This morning The New York Times asks, is there a constitutional crisis?
In the United States, Congress, the president and the courts are supposed to keep an eye on one another — to stop any one branch of government from becoming too powerful. President Trump is showing us what happens when those checks and balances break down.
The president can’t shut down agencies that Congress
has funded, yet that’s what Trump did, with Elon Musk’s help, to the U.S.
Agency for International Development. The president can’t fire inspectors
general without giving lawmakers 30 days’ notice, but Trump dismissed 17 of
them anyway. Congress passed a law forcing TikTok to sell or close, and the
courts upheld it, but Trump declined to enforce it. “The president is openly
violating the law and Constitution on a daily basis,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political
scientist at Dartmouth College.
In doing so, Trump has called the bluff of our
constitutional system: It works best when each branch does its job with
alacrity. Trump’s opponents are filing lawsuits, but courts are slow and
deliberative. They can’t keep up with the changes the White House has already
implemented. Congress could fight back, but the Republican lawmakers in charge
have shrugged, as my colleague Carl Hulse reported. Senator Thom Tillis of
North Carolina conceded that what the administration is doing “runs
afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, he said, “nobody should
bellyache about that.”
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