President Donald Trump and his opponents are having an intense disagreement over the amount of power that the federal government's executive branch enjoys under the U.S. Constitution. Many of those opponents are Democrats, yet quite a few right-wing Never Trump conservatives are arguing that the Constitution doesn't give presidents nearly as much power as Trump thinks it does.
During the Tuesday, September 23 broadcast of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough — a Never Trumper and ex-GOP congressman — and Axios' Jim VandeHei laid out a future scenario in which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) becomes president and makes maximum use of her executive powers.
Republicans, Scarborough and VandeHei argued, will deeply regret undermining the United States' system of checks and balances if, in the future, a left-wing administration headed by AOC or someone else comes to power.
VandeHei told Scarborough and fellow "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski, "Ah, to hell with it — I'm going to give all my power to the executive branch even though the Constitution was never set up that way. Who would ever do that?"
Scarborough responded, "It's unthinkable…. Why would you come to Washington, D.C. just to be a rubber stamp for a president of any kind?.... Please, underline this fact…. Every single thing Donald Trump is doing right now — every precedent he is setting right now to go after his Democratic enemies — they will be used in the future by a Democratic or an independent president to go against their Republican enemies. Political enemies. This is so shortsighted."
The ex-GOP congressman continued, "I don't understand why the Republican Senate is sitting back; they're acting like lemmings when this will be used against them and the very things they care the most about three years from now."
VandeHei stressed that any Republican who favors empowering the executive branch under Trump needs to "insert President AOC and a liberal Congress today did X."
The Axios journalist told Scarborough and Brzezinski, "Are you going to say, 'Love it! That's exactly what you should be doing with the power of the federal government in a moment of great chance?' Nobody's going to say that…. Go back and read the words of the Founders; they never envisioned a government this big. They never envisioned a federal government this powerful spending this type of money. They thought most of the power would rest with the states."
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