During his weekly appearance on PBS’s “NewsHour,” The Atlantic’s David Brooks declared President Donald Trump’s presidency the “most imperial presidency in American history.”
According to Brooks, Trump had far surpassed the alleged indiscretions of the late Richard Nixon.
“Well, it’ll make tariff-issuing harder, certainly will not make them go away,” he said regarding the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on tariffs. “Trump has made that perfectly clear. But just on the substance of it, it’s become clear that this tariff policy is a gigantic economic failure. It was designed to reduce — to increase manufacturing jobs in the United States. Manufacturing jobs have continued their decline, maybe at an accelerated rate.”
Brooks continued, “At the same time, according to a Fed study this week, 90 percent of the costs are passed on to American consumers. So it’s a tax on Americans. And then it’s led to inflation. But the big picture here is that the Supreme Court has had a pretty consistent line on federal power. They have given Trump a lot of broad latitude to run the executive branch. But they have not given him broad latitude to run the legislative branch. They have said this is a clear legislative thing. It’s in the Constitution, taxing and spending, tariffs. It’s right there. And they’re trying to draw a line around the presidency. Back in like 1973-’74, a historian named Arthur Schlesinger wrote a book called ‘The Imperial Presidency’ about Richard Nixon.”
“That wasn’t even close to where we are today,” he added. “This is the most imperial presidency in American history. And the worst part is, it’s accompanied not only by a president who wants to grab every power, but a Congress whose power is imploding voluntarily. And so part of the problem here is the unwillingness of Congress to do their job. And that leaves a vacuum that Trump can fill.”
(h/t RCP Video)
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