MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So the president is closing out his first week in office with a planned trip to disaster zones. But here in the nation's capital, he has delivered the shock and awe that some of his allies predicted for his first 100 days. A barrage of first-day executive actions included a directive to eliminate birthright citizenship, something he told reporters he wanted to do back in 2018.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'd rather do it through Congress 'cause that's permanent, but we can certainly do it through - I really believe we can do it through executive order.
MARTIN: Yesterday, a federal judge temporarily blocked his attempt to erase the 14th Amendment protection, calling it blatantly unconstitutional. But with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, how much latitude does Trump have to expand the power of the presidency? To talk about that, we've called Andrew Rudalevige. He is a professor of government at Bowdoin College, and he's written multiple books on presidential power, including his most recent that focuses on executive orders. Good morning, professor. Thanks for joining us.
ANDREW RUDALEVIGE: A pleasure. Thank you.
MARTIN: So I want to note that your books examining presidential power were published before Trump returned to the White House because that just happened this week. Has another president wielded his executive power in the way that Donald Trump has these last five days?
RUDALEVIGE: Well, in terms of the flood of executive actions, almost 50 so far - executive orders, memoranda, proclamations, et cetera - certainly, that flood right out of the gate is new. We haven't seen that before, and I think the president promised to be record-setting. That was kind of a low bar, to be honest, but he's managed it. Many of these things are routine. Many presidents will come in and try to reshape the way federal employment works or regulations are issued.
But many others are making pretty big claims about the scope of presidential authority, and these are new. You know, the claim of emergency is not new. Certainly, other presidents have done that and used their authority under proclamations of emergency during wartime especially. What's new here, maybe, are these claims in a time when the U.S. is not in a war, claims about invasion on the Southern border, about an energy emergency, claims to be able to withhold spending that Congress has approved, claims not to have to enforce the law, for example, with regarding TikTok. And you already mentioned the 14th Amendment order.
MARTIN: So, you know, in your opinion, has he crossed the line into abuse of power? And, you know, this is an important question because the president - you know, President Trump has been all week complaining about his predecessor, President Biden, saying, for example, his last-minute pardons of members of his family or people he says could face retaliation from the Trump administration - he says that was crossing the line. That was an abuse of power. So this is - and his supporters agree with him - so in your view.
RUDALEVIGE: Well, I mean, the pardon power is an interesting one. It's effectively unchecked. And I do think it's been abused by presidents of both parties going back in time. The broader claims, though, that are being made now - for example, executive orders are supposed to be used to faithfully execute the law. That's a presidential duty in the Constitution. It's a little hard to square that with an executive order telling the attorney general, for example, not to enforce the law or in the birthright citizen case to effectively rewrite the Constitution. That's not within presidential authority. So in that sense, yes, there is an abuse of power.
MARTIN: A few of the Republicans who now control Congress, as we've said, have questioned some of Trump's executive actions. Some, of course, questioned the pardons, but that's a separate issue, as you just told us. But I'm thinking about the immediate pause on infrastructure spending that Congress had already approved - response has been muted. Now, spending is a congressional prerogative. So if Congress isn't willing to assert institutional authority on one of its core functions, what is the check on power?
RUDALEVIGE: Yeah, this is an important question because it goes back to arguments across American history but most notably in the Nixon administration over what's called impoundment, again, the refusal by the president to spend money that's been appropriated. Here, again, this pause in money that has been authorized is a sort of perhaps protoimpoundment (ph). We haven't gotten there quite yet. Congress has a lot of authority to react to executive branch actions, perhaps by not approving nominees, by refusing to spend money on things the president does want and, of course, ultimately by impeachment.
If Congress chooses not to act, though, this is something that's been to court before and likely will go there again. There's a 1975 Supreme Court case that held that the president could not do this, and that came off the back of a 1974 law making it illegal, the Impoundment Control Act. Russ Vought, the president's new director of the Office of Management and Budget, has said he thinks that law's unconstitutional, and we may find out.
MARTIN: I think we'll be talking about this some more. So thank you so much for joining us today. That's Andrew Rudalevige. He's a professor of government at Bowdoin College. His latest book is on executive orders. Thank you so much.
RUDALEVIGE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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