A 'No Kings' protest against the Trump administration's policies in Chicago earlier this year highlighted growing concerns over executive overreach. The Guardian editorial argues that Donald Trump's second term has seen a dramatic expansion of presidential power, with the Supreme Court often enabling his agenda.
Trump's interpretation of Article 2
Donald Trump is not known for his reverence for the US constitution. But in his second term, he is doubling down on his claim from the first: that the text grants him “the right to do whatever I want as president.” This is an extremely unusual interpretation of Article 2, but it ties together recent headlines: a spate of Supreme Court rulings mostly favoring him, and the revelation that he has raked in $2bn since returning to office, half from cryptocurrencies.
Financial disclosures and conflicts
The 927-page document released by the US Office of Government Ethics details a dizzying array of income—from golf courses and Trump-branded bibles to crypto, which he has relentlessly promoted, and lucrative overseas deals. Tribute flows from foreign nations. On Wednesday, he took his first flight on the Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar.
The White House claims there is no conflict of interest over his enrichment, a corollary of his belief that there is no distinction between Trump the 47th president and Trump the man. Max Weber wrote that the modern state bureaucracy “segregates official activity … from the sphere of private life,” with relationships administered according to rules rather than “individual privileges and bestowal of favour.” Mr Trump has turned the clock back, reinventing the modern executive as a feudal court.
Supreme Court rulings
The Supreme Court sometimes rejects his maximalism, but far too rarely, and often when it affects Wall Street—as with tariffs or, this week, in rebuffing Mr Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook as a Federal Reserve governor without cause. Its rejection of his challenge to birthright citizenship was necessary and welcome, but a very low bar to clear.
The court was right to defend the Fed; that makes it all the harder to justify giving the president sweeping control to fire the heads of formerly independent agencies at will, overturning a 1935 ruling. Authorising the administration’s ending of temporary protected status (TPS) for migrants is a terrible blow to tens of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, and beyond them, the 1.3 million people who could face deportation to countries that the US recognises as unsafe. The broader implications are also alarming: the question was not whether the executive can ever terminate TPS, but whether it can be challenged when it fails to do so as required in law. The majority found against the right to recourse to the courts when the executive overreaches.
Separation of powers under threat
Carefully separated powers are being reintegrated, as legislation is ignored and the judiciary falls in line. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote last year of the court’s recent tendencies: “This Administration always wins.” The case for Supreme Court reform is growing—thanks primarily to the actions of the court itself. These arguments deserve to be heard.
What really distinguishes Mr Trump’s court of fiat and favourites from its historical precedents is its sheer reach and impact, as evinced by the illegal Iran war. Important constraints remain and must be defended. But as the US celebrates 250 years of independence under a president who wields more power than any monarch, it must ask itself how to reassert the checks he has destroyed.
