WASHINGTON — Two Democratic senators said Sunday that their party would not rule out forcing the federal government to shut down to stop President Donald Trump’s legally questionable actions in dismantling federal agencies.

“We are in a crisis right now, and Democrats will use every tool possible to protect Americans,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said on CNN. If Congress does not pass a new spending bill by March 14, the federal government will shut down.

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., echoed Booker during an interview with NBC. If Democrats do not supply the votes for continued federal funding — signaling their opposition to Trump’s unilateral budget cuts, staff firings and restructuring of federal agencies — it would be Trump and Republicans who would be responsible for the government shutdown, Kim said.

“I would be the last person to want to get to that stage,” Kim said of a possible government shutdown. “But we are at a point where we are basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis.”

The two Democrats’ allusion to the government shutdown in March reflects the limited options that their party has in checking Republicans, who are in control of all levers of federal government. It also shows their willingness to use the March funding deadline as a bargaining tool to limit Trump’s sweeping action in tearing apart federal agencies funded and established by Congress.

In the past three weeks, Trump has tried to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development; ordered the federal financial watchdog, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to cease “all supervision and examination activity”; tried to pause all federal loans and grants; suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency be shut down; and paused tens of billions of dollars in energy and environmental spending authorized by Congress.

Republicans in the House have a very slim majority. Speaker Mike Johnson cannot afford to lose more than three Republican votes to pass a spending package in March that reflects varying demands of his caucus.

During the last two years of the Biden administration, when Republicans controlled the House, dozens of right-wing members of the party who wanted deep cuts to government spending rebelled against Johnson and voted against keeping the federal government funded. Johnson had to work with Democrats in passing bipartisan spending bills that maintained funding at the levels of previous years.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the House minority leader, said last week that he was willing to work with Republicans in passing a similar bipartisan spending bill, but only if partisan measures for defunding certain agencies were “choked off” of that bill.

However, Johnson indicated on Sunday that he had no interest in pushing through a bipartisan bill. He said he would instead work toward a Republican spending package that all 218 members of his caucus could agree on.

“The reconciliation process which we are spending all the time on right now is by design effectively a partisan exercise,” Johnson said on Fox News. He was referring to the fast-track process for budget bills that would allow Republicans to avoid a Senate filibuster, which normally requires 60 votes to end.

Some members of the House Republican caucus are still skeptical that they can agree on a bill by March 14. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said Friday that chances were “pretty low” that the Republicans could agree on a spending package by the March deadline.