At a televised town hall in 2023, Sean Hannity gave Donald Trump a chance to dispel fears that he’d abuse power if given another spin as president. Trump sort-of obliged: He’d be a dictator, he said, just “for Day 1.”
Supporters insisted he was only joking with his use of “dictator.” Critics took him seriously; he had, after all, tried to stay in power after losing reelection. And they scoffed at the idea that Trump — a “wannabe dictator” and “fascist to the core,” according to the general he made the nation’s top military officer in his first term — would be content with a single day of power regardless of Congress, the courts, federal law or the Constitution.
The critics, including retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, were right. And the joke, alas, is on all Americans, as well as millions abroad who look to the United States as the global bastion of democracy and stability.
In the two weeks since Trump took the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, it’s been a diktat a day, often more than one.
The nation is in the midst of a rolling constitutional crisis.
Though the founders charged presidents to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” the nation’s first convicted felon turned commander in chief has no time or patience for the process of passing laws or repealing those he doesn’t like. He’s choosing to be a strong man, exactly what the anti-monarchical founders were trying to prevent.
As outrageous as it was, Trump’s Day 1 clemency for his nearly 1,600 fellow Jan. 6 insurrectionists was at least within a president’s express powers, as are tariffs. Much else is not.
In keeping China-controlled TikTok alive here, apparently because he believes it helped him get elected, Trump is defying a law that was approved by bipartisan majorities in Congress and upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court. With a Sharpie stroke, he purported to strike down the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship.
Trump is blatantly ignoring Congress’ power of the purse, a prerogative so elementary it’s kids’ stuff. Administration officials afterward rescinded a memo calling for the freeze.
Trump broke federal law on his first Friday by firing 18 inspectors general — the independent overseers who monitor agencies for the waste, fraud and abuse that he says he wants to root out — without giving Congress a 30-day notice and justifications. Violating legal protections for civil service employees, his teams have been purging senior Justice Department prosecutors and investigators and targeting thousands of FBI agents nationwide.
Before the election, some Trump voters denied he’d go so far. He’s going so far.
One of Trump’s greatest abuses of power is his empowerment of the unelected and unconfirmed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and donor of more than a quarter-billion to the Trump campaign.
In recent days, the American oligarch’s self-selected teams have literally invaded the Treasury Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and now the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. At the Treasury, they seized control of government-wide payments systems.
Where’s the outrage?
Republicans are doing nothing, leaving Trump virtually unchecked. They’re either cheering or staying mute for fear of retribution from him or MAGA voters — “the leg-breakers back home,” in the doleful words of Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan. And Senate Republicans are confirming manifestly unfit toadies for Trump’s Cabinet, who pay lip service to the law but obey Trump.
“Whole lotta big cases coming the federal judiciary’s way,” conservative Stanford Law professor Orin Kerr warned this week.
In the meantime, we just keep counting Trump’s days as dictator.