U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a Navy 250 Celebration in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. October 5, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Far-right supporters of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are aggressively promoting what is known as "unitary executive theory" of federal governance. The theory claims that presidents, under the U.S. Constitution, have sole authority over the federal government's executive branch and government agencies. But legal scholars who disagree with the unitary executive theory argue that it ignores the role that other branches of the federal government, the judicial and legislative branches, play in the United States' system of checks and balances.
MAGA promoters of the unitary executive theory consider themselves originalists. In an article published on October 13, however, the New York Times' Frank Bruni notes that some conservatives who identify as originalists flat-out reject the theory.
Bruni opens the article by pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court, in December, will hear oral arguments on "whether President Trump can fire government officials for any reason, or no reason, despite laws meant to shield them from politics.
"There is little question that the Court will side with the president," Bruni explains. "Its conservative majority has repeatedly signaled that it plans to adopt the 'unitary executive theory,' which says the original understanding of the Constitution demands letting the president remove executive branch officials as he sees fit. But a new article, from a leading originalist law professor, has complicated and perhaps upended the conventional wisdom. The legal academy treated the development like breaking news."
Bruni continues, "'Bombshell!' William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago who himself is a prominent originalist, wrote on social media. 'Caleb Nelson, one of the most respected originalist scholars in the country, comes out against the unitary executive interpretation' of the Constitution."
In a September 29 post on Bluesky, Baude highlighted an article by Nelson published that day by the New York University Law School's Democracy Project.
NYU law professor Richard H. Pildes, one of the Democracy Project's founders, told the New York Times, "If a highly respected originalist scholar like Professor Nelson, on whom the Court relies frequently, denies that originalism supports the unitary executive theory, that inevitably raises serious questions about an originalist justification for the Court's looming approach."
Read Frank Bruni's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).