Adam White highlights one of the disturbing elements of President Donald Trump’s use of executive power.
For years, limiting the administrative state—the rabbit warren of bureaucratic offices and officials who regulate virtually every aspect of American life—has been a central pillar of conservative thought. One might have thought Donald Trump’s second term would be dedicated to this cause, to which all Republicans and conservatives have paid lip service over the past decade.
Not so fast. Since January 20, President Trump has issued a tidal wave of executive orders and other edicts, some attempting to reorganize the executive branch, others attempting to reorganize the global economy. He announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency and the termination of birthright citizenship. He declared that Venezuela is invading the United States, and he declared war on law firms and universities and members of his own first administration. He freed Capitol rioters from prison, calling their judicial trials and convictions a “grave national injustice,” and he sent hundreds of men to an El Salvador prison without the due process of law. He is leveraging his presidential powers to extract money and other concessions from private companies; he also is leveraging presidential powers to cut off federal payments to federal contractors, employees, and grant recipients. He is breathing new life into the archaic Alien Enemies Act; he is declaring the brand-new TikTok law a dead letter.
“I think we had a great 100 days,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. “It was an absolutely unprecedented 100 days.
”If anything, that understates things. Even Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s landmark first 100 days, which set the tone for all new presidencies, mostly featured a series of legislative achievements. When FDR took to the airwaves to reflect on “the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal,” he was extolling the legislature—“the historical special session of the Congress”—and not simply an avalanche of administrative power. President Trump’s first 100 days simply have no precedent.
