U.S. President Donald Trump makes an announcement about lowering the cost of drug prices, at the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 19, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its controversial 6-3 immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States in 2024, Justice Sonia Sotomayor offered a dissenting opinion that was downright scathing. The Barack Obama appointee argued that her right-wing colleagues were giving way too much power to the federal government's executive branch. And she isn't alone in that view.
A long list of Donald Trump critics in the legal world, from former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance to conservative attorney George Conway, believe that he is failing to respect the United States' system of checks and balances and recognize Congress as a co-equal branch of government. But proponents of a far-right legal doctrine known as the Unitary Executive Theory believe that U.S. presidents enjoy sole authority over the executive branch.
In a Morning Report newsletter published on December 26, The Hill's Jared Gans lays out four ways in which Trump tried to increase his executive power in 2025.
"President Trump has pushed to expand the power of the chief executive to new heights throughout 2025, setting up legal battles carrying into next year," Gans explains. "Trump has pushed to consolidate executive power in both precedented and unprecedented ways, often turning to executive orders and executive actions to follow through on his campaign pledges. But his efforts have had varying levels of success, sometimes because of court orders and sometimes because of the administration’s own decision-making."
Gans goes on to list the "major ways Trump has tested his own power" since his return to the White House 11 months ago.
They are: (1) "National Guard deployments, (2) "wide-ranging tariffs," (3) "unilateral agency and organization changes," and (4) "firing independent agency heads."
"Trump isn’t the first president to turn to the National Guard in the interest of trying to maintain order," Gans explains. "Former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy both federalized the guard to enforce desegregation in Southern states in the 1950s and 1960s, while former President George H.W. Bush invoked the guard at the California governor's request to handle riots following the Rodney King verdict. But Trump has taken this power much further, sending the guard in to several Democratic-led cities to protect federal property and personnel amid protests against the activities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Trump has been imposing steep new tariffs on trading partners via executive orders without getting Congress' input.
"Tariffs historically were levied by Congress," Gans notes, "but Trump has turned to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to argue broad authority to issue them himself. The law allows presidents to 'regulate' imports to address certain national emergencies, but it hadn’t been used to levy tariffs until Trump."
Reach Jared Gans' full newsletter for The Hill at this link.
