Susan Davis (4:27)

Hi, Elsa.

Carrie Johnson (4:28)

Hey, there.

Ailsa Chang (4:28)

Okay, can you just start by explaining first the kinds of actions that you're talking about here when you say that President Trump is weakening or eliminating parts of the federal government that would ordinarily be a check on the executive. Carrie, you first.

Carrie Johnson (4:43)

Well, let's start with the Justice Department. My focus where new leaders have basically swept the top ranks of the civil service. They've fired prosecutors who worked on cases against Donald Trump and against people who stormed the Capitol. They fired the top ethics officials, the pardon attorney, the person in charge of Freedom of Information act requests. And they've tried to transfer some of the country's most experienced prosecutors who handle national security and tax issues into an office devoted to immigration. That's one of Trump's top priorities. They've also installed Ed Martin as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. he has no prosecutorial experience. He's been posting on social media that he's a lawyer for the president. And he's threatened to go after people who criticize billionaire Elon Musk.

Susan Davis (5:27)

And one of the early actions that I would point to is when Trump decided that he was to fire independent inspectors general across 18 different federal agencies. And these were jobs that were created in response to the Watergate scandal under President Nixon. They were designed to create more accountability in the executive branch. But there's long been a view on the right that these jobs never should have been created in the first place. One of the people who agrees with that is John Yoo. He's a conservative legal scholar and a former Justice Department official.

Ailsa Chang (5:56)

And one way to understand what Trump.

Carrie Johnson (5:58)

Is trying to do. And I'm not saying even that Trump.

Ailsa Chang (6:00)

Understands this is what he's doing, but.

Carrie Johnson (6:02)

The presidency, the way it's designed, urges.

Ailsa Chang (6:05)

Him to do it, is he's trying to snap those bounds that were imposed on the presidency in the post Watergate era. So is the argument from some people on the right, essentially, there should be no independent checks on the president within the executive branch.

Susan Davis (6:21)

Yes. I mean, people like you would argue that these agencies should absolutely exist, but they should be more directly accountable to the White House. And you can see Trump testing these boundaries by his administration's effort to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for instance, as well as the stop work orders, the firings or attempted firings at independent agencies like the securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Election Commission.

Ailsa Chang (6:44)

Okay, that may be the theory of executive power of some people on the right, but what about critics against the Trump administration's actions? Like, how are they characterizing what President Trump is doing here?

Carrie Johnson (6:55)

From the perspective of some of these outside government watchdogs, Donald Trump is explicitly undermining the forces within the government that are aimed at stopping corruption. I spoke with Danielle Bryan. She leads the Project on Government Oversight.

Ailsa Chang (7:09)

I don't think it's inconsequential that removing.

Susan Davis (7:12)

The heads of those offices whose job.

Ailsa Chang (7:14)

It is to protect whistleblowers and prevent corruption and wrongdoing, were the early targets of the Trump administration. I think what's also important is the signal that that sends to all those who are left behind.

Carrie Johnson (7:28)

Brian says no one's going to feel empowered now to raise their hand and report any wrongdoing or a conflict of interest. And the Trump administration is now fighting more than 100 lawsuits over some of these moves. So many it's needed to move lawyers around to defend the government in these cases.

Susan Davis (7:43)

I also spoke with Tara Malloy. She's a lawyer at the Campaign Legal center, another election watchdog group. And she noted the February 18th executive order calling for the president to have, quote, supervision and control of the entire executive branch. She called that point blank, a power grab. Her focus was on the attempt to control the fec, which oversees campaign finance laws. And look, she made this point that it can't both be a neutral arbiter of campaign laws and report directly to the president, one of the candidates on the ballot. And I think you can see the basic unfairness. If you were to flip the situation. If, for instance, the Biden administration had exerted presidential control over the FEC, would President Trump think that his 2024 campaign was getting a fair Shake.

Ailsa Chang (8:28)

Yeah, but I got to ask, you know, whatever your legal or constitutional theory of executive power is, politically speaking, pushing for extremely expansive executive power seems like a risky endeavor in this country. Americans fought a war, so they didn't have to answer to a king. So is there much public support now for essentially a less accountable president?

Susan Davis (8:49)

Look, there's a lot of political contradictions here. I would note that Trump campaigned very loudly on this idea that the president should exert more power over the government, and he won fair and square. So these actions shouldn't really come as a surprise to the country. But you're right, they're. There isn't a ton of evidence that the country is clamoring to have this all powerful executive.

Carrie Johnson (9:09)

And in the federal courts, they move pretty slowly, but they're really the only part of the system that's right now working as a check on the executive branch. They've been under pressure, too, from the president, who's been criticizing judges, and from Elon Musk, who's been calling for some of these judges to be impeached. The big question now is how long the courts can withstand that kind of pressure.

Ailsa Chang (9:29)

Right. Okay. So obviously many court battles ahead on this, but can we just presume for the sake of argument, that Trump is successful in bringing some element of these functions directly under the control of the White House? How could that all play out, you think?

Carrie Johnson (9:43)

We're seeing some of it happen right now? Last year, in the immunity decision about Donald Trump, the Supreme Court gave a president nearly absolute power over the Justice Department, including the ability to have conversations about criminal cases and other enforcement actions. And Trump seems to be taking full advantage of that power right now. It's really been giving rise to a concern that allies of the president are getting a break from the Justice Department and that some of Trump's critics could be getting targeted by it. The DOJ and the FBI, of course, have a great deal of power to put people under enormous financial and psychological pressure. And if that power is being misused, it will have consequences for the rule of law.

Susan Davis (10:22)

Taken to its extreme, it would usher in an era of little or no independent checks on the president, with fewer or no watchdogs and more politicized agencies. Now, proponents of this would say, look, accountability would still exist. It would exist in the court of public opinion. Presidents are still held accountable in elections by vote, and also in the constitutional checks on power afforded Congress. Congress has the authority to pass laws to rein in the presidency or the ultimate power of impeachment to remove a president. But Elsa as we're also living this in real time. Public opinion doesn't matter as much in a second term, and Congress, particularly when controlled by the same party, demonstrates little interest in checking their president.

Ailsa Chang (11:03)

So far, at least, that is NPR's Susan Davis and Carrie Johnson. And thank you to both of you so much.

Susan Davis (11:09)

You're welcome.

Carrie Johnson (11:10)

Thank you.

Ailsa Chang (11:14)

This episode was produced by Briana Scott. It was edited by Courtney Dorning, Patrick Jaron Watananan, Kelsey Snell and Nadia Lancy. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigun. It's Consider this from npr. I'm Ailsa Changing on Throughline from npr. The consequences for the country would have been enormous. It would have been a crisis. The man who saw a dangerous omission in the US Constitution and took it upon himself to fix it. Find NPR's Throughline wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's hey, Martinez. A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on one story, but sometimes you need for up first on NPR. We bring you the three top world headlines every single day in under 15 minutes because no one story can capture all that's happening in este mundo tangrande on any given morning. So listen to the Up First Podcast from npr. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon prime members can listen to Consider this sponsor free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider this +@ +npr.org. that's +npr.org.