Eight years ago this week, then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan appeared on “60 Minutes” and spoke with CBS News’ Scott Pelley about his expectations for Donald Trump’s incoming administration. At the time, the Wisconsin Republican said he had spoken “at length” with the then-president-elect about constitutional boundaries and the separation of powers, and that he was optimistic about the road ahead.
Ryan assured viewers that Trump “actually felt very strongly that he had stripped a great deal of power from the Constitution and from the legislative branch of government under President Obama’s watch. And we want to restore the balance of power.”
Pelley asked, somewhat surprised, “You’re not thinking [Trump] Does he think he’s going to run this country the way he wants?” Ryan responded, “No, I think he understands there is a constitution.”
Eight years later, it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Trump may well have wanted to ‘restore the balance of power’, but despite the confidence of the then chairman, this was certainly not in Congress’s favor.
Now that the newly elected president is eyeing a second term, Ryan’s 2016 promises seem even more absurd. The New York Times reported over the holiday weekend:
Newly elected President Donald J. Trump’s determination to break through the traditional guardrails of government will provide a fundamental test of whether the Republican-controlled Senate fulfills its constitutional role as an independent institution and as a check on presidential power. can maintain. With Trump advancing a slew of controversial candidates and threatening to challenge Congress’ authority in other ways, Republicans who will hold the majority in January could find themselves in the precarious position of choosing between stand up for their institution or bow to their institution. a president who rejects the norms of government.
The Times’ analysis added that Trump’s ambitions risk doing “lasting damage to the Senate” and undermining the country’s “constitutional system.”
It is fair to say that the Republican has been running on an authoritarian platform for much of the year. As regular readers know, Trump threatened perceived enemies with prison terms, endorsed a “strongman” leadership style, bragged about his support of dictators, raised the prospect of a temporary American “dictatorship,” promised a crackdown on the free press, and talked about “terminating” parts of the Constitution that hinder his ambitions.
Trump also argued that his rivals should not be “allowed” to act against him, targeted immigrants with Hitler-style rhetoric, while promising to create militarized mass deportations and detention camps, promising to pardon politically connected criminals , and urged that those who criticize judges and Supreme Court justices who he believes “should be put in jail.”
And did I mention that he has raised the specter of military tribunals for his perceived domestic political enemies? Because he did that too.
But as part of the 2024 campaign, Trump did not go out of his way to emphasize his plans to consolidate federal power in the executive branch and shift authority away from the legislature. Now that Election Day is over, however, this has become a central element of his vision for the near future.
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus recently published an important summary on this, highlighting the extent to which the president-elect is paving the way for an “alarming takeover” aimed at “a massive, dangerous and unconstitutional expansion of presidential power” .
This agenda, Marcus added, “involves not only gutting the Senate’s advisory and consent role, but also refusing to spend money that lawmakers have appropriated, curbing the independence of federal regulators, and dismantling of the impartial civil service.”
That same day, Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times explained: “In our system, the executive branch cannot exercise the full power of the legislature. It cannot act as a monarch would. The sovereign people have not placed their power in a leviathan. The result is that any interpretation of the Constitution that grants the president monarchical power is wrong. The structure of the Constitution precludes royal prerogative, and the ethos of American democracy forbids it.”
It’s a view that Trump seems eager to cast aside, rejecting the idea of the separation of powers and taking steps to seize additional government authority for himself.
The question then becomes what Republican members of Congress – ostensibly a co-equal branch of government – want to do about it.
We’ll learn soon enough how federal lawmakers respond to a president trying to consolidate power in the Oval Office, but the early evidence is hardly encouraging. For example, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama recently told Fox News that Trump and newly elected Vice President J.D. Vance will soon “run the Senate.”
The Alabaman added that, as far as he’s concerned, it’s not up to senators to “determine” whether Trump’s Cabinet nominees have merit.
Of course, in reality, Tuberville has overlooked one of the Senate’s most important responsibilities by pretending that the Constitution’s advice and consent authority does not exist.
Around the same time, Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas added, referring to the president-elect: “He has a mission, his mission and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we have to embrace it, all of it. , every word. … If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we’ll all jump three feet high and scratch your head. That’s it.”
Preserving our constitutional system requires elected legislators to stand up for their own power. Given the increasingly dire state of Republicans in Congress, it is difficult to be optimistic.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
