The Morning: A constitutional crisis? - frederick.lapides@gmail.com

February 7, 2025

Good morning. Today, we’re covering an imbalance of power in the government, as well as the U.S. aid agency, a two-state solution and MrBeast’s class consciousness.

The Capitol illuminated from within in half light.

Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

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.”

As a result, most of Trump’s actions stand unchecked. Today’s newsletter looks at why — and where things could go next.

What went wrong

The framers wanted to avoid crowning another king. They believed that no one person could truly represent the whole country. (Consider that Trump won less than half of the vote.) So they dispersed power among the three branches. The president is just one person, Yuval Levin, a conservative analyst, told The Times. In a vast country, representation “has to be done by a plural institution like Congress.”

Lawmakers seated in a joint session of Congress.

Congress ratifying the presidential election result on Jan. 6, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

But polarization has made it harder for Congress to play that role. For much of American history, the two parties were made up of broad coalitions of voters. Seventy years ago, liberals, minority groups and racial segregationists were all part of the Democratic Party. A president could not always rely on members of his party to let him do what he wanted, because they were genuinely divided. When George W. Bush won re-election in 2004, for instance, he wanted to privatize Social Security. His own party helped quash the plan.

Today, the two parties are more homogeneous. The Republican Party has adopted Trump’s views — against foreign interventions, “wokeism” and immigration. And the G.O.P. controls all three branches of government. So the conflict that’s supposed to drive interactions among the branches is muted; Congress, and potentially the courts, are less likely to rein in the president. Now he can impose drastic changes even without a majority’s mandate.

How this ends

This is about the separation of powers, not a specific policy. Maybe you think that TikTok should remain online or that the U.S.A.I.D. shutdown makes sense because the government should spend more on Americans and less on foreign aid. But other government branches’ lack of pushback sets a precedent that Trump can act like a king.

Maybe next time he’d undo the Education Department, vaccine programs or food stamps. Or his administration could repurpose federal funds to imprison unauthorized migrants in detention camps. It could, in a far-fetched scenario, take possession of the Gaza Strip. Normally, these are policies on which Congress must get a say.

Nyhan’s research team has surveyed political scientists at American universities about how worried they are right now. During most of Trump’s first term, the respondents’ opinions about the health of our democracy were largely stable. But their confidence has plunged since Trump’s second inauguration.

A chart shows expert ratings of U.S. democracy on a scale of zero to 100 at various points from February 2017 to February 2025. At the start of the first Trump term, experts rated U.S. democracy at around a 68 out of 100. At the start of the second Trump term, the rating has dropped to 55 out of 100.

Source: Bright Line Watch | By The New York Times

The courts may still intervene, as a judge did yesterday to halt Trump’s offer to pay federal employees to quit. The courts might not reverse every action; several U.S.A.I.D. programs have already stopped dispensing food and medicine abroad, for lack of funds. But the courts could stop Trump from taking similar actions in the future. Maybe the conservative Supreme Court would hold the White House to account.

Nyhan worries about another scenario: What if Trump ignores the courts? Before he was vice president, JD Vance suggested that Trump should do that if the court blocked efforts to remake the federal government. “Stand before the country and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it,’” Vance said, referring to an apocryphal Andrew Jackson quote. Perhaps Trump is already flirting with that kind of defiance. Some federal loans and grants remain frozen despite court orders against Trump’s freeze.

“We’re talking about the idea of whether the president has to follow the law at all,” Nyhan said. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d have to say about the United States, but here we are.”

Related coverage

More than 10,000 people work for U.S.A.I.D. The Trump administration plans to keep only about 290.
U.S.A.I.D. funded medical research around the world. Trump’s shutdown has left scores of people with experimental drugs and devices in their bodies, with no access to care.
For the second time this week, a federal judge issued an injunction to block Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship. The Justice Department appealed the ruling.
Attorneys general in a dozen states are preparing a lawsuit to block Musk’s DOGE team from gaining access to government computer systems that contain sensitive information.

THE LATEST NEWS

Trump Administration

Female volleyball players line up on either side of a volleyball net in a gym. A sign on the back wall says “Spartan Volleyball.”

Women’s volleyball players from San Jose State University and Fresno State. Amy Osborne for The New York Times

The N.C.A.A. said transgender women could not compete in women’s college sports, aligning its policy with an executive order that Trump signed this week.
The Senate confirmed Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Democrats had pulled an all-nighter delivering speeches to protest Vought’s confirmation.
Trump ordered the firing of the chair of the Federal Election Commission, but she said his move was not legal.

Religion

President Donald Trump and others in suits stand and bow their heads.

The National Prayer Breakfast. Eric Lee/The New York Times

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump called for unity and peace — a departure from his other comments this week.
The president convened a task force to fight “anti-Christian bias.”

Media

The White House is cutting news subscriptions for employees.
Politico has been the subject of a social media misinformation campaign. Trump and others claimed the government had paid millions of dollars to the site for positive coverage of Democrats, but the government actually had subscriptions to Politico Pro, a premium news service.

International

A man with his head covered stands on top of a pickup truck while holding a gun. In the distance, black smoke billows.

A Sudanese Army soldier. El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters

The war between Sudan’s army and paramilitary forces has intensified. Recent fighting has killed hundreds of people, including children.
Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and potentially allow Israeli annexation of the West Bank would effectively end the two-state solution, Peter Baker writes.
Trump signed an executive order placing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, months after the court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.
The European Union spent last year compiling a secret playbook for how to respond if Trump raised tariffs. Read about the plans.

Aviation

A plane carrying 10 people went missing off the coast of Alaska.
The Army helicopter that collided with a passenger jet near Washington last week had its tracking technology turned off.
A U.S. military contractor plane crashed in the Philippines, killing all four people on board.
Trump said he would work with Congress to improve aviation safety.
Customs officials at LAX found 37 live beetles, worth about $1,500, being smuggled inside snack bags and containers from Japan.

MORNING READS

A cartoon of a woman hugging the outline of another person.

Illustration by Liana Finck

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Most clicked yesterday: Six ways alcohol can affect your gut health.

Whale words: Humpbacks’ songs share structural patterns with human language, scientists found.

Visiting London: Want to get to know the locals? Stay in a pub.

Lives Lived: Virginia Halas McCaskey watched N.F.L. history unfold as she cheered on the Chicago Bears alongside her father, George Halas, the team’s founder, and then oversaw the organization as its owner. She died at 102.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: In a major upset, the Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.

N.B.A.: Teams made deals in the hours before the trade deadline. Here are the winners.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Three women and a man pose against a hot pink backdrop in a magpie combination of print looks designed by Mr. Michele.

Gucci in fall 2016. Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times

The ready-to-wear fashion shows have begun in New York and will soon roll through London, Milan and Paris. The first major trend is already clear, our fashion critic Vanessa Friedman wrote: Big-name fashion houses are combining their men’s and women’s shows. Read what to expect.

Related: Gucci’s designer is leaving.

The Morning: A constitutional crisis? -