Trump pushes his power to new heights with help from loyal lieutenants : NPR

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at the White House.

Alex Brandon/AP

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Alex Brandon/AP

Love him or hate him, President Trump has had a great first year in the White House.

During a recent speech in Detroit, even he seemed a little surprised by how much he was able to do.

“I told you we were going to do a lot of things,” he said. “No one thought it was going to happen like this. It was crazy.”

One of the main reasons is that Trump has faced less internal resistance from his team, his Cabinet and the Republican majority in Congress than during his first term.

At the time, Trump bristled at aides who suppressed his impulses — and there were many of them, says Ty Cobb, a lawyer who served as Trump’s special adviser in 2017 and 2018.

“Trump was still learning the levers of government and had not yet determined, as he has now, that he can do what he wants if he finds people willing to be loyal to him,” he said.

Cobb gave examples, saying former Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley would all say “no” to the president from time to time. Others, he said, would block or parry Trump’s demands.

Marc Short says it a little differently. He served as chief of staff to Vice President Pence during the first term. He says that initially Trump was looking for experienced people who could give him advice.

“The second time around, the president knows what he wants and he intentionally built a team to execute it,” he said.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said this during an interview with a pro-Trump podcast called The Mom View.

“There’s a star of the show,” Wiles said. “There’s one of the most powerful. And our job is to make him the best he can be. And that’s what we do, all day, every day.”

Trump doesn’t always listen or do what she recommends, but Wiles added that she doesn’t want him to.

Wiles’ approach was confirmed by Vice President Vance in an interview with Chris Whipple, an expert on White House chiefs of staff who spent months interviewing Wiles and other senior officials for an article in Vanity Fair.

“There’s this idea that people have that I think was very common in the first administration,” Vance told Whipple, “that their goal was to control the president or influence the president, or even manipulate the president because they had to in order to serve the national interest. Susie just takes the diametrically opposite view, which is that she’s a facilitator, that the American people elected Donald Trump. And her job is actually to facilitate his vision and to bring his vision to life.”

As a result, Whipple says Trump encountered very little friction as he and his administration moved at the speed of light to implement an agenda guided by his wishes.

“He governs according to his whims. He is under no constraints,” Whipple said in an interview with NPR. “He certainly doesn’t have anyone who can tell him hard truths.”

During his second term, Trump is indeed pushing the boundaries of what was considered established law, invoking almost unlimited executive power under Article 2.

The president signed more executive orders in his first year than in his entire first term. He has sent the National Guard to cities in blue states and is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. He ordered the prosecution of his enemies and pardoned his supporters, including those convicted of assaulting the police. He used his emergency powers to impose drastic tariffs and took military action in Iran and Venezuela, all without congressional approval or even much resistance.

“Presidents have always had discretion, but Trump took it to another level,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.

“You know, he’s pushing an open door. There’s a reason he can get away with so much because we’ve created such a powerful institution, but he’s going further than we’ve ever seen a president go,” he added.

It seems likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will roll back some of Trump’s claimed powers, even though, with a conservative supermajority, he has already won many victories.

But there may be political costs to being able to do what he wants.

Trump’s approval rating is at an all-time low, even though his base is still with him. But independent voters broke away. A new poll from The New York Times and Sienna finds that a majority of voters think Trump has focused on the wrong priorities.