‘We Are At War’: NJ Congresswoman Denied Entry To Treasury Building

NEW JERSEY — “We will not take this s*** from Donald Trump and Elon Musk … Let us in!” This was the rallying cry from U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey as she joined dozens of other lawmakers and a large crowd of activists at a protest in the nation’s capital.

McIver, a Democrat who represents the state’s 10th District, was among more than 1,000 attendees at a “Nobody Elected Elon” rally in Washington D.C. on Tuesday.

The demonstration was held outside the U.S. Department of Treasury building. The agency has been thrust into the spotlight this week after the Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gained “read-only access” to its payment system codes.

The result? The world’s richest man now has access to the sensitive data of millions of Americans — without the approval of Congress.

Trump has said that Musk “can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval.”

“Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it … but he has some very good ideas,” the president said.

Others aren’t so sure.

On Tuesday, McIver and several of her legislative peers made a trip to the Treasury building in Washington. Seeking to perform their congressional “oversight duties,” the federal lawmakers attempted to enter the building but were told they needed an appointment and turned away.

It didn’t sit well with McIver, a former city council president in Newark who was elected to her first full term last November.

The 10th District includes the following municipalities: Caldwell, East Orange, Essex Fells, Irvington, Montclair (part), Newark (part), Orange, Verona, West Orange in Essex County; Jersey City (part) in Hudson County; Cranford, Garwood, Hillside, Kenilworth, Linden (part), Roselle, Roselle Park, Union Township in Union County.

“Look, I came here with one simple message just like you all — we will not take this s*** from Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” she told a crowd of protesters and reporters. “So let’s let them know loud and clear to let us in!”

“We will not stand for this, we will fight back,” she continued. “The people always had the power.”

“We are at war,” McIver added. “Anytime a person can pay 250 million dollars to a campaign and be given access to the Department of Treasury of the United States of America, we are at war.”

A group of Democratic lawmakers say they’re planning to launch legislation to block “unlawful meddling” in the Treasury Department’s payment systems.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was one of the Republicans who criticized McIver's statements at the rally. “This sounds like a call for insurrection to me,” she quipped.

Another New Jersey member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez Jr. (NJ-8), also said he was at Tuesday's rally. Menendez wrote:

“Nobody elected Elon Musk yet Donald Trump has handed him the keys to the federal government. That’s unacceptable. That’s why I joined my colleagues today at the Treasury Department to exercise our oversight authority. Democrats are in this fight because you have sent us here to fight and that’s exactly what we will do.”

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It’s the second time in two days that congressional Democrats have been denied entry to a government agency targeted by DOGE: several lawmakers were blocked from entering the U.S. Agency for International Development on Monday.

Earlier this week, McIver said she and two other New Jersey congress members – Rob Menendez Jr. (NJ-8) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) – were denied access for nearly an hour when they made a surprise inspection visit to the Elizabeth Detention Center to inquire about a recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in Newark.

Read More: NJ Prison Gets Surprise Visit From 3 Congress Members After ICE Raid

Musk has hit back at his critics, saying that DOGE is “dismantling the radical-left shadow government in full view of the public.”

“This is our one chance to return power to the people from an unelected bureaucracy back to democracy,” Musk posted on X in the wake of Tuesday’s rally.

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