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(WASHINGTON) — One hundred days ago this week, just hours after taking the oath of office and reveling before a crowd of thousands at Capital One Arena, President Donald Trump signed the first executive orders of his second term.
With the stroke of his pen, he maintained he could freeze environmental and other agency regulations Congress had authorized. With another, he withdrew the U.S. from an international climate agreement.
“You’re witnessing the dawn of the golden age of America,” he told the roaring crowd. “That’s what it’s going to be.”
Overall, he’s issued more than 130 executive orders and even more memorandums, declared at least eight national emergencies and engaged in a showdown with the courts that has prompted debate on whether a constitutional crisis is underway.
Driving much of his action is a legal theory advocated by conservatives that the Constitution gives a president nearly unquestioned control over the federal government.
Trump and his top officials also contend that he’s simply working to implement the agenda that Americans voted for in November.
But other constitutional and legal experts who spoke with ABC News call it unparalleled overreach.
“This really is unprecedented,” Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, told ABC News.
“We’ve seen really broad theories of executive power advanced in previous administrations,” Goitein said. “There’s been a steady trend over the last few decades towards increasingly broad views of executive power, especially after 9/11. But this is unprecedented and it’s different in kind, not just in degree.”
Trump, in a recent interview with Time to mark 100 days, disagreed.
“Well, I don’t feel I’m expanding it,” Trump told the magazine when asked about amassing presidential power. “I think I’m using it as it was meant to be used.”
Trump’s ‘government by executive order’
Nearly every day since Jan. 20, Trump has signed executive actions in the Oval Office, often in front of television cameras. He’s signed the greatest number of executive orders in his first 100 days of any president going back 88 years.
“He’s trying to do government by executive order on a whole range of issues,” said David Schultz, a constitutional law expert at Hamline University.
Following Trump’s lead, his administration has carried out a dramatic purge of what Congress had set up as independent agencies, firing tens of thousands of employees, even those with civil service protections. He’s also sought to wipe out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the federal government.
Trump signed an order to diminish the Department of Education, with the ultimate goal of wiping away the agency established by law. He’s tried to effectively end birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment and has been upheld repeatedly by the Supreme Court.
To move forward with his immigration and economic policies, Trump has declared national emergencies that Goitein, an expert on presidential emergency powers, said are unjustified.
Despite border crossings being down, Trump invoked the 1798 wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants his administration alleged to be gang members, affording them little to no due process.
He invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act in order to impose sweeping tariffs on virtually all U.S. trading partners. Though it is Congress, not the president, that has the power to impose taxes and regulate trade — and the emergency power used by Trump makes no mention of tariffs.
At times, he’s used the power of the presidency to pursue retribution on political opponents. Seemingly contrary to his promise to end the “weaponization” of government and the justice system, he’s signed orders targeting specific law firms that took on clients or cases he disagreed with politically. He directed the Justice Department to investigate Chris Krebbs and Miles Taylor, two officials from his first term who’ve criticized him or challenged his 2020 election falsehoods.
Trump’s harshest critics say some action verges on authoritarianism, noting his open respect for “strongman” leaders, including China’s President Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
“Sometimes you need a strongman,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity last September while campaigning.
Pushback from the courts — but not from Congress
“Our Framers were envisioning that if a president tried to do things like this, Congress would step in,” said Schultz. “And right now, it looks like partisanship is more powerful than checks and balances.”
Despite having Republican majorities (albeit narrow ones) in the House and Senate, Trump has opted to largely go it alone on his agenda in his first 100 days. Republicans on Capitol Hill, so far, appear uninterested or unwilling to seriously challenge him.
“We’re all afraid,” GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the few Republicans to be critical of Trump, told her Alaskan constituents last month. Murkowski added that “retaliation is real.”
While congressional pushback has been minimal, a clear clash is underway between the Trump administration and the courts as various groups and individuals challenge his policies.
Trump has berated judges who ruled against him as “radical left” and called for District Judge James Boasberg’s impeachment. He and Vice President JD Vance openly floated the idea of not abiding by lower court orders — “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump posted on social media — though later said they would comply with decisions from the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement in rebuke of the rhetoric — and though he didn’t mention Trump by name, the context was clear.
In a major escalation of the administration’s standoff with the courts, the FBI last week arrested a Milwaukee judge, Hannah Dugan, and accused her of obstructing immigration agents. An attorney for Dugan said she will “defend herself vigorously and looks forward to being exonerated.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked about the incident, left open the possibility of the Justice Department taking more action against federal judges or even Supreme Court justices if they were obstructing the arrest of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
“He thinks he can either ignore or bully his way through,” Schultz said of Trump’s posture toward the judiciary. “And so far, he’s got a mixed record at best in terms of being able to do that.”
Several legal experts and presidential scholars who spoke to ABC News expressed concern that the courts will become inundated by Trump’s moves as his second term continues, and the system of checks and balances will continue to break down.
“The separation of powers is probably the most important protection that we have against presidents becoming kings,” said Goitein. “If this is the new normal, then we can say goodbye to democracy.”
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