Historian says no president ‘has gone quite so far’
President Donald Trump told an interviewer this week that “there are no limits” to his presidential power, a declaration that has reignited the nation’s founding debate over how much authority a single executive should wield as the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary of independence from British monarchy.
Trump did not, according to the BBC, obtain congressional authorization before launching a war in Iran, and he kept most lawmakers in the dark about a military operation in Venezuela to seize President Nicolás Maduro. He also used emergency powers to impose trade tariffs around the world without legislation — a move the Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional.
By using the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute perceived adversaries, including former FBI Director James Comey, Trump is accused by critics of ripping up the traditional separation between the White House and federal prosecutors that has existed since President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
Princeton historian Julian Zelizer told the BBC he could not “think of another president who has gone quite so far, who is as enamoured with power.”
But Joshua Treviño, a senior director at the conservative America First Policy Institute, warned against confusing Trump’s image with actual expansion of the office’s powers.
“It’s easy to confuse the aesthetic with the substance with President Trump,” Treviño told the BBC. He cited Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon as past presidents who tried to expand executive power, saying: “I would push back pretty hard against the idea that Donald Trump is doing something qualitatively unique in American history.”
Trump was elected having promised sweeping change across immigration, trade, and foreign policy. According to YouGov polls cited by the BBC, four in five Republicans approve of the job he is doing, but his approval rating among all voters has dropped below 40%, significantly down from the start of his second term.
The debate over presidential power is as old as the republic. In 1787, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “You are afraid of the one — I, of the few. … I would therefore have given more Power to the President and less to the Senate.” The founders considered titles including “His Highness,” “His Excellency,” “His Elective Majesty,” and “His Mightiness” before settling on “President,” according to the BBC.
Trump is spending the eve of the July 4 anniversary at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where his supporters have proposed adding his likeness to the monument alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. A bill in Congress demands the addition.
Terry Davis, 72, a motorcyclist visiting the area, told the BBC that Trump should be “front and centre, and the biggest. I have not been this passionate about any other president in the past until he took the reins of this country.” Another biker, Tim Burke, predicted that “long after he’s left office, 20, 30 years from now, I believe the historians will say that he’s been one of the greatest presidents in the history of our nation for the things that he has done for it.”
But other Americans expressed concern. Lorraine Ross, celebrating her 60th birthday at the Middleton Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland, told the BBC she was worried about cuts to financial assistance for families in need and children with special needs. She expressed anger at Congress for “just letting him [Trump] run amok and ignore all the laws” that have constrained presidents’ behavior in the past.