I’m the chief White House correspondent.
During his first full day in the White House, President Trump promised to do what no president has ever done before. “We’re going to do things that will shock people,” he said. Of all the thousands of words Trump has uttered during his contested, talkathon-style inaugural days as the nation’s 47th president, this may have been the truest.
Not so much because of the ideological swings that come with changing parties in the White House, but because of the norm-setting, democracy-testing assertion of personal power that defies the courts, Congress, and ethical lines that have constrained past presidents.
Trump has freed even the most violent of the rioters who stormed the Capitol in his name four years ago. Outraged by questions of loyalty, he has fired former advisers who face credible death threats. security details. Regardless, the law, passed with bipartisan support and upheld by the Supreme Court, allowed the Chinese app TikTok to operate despite national security concerns.
Not content with just eliminating diversity initiatives, he ordered government workers to round up anyone suspected of not attending. He fired at least a dozen inspectors general who monitored the department for corruption and abuse, ignoring a law requiring him to give Congress 30 days notice and give specific reasons.
Right out of the gate, Trump has challenged expectations of what a president can and should do, showing a belief that the rules his predecessors largely followed were meant to be bent, circumvented or broken.
Presidential maximalism
It’s basically within the president’s power to, say, reverse the government’s approach to diversity programs, withdraw from an international climate agreement, or dismiss residual political candidates. But as is often the case with Trump, he takes these decisions a step further.
Trump has never been interested in the argument that he should do something because it has been done before. Now he is determined to break through obstacles and any alleged “deep state” that stands in his way. The ideas that establishment advisers talked him through the last time, he is pushing this time around with a new cast of like-minded aides.
Perhaps the most stunning action of the past week was Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of violent rioters who beat up police officers in the Capitol, despite assurances from his vice president, attorney general designee and House Speaker that he would not.
Meanwhile, Trump simply ignored the TikTok law. Instead he stated would not enforce it for 75 days to broker a deal in which China and the US government would jointly do business and operate a social media app.
He also decided to rewrite the 14th Amendment to state that it does not guarantee automatic citizenship to children born in the United States. It took just three days for a federal judge to step in and temporarily block the move.
And unlike any president in modern times, Trump has attempted to redraw the world map. He unilaterally declared that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. He tried to get Canada to become the 51st state. And he proposed the possible use of force to take over Greenland and capture the Panama Canal.
His predecessors
Of course, Trump is hardly the first president to push the limits of presidential power. Among others, Richard Nixon comes to mind. Indeed, Trump’s allies see a more immediate precedent: President Biden, who spoke in favor of traditional standards even as he asserted his authority.
Biden granted preemptive pardons to members of his own family and other targets of Trump’s ire, a first of its kind move that he described as a means of preventing political prosecution. Trump has actually made such threats, but even some Democrats objected to the pardon, calling it self-serving and a terrible precedent.
Biden also declared in his final days as president that the Equal Rights Amendment had passed the requirements for ratification and was therefore now the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. In doing so, he disregarded time limits set by Congress that were exceeded. Some analysts have questioned how different it is for Biden to impose his interpretation of the Constitution in this way than for Trump to offer his own interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
But Trump has proven more effective at suppressing opposition than Biden. He dominates his own party like no president has in generations, and has pushed its members through cabinet nominees who would not have passed in the past. He has forced tech billionaires, Wall Street tycoons, corporate executives and media owners who previously opposed him to show newfound respect and in many cases flood his political accounts with donations.
Trump flex
That leaves Trump as the single most important player in any decision he wants to be involved in, whether it’s who is Speaker of the House or what Facebook Meta’s fact-checking policies should be.
Trump’s allies reject the notion that he has authoritarian ambitions. After all, he is still subject to the 22nd Amendment, which bars him from running for office in four years. Still, one House Republican was eager to get rid of that railing, too. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, whose campaign finances are, as usual, being investigated by the FBI, introduced a constitutional amendment last week that would allow Trump to run again.
It has no real chance of passing, but it hasn’t hurt the congressman’s position with the president, who oversees the FBI.
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No. Deportation has long been a part of US immigration policy, under Democrats and Republicans alike. The Obama administration deported more than three million people. “Anti-Trump opposition to illegal immigration is so strong, you’d think he was the first president to take such a stance.” The editors of the Boston Herald write.
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