Structural Advantages and Executive Power Expansion

You're listening to Trump' terms, I'm Scott Dedr. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the forty seventh presresident, with a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries presidential power Here's the latest PR I'm Stevvensky. President Trump spent much of his second term asserting the power of the presidency. Republicans who control another branch of government, Congress, have largely obeyed the president's commands or fell silent as he took their power for himself The third branch of government, the Supreme Court as in some cases blocked the president and in other cases affirmed his efforts Now that the court's term is over, NPR senior political correspondent Tam Ra Keith is here with an assessment. Tam, goodood morning Good morning. We should note that in this term, Trump lost two really big cases, one over tariffs and the other over his effort to end birthrights citizenship, which came this week. How did he take those defeats? Well, on tariffs back in February, he held this angry press conference at the White House and called the conservative justices who cided against him disloyal among other insults The president had campaigned on tariffs. He loves tariffs as a tool, but in terms of politics Poll show voters don't share that love, so there's a way in which that legal loss could be seen as a political win. And then with the citizenship case Trump's response has been much more muted. We didn't even see him yesterday. On social media, he said the decision was, quote, too bad for our country. And yes, he campaigned on ending birthright citizenship and signed that executive order on day one But it was a long shot legal theory and it wasn't the cornerstone of his immigration agenda. And it seems he did win some other cases on immigration Yeah, immmigration is an area where there's a lot of executive authority and the court confirmed that two recent decisions siding with the Trump administration on both amnesty and temporary protected status, allowing Trump to strictly limit even legal immigration So the bulk of the president's immigration agenda is full steam ahead. and Taken as a whole, I have to say this has been an overwhelmingly good year for the president with this conservative super majority on the court. I say what you mean by that This is a midterm election year. The president has low approval, gas prices are elevated, voters are in a bad mood, and that's a recipe for a rough election for the president's party. But a decision from the court yesterday loosening campaign finance rules is widely seen as helping Republicans more than Democrats And an earlier decision from the court throwing out section two of the Voting Rights Act that came early enough for some red states to scramble to redraw congressional district lines to favor Republicans is another one Thanks to this court, Republicans now have more structural advantages than they did at the beginning of this year. The court did happen to make sure that that particular districting case got in a little bit earlier than some others. So do you have any sense of how the president sees this term, then He is celebrating the wins and talking about workarounds for the losses. He has now posted repeatedly about the expansion of executive power that the court granted him earlier this week. It allows the president to fire commissioners at federal agencies that were designed by Congress to be independent. He wrote yesterday, quote, this decision gives tremendous additional power back to the presidency where it belongs Trump is known for hyperbole, but even those who disagree with that decision say this is a huge concentration of power in the hands of the president. Trump ads The Republican Party was treated very fairly by the United States Supreme Court. And PS Tam McKeith always treats the news very fairly. Tam, thanks so much. goodood hear from you You're welcome. A note before we go, If you value this show and want to help keep it going, A free and totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen in a world of algorithms that goes a long way toward helping us reach new listeners If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much I'm Scott Detru, Thankks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR