A Republican senator has revealed that the Senate is being slammed with “1,600 calls a minute” rather than the typical 40 amid the chaos of Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office.
The onslaught has been so great that the Senate phone system hasn’t been able to handle it, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in an X post on Wednesday.
“The U.S. Senate phone system has been receiving around 1,600 calls each minute, compared to the 40 calls per minute we usually receive, which has disrupted our call systems,” Murkowski wrote. “Thank you for your patience as my staff works to review your messages and share them with me. We’re all working to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible.”
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An internal memo distributed on Tuesday informed Senate staff that its system was receiving “unusually high volume of inbound calls,” according to the Associated Press.
“External callers may receive a temporary busy signal when phoning a Senate office,” it added.
The influx comes as the first days of the new regime have seen political norms turned on their head—even in comparison to Trump’s first stint in office.
The president’s push to purge DEI values out of the federal government, strong-arm U.S. allies with steep tariffs, and sic Elon Musk and his team of baby-faced engineers on vital operations are just a few of the administration’s most notable disruptions.
As a result, Democrats in Congress in particular report being inundated with calls from constituents urging them to take greater action to opposed Trump’s defiant new order.
“I can’t recall ever receiving this many calls,” Rep. Jim McGovern told Axios. “People disgusted with what’s going on, and they want us to fight back.”
Rep. Mark Pocan told the outlet that this week his office “had the most calls we’ve ever had in one day on Monday in 12 years.”
One Democratic aide said, “Every Dem is getting lit up by the neo-resistance folks being like ‘do more,’” Axios reported.
Multiple staffers told Axios that they haven’t seen so many calls since events like the Oct. 7 attack, Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, and Trump’s impeachments.
The outpouring of calls has been inspired at least in part by progressive groups, who are urging Americans troubled by Trump and Musk’s actions to let their senators know.
A spokesperson for Indivisible, a group pushing to “stop the Trump-Musk coup,” told Axios that they are responsible for 31,400 calls to senators and nearly 4,000 calls to House members over the last two weeks.
Facing a Republican majority in both bodies of Congress, however, Democrats say they do not have much recourse to thwart Trump.
“We are going to use every tool we have, but I think there is this sense that we have legislative power, and we don’t,” an unnamed House Democrat told Axios.
For some powerless Democrats, the calls are frustrating.
“There has definitely been some tension the last few days where people felt like: you are calling the wrong people,” an anonymous representative told Axios. “You are literally calling the wrong people.”
