WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has leaned heavily on executive power to remake the federal government at the outset of his new administration, largely leaving Congress on the sidelines.
Instead of relying on members of the Republican-controlled House and Senate to pass laws to give him new authorities, Trump has sought to bypass Congress by invoking or repurposing existing laws to carry out his agenda since taking office in January. And he’s received widespread support from his party on Capitol Hill, with Democrats mostly powerless to rein him in.
Trump has so far signed just five bills into law — fewer than any president in the first 100 days of an administration since at least Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, according to an NBC News analysis of data in the congressional record. By this time during his first term, Trump had signed 30 bills into law. In their first 100 days, Barack Obama had enacted 14 bills and Joe Biden had signed 11.
“He hasn’t signed many bills into law because the agenda of the first 100 days has not been a legislative agenda at all,” said William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. “Clearly the administration, before it took office, planned a whirlwind of activity for the first 100 days at a pace that was compatible only with executive action. And this is part of an effort not only to overwhelm doubters and opponents through shock and awe tactics, but also to permanently expand executive power.”
“I would say that that is the most fundamental institutional objective of Donald Trump and his administration,” he said.
Three of the bills Trump signed this year were measures to terminate regulations established by Biden, which the GOP fast-tracked under the Congressional Review Act. Another was a stopgap bill to keep the government funded for six months. And one was a strict immigration detention measure called the Laken Riley Act.
While the government funding and immigration measures ultimately received some Democratic support, none of these measures were crafted on a bipartisan basis — a contrast to the way Congress operated at times during Trump’s first term.
Trump is expected to soon sign a sixth bill into law, the “Take It Down Act,” which criminalizes the publication of nonconsensual, sexually explicit images and videos, including those generated by artificial intelligence. The House overwhelmingly passed it Monday night, sending it to Trump’s desk.
Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has sought out existing laws to reinterpret to advance his goals, drawing a wide array of legal challenges. He has reached as far back as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to execute on mass deportations. And he has declared a national emergency to pursue sweeping tariffs on American allies and foes alike.
Trump came into office with a limited legislative agenda of additional funding for immigration enforcement, new policies to expand domestic energy production, an expansion of the military and cutting taxes. He is calling on Republican lawmakers to pass all of that in one big bill and use an arcane budget procedure to cut Democrats out of the process.
“In 100 days, President Trump has already made historic progress toward Making America Great Again by securing the border, restoring energy dominance, and tackling the Biden inflation crisis,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement. “President Trump looks forward to signing his one big beautiful bill very soon to codify the rest of his critical and commonsense agenda — once Congress sends it to his desk.”
Trump’s big bet
Trump has made a bet that Republicans will protect him from Democratic attempts to assert congressional power and limit his actions. So far, it’s paying off.
“Trump, like America, is tired of waiting on Congress,” said conservative Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. “America wants action. If we don’t have the guts to pass laws, then yes, I support him doing that,” he said of Trump relying on executive action. “Strong letters and hearings aren’t enough.”
House Republicans have gone to great lengths to protect Trump’s power to impose tariffs despite widespread skepticism of his actions, effectively prohibiting the chamber from voting on measures to revoke the tariffs.
It isn’t entirely unusual for presidents to reinterpret old laws for new goals. Biden tried to do it to forgive student loan debt, only to be blocked in court. Obama created the “DACA” program for undocumented youth and relied on years-old authorizations to carry out military strikes.
What’s unusual is the extent to which Trump is doing it, and the level of acquiescence he has received from his party in Congress.
“President Trump has taken it to a wholly different level,” Galston said. “When the president says, as he frequently does, ‘You’ve never seen anything like it’ — in this case, that’s the literal truth. I don’t think we’ve seen such an exact expansion or attempted expansion of executive power.”
Trump’s exercise of power has been helped by the fact that his administration is “stocked with loyalists,” Galston added, unlike in his first term. Trump gained Senate approval for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., winning votes from senators who were openly uncomfortable with them.
“Trump was an outlier within his own party in 2017. Now, he’s the dominant force in the party,” he said.
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There are other reasons Congress hasn’t sent many bills to Trump’s desk. Republicans have little margin for error in the House, where they have a narrow 220-213 majority. And House-passed legislation has a higher threshold to clear in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance most bills. With a GOP majority of 53-47, Democrats can block bills — such as one to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.
In his opening months, Trump and his party have shown little inclination to work across the aisle.
“What you’re seeing here is the clear polarization and a very thin majority, with a 60-vote threshold,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in an interview. “You’re not going to get bills passed in this environment. That’s the bottom line.”
Roy said there’s still hope for some narrower bipartisan pursuits, like his proposal to ban stock-trading by members of Congress.
Trump 1.0 versus Trump 2.0
Trump’s mostly unilateral efforts this time around are a contrast to his first term, when he frequently talked up the prospect of a major infrastructure bill and scored some notable bipartisan wins.
In October 2018, when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress, Trump signed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act to combat the opioid epidemic, which passed the House and Senate with broad support from both parties.
And working with celebrity Kim Kardashian that year, Trump ushered a criminal justice reform package through Congress and signed it into law. The First Step Act was backed by a number of top Democrats, including Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who is now the House Democratic leader.
In 2020, Trump helped negotiate and signed into law the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, replacing the long-standing free-trade deal known as NAFTA.
A Republican aide attributed the scant legislative achievements so far this year to the fact that the Senate has been busy confirming Trump’s nominees for his Cabinet and other key administrative posts. The aide also said the Biden administration timed some of its regulations to prevent the new Congress from quickly rolling them back under the Congressional Review Act.
For their part, Democrats say Trump has shown no desire to work with them.
“It’s extremely disappointing that Trump 2.0 has shown zero interest in bipartisan governing,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who voted for the opioid, criminal justice and USMCA bills, and is now running for governor. “This administration is shutting everyone out — choosing chaos and partisan retribution over action that would actually make life more affordable.”
“In 2017, we worked together on issues like criminal justice reform. This time, it’s crickets,” he added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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