How will Trump approach — and perhaps transform — presidential power? | News about Donald Trump
Washington, DC – United States President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in just five days, completing an incredible event reversal of fortune it saw him bounce back from a failed re-election bid in 2020.
Trump’s second term in the White House, which begins Monday, will serve as the final test of his firm approach to presidential power.
How he does it could transform an office that has grown stronger for decades, despite its constitutional design as a balance between the legislative and judicial branches of the US government.
Indeed, Trump’s sweeping assertions of presidential authority — both in his norm-breaking first term and in the years since — have raised concerns among pundits who ask what might happen in the next four years.
Marjorie Cohn, professor emeritus at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, said Trump’s second presidency has the potential to fundamentally change how federal agencies oversee health, safety, water, climate and labor.
She also told Al Jazeera that Trump’s personal preferences – and rivalries – could blur the lines of what federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are authorized to do.
“[Trump] has called for ‘television courts-martials’ to imprison his critics, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Liz Cheney and Mike Pence,” Cohn said.
“He could also use the military to target Americans engaged in legitimate protest — against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, for women’s, workers’ and LGBTQ rights.”
The trend of expansion of powers
To be sure, predicting what a vivacious Trump might do is an arduous exercise.
But the next four years will likely reveal where Trump’s tough-talking style diverges from his real goals, according to Mitchel Sollenberger, a professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who has written extensively on presidential power.
Trump may be outspoken about his desire for power, but Sollenberger explained that modern presidents have been laying the groundwork for expanded executive power for years.
This, in turn, was fueled by Congressional wariness to restore those powers.
“We are in a relatively unique era of this kind of ‘presidentialism’ or president-centered governance,” Sollenberger told Al Jazeera.
He argued that Trump’s first term saw the same “escalation” of presidential powers as many of his predecessors who, over the past 100 years, increasingly relied on executive orders, presidential prerogatives and the policies of emperors to implement their agendas.
But there are limits, Sollenberger added. One tipping point came under President Richard Nixon, whose belief in expanded presidential powers underpinned the covert bombing campaign during the Vietnam War and the wiretapping of political opponents.
When these actions became public, they caused a widespread reaction and Nixon resigned in 1974.
Yet subsequent presidents have also sought to increase the reach of the White House.
In 2001, for example, then-President George W. Bush oversaw the passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which allowed him to use “necessary and appropriate force” to wage the so-called “global war on terror.”
Critics argue that the authorization allowed Bush and his successors to circumvent Congress’ authority as the only body that can declare war, justifying a wide range of presidential military orders.
How far Trump alone can push presidential power will be determined by the “give and take” between Trump, Congress and the judiciary, Sollenberger added.
Trump takes office with Republican majority in both the House and Senate, as well as a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, including three appointees from Trump’s first term.
Dictator for a day?
Trump’s recent statements have only heightened concerns about his second term — and whether he will expand the constitutional powers granted to the presidency.
During his re-election campaign, Trump called the 2024 election “our last battle,” at one point telling supporters in Florida that they “won’t have to vote again” if he wins.
Meanwhile, on his Truth Social platform, Trump’s account shared a video that referred to a “united Reich,” the German word for “kingdom” often associated with Nazi Germany.
His political opponents have also taken advantage of his powerful penchant to label him an “autocrat”. For example, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, described Trump as “a president who admires dictators and is a fascist.”
Trump has latched on to the outcry, with comments seemingly designed to provoke chatter.
Responding to criticism in 2023, for example, he told Fox News he would be a dictator if elected, but “only on day one,” referring to the executive actions he hoped to take upon taking office.
Since his election victory in November, Trump has nominated a list of loyalists to his incoming administration, which reiterated his desire to crack down on critics.
One of his most controversial picks involves Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor who has signaled that he might use his office as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to prosecute journalists.
“We’re going to go after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election,” Patel said in the podcast, echoing Trump’s false claims of election fraud during the 2020 election.
Project 2025
Trump also expanded the appointment of so-called “czars,” who do not need Senate confirmation, to oversee areas including border security and artificial intelligence.
Some of these appointments elevated the key architects behind Project 2025, an plan of ultraconservative politics developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Trump has largely rejected Project 2025, but his staff picks signal that some of its principles may become part of his presidential agenda.
“Border Czar” Tom Homan, Stephen Miller’s deputy policy chief, and Russell Vought, Trump’s pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget, all participated in Project 2025. Vought even wrote its chapter on presidential powers.
An analysis of the document by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy institute, warned that Project 2025 “aims to dismantle the system of checks and balances and reimagine an executive branch on steroids and unfettered.”
It warned that the presidency could gain “unlimited power to take over the country and control the lives of Americans.”
The analysis highlighted seven areas of expanded presidential authority outlined in Project 2025.
They include arming the Justice Department, using the Sedition Act to quell dissent, and politicizing independent agencies and civil servants.
Several of those goals already overlap with Trump’s stated goals or past actions, the report added.
Trump has repeatedly said he will seek retribution against political opponents and prominent critics.
In the case of fellow Republican Liz Cheney, he asked his followers on social media to declare whether they want to see her in prison: “BRING BACK THE TRUTH IF YOU WANT COURTS-MARTIAL TELEVISION.”
Media reports suggest his transition team also questioned professional civil servants during job interviews for whom they voted for.
Overall, the analysis argues that Project 2025 would represent “a radical management philosophy that runs counter to the traditional separation of powers [and] gives presidents almost total control over the federal bureaucracy”.
Presidential immunity
Cohn and other analysts have argued that Project 2025’s ideology is consistent with a July Supreme Court ruling awarding presidents broad immunity for official actions.
Trump’s legal team used the ruling to counter criminal charges against him, including a federal indictment accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The indictment highlights Trump’s actions during the 2011 attack on the US Capitol January 6, 2021when his supporters used violence to temporarily stop the certification of the election.
While the Supreme Court ruling on immunity raises more questions than answers, it is expected to embolden Trump during his second term.
“Trump will be acquitted of inciting a riot on Jan. 6 because the Supreme Court has given him a get-out-of-jail-free ticket,” Cohn said.
Analysts also point out that Trump managed to avoid any serious consequences for the four criminal indictments he faced while he was not in office.
The two federal cases he faced were dismissed after his re-election, with officials citing the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents. A third case, also involving election meddling, stuck in the state of Georgia.
And in New York, Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records backfired in a big way toothless sentence “unconditional release”, without imprisonment, probation or fine.
Sollenberger noted that a federal election interference case is not necessarily founded on its legal merits.
Rather, the prosecutors maintained Trump would be convicted of using “lies as a weapon to defeat the function of the federal government that is the foundation of the democratic process of the United States.”
The case hints at how Trump could once again test the limits of the presidency, according to his critics. But those boundaries remain unclear, according to Sollenberger.
Sollenberger said that “it remains a gray area of what is a presidential duty and what is not.”
“The question remains, how to break it down?”
