Understanding the Trump chaos: It’s about wielding executive power
Is blowing things up the first step toward remaking Washington?
That’s one interpretation of actions taken by President Donald Trump, who has put a stamp on government in ways not seen during his first term – or, for that matter, by other newly inaugurated American presidents.
Just 10 days into his second term, President Trump has issued dozens of major executive actions, including a freeze on billions of dollars in aid to many domestic federal programs, a halt to foreign aid, buyout offers to 2 million federal workers, and an end to governmental diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Why We Wrote This
President Donald Trump’s second term started with constant action, but stumbles have raised questions about what he and his team learned from the first term. Courts, and public opinion, are weighing in.
In an extraordinary move, the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday rescinded its memo suspending payments to domestic federal programs, amid public confusion and upset. The original memo wasn’t supposed to affect Medicaid, which helps low-income and disabled people, but some states reported an inability Tuesday to access Medicaid funds.
A federal judge had already temporarily blocked the spending freeze, which the administration had implemented to weed out progressive initiatives, until Feb. 3.
Still, the administration’s message is clear: There’s a new sheriff in town, and he means business. The fact that Mr. Trump was president before has likely contributed to the abruptness of the changes. This time, allies have said, he and his team know how to make the changes Mr. Trump wants to see. But the rescission of the spending-freeze memo, which followed a White House effort to respond to confusion about the initial memo, raises questions about how much they learned from the experience of 2017.
And even the rescission came with confusion: The White House said it was rescinding only the Office of Management and Budget memo, which sparked the court case that led to the temporary block. The funding review remains in effect, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.
Another element leading to the quick-out-of-the-gate second Trump term took place during the four-year interregnum of President Joe Biden. Mr. Trump’s team was hard at work reimagining government, should the former president win the 2024 election.
In 2022, a conservative think-tank effort known as Project 2025 put out a 900-plus-page proposal to instill conservative policies and expand presidential power in the next conservative administration. Some of the key personnel involved in Project 2025 are now taking positions in the new administration.
In addition, many of the blueprint’s provisions are now being implemented, from eliminating racial equality initiatives in the workplace to rescinding guidance on LGBTQ+ inclusion to withdrawing from international alliances, such as the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord.
Experts on American government say Mr. Trump’s actions fit into a long-term trend toward greater executive authority. In the beginning, the Founding Fathers were wary of monarchical power, but over time, presidents have accrued power, both by aggressively seeking it and as Congress has ceded it.
“This president is exerting executive authority in ways that would profoundly shock the founders of our republic, who were skeptical of centralized power and executive power especially,” says Mark Rozell, a presidential scholar at George Mason University in Virginia.
Mr. Trump shouldn’t think of himself as the CEO of a big company, deciding unilaterally what needs to be done, Professor Rozell adds. And in the current political context, he suggests Mr. Trump may be overreaching.
“He’s acting like he has a huge mandate,” Mr. Rozell says.
The reality is that Mr. Trump won a plurality of the vote and does not have the typically high, honeymoon-level popularity of a new president. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Mr. Trump with a 45% approval rating, down 2 points from earlier this month.
But these are still early days. And the immediate impact of the blizzard of executive actions is still playing out – in some cases, facing litigation that could tie up the orders for months or longer, and could potentially reach the Supreme Court. An order to eliminate birthright citizenship, the constitutional guarantee of U.S. citizenship to most people born on American soil, has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
Another Trump initiative might already be backfiring. A mass email that went out Tuesday to federal employees requires a return to office full time and offers buyouts. But it has spurred resistance among some, who say they have no intention of giving in to the president. Mr. Trump had campaigned on going after what he called the “deep state” and replacing civil servants with political appointees.
The emails offer full pay through Sept. 30 if workers resign by Feb. 6, and came with the subject line “Fork in the Road.” That’s the heading that Trump ally Elon Musk used when he bought Twitter (now known as X) in 2022 and offered severance to reduce the staff. Mr. Musk is head of the Trump advisory commission known as the Department of Government Efficiency.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who represents a large part of the federal workforce, took to the Senate floor Tuesday and called the buyout offer a “scam.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, posted on the social media site X that the buyout offer “is backed by no funds and no authority.”
Eric Posner, an expert on presidential authority at the University of Chicago Law School, urges caution in judging the flurry of executive actions Mr. Trump has signed since taking office.
“Presidents often issue a lot of dramatic executive orders in the early days of their term,” Professor Posner says. “But to really understand whether the president is abusing power, or just using the power he’s been given, you have to look at every executive order and see how it holds up.”
But with Mr. Trump, he says, there does seem to be a rhetorical goal – to present himself as “extremely powerful and active.”
