On Friday, Feb. 21 Hopkins at Home, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute, and the Alumni in Government, Academia, Law & Policy Community hosted “Executive Power: How Presidential Authority Reshapes Our Relationship with Democracy and Daily Life” as the first online event of a four-part series titled "First 100 Days: From Home to Abroad.” Each part seeks to examine a different facet of executive power during the first 100 days of President Donald J. Trump’s second term.
The event — moderated by Mary Bruce, assistant director of public programs at the SNF Agora Institute — featured Robert Lieberman, a professor of political science at Hopkins, and his research assistant Ido Harlev, a junior majoring in History, in a discussion of Trump’s second term and its implications for the future. The event was structured as a question and answer, with members of the audience participating through the webinar’s question feature as Bruce selected from this pool.
The discussion opened with a general question: What do the panelists make of recent policy developments, and the current limits of executive authority?
Lieberman began by discussing the expansion of presidential power in the U.S. over the 20th and 21st century but stressed that it remains limited by the Constitution through a system of checks and balances with Congress and the judiciary. He speculated on the implications of this system and its evolution in the current era.
“[We now have] a president who seems intent on pushing the boundaries, testing the limits and seems... unafraid of pressing beyond where previous presidents have gone in terms of articulating and enacting a singular presidential vision of how the government's supposed to run,” Lieberman said. “I think that's what we're all watching play out in real time these days.”
He mentioned that presidents who have breached the limits of their constitutional authority often face lawsuits, commencing a long litigation process to determine the constitutionality of a president’s actions. Lieberman contrasted this sluggish process with Trump’s speed in his effort to enact new policies. He then noted that Congress is capable of checking presidential authority, postulating how the legislative branch might act if the president infringes upon the limits of his constitutionally delegated powers.
“So far, we've seen a very quiet Congress,” he said. “But I think, as the consequences of the things that the president is trying to do become more apparent, I suspect that you'll see Congress wake up a little bit and realize that they're either implicated or [that] their power is being chipped away. I think a large part of the accountability will have to come throughout this.”
Harlev agreed with this, expressing frustration with Congress’s recent silence. He also drew attention to unelected political figures with expanding authority, such as Elon Musk, and questioned whether there is a process of holding these officials accountable to the limits of their power.
After a follow-up question from Bruce regarding Trump and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), as both are credited with the expansion of U.S. presidential power, Harlev contrasted the two presidencies and their systems of accountability. He suggested that there were facets of FDR’s cabinet, including an unofficially formed group of African American officials, referred to as the “Black Cabinet,” who ensured that the president’s New Deal policies applied to every American, regardless of race. Harlev compared this with Trump’s current Cabinet, which may not have a counterpoint to keep his policies in check.
“[In FDR’s presidency], the idea was to hold [people] accountable and to make sure that voices are heard,” Harlev said. “When I think of the people that the president has appointed now, the one that comes to mind is Musk... [There are] more yes-men, or people who follow blindly and don't really challenge the status quo. To me, that's a big difference between these two in this comparison.”
Lieberman elaborated on this comparison. He began by noting FDR’s effort as president to expand the membership of the Supreme Court, widely presumed to be an effort to advance his own political agenda. He suggested that the commentary at the time — that FDR was trying to secure “tyrannical power” — resemble the current commentary surrounding Trump’s second term. He also suggested that democracy was perceived as fragile during FDR’s era (which may have motivated his court-packing scheme) and that his plan may have been a means of reconstructing democracy in an unstable era.
He also provided another example of a president who was ultimately held accountable for his actions in American history: Richard Nixon. Lieberman compared Nixon to Trump; both are, he suggested, individuals who may use their presidential authority for personal reasons. Nixon was ultimately held accountable for his actions during the Watergate scandal by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, but the process for uncovering and acknowledging this was lengthy.
