Alarms sound over Trump’s expansion of presidential powers
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promised during his bid for another White House term that he would be a dictator only on “day one.”
Before a town hall audience in Iowa in December 2023, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump, “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”
“Except for day one,” Trump responded, seconds later adding, “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
But a year since his inauguration, Trump has acted on some of his most extreme campaign hyperbole, and then some.
A limited history of Trump’s expansion of presidential powers includes:
• The unilateral capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Máduro and deadly U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-running boats off that nation’s coast, as well as a threat to acquire Greenland.
• The targeting of Democratic- led cities with federal immigration agents — most recently Minneapolis — and National Guard troops.
• The threat to cut congressionally approved funding from institutions, including universities, that do not align with the administration’s ideology.
• The prosecution of political opponents and attacks on the free press.
Those actions and others, coupled with a cooperative GOP Congress, have created an unprecedented shift away from the United States’ democratic tradition and founding principles that establish a system of checks and balances, States Newsroom was told in extensive interviews over recent months.
Many congressional Democrats — and nearly half of Americans, in a recent poll — believe Trump has gone too far in his expansion of presidential power. Historians, political scientists and legal experts have sounded the alarm, with some saying the United States has reached authoritarianism, even as Trump has shown no signs of slowing down.
Experts interviewed agreed that the United States finds itself in a “troubled moment,” as William Howell, dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University, put it.
“We’ve never seen a presidency that represents such an enduring threat to the health and well-being of our democracy as we do today,” said Howell, who recently co-authored the book “Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency.”
Experts wary
Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School and constitutional studies expert with the libertarian Cato Institute, said “I don’t know that it is likely that we’re going to slide into authoritarianism, but the very fact that the TRUMP on page 5 Venezuelan nationals. A full hearing is pending.
ALIEN ENEMIES ACT: Hearing on expel of Venezuelan nationals
Trump Renaming
Trump is also facing headwinds from Democrats and advocates for affixing his name to federal buildings and his face to this year’s national parks annual pass.
Senate Democrats Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland joined independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont Jan. 13 to introduce what they’re calling the “SERVE Act,” short for “Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego Act.”
The lawmakers unveiled the bill less than a month after Trump announced his name would now appear on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump was elected chair of the cultural center after he installed new board members early in his second term.
Sanders said in a statement that Trump aimed “to create the myth of the ‘Great Leader’ by naming public buildings after himself — something that dictators have done throughout history.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty, DOhio, sued Trump in federal court on Dec. 22, alleging only Congress has the power to rename federal buildings.
A public lands group has also challenged Trump in federal court, alleging he broke the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act when he replaced a national contest-winning photo of Glacier National Park with his image next to George Washington on the U.S. residents’ annual National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass.
‘The Best Job Ever’
Nearly a year after he took office, Trump again sat down with Hannity.
In the Jan. 8 interview — the same day the administration sent more federal agents to Minneapolis in the face of intense protests and a day after the president said his own morality was the only restraint on his power — the Fox News host asked whether Republicans will win the upcoming midterm elections.
“I think we’ve done a great job,” Trump said. “Maybe the best job ever in the first year.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. Ashley Murray covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Jacob Fischler covers federal policy and helps direct national coverage as deputy Washington bureau chief for States Newsroom.
