Donald Trump with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Melania Trump on January 8, 2025 (Office of Senator John Thune/Wikimedia Commons)
Many opponents of President Donald Trump, from liberals and progressives to right-wing Never Trump conservatives, are criticizing Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court for being overly deferential to Trump — who, the president's critics argue, are failing to act like "co-equal branches of government."
Never Trump conservative and New York Times columnist David French goes a step further, arguing that under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is not a "co-equal branch of government," but rather, was designed to have even more power than the federal government's executive branch.
In a scathing article published by The Bulwark on February 26, veteran conservative columnist and former Nancy Reagan speechwriter Mona Charen argues that GOP lawmakers are humiliating themselves by showing so much deference to Trump — whose 2026 State of the Union address, Charen laments, "highlighted another deformation of our republic that has reached its apotheosis in Trump: the assumption of presidential supremacy."
Like French, Charen takes issue with Congress being described as a "co-equal branch of government."
"Defenders of congressional prerogatives, such as they are, often refer to 'co-equal branches' of government," Charen observes. "Please stop. That is anti-historical. Though you wouldn't know it to watch its invertebrate current members, Congress is the preeminent branch — that's why it is established in Article I of the Constitution. Congress is granted the lion's share of federal authority, and it has more power over the other branches than they have over it. The president's only check on Congress is the veto, which can be overridden. But Congress can impeach and remove the president and judges, confirm or reject executive and judicial appointees, strip courts of jurisdiction or even disestablish them, coin money, levy taxes and tariffs — as the (U.S. Supreme) Court recently reminded us — restructure or eliminate executive agencies, and most saliently, fund or defund the entire government."
Charen continues, "As James Madison put it in Federalist No. 51: 'In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.' Congress is also the branch that has the authority to declare war, and with its power of the purse, it can prevent the president, though he is commander-in-chief, from waging war."
Congress, the former Nancy Reagan speechwriter warns, is making a huge mistake by "ceding its power to the executive for decades" — especially when it comes to war.
"It’s true that presidents have flexed their war-making muscles on many occasions, successfully bypassing congressional power," Charen observes. "But presidential assertions of dominance have only been possible when Congress emasculates itself. It will take time for members to recover their self-respect…. State of the Union addresses have long since devolved into kabuki theater, with members bobbing in and out of their seats like Whack-a-Mole. But under Trump, they've become clown shows — and though Trump himself is chief clown, the members too have been smeared in greasepaint. Until they can reclaim their dignity, the show should be put on hiatus."
