and working very closely with him on the litigation side to Ferrara and, you know, making sure that we're pushing forward on legislation as well as the oversight, the communication aspects of that the law that we're pushing back on when it comes to these nominations for the Trump administration.

You know, we I was speaking on the floor of the Senate in the middle of the night, raising concerns on an effort to be able to push on one of the worst of the nominees, Russell vote.

You know, raising up that profile, you know, those are the actions that we need to make sure we're doing.

And then just yesterday, I did a telephone town hall, had well over a thousand people on that, you know, making sure we're explaining what's happening.

The threat and the concern to the communities and bringing together roundtables of organizations across New Jersey to be able to really press that home.

So those are the actions that we need to be continuing and growing.

Yeah.

And you are continuing those actions, Senator, you said this weekend at NBC that you're open to shutting down the government to try and stop White House's efforts to dismantle federal agencies.

How?

Yeah, well, look, I wanted to sort of set the record straight here, because it's the Republicans that have the White House, the majority in the House as well as the Senate.

You know, they could very well push forward without Democrats.

And so, you know, we've seen that in terms of how they've been moving forward with some of these nominees.

You know, the worst of them, as we've seen, get through like Pete Hegseth.

So our effort here is to try to engage and say, hey, look, you know, the Republicans, they own this process that I don't want to see a shutdown.

I've been a I was a government employee, a career public servant.

I worked through multiple shutdowns.

It's not at all what the American people want.

And what we're seeing right now is Trump's effort to basically already shut down the government.

And in fact, not even just shutting it down, but trying to dismantle large parts of it.

So I just really hope that the American people understand and see what is happening on that front.

And when it comes to the government funding process going forward.

You know, I just talked with my colleagues.

We're we're waiting to see if the Republicans are going to seek effort to be able to negotiate in a bipartisan way.

But if we're not seeing them engage in that capacity and not showing us reassurances that this is going to move forward in a way that will go away from the lawlessness that we've seen so far for the Trump administration, you know, that's when we have to engage in a different tack.

Is that the only effective way you think congressional Democrats can push back?

No, no.

I mean, like I said, there's lots of other ways in which we're trying to maneuver.

You know, I was pointing out that one, because, you know, that is something that is coming up just in a matter of weeks, you know, And there are other steps as well that we can try to push on right now on the Senate side.

Right.

The confirmation hearings are front and center.

And that's one of our best ways to really try to hit home and tell the American people what has happening.

On top of that, I mean, look, you know, as someone who was a my very first job in government was at USAID, the Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration has been trying to dismantle over the course of the last week.

You know, the efforts that I took to to go to the USAID building to draw attention to this, to speak out not only to the press, but, you know, be able to engage.

And actually, just tomorrow, I'll be meeting with a number of former USAID officials to highlight this publicly.

But I'm also engaged directly with current USAID, USAID officials.

And that helps me get a sense of what's happening behind the scenes.

And we can use that for litigation as well as legislation and some of the oversight capabilities.

So those are the types of tools that we're bringing together.

Do you think for Republicans would be willing to negotiate?

We'll see.

I mean, this is something where, you know, there they have needed Democrat votes for every other continuing resolution or budget process over the last two years.

They have only really, you know, one, I think one vote to spare on the House of Representatives side right now.

And they have a number of people on that side that are very defiant.

You know, they they were trying to stand in the way of Speaker Johnson becoming the speaker again.

So they have a very hard time navigating on their own.

They've never been able to do that before with just their own votes.

So this the sense of if they that they need to have Democratic votes, the question that is, what are they going to bring to the table?

What assurances can they bring?

You've mentioned that you've been holding roundtables and town halls this week to hear about how these federal orders are actually affecting people.

What are you hearing?

Yeah.

Right now what I'm hearing is, first of all, the effects on federal employees is not just down in Washington, D.C. We have a lot of federal employees in New Jersey that are worried about that.

And then also the funding freeze that the Trump administration tried to undertake.

It would affect huge swaths of community organizations and leaders.

You know, I had this one.

There's one leader on a town hall last night that works on disability issues, trying to help New Jerseyans that have disabilities.

And she was saying that that, you know, these organizations and centers around New Jersey, they only have enough funding for maybe about about a couple of weeks, really, and 50, 60 days at most.

So, you know, any type of funding freeze that could be three, four or five months or longer would be absolutely catastrophic.

And these are four centers with people with disabilities, physical disabilities and challenges that need the care.

They cannot be put on pause.

Well, Senator, do you think we have reached a constitutional crisis?

I think we're just about there.

I mean, I think what we're seeing is certainly breaking of the law.

And now we have these, you know, judicial efforts that are under way.

And I think what worries me most is that, you know, we saw vice the vice president, you know, publicly say online that, you know, he thinks that these judges are going too far and that, you know, there are questions about whether or not they need to be listened to.

Like, that's when we are getting into the constitutional crisis, is when if we if we see the defiance of the executive branch not engaging in another order from a co-equal branch of government, the judiciary, which has been how we've been able to settle these disputes in the past.

Right now we have in the legislature, as I said, led by a Republican Senate, a Republican House that are just very they're just totally fine, just abdicating their responsibility and their power.

We see that with the nominations.

They say, oh, we just need to vote on every one that Trump puts forth them.

Why do we have the constitutional right to be able to advise and consent to start with?

You know, why are we just handing that over?

Well, thank you, Senator Kim, for joining us.

Thanks for having me again.