Legal expert warns Trump’s 'shock and awe' approach is 'undermining' his own agenda

20 February

Donald Trump promised to bring "shock and awe" to the United States' federal government if he won the 2024 election, and his first month back in the White House has been extremely turbulent.

Trump issued countless executive orders after beginning his second presidency, some of which are being temporarily blocked by federal courts. And the Trump Administration, with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is pushing mass layoffs in a wide range of federal government agencies. The Washington Post and others are reporting that as many as 200,000 federal workers may lose their jobs.

But according to Politico legal columnist Ankush Khardori, Trump's "shock awe" approach is "undermining his own chances of success."

Khardori, in a February 20 column, explains, "Trump's list of dramatic executive actions grows by the day — the massive spending freeze, the widespread firings within the federal government, the decision to ignore various laws, not to mention the work of Elon Musk's DOGE, which has neutered multiple federal agencies. All of these moves have two things in common. They all appear to be illegal under laws that Congress has passed, and they all reflect a bid to dramatically expand the power of the presidency and significantly diminish the power of Congress."

Trump's "apparent violations of federal law," according to Khardori, "are a feature, not a bug, of the effort."

"When the dust finally settles," the Politico legal columnist writes, "Trump may get at least some of what he wants — maybe even a lot of it — once the Supreme Court weighs in. But as with all things Trump, he is both his best advocate and worst enemy. The Trump Administration may have made a conscious political decision to engage in 'shock and awe,' but it has undermined its own legal agenda by proceeding too aggressively, too quickly and too haphazardly."

Khardori continues, "For instance, Trump has been operating without a fully staffed Justice Department, and it has shown up in the form of serious mistakes in court proceedings. To execute his plan, he has been relying on Musk — a volatile force who has already made comments that undercut the (Trump) Administration's legal rationale and effectively concede the absence of any meaningful legal process in their review."

The second Trump Administration, Khardori notes, "eschewed a traditional, incrementalist approach to litigating, opting instead for a quicker and more aggressive effort that moves simultaneously on multiple fronts."

"But that incremental approach, as a strategic matter, has considerable benefits: It makes it harder for the country to detect, and object to, major constitutional developments that more typically occur over relatively long stretches of time," Khardori argues. "Trump's legal campaign effectively presents the country and the court with the question of whether the president has power akin to a monarch. There is no credible support for this claim in the country’s history or in its law — not least because the country was founded in order to reject precisely that type of imperial authority.

Ankush Khardori's full Politico column is available at this link.

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