Fareed’s Take: The modern presidents wield authority far beyond anything the founders envisioned
The modern presidents wield authority far beyond anything the founders envisioned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCd0Wx4-ap4
Tag: presidential power
The ‘Emergency’ That Demanded Huge Tariffs on Swiss Imports Is Now Over. So What Was the Emergency?
“There are two possibilities here. You can believe that the vaguely defined economic emergency that required such huge tariffs on Swiss imports is already over, just a few months after those tariffs were imposed and despite the trade deficit seemingly growing rather than shrinking. If so, then you have to accept that Americans peacefully exchanging their money for chocolates, drugs, and watches were somehow undermining America’s economic security for years—but that those exact same transactions are now totally fine, because of the higher tariffs that no longer exist.
The other possibility is that no such emergency ever actually existed, and that the president’s idea of what constitutes an emergency depends largely on who is paying him homage and what gifts they might leave behind. If so, then you’d have to question the entire rationale behind all of Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, many of which make no more sense than the ones imposed on Swiss goods.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/17/the-emergency-that-demanded-huge-tariffs-on-swiss-imports-is-now-over-so-what-was-the-emergency/
‘Emergency’ Has Become Washington’s Favorite Loophole. It’s Cost Taxpayers $15 Trillion.
“Over the last decade, roughly one in every 10 dollars of budget authority has worn an emergency tag.
…
On paper, the Office of Management and Budget has a five-part test for emergency spending: It should be necessary, sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and not permanent. Congress rarely forces itself to demonstrate, item by item, that all five prongs are met. There’s no neutral referee. Once “designated as an emergency” appears in the bill and the president concurs, the amounts are exempt from caps and PAYGO scorecards.
And because this budget label is separate from more specific “national emergency” declarations under statutes like the Stafford Act or the National Emergencies Act, it quietly turns into a vehicle for funding routine projects. It’s such a procedural magic word that fiscal guardrails all but disappear.
Finally, even when a real crisis exists, so too does opportunism. Emergency bills move fast, face weak scrutiny, and become irresistible means for unrelated projects or those that Congress would never approve otherwise. This dynamic marred the 2012-13 Hurricane Sandy package and has recurred in other disaster bills, not because relief is illegitimate but because speed plus political cover invites provisions that would die in regular order.
…
The stakes of the abuse of emergency labelling are no longer abstract. Interest costs on debt that results from the extra spending are crowding out core functions of government. Americans are hammered with “emergency” tariff costs. The next true crisis will arrive with less room to maneuver if we keep burning credibility on manufactured ones.
A republic that treats emergencies as a governing philosophy is a republic that lives without its safeguards. We must put the word back in its place: as one describing something rare, reviewable, temporary, and paid for.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/06/emergency-has-become-washingtons-favorite-loophole-its-cost-taxpayers-15-trillion/
Congress Questions Strikes as Another General Steps Down
Multiple high level military men have stepped down as the Trump administration appears to murder suspected drug traffickers. The administration showed their intel justifying the strikes only to some Republican Congressmen rather than to members of both parties, so Congress as a whole can’t even analyze the justifications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wUXGd7P-0g
On National Guard Deployments, Trump Tells SCOTUS His Power Is ‘Unreviewable’
“Federal law says the president of the United States may only call state National Guard members “into Federal service” when certain specific conditions are met, such as when “there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against” the federal government, or when “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
According to President Donald Trump, he alone gets to decide when or if such conditions exist. Or, as Trump recently argued in a legal filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, “such decisions are committed to the discretion of the President and are unreviewable” by the federal courts.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/21/on-national-guard-deployments-trump-tells-scotus-his-power-is-unreviewable/
What the Japanese Internment Case Teaches About Judicial Deference to Presidential Power
“this supposed civil libertarian also wrote the majority opinion upholding concentration camps for innocent American citizens. And Black did not even express any public regret over his Korematsu ruling in the decades to come. “It is noteworthy,” the legal scholar Stanley Kutner once observed, “that in an interview shortly before his death, Justice Black maintained that both the President and the Court had been right in their wartime actions.”
According to Black, the outcome in Korematsu was dictated by the existence of emergency conditions and the resulting judicial deference owed to the executive branch. “The military authorities considered the need for action was great, and time was short,” Black declared. “We cannot—by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight—now say that at that time these actions were unjustified.”
Writing in dissent, Justice Frank Murphy, another Roosevelt appointee and ardent New Dealer, argued that the president’s actions were, in fact, clearly unjustified at the time he took them. “It is essential that there be definite limits to military discretion, especially where martial law has not been declared,” Murphy wrote. “Individuals must not be left impoverished of their constitutional rights on a plea of military necessity that has neither substance nor support.””
https://reason.com/2025/10/23/what-the-japanese-internment-case-teaches-about-judicial-deference-to-presidential-power/
Judges appointed by Trump keep ruling against him. He’s not happy about it.
Judges appointed by Trump keep ruling against him. He’s not happy about it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/06/trump-judges-ruling-against-him-00595511
SCOTUS Is Now Poised To Overrule Humphrey’s Executor, a 1935 Precedent Limiting Presidential Power
“In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that President Franklin Roosevelt acted illegally when he tried to fire an anti-New Deal commissioner from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC “cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or an eye of the executive,” declared the Court in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. “We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named.”
But that was then. More recently, the Supreme Court has all but announced that Humphrey’s Executor faces imminent judicial execution, an outcome that would allow President Donald Trump (and every president who succeeds him) to fire “independent” agency heads at will.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/25/scotus-is-now-poised-to-overrule-humphreys-executor-a-1935-precedent-limiting-presidential-power/
Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC member while court mulls future of independent agencies
“The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to keep a Biden-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission out of her post for at least three more months, despite a century-old federal law aimed at limiting the president’s power to fire such officials for political reasons.
The justices said Monday they will hear arguments in December about whether that law unconstitutionally interferes with the president’s ability to control the executive branch. If the court strikes down the law — as many legal experts expect — it will further hobble Congress’ ability to insulate the leaders of regulatory agencies from political pressure.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/22/supreme-court-ftc-trump-firing-00575714
Trump Has a Habit of Asserting Broad, Unreviewable Authority
“Whether he is waging the drug war, imposing tariffs, deporting alleged gang members, or fighting crime, the president thinks he can do “anything I want to do.””
https://reason.com/2025/09/17/trump-has-a-habit-of-asserting-broad-unreviewable-authority/