President Donald Trump must be deeply troubled these days.

No, not over anything Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has said about invading Taiwan.

And it has nothing to do with Vladimir Putin snarling over Trump-sponsored ceasefire talks in Ukraine, or the world reaction to tariffs.

Neither does it concern the joke justice warriors of the progressive Democrat U.S. district court judges ganging up on him to stifle his sweeping initiatives ranging from the deportation of criminal illegal aliens to cutting USAID.

These developments he can handle. Taking on the Massachusetts state Senate is a different matter.

What surely must have Trump shaking in his boots was last week’s vow by Democrat state Senate President Karen Spilka to stand up to him and his campaign to cut fraud, waste abuse in federal government programs.

Up to now, Trump has only been forced to deal with attacks from Massachusetts U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey along with the nine useless Massachusetts members of the U.S. House, all Democrats.

Warren has even coupled with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to go after Trump for allegedly rewarding billionaires at the expense of the working class. The pair of progressives used to attack millionaires until they became millionaires themselves. They then upped their game to billionaires.

Anyway, if anyone knows about FWA in government it is the Democrat-controlled Massachusetts Senate, which under Spilka is fighting tooth and nail to ward off an audit by state Auditor Diana DiZoglio, even though the voters overwhelmingly approved of it at the ballot box.

DiZoglio could begin by auditing the way Spilka uses state funds to embellish the salaries of senators who are loyal to her by appointing them chairs of committees that sometimes do not even meet. DiZoglio served unhappily in the Senate before she was elected auditor.

For instance, Spilka at a lame press conference last week named Sen. Cindy Friedman of Arlington to head a coordinated committee called Response 2025 to deal with Trump budget cuts.

Friedman, the chair of the Senate Steering and Policy Committee, will work with other committees to lead the state “through the uncertainty of federal action” by Trump.

If nothing else, the Senate knows how to create committees. And Spilka’s creation of Response 2025 is nothing more than a public relations gimmick to appease left wing loonies accusing the Democrat-controlled Legislature of not “standing up” to Trump—as if the Legislature had the power to do so.

And Spilka’s press conference was conveniently held just days before today’s anti-Trump “Hands Off Boston” rally on Boston Common protesting “the Trump/Musk assault on democracy” and vowing “never to bow to tyrant kings or fascism.”

“We the People of Massachusetts will come together to tell the corrupt, cruel, chaotic tyrants in D.C. hands off Boston,” the group’s flyer said.

It also came just after the announcement that the Trump administration had terminated $106 million in residual COVID-19 funds that Massachusetts schools expected.

Gov. Maura Healey, a long time Trump critic, condemned the decision, as she has other federal budget cuts. But she was not at the Spilka press conference, nor did she send a representative.

Also absent was House Speaker Ron Mariano or anyone else from the state House of Representatives.

Indicative of what a con job it all was, is the fact that no member of the state’s delegation to Congress, who deal daily with the Trump administration, attended — not Warren or Markey or any of the nine hapless members of the U.S. House.

So, it was left to Spilka and the Massachusetts state Senate to “take on” Trump. Yeah. Right. She’ll show him.

It is not known if Friedman will be paid extra for her new “duties,” but she probably will. Last year Friedman, with the legislators’ base pay of $73,655, was paid an additional $102,340 for chairing one committee and vice chairing another for a total of $175,995.

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Base pay now is $82,044, but most legislators like Friedman make much more, especially if they are Spilka loyalists. Spilka is paid $203,286.

They are worth every penny.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com