Rare is the president who doesn’t overinterpret his mandate. President Donald Trump is no exception. His first weeks in office are a textbook case of a chief executive assuming he can do whatever he wants almost without impunity. How long can it last?
As the Trump upheaval continues, are there restraints that could slow him down?
Questions remain on what constitutional or other checks can be put on the president and his wide-ranging actions.
February 9, 2025 The Washington Post
Analysis by Dan Balz
Trump has considerable leeway as he begins his second term. The 2024 election signaled a desire for change on the part of many voters. Many of those who supported Trump were not looking for a modest course correction or a period of calm. On Election Day, more than 7 in 10 voters said they were dissatisfied or angry about the way things were going in the country and more than 6 in 10 of them voted for Trump, according to network exit polls.
Many of these voters were also quite clear-eyed about who Trump is. They knew his warts, weaknesses and excesses, yet they supported him anyway. They were hoping for lower food prices or a more secure border or a pushback on the culture war policies of the Democrats. At this early stage, there are anecdotal indications that Trump’s voters are satisfied with what he is doing, including efforts to cut the size of government and reduce foreign aid.
Some of Trump’s actions enjoy public support. His order aimed at barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s or girls’ sports has solid majority backing. A majority agree that undocumented immigrants should be deported, with stronger support for sending back those who have committed violent crimes.
But did these Trump supporters favor the use of the military to carry out the deportation efforts? Did they vote to take a wrecking ball to government? Did they vote to put Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, in charge of an effort that claims to be seeking efficiencies but has become an assault on federal workers? Did they vote to pardon or commute sentences of those convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers or helping to organize the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol? Did they vote to give Trump the power to override or ignore federal law or even to violate the Constitution? Those verdicts are yet to be rendered.
Much attention is rightly focused on Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service, which has generated controversy by gaining access to sensitive Treasury Department spending data while threatening the very existence of the Department of Education and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). On Friday, as Trump was speaking to reporters in the White House during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, CNN was showing workers removing the name of USAID from the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in downtown Washington.
There is nothing inherently wrong with undertaking a serious audit of the federal government. Regulations need paring every so often. In every agency, there are examples of questionable spending — though some involve relatively small amounts of money. For decades, politicians and others have made headlines spotlighting wasteful spending.
During the Clinton administration, Vice President Al Gore led a systematic effort known as the National Performance Review, otherwise called “reinventing government.” The initiative reduced the federal workforce by 426,000 employees between 1993 and 2000 and eliminated an estimated 640,000 pages of internal agency rules. A little-known fact is that, as a percentage of the population, the federal workforce has declined over time. In absolute terms, the number of federal workers today is smaller than it was 50 years ago, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
What Trump and Musk are doing appears to be far different from the Gore project. They are launching a search-and-destroy mission designed as much to intimidate federal workers and exact retribution against perceived enemies as it is to make government more efficient. It is about taking control, of ridding the government of workers seen as having ideological views contrary to those of Trump and his allies. Trump on Friday promised “trillions” of dollars in savings. He has yet to show the receipts.
Musk has singled out USAID for punishment, recognizing perhaps that it enjoys no strong constituency among the public. Foreign aid has never been popular with Americans, as survey after survey has shown. Surveys have also shown that many Americans have an inaccurate view of the cost of foreign aid, speculating that it accounts for 10 percent or even 25 percent of the federal budget when in fact it accounts for less than 1 percent.
Trump wants to eliminate USAID, first established by executive order by President John F. Kennedy. To kill the agency would require action by Congress, which passed a law in 1998 establishing USAID as a separate entity. But damage is being done now. The agency’s work has been halted and employees posted oversees are being called back. Lifesaving programs could be eliminated, unless another vehicle is found to continue the critical work. Trump may simply cripple the agency before trying to get Congress to kill it.
The Education Department seems next on the chopping block. It has long been a target of Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates, though state and local control of education is the accepted model in the United States. The department has the third-largest budget of all the federal agencies, but the smallest staff, according to its website. Much of the money it disburses likely would have to be shifted to another agency if the department were to be eliminated.
Trump has moved at warp speed to effect changes in so many areas. The inventory of his executive orders and other actions goes far beyond the work of DOGE and Musk’s teams. He wants to end birthright citizenship. He slapped tariffs on Mexico and Canada (only to postpone them while getting almost nothing in return from those two countries). He jacked up tariffs on China, which could raise the price of goods to consumers. He’s cashiered diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work in government. And on and on.
He wants to buy Greenland and take back the Panama Canal. He sent shock waves through the Middle East by saying he would like to remove Palestinians from Gaza and turn that land into the “Riveria of the Middle East.” White House efforts to walk back the idea were greeted with a Trump posting suggesting he remains serious.
Unlike in his first term, Trump is operating without internal guardrails. The people who surround him, at the White House and in key agencies, are loyalists and in many cases architects of the policies that are drawing attention and criticism. True to form, Trump is commanding the stage, setting in motion so many possible changes that his opponents are left to decide which battles to fight.
But there are some checks and restraints left in the system, even if Congress abdicates its constitutional authority and responsibility to act as a check on the power of the executive.
One such check on his power will be the courts, which already have begun to slow down the train that Trump has set in motion. Early Saturday, a New York judge barred Musk’s DOGE team from gaining access to sensitive personal and financial data stored at the Treasury Department. Earlier on Friday, a judge prevented Trump’s administration from putting an additional 2,700 USAID workers on leave. Other things Trump has done appear illegal or even unconstitutional. So far the actions by judges are only temporary. How the judicial system, including the Supreme Court, will rule overall on Trump’s effort to expand executive power will be a long-running battle.
Another check could be the markets. The president’s move to impose (and then delay) tariffs on Mexico and Canada sent world markets gyrating with his oscillating policy. Consumer sentiment has begun to sour. Trump is a keen watcher of the stock indexes and will feel the effects if his tariff, tax and spending policies lead to higher interest rates, higher prices or slower growth. Of all the promises he has made, a better economy with lower prices might be the one that resonated most broadly with voters.
Finally, there is public opinion. James H. Rowe Jr. wrote a memo for President Harry S. Truman in 1946 in which he reminded the president that public opinion was the key to almost everything. “Presidential leadership, if it means anything, means no more than how to lead the people only as fast as they will follow,” he wrote.
The public is relatively patient with a newly elected president, hopeful that whatever changes are initiated will improve their lives. The optimism about the future expressed in some early polls reflects this. But voters’ patience is not indefinite, and assessments and attitudes can change. Trump is calling for fundamental changes and has started at a jarringly fast pace. He cannot afford to run too far ahead of the people.