“When the evidence became overwhelming that Nixon had committed a criminal act in the Oval Office, he was pushed down,” he said. “That's a picture of a somewhat well-functioning democratic system. And that's where all these questions about accountability, I think, leave us today. What are the mechanisms, and where are we looking for the kind of accountability that the system was able to muster 50 years ago? That seems to be a little bit quiet today.”
Lieberman transitioned to a discussion on the reasons behind the growth of American presidential power. He suggested that the government is expanding and growing increasingly complex; Congress alone cannot sufficiently operate the “machinery of government.” The legislative branch has thus delegated much of its authority to the president in order to ensure that policy decisions are being made and that the affairs of government are being managed efficiently. It is increasingly difficult for Congress to act, Lieberman stressed, as competition between parties and supermajority rules contribute to its political stagnancy. He suggested that this dynamic opens some potentially dangerous doors for the president.
“It’s very hard for Congress to act, and the temptation for presidents of both parties to use their unilateral power to make policy decisions is very great,” Lieberman said. “So you’ve seen this ratchet effect over time with presidential power... It has opened the door for a president like Trump, who has an extremely expansive view of the powers of the president and seems to believe in this theory that there are essentially no limits on presidential executive authority.”
He added that Democratic and Republican presidents alike have used their expanding power to pursue an agenda. He cited Joe Biden’s efforts to forgive student loans as a potentially unconstitutional use of presidential power.
Lieberman proposed that Congress may begin to exert its authority in the coming months, as the consequences of the president’s recent policies become clearer. Recent cuts to the federal government may be viewed less as surgical cuts to bureaucracy and more as a “sweeping away” of obstacles in the president’s and Musk’s paths. Once this becomes apparent to Congress, he suggested, the legislative branch may check Trump’s seemingly expansive executive authority.
Harlev agreed, also suggesting that the reopening of the controversial debt ceiling issue in March may serve as a point of contention between parties in Congress and as a potential legislative check on presidential power.
“As these things that now don't feel immediate, but will at some point be immediate, start to be felt, I hope there will be a bit more pushback from Congress, and a bit less of this rolling over and letting him do whatever he wants,” he added.
After a question from the audience regarding the possibility of a third term for Trump, Harlev stressed that the Constitution and Supreme Court, with its current strict constitutionalist leanings, render this unlikely. He hopes, however, that the Legislative and Judicial Branches begin to exert those constitutional checks on presidential power so as to minimize the likelihood of this possibility.
Bruce then asked about the panelists’ hopes for democracy moving forward as well as their current concerns with the president’s new policies. Lieberman noted that the cuts to the United States Agency for International Development and other federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, pose a serious concern for U.S.-led health and hunger projects as well for jobs and sources of income for American people and agencies.
“There's going to be another pandemic, there's going to be natural disasters, there’s going to be transportation accidents or other kinds of things where people expect the government to respond,” Lieberman said. “The government needs the tools to respond, and those tools are not going to be there. To me, [that] is going to be another moment of truth... for the Republican party. They’re going to own this when it turns out that the government has been so undermined that it can’t respond effectively to the things that people need... Something really bad is going to happen, and that’s going to force the government to change the way it does business.”
The talk concluded with a conversation about the tools of active democracy and a call to action moving forward. Lieberman suggested that the first thing the population can do is to pay attention to the current political scene, which will allow them to develop individual, balanced perspectives on the issues at hand.
“We need people to be able to ask pointed and careful questions about what the government is doing and what the consequences are going to be,” he said. “Just pay careful attention.”
Harlev, in turn, drew attention to the power of the American people — a “fourth branch of government.” The people are able to affect change using their own voices, he stressed, and should remember how much political power they have as individuals.
“I think we often forget how much power each of us as an individual person has,“ Harlev said. “And as difficult as it is to remember that, especially with the barrage of all the information and all the discouraging news that keeps coming at us, remembering that every person matters and every person has a voice is a way to stay sane in this whole situation and to affect change.”